each other good success, they mounted their
horses and took each a different road.

Prince Houssain, the eldest brother, arrived at Bisnagar, the capital
of the kingdom of that name, and the residence of its king. He went and
lodged at a khan appointed for foreign merchants; and, having learned
that there were four principal divisions where merchants of all sorts
sold their commodities, and kept shops, and in the midst of which
stood the castle, or rather the King's palace, he went to one of these
divisions the next day.

Prince Houssain could not view this division without admiration. It was
large, and divided into several streets, all vaulted and shaded from the
sun, and yet very light too. The shops were all of a size, and all
that dealt in the same sort of goods lived in one street; as also the
handicrafts-men, who kept their shops in the smaller streets.

The multitude of shops, stocked with all sorts of merchandise, as the
finest linens from several parts of India, some painted in the most
lively colors, and representing beasts, trees, and flowers; silks and
brocades from Persia, China, and other places, porcelain both from Japan
and China, and tapestries, surprised him so much that he knew not how to
believe his own eyes; but when he came to the goldsmiths and jewelers he
was in a kind of ecstacy to behold such prodigious quantities of wrought
gold and silver, and was dazzled by the lustre of the pearls, diamonds,
rubies, emeralds, and other jewels exposed to sale.

Another thing Prince Houssain particularly admired was the great number
of rose-sellers who crowded the streets; for the Indians are so great
lovers of that flower that no one will stir without a nosegay in his
hand or a garland on his head; and the merchants keep them in pots in
their shops, that the air is perfectly perfumed.

After Prince Houssain had run through that division, street by street,
his thoughts fully employed on the riches he had seen, he was very much
tired, which a merchant perceiving, civilly invited him to sit down in
his shop, and he accepted; but had not been sat down long before he
saw a crier pass by with a piece of tapestry on his arm, about six feet
square, and cried at thirty purses. The Prince called to the crier,
and asked to see the tapestry, which seemed to him to be valued at an
exorbitant price, not only for the size of it, but the meanness of the
stuff; when he had examined it well, he told the crier that he cou