Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/73

Rh plant answered. He laid out the first botanical garden.

One day, in the Temple courts, he noticed a young plant of a kind unknown to him. He promptly asked its name. “El Kharrûb,” was the answer. Now El Kharrûb means the destroyer. “Of what use art thou?” continued the king. “To destroy thy works,” replied the plant. On hearing this Suleyman exclaimed in sorrow, “What! has Allah prepared the cause of the destruction of my works during my lifetime?”

Then he prayed that his decease, whenever it should occur, might be hidden from the Jân till all mankind should be aware of it. His reason for making this petition was his fear that if the Jân should know of his death before mankind knew of it, they would seize the opportunity to do mischief and teach men iniquity. Having prayed thus, the king dug up the Kharrûbeh and planted it close to a wall in his garden, where, to prevent, as far as might be, any harm coming from it, he watched it daily, till it had grown into a strong, stout sapling. He then cut it down and made of it a walking-stick on which he would lean when he sat superintending the labours of the evil spirits he kept slaving for him, to prevent them from exercising their power and ingenuity against mankind.

Now, many years before, Belkis, Queen of Sheba, had come to prove Suleymân with hard questions, one of which was how to pass a silk thread through a bead, the perforation in which was not straight through, but winding like the body of a moving