of the king was no easy matter. Like most
monarchs, he was surrounded by courtiers and state officials, who must
be bribed with considerable presents before they would exert themselves
on behalf of any suitor or complainant, no matter how real his
grievance, or how urgent his case might be. It is quite possible,
therefore, that we might have failed to obtain an audience, had it not
happened, fortunately for us, that King Lootzee was attacked just at
this time by a severe form of fever to which the natives of that part
of Ethiopia are peculiarly liable. Hearing of the king's illness, and
knowing of a certain herb which was a sovereign remedy in that disease,
we procured some of the herb and prepared an infusion of it. We then
borrowed of some merchants of our acquaintance such sums as they would
lend us, and sending this as a present to the Vizier or chief officer
of Lootzee, we asked audience of the king that we might present to him
a medicine of great efficiency in his complaint. The Vizier submitting
our petition to Lootzee, he gave orders to admit the merchant from
Bagdad, and in short, after taking sundry doses of the medicine, the
fever left him, and he was restored to his usual health.

"This cure so much delighted him, that he made us a present of the
horses, mules, and all those things which you see we have with us, and
in addition he gave us a sum of money that we might be enabled to
purchase something to take back to Bagdad, so that we might not, after
all our toil and risk, return altogether empty-handed.

"For a long time we doubted and debated what we should buy. But
hearing one day that there was in the town a Circassian woman slave of
surpassing beauty, who had been captured by some marauders from a
caravan while on her way to Bagdad, we determined to purchase that
slave in the hope of selling her for a great price to Haroun Alraschid,
the Caliph, to whom may Allah be merciful, and for whom she was
destined by those merchants who had been robbed of her."

Now when Haroun Alraschid had heard the story of Abdallah, the Arab
merchant, and had learned that the occupant of the carriage or litter
borne by the slaves was so lovely a creature, and, moreover, was a
slave intended for himself, he would fain have seen her. In his
character as a merchant he offered to buy her, and bid the great price
of five thousand pieces of gold, to be paid immediately they should
arrive in Bagdad. But Abdallah was re