he entered, while others, scattered in parties about the grounds, made
a concert of vocal and instrumental music for his diversion. As he
seated himself on the throne with Zobeideh by his side the scene was
very charming. The arcades enclosing the gardens with their marble and
gilded columns were festooned with many coloured lights, lanterns hung
in the trees, illuminating the gardens and the lofty fountains, which
broke into ten thousand sparkling jewels and fell splashing into the
wide marble basins at their base.

After sitting for some time watching this brilliant scene the Caliph
rose and wandered slowly through the grounds, until at length he came
to a grove of trees, so artfully enclosed by gilded lattice work
concealed by climbing plants that it formed an aviary vast in size and
filled with birds of every kind and hue. In this delightful retreat a
natural concert greeted him of feathered songsters darting to and fro
and singing lustily.

Two little silktails perched upon a neighbouring branch particularly
attracted his attention. He had seated himself on a mossy bank in a
retired nook, close by the spot chosen by the chatterers for their
lively and very animated conversation. Being curious to know what they
were talking of, and convinced that the present offered as favourable
an opportunity for listening to bird-talk as any he was likely to meet
with, the Caliph ordered the slave who carried it to bring him at once
the little jar of ointment, and applying some behind each ear as the
writing contained in the jar had directed, he prepared to maintain a
strict silence and listen attentively. As soon as he had applied the
ointment he found that he understood the conversation of his little
neighbours as clearly as though they had been expressing themselves in
the purest Arabic.

"What!" said the one bird to the other, "is it possible that you can be
so deluded and mistaken? Desire to be a man! I am truly surprised and
shocked at so absurd and degrading a notion. If now you had expressed
a wish to be one of the nobler animals, a lion or a tiger, for
instance, I might have excused you. But a man! Only consider how low
in the scale of creation the creature is! Not only is he confined to
the earth like other animals, and unable to range as we do through the
air, but consider how miserable a slave he is, how he has to toil from
morning to night to supply his mere necessities. No wonder his throat
gives for