who smoked his chibouque with
occasional cups of coffee and sherbet, interspersed with profound
aphorisms on the condition of man, and conjectures on the delights of
paradise.

With his friends he passed many sunbright hours; and if much talk was
not heard among them on these occasions, be it remembered that silence
is often wisdom. The scene of their social resort was a little kiosk in
front of one of the coffee-houses on the bank of the Tigris. No place in
all Bagdad is so pleasantly situated. There the mighty river rolls in
all the affluence of his waters, pure as the unclouded sky, and speckled
with innumerable boats, while the rippling waves, tickled, as it were,
by the summer breezes, gambol and sparkle around.

The kiosk was raised two steps from the ground; the interior was painted
with all the most splendid colors. The roof was covered with tiles that
glittered like the skin of the Arabian serpent, and was surmounted with
a green dragon, which was painted of that imperial hue, because
Haddad-Ben-Ahab was descended from the sacred progeny of Fatima, of whom
green is the everlasting badge, as it is of nature. Time cannot change
it, nor can it be impaired by the decrees of tyranny or of justice.

One beautiful day Haddad-Ben-Ahab and his friends had met in this kiosk
of dreams, and were socially enjoying the fragrant smoke of their pipes,
and listening to the refreshing undulations of the river, as the boats
softly glided along,--for the waters lay in glassy stillness,--the winds
were asleep,--even the sunbeams seemed to rest in a slumber on all
things. The smoke stood on the chimney-tops as if a tall visionary tree
grew out of each; and the many-colored cloths in the yard of Orooblis,
the Armenian dyer, hung unmolested by a breath. Orooblis himself was the
only thing, in that soft and bright noon, which appeared on the land to
be animated with any purpose.

Orooblis was preparing a boat to descend the Tigris, and his servants
were loading it with bales of apparel and baskets of provisions, while
he himself was in a great bustle, going often between his dwelling-house
and the boat, talking loud and giving orders, and ever and anon wiping
his forehead, for he was a man that delighted in having an ado.

Haddad-Ben-Ahab, seeing Orooblis so active, looked at him for some time;
and it so happened that all the friends at the same moment took their
amber-headed pipes from their lips, and said,--

"Where can Oroobl