hat shall I do with thee?" Then--"The other butterfly flew
away over the flowers of my garden some days ago; this is dry and
pierced, as if it had been dead for many years. What connection can it
have with my bright and waggish playmate, who is only fit to be a
daughter of the genii?"

He recalled to himself everything in the remarkable occurrence--even
the most trifling events that happened in their different games, from
the appearance of the maiden to her disappearance out of the boat,
returned to his mind. Then he thought over her last words. "What did
she say?" said he to himself. "Did she not say, 'If thou shouldst wish
to see me, thou must seek me in the fatherland of the variegated
butterflies?'"

Now a thought shot through his mind which made all perfectly clear to
him. He confessed to himself that he had been more happy with her fun
and play than he had been before since his boyhood, and that he had
then quite forgotten all the cares and troubles of business. He
earnestly longed to have always about him so merry a playfellow, to
afford him diversion with her childish mirth.

"This playmate of thine," continued he, speaking to himself, "if she
has entirely disappeared, and no track leads to her, has not a chance
fallen into thy hands by this butterfly? Still thou canst seek for her
in her native land. But what naturalist could name it from this
imperfect description, without having seen the butterfly?"

He then recalled to his memory many tales which he had heard in his
childhood, in which were instances of daughters of genii, who,
becoming the wives of mortals, blessed them in a wonderful manner,
and, after the death of their husbands, returned to the kingdom of the
genii.

Amid such thoughts as these he sank into slumber, and awoke the next
morning with the firm resolution of seeking the daughter of the genii,
and of choosing her for his wife. The first thing, then, was for him
to discover the native country of the butterflies; for it was there
that he was to find her. He took, therefore, the butterfly out of the
case from among the other insects, and set out for one of the suburbs
of Balsora.

There lived in one of the last houses a man who he was aware knew not
only the name of every beast, stone, and plant, but also the hidden
strength of nature and her mysterious operations. This man had once
been his master, and to his instruction Jussuf owed his intimate
knowledge of the manifold productions of n