coffee
was served in china, with gold spoons. When I took my leave of her I
was complimented with perfumes, as at the Grand Vizier's, and was
presented with a very fine embroidered handkerchief. Her slaves were to
the number of thirty, besides ten little ones, the eldest not above
seven years old. These were the most beautiful girls I ever saw ; all
richly dressed : and I observed that the Sultana took a great deal of
pleasure in these lovely children, which are a vast expense ; for there
is not a handsome girl of that age to be bought under a hundred pounds
sterling. They wore little garlands of flowers ; and their own hair
braided with all their head-dresses; but their habits were entirely of
gold stuff."
"It is our duty," says Sir Richard Burton, in his unparalleled, and scholarly edition of The Thousand Nights, and a Night,—twelve
volumes, — "to read the ' Arabian Nights,' and to try to understand the
life portrayed there so vividly ; and this duty is not an unpleasant
one ! We all, when we were children, knew something of the mere husk of
the tales ; we peopled our fancied East with brave Princes, and tender
Princesses, with jewelled palaces, and mystic islands, heroes, and
robbers, genii, and magicians ;—but to the adult mind The Nights, in
a fuller revelation, offer a perspective which is even more amazing. '
The Tales not only teach, but inspire ; and many romantic writers of
the modern school have acknowledged their debt to even an imperfect
translation of the Tales." Thackeray has told us in a charming passage
how The Nights fascinated, and inspired him. In the Life of
Charles Dickens we read that the dormant imagination of the future
novelist was roused to action by The Thousand
