"Every person present was filled with apprehension for Abu 'l-Hasan
Ali's safety; they feared that Al-Mutawakkil, in the first burst of
indignation, would have vented his wrath upon him; but they perceived
the khalif weeping bitterly, the tears trickling down his beard, and all
the assembly wept with him.

"Al-Mutawakkil then ordered the wine to be removed, after which he said:
'Tell me, Abu 'l-Hasan! are you in debt?'

"'Yes,' replied the other, 'I owe four thousand dinars.'

"The khalif ordered that sum to be given him, and sent him home with
marks of the highest respect."

XVI.--THE FAIR

The book contains the lives of very few women; but one of the privileged
of her sex is Buran, who died in 884. She became the wife of the khalif
Al-Mamun, who, says Ibn Khallikan rather ungallantly, was "induced to
marry her by the high esteem he bore her father." That her father, the
vizier, saw no slight in this, but was not unwilling that his daughter
should pass under the roof of another, we may perhaps gather from the
lavishness of the wedding, which was celebrated at Fam As-Silh, with
festivities and rejoicings, the like of which were never witnessed for
ages before. The vizier's liberality went so far that he showered balls
of musk upon the Hashimites, the commanders of the troops, the katibs,
and the persons who held an eminent rank at court. Musk is an expensive
thing in itself, but each of these balls contained a ticket, and the
person into whose hands it fell, having opened it and read its contents,
proceeded to an agent specially appointed for the purpose, from whom he
received the object inscribed on the ticket, whether it was a farm or
other property, a horse, a slave-girl, or a mameluk. The vizier then
scattered gold and silver coins and eggs of amber among the rest of the
people.

Capricious generosity marked many of these rulers. Thus it is told of
Ibn Bakiya, the vizier, that in the space of twenty days he distributed
twenty thousand robes of honour. "I saw him one night at a drinking
party," says Abu Ishak As-Sabi, "and, during the festivity, he changed
frequently his outer dress according to custom: every time he put on a
new pelisse, he bestowed it on one or other of the persons present; so
that he gave away, in that sitting, upwards of two hundred pelisses.

"A female musician then said to him: 'Lord of viziers! there must be
wasps in these robes to prevent you from keeping them on your body!'

"He