y; neither do
the Europeans. They live in friendship with swine; so do the Europeans;
for instead of exterminating the unclean beast, as we do, I hear that
every house in Europe has an apartment fitted up for its hog. Then as
for their women indeed! What dog seeing its female in the streets does
not go and make himself agreeable? so doubtless does the European. Wife
in those unclean countries must be a word without a meaning, since every
man's wife is every man's property.

'Well said, doctor,' exclaimed the king; ''tis plain, then, that all are
beasts but us. Our holy Prophet (upon whom be blessing and peace!) has
told us as much. The infidel will never cease roasting, whilst the
true believer will be eternally seated next to his houri in the seventh
heaven! But we hear, doctor, that your Paradise has begun here on earth,
and that you have got your houris already. Ah! how is that?'

Upon which Mirza Ahmak made a low prostration, and said, 'Whatever the
monarch permits his slave to possess is the monarch's. The hour will
be fortunate, and Mirza Ahmak's head will reach the skies, when the
propitious step of the King of Kings shall pass the threshold of his
unworthy anderun.'

'We shall see with our own eyes,' rejoined the king; 'a look from the
king brings good luck. Go, give notice to your harem that the Shah
will visit it; and if there be any one sick, any one whose desires are
unaccomplished, any maiden who sighs for her lover, or any wife who
wishes to get rid of her husband, let them come forward, let them look
at the king, and good fortune will attend them.'

Upon this the poet, who had hitherto remained silent, his mind
apparently absorbed in thought, exclaimed, 'Whatever the king
hath ordained is only an additional proof of his beneficence and
condescension'; and then in very good verse he sung--

The firmament possesses but one sun, and the land of Irak but one king.

Life, light, joy, and prosperity attend them both wherever they appear.

The doctor may boast of his medicine; but what medicine is equal to a
glance from the king's eye?

What is spikenard? what _mumiai_? what _pahzer_?[57] compared even to
the twinkle of a royal eyelash!

Oh! Mirza Ahmak, happiest of men, and most blessed of doctors!

Now, indeed, you possess within your walls an antidote to every
disorder, a specific against every evil.

Shut up your Galen, burn your Hippocrates, and put Avicenna in a corner:
the father of them all