e young man who had offered him the talisman stepped
forward, and Jussuf recognized in him his friend Hassan, and saluting
him with heartfelt joy, called him his dear brother. In the same hour
the imam pronounced over Jussuf and Haschanascha the blessing, and
performed the usual prayers and ceremonies. Then were splendid feasts
prepared that lasted many days, and such as never at any other time
were celebrated in Balsora; so that in after years people spoke of the
splendour with which the rich merchant Jussuf's wedding had been
consummated. He attained with Haschanascha a great and very happy old
age, and his latest descendants revere his memory.

The Seven Sleepers.

[Illustration]

[The "Seven Sleepers" is a Mahommedan as well as Christian legend. It
is alluded to in the Koran: and many of the circumstances of the
following Tale are related in the notes to Sale's translation of it.]

Historians relate that there was in ancient Persia a shepherd named
Dakianos, who for thirty years had attended his sheep without having
ever neglected the holy custom of making his daily prayers. All those
who knew him did justice to his probity; and nature had endowed him
with an eloquence capable of raising him to the highest employments,
had he lived in the great world.

One day, as he was at his usual prayers, his flock took fright and
were dispersed. Dakianos ran every way to reassemble them, and
perceiving that one of his sheep had got half of its body into the
hole of a rock, where it could not get out, he ran to it and delivered
it; but he was struck with a dazzling light which immediately shone
out of the opening. He examined what it was that produced it, and soon
found that it proceeded from a tablet or plate of gold, of no very
large extent: he opened the hole still farther, and found himself in
a vault, which was not above seven feet high, and about four or five
broad. He considered this tablet of gold with much attention, but
could not read it, neither could he comprehend what the four lines
signified which he saw written thereon. To inform himself, therefore,
of this mystery, he took it away with him, and, as soon as it was
night, he put it under his vest and repaired to the city. His first
care was to show it to those who, as he was informed, were the most
learned men; but, however versed they might be in the sciences, there
was not one of them who could explain this inscription.

However, one of the doctors