Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/134

 have stocked with them all the kingdoms of the then known world. Seventeen years ago, however, this copious spring had, one hot summer, finally gone dry. Princess Melechsala terminated the long series of the Sultanic progeny; and, in the unanimous opinion of the Court, she was the jewel of the whole. She enjoyed to its full extent the prerogative of youngest children, preference to all the rest; and this distinction was enhanced by the circumstance, that of all the Sultan’s daughters, she alone had remained in life; while Nature had adorned her with so many charms, that they enchanted even the paternal eye. For this must in general be conceded to the Oriental Princes, that in the scientific criticism of female beauty they are infinitely more advanced than our Occidentals, who are every now and then betraying their imperfect culture in this point. Melechsala was the pride of the Sultan’s family; her brothers themselves were unremitting in attentions to her, and in efforts to outdo each other in affectionate regard. The grave Divan was frequently employed in considering what Prince, by means of her, might be connected, in the bonds of love, with the interest of the Egyptian state. This her royal father made his smallest care; he was solely and incessantly concerned to grant this darling of his heart her every wish, to keep her spirit always in a cheerful mood, that no cloud might overcast the serene horizon of her brow.

The first years of childhood she had passed under the superintendence of a nurse, who was a Christian, and of Italian extraction. This slave had in early youth been kidnapped from the beach of her native town by a Barbary pirate; sold in Alexandria; and, by the course of trade, transmitted from one hand to another, till at last she had arrived in the palace of the Sultan, where her hale constitution recommended her to this office, which she filled with the greatest reputation. Though less tuneful than the French court-nurse, who used to give the signal for a general chorus over all Versailles, whenever she uplifted, with melodious throat, her Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre; yet nature had sufficiently indemnified her by a glibness of tongue, in which she was unrivalled. She knew as many tales and stories as the fair Sheherazade in the Thousand-and-one Nights; a species of entertainment for which it would appear