Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/31

 Nur al-Din All and the Damsel Axis al-Jatis. 13 go to my brother's for he circumciseth his son to day.** 1 In short each and every asked permission to retire on some pretence or other, till all the ten were gone leaving Nur aUDin aloae. Then he called his slave-girl and said to her, "O Anis al-Jalis, hast thou seen what case is mine ?" And he related to her what the Steward ( had told him. Then quoth she, "O my lord, for many nights I hadi it in my mind to speak with thee of this matter, but I heard thee repeating : When the World heaps favours on thee, pass on o Thy favours to friends cw her hand she stay : Largesse never let her when fain she comes, o Nor niggardise kept her from turning away ! " When I heard these verses I held my peace and cared not to exchange a word with thee." " O Anis al-Jalis," said Nur al-Din, "thou knowest that I have not wasted my wealth save on my friends, especially these ten who have now left me a pauper, and I think they will not abandon and desert me without relief." " By Allah/' replied she, " they will not profit thee with aught of aid." Said he, " I will rise at once and go to them and knock at their doors ; it may be I shall get from them somewhat wherewith I may trade and leave pastime and pleasuring." So he rose without stay or delay, and repaired to a street wherein all his ten friends lived. He went up to the nearest door and knocked ; whereupon a hand- maid came out and asked him, "Who art thou ?"; and he answered, " Tell thy master that Nur al-Din AH standeth at the door and saith to him : Thy slave kisseth thy hand and awaiteth thy bounty." The girl went in and told her master, who cried at her, " Go back and say : My master is not at home." So she returned to Nur al-Din, and said to him, " O my lord, my master is out." Thereupon he turned away and said to himself, " If this one be a whoreson knave and deny himself, another may not prove himself " In one matter Moslems contrast strongly with Christians, by most scrupulously following the example of their law -giver: hence they are the model Conservatives. But (European) Christendom is here, as in other things, curiously contradictory : for instance, it still keeps a ' Feast of the Circumcision," and practically holds circunv cision in horror. Eastern Christians, however, have not wholly abolished it, and the Abyssinians, who find it a useful hygienic precaution, still practise it. For ulcers, syphilis and other venereals which are readily cured in Egypt become dangerous in the Highlands of Ethiopia.