ard front, a cupola
was raised to cover the fountain. It was surrounded by the planetary
statues, heptagonal at the bottom, and spherical o' top, and of crystal so
pure, transparent, well-polished, whole and uniform in all its parts,
without veins, clouds, flaws, or streaks, that Xenocrates never saw such a
one in his life.

Within it were seen the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months of
the year, with their properties, the two equinoxes, the ecliptic line, with
some of the most remarkable fixed stars about the antartic pole and
elsewhere, so curiously engraven that I fancied them to be the workmanship
of King Necepsus, or Petosiris, the ancient mathematician.

On the top of the cupola, just over the centre of the fountain, were three
noble long pearls, all of one size, pear fashion, perfectly imitating a
tear, and so joined together as to represent a flower-de-luce or lily, each
of the flowers seeming above a hand's breadth. A carbuncle jetted out of
its calyx or cup as big as an ostrich's egg, cut seven square (that number
so beloved of nature), and so prodigiously glorious that the sight of it
had like to have made us blind, for the fiery sun or the pointed lightning
are not more dazzling and unsufferably bright.

Now, were some judicious appraisers to judge of the value of this
incomparable fountain, and the lamp of which we have spoke, they would
undoubtedly affirm it exceeds that of all the treasures and curiosities in
Europe, Asia, and Africa put together. For that carbuncle alone would have
darkened the pantarbe of Iarchus (Motteux reads 'Joachas.') the Indian
magician, with as much ease as the sun outshines and dims the stars with
his meridian rays.

Nor let Cleopatra, that Egyptian queen, boast of her pair of pendants,
those two pearls, one of which she caused to be dissolved in vinegar, in
the presence of Antony the Triumvir, her gallant.

Or let Pompeia Plautina be proud of her dress covered all over with
emeralds and pearls curiously intermixed, she who attracted the eyes of all
Rome, and was said to be the pit and magazine of the conquering robbers of
the universe.

The fountain had three tubes or channels of right pearl, seated in three
equilateral angles already mentioned, extended on the margin, and those
channels proceeded in a snail-like line, winding equally on both sides.

We looked on them a while, and had cast our eyes on another side, when
Bacbuc directed us to watch the water.