Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/308

274 foundation upon which he reared so extensive an edifice of imaginative description. I translate from the Breslau text, which appears, due allowance being made for errors of transcription, etc., to be almost identical with that of Galland’s MS. and in which I have corrected several mistakes, clerical or typographical. The version of the Macnaghten and Boulac Editions is (as will be seen by reference to ) yet more concise and to my mind more effective.

“Quoth my father, ‘Who hath not seen Cairo hath not seen the world: its dust is gold and its women puppets; its Nile is a wonder, its waters light and sweet and its mud a commodity and a medicine, as saith of it one in verse, “The waxing of your Nile profiteth you to-day, And to you alone it cometh with profit. The Nile is nought but my tears after [separation from] you: Yours is fair fortune and none is forlorn but I.” And if your eyes saw its earth and the adornment thereof with flowers and the embroidery of it with all manner blossoms and the island[s] of the Nile and how much is therein of wide prospect, and if ye turned the sight to the Birket el Hebesh, your eyes would not revert free from astonishment nor would ye see [a match] for that goodly prospect, and indeed the arms of the Nile