to be moved, he said:
'Learn and know, O youth! that Waq of Qaf is in the Caucasus and is a
dependency of it. In it there are jins, demons, and peris. You must go
on along this road till it forks into three; take neither the right
hand nor the left, but the middle path. Follow this for a day and a
night. Then you will come to a column on which is a marble slab
inscribed with Cufic characters. Do what is written there; beware of
disobedience.' Then he gave his good wishes for the journey and his
blessing, and the prince kissed his feet, said good-bye, and, with
thanks to the Causer of Causes, took the road.

After a day and a night he saw the column rise in silent beauty to the
heavens. Everything was as the wise old man had said it would be, and
the prince, who was skilled in all tongues, read the following Cufic
inscription: 'O travellers! be it known to you that this column has
been set up with its tablet to give true directions about these roads.
If a man would pass his life in ease and pleasantness, let him take
the right-hand path. If he take the left, he will have some trouble,
but he will reach his goal without much delay. Woe to him who chooses
the middle path! if he had a thousand lives he would not save one; it
is very hazardous; it leads to the Caucasus, and is an endless road.
Beware of it!'

The prince read and bared his head and lifted his hands in
supplication to Him who has no needs, and prayed, 'O Friend of the
traveller! I, Thy servant, come to Thee for succour. My purpose lies
in the land of Qaf and my road is full of peril. Lead me by it.' Then
he took a handful of earth and cast it on his collar, and said: 'O
earth! be thou my grave; and O vest! be thou my winding-sheet!' Then
he took the middle road and went along it, day after day, with many a
silent prayer, till he saw trees rise from the weary waste of sand.
They grew in a garden, and he went up to the gate and found it a slab
of beautifully worked marble, and that near it there lay sleeping,
with his head on a stone, a negro whose face was so black that it made
darkness round him. His upper lip, arched like an eyebrow, curved
upwards to his nostrils and his lower hung down like a camel's. Four
millstones formed his shield, and on a box-tree close by hung his
giant sword. His loin-cloth was fashioned of twelve skins of beasts,
and was bound round his waist by a chain of which each link was as big
as an elephant's thigh.

The prince approach