Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/160

144 after three months' travelling with different caravans, sometimes over deserts and barren mountains, and sometimes through populous and fertile countries, arrived at Bisnagar, the capital of the kingdom of that name, and the residence of its king. He lodged at a khan appointed for foreign merchants, and soon learned that there were four principal bazaars where merchants of all sorts kept their shops, on a large extent of ground, in the centre of the city.

Prince Houssain went to one of these bazaars on the next day. It was large, divided into several vaulted avenues, and shaded from the sun, but yet very light. The shops were of the same size and proportion; and all who dealt in the same sort of goods lived in one avenue.

The number of shops stocked with all kinds of merchandise—as the finest linens from several parts of India; silks and brocades from Persia; porcelain from Japan—surprised him very much; but when he came to the shops of the goldsmiths and jewellers, he was in a kind of ecstasy at beholding such quantities of wrought gold and silver, and