to her: "no! my lovely friend will soon recover!"

"She must, then, have more air than you are inclined to afford her!" said Nadir.

"What is all this?" cried Mirza. "Is my daughter innocent?"

"Did I not tell you she was?" continued Nadir: 66 none but a madman could have thought otherwise. However, I will prescribe to you presently in the mean time, let the female attendants of Zulima be summoned. How came you here among them, Tamira? Had you heard of Ismael?"

"Certainly! I introduced him into this haram: Tangra assisted. "How did you dare, Tangra?" said Mirza.

"Because Tamira informed me of her sex!"

"Which," continued Tamira, "I discovered before I visited the faquir at the house of Abud!

"I now," added Nadir, "understand the whole of the scheme." "This seems to be a good sensible old woman!" said Mirza.

"Yes!" said Nadir; "and I now will allow that, in this case, she has proved a better physician than my self!"

The attention of the learned doc. tor, and still more that of Omar, soon restored the health of Fatima. It appears from the work so often referred to, that the son of Mirza had (in consequence of a detachment from the Persian army being ordered to march to the relief of the Indian princes, then pressed on all sides by the European powers) been stationed with his regiment to guard the capital of Golconda. In the mansion of her father, the rajah Gopal, he first saw the beautiful Fatima: for the Indian were then far less secluded than the Persian women. A few interviews inspired these young persons with a mutual passion. Fatima agreed that Omar should endeavour to obtain the consent of her father; but, alas! Gopal, the descendant of Jehan Guier, the heir to the kingdom of Dulta bat, the lord of a diamond mine,

and, above all these, one of the proudest men upon the earth, gave the young soldier a peremptory refusal. He had designed his daughter to become the bride of the grand cheik of Mecca; a prince not more than two years older than himself, but at the same time infinitely richHe therefore considered the Persian youth, who had spoken with modesty of his family, as greatly inferior to this venerable person; and that, as a son-in-law, there was no comparison betwixt them.

er.

Disappointed in this, his ardent hope, Omar endeavoured to obtain a removal, just at the time when, fortunately for him, the army was ordered to march to another post, but unfortunately for Fatima, who thus lost one lover before the other made his appearance. However, he soon after arrived with a retinue which, as it verified the old proverb, that large and heavy bodies move slow, may serve as an excuse for that delay which might otherwise have been imputed, by those who had never seen Fatima, to want of ardour in her intended.

When Cupid borrowed the chariot of Psyche, to pay a few occasional visits, he used to be drawn by her cattle, which were butterflies. Venus sometimes had dolphins, and sometimes doves, yoked to her carriage, according to the element upon which she meant to make her excursion. How these animals performed, or with what celerity they either swam or flew, it is not necessary to enquire. We think their vehicles got over the ground, or through the sea, or the air, with more celerity than that of the grand cheik of Mecca, which, we understand, was drawn by dromedaries, while his out-riders were mounted upon elephants. Since the entry into Babylon, no cavalcade had been more brilliant ; since the entry into Babylon, no cavalcade has moved slower. However, quick or slow, his eminence arrived at last. The equipage of his intended son-in-law, which realized even all the visionary schemes

and ideas of Gopal respecting importance and grandeur, was the admiration of all Bagnagar, as it had been of the countries through which it had passed. Nor was the person of the grand cheik less so; for he was reckoned one of the most solemn and gravest men in Arabia. He also was supposed to be the happy and distinguished possessor of the longest beard which that country, famous for these excrescences, had ever produced, since the days of their holy prophet.

Fatima, before her passion for Omar had affected her spirits, had been esteemed one of the liveliest virgins in Golconda; and since her intimacy with that youth (whose chin was as smooth as that of the emperor Adrian), had conceived a most unconquerable aversion to beards of every description. How were these contrarieties to be reconciled?

The cheik, who had not deigned to consult her upon the subject of their nuptials, because that was not an Arabian custom, pressed this matter forward with her father. Gopal, always inclined to think, upon account of his learning, his riches, and other contingencies attached to him, of which his beard was not the least, that this was a most desirable match, was perfectly eager for it when his genealogy arrived from Mecca, as in this roll, which loaded a camel, he discovered that his intended son-in-law was of a better family than even himself, being descended from Mahomet by a line as straight as the golden chain which depends from the first heaven to drag the souls of faithful mussulmans up to the chrystal steps of Paradise. This, had stimulatives been wanting, would have been an additional stimulus to the father of Fatima. He, that very evening, mentioned this arrangement to the monarch, and also to Mirgamola, the grand vizier. The consent of the former was obtained; and the latter promised to attend the marriage ceremony, the celebration of which was fixed at the distance of two days.

On the appointed morning, the sun had scarcely begun to gild the tops of the pavilions of the great pagod of Bagnagar, before the cheik of Mecca, with an immense and splendid retinue, was at the gate of Gopal to demand his bride. A flourish of trumpets announced his arrival. The portals were thrown open, and he, with becoming gravity marched through the alabaster hall to apartments which seemed, by their brilliancy, intended to exhibit specimens of the diamond mine of which their owner lord. Here the well-bearded bridegroom was greeted with a concert of the finest music. Mirgamola, the grand vizier, soon after arrived. The happy Gopal had enough to do to welcome his guests. When they were seated, a superb curtain of green and gold flew up to a flourish of trumpets, and discovered the mufti upon a throne, attended by the moullahs, and surrounded by the relations of both families.

was

In fact, every thing was prepared for celebration and consummation, except the bride. The lovely Fatima (it was, after much investigation, discovered) was missing; and no search, though it was persevered in with much industry, could recover her.

The confusion which this event created will easily be suggested. The cheik, the mufti, the grand vizier, and the lord of the diamond mine, all agreed that she had eloped, but all differed as to the motives which induced her to do so, the means by which she executed her design, the time when she left the palace, and the place to which she had retreated.

The Arabians (who derive their fondness for logic from the learned Sergius, the associate of the ignorant Mahomet) are prodigious disputants; but the Golcondians (who owe this useful science to the inspiration of Brumma himself) are still greater; consequently the arguments upon this interesting subject were misconducted with a warmth which caused the parties concerned to part

with great coolness toward each other, to which some joined a sovereign contempt. This last propensity, which reigned in the mind of Gopal, induced him to think his sonin-law elect, who asserted that he believed Fatima had sought an asylum in Persia (while he was certain that she was concealed in Golconda), the greatest blockhead that he had ever heard in his life.

Men subject to strong passions, very frequently, and with great facility, change the objects of their love and hatred. Gopal, at his next meeting with the grand cheik, endeavoured to convince him of the impossibility of his daughter's escape into the Persian dominions. He argued the matter with him geographically, philosophically, and morally. The cheik, infinitely superior in the art of reasoning, rebutted his arguments, sometimes with logical acuteness, at others with sarcastical keenness. The sages assembled smiled (for the first time, perhaps, in their lives) to see the intended son-in-law triumph over his father. Yet Gopal returned to the charge, and, from the fifty dissertations of Harari, endeavoured to prove, that for a daughter to abandon the country of her parent was immoral and impious; but, that Fatima had always been pious and moral; from which he concluded, that she was still in Bagnagar.

"Then produce her!" cried the grand cheik.

The whole company applauded this laconic answer; and the learned cheik would have gone off in triumph, to the great mortification of Gopal, had not Omar, who had been dispatched by the bassa commanding the Persian forces to the grand vizier, upon business of the utmost importance, at this instant arrived.

Politeness, as well as a tenderer motive, induced him, before he returned to the camp, to pay his respects to Gopal; and he, in consequence, entered the apartment while the rajah was so engaged in demonstrating the impossibility of his

daughter's flight into Persia, that he scarcely noticed him.

It will be supposed, that Omar heard his arguments with equal attention and interest.

He entered at once into the subject; and, hurt at the abrupt and captious manner in which the cheik (most briefly, and therefore unlogically) endeavoured to put an end to the debate, he (while the smile of triumph played upon the countenance of the intended bridegroom and his Arabian friends) ranged himself on the side of Gopal, and consequently took the charge of his defence.

However those that call themselves the immediate descendants of the prophet might have sneered at the youth for his want of beard, among his countrymen and the Golcondians he was esteemed, from that circumstance only, as too beautiful for a man. His understanding, as the mission upon which he was employed showed, was appreciated at the highest rate. He began an oration, the first words of which, combined with his figure, his animation, and the vivid flashes that beamed from his eyes, as he cast them upon his rival, arrested the attention of friends and enemies; of Arabians, Persians, and Indians. As he proceeded, he completely established the position that had been taken by Gopal, and as completely destroyed the hypothesis which his rival had erected. The conclusion, in which the grand cheik had said, "If the lady is in Bagnagar, produce her!" he showed to be the most illogical, unphilosophical, and absurd mode of escaping from an argument with which Gopal had pressed his opponent into the earth, that ever was urged by the most flimsy pretender to learning. "If," said he, "the great Heb had produced at once, which he probably had the power to do, the corpse of the warrior Tytan, what would have become of the four hundred and thirteen volumes, besides fragments, which were written to prove his existence ?"

The whole assembly felt the

force of this argument; which, as the sagacious Omar knew their fondness for controversy, he repeated, divided the proposition, moulded it into such a variety of forms, treated some of them with humour, others with solemnity, that the grand cheik of Mecca fairly confessed it was out of his power to answer the young Persian, whom at the outset he had despised for his want of beard; and while, with the few of his learned friends that still adhered to him, he retreated from the apartment, the noble Gopal almost stifled the youth in his embrace, saying, at the same time, "Oh, son! our triumph is complete!"?

"Yours, my lord!" returned Omar, with great modesty; "the circumstance of so young a man as myself venturing to speak in so grave an assembly, and upon so important a subject, for a moment astonished the members of it; but even the most ignorant of them in stantly discovered, that I was only re-uttering your sentiments, and enlivening the discourse with a few of the sparks emanating from your genius."

Gopal embraced him more fervently than before; he praised him to the skies; and not content with empty praise, he, when he could no longer prevail with him to abandon his military duty (to which the answer of the grand vizier left him at liberty, nay urged him to return), put a paper into his hand, in which he gave him his full and free consent to marry Fatima wheresoever he could find her, either in Golconda, or (though he deemed the thing to be impossible) in the Persian empire; he also, upon the fruition of this prospective marriage, endowed him with a considerable part of his fortune which must be esteemed a tolerable provision for a family, when we state, that a share of the diamond mine was included.

"The joy of Omar extended his stature until his head knocked against the clouds," says the sage of Zulpha. "He seemed to grasp the sun with his right and the moon

VOL. VIII. NO. LI.

with his left hand," he continues, and launches above half a chapterof still more extravagant hyperboles: but as we (whatsoever temptation we might have had in the course of this work) have hitherto avoided any deviation from the plain and obvious path of common sense, we shall certainly not, so near the conclusion, transplant any oriental flowers, however blooming, or lengthen it with a train of saws and sayings, which, though deemed wisdom in the east, would perhaps be considered as foolishness in the west.

The young Persian returned to the camp; and, as his genius whispered him that he should perhaps, when he least expected it, meet with his beloved Fatima, he soothed his mind to composure; to which, doubtless, the active events of the campaign contributed.

The abrupt termination of the war, and sudden order of the sophy for the return of his troops to the capital, had disconcerted all the plans which he had laid for the recovery of his bride elect. However, he resolved to seek her in every possible place. This excursion was most fortunately prevented; for he had, during the whole time that we have been relating these events, been seated with his arm around her, in his sister's apartment, listening to her adventures with an eagerness of curiosity and liveliness of interest which we wish we could communicate to our readers.

How the beautiful Fatima came into the mansion of the magnificent Mirza, was a problem that still puzzled, and taxed the sagacity of, some part of the assembly.

Zulima, when applied to for an explanation, said, that she was introduced by Tangra.

"As a man?" cried the still jea lous Mirza.

"No!" replied Tangra; "I had previously, as has been stated, learned her sex from Tamira."

"How came Tamira to know any thing about these matters ?? said Nadir.

3

"I have already, most learned doctor!" replied Tamira, "told you, that I discovered the sex of the lovely Fatima the day I first saw her; and, claiming the privileges of an old woman (privileges, by the bye, which the faculty of Ispahan have most strangely intrenched upon), I waited on her at the house of the sagacious Abud. Here the whole plan of her residing in your house, till a relation whom she waited for returned with the Persian army, was arranged and settled. The sabre and belt, on which the name of Fatima is set in diamonds, were intended for him. Black Absalom, the jeweller was himself astonished at their richness: however, as he was paid, he never troubled his head how these valuable gems were acquired. Although I warned her of the risk she run of being questioned upon this subject, I did not think there was any in placing her as Ismael in the house of a single man, as her disguise, together with my master's age and profession, secured his lovely tenant from danger and even from scandal. She has continued with us until this time, and probably would have remained much longer, had not the approach of the army occasioned her to give the hint of her removal to Nadir, which operated like electricity on the mind of Zulima, and soon after produced the visit from Tangra.

"The venerable Tangra and my self are old friends, and (did I not observe a frown upon her brow) I should add, old women. However, women, young or old, will be talk ing. In the course of our conversation it came out, that the disorder of Zulima was the consequence of an unfortunate attachment which she had conceived for a youth of the name of Ismael, an inmate of Dr. Nadir's, whom she had seen at the shop of the jeweller I have mentioned, where he was examining a magnificent sabre.

"Struck with this circumstance, I exclaimed, I shall prove a better physician than my master!"

"You did!" said Nadir.

"Yes! therefore I immediately informed her of the sex of our lodg er.

"This information I communicated to Zulima," added Tangra; "and it produced the interview from which such happy consequen ces are likely to ensue to Omar, who, the noble Mirza knows, was, as well as Zulima, my foster-child, and of whom I remember, when he was not above five months old,"*

"Hold, my good nurse!" cried Zulima, "if you would not show us that you merit the epithet which Tamira seemed inclined to bestow upon you! In the name of my brother, and my own, I thank you for your care of our infancy, and your continued affection for us. On this subject no more need be said. At present, a more important task remains. It is, first, to present my acknowledgments to the learned doctor Tamira, upon the important cure she has performed. The visionary passion which for a time inflamed my mind; the idea of Ismael, whom I loved as Hamet loved the hourii, I have given to the winds; and I do exceedingly rejoice, that the zephyrs, which bear every vi, sionary trace of it from my mind, will fan its flames in the bosoms of my beloved brother and the beautiful Fatima. If I have lost the ideal Ismael as a lover, I shall still embrace his real resemblance as a sis ter.

"Oh, noble Mirza! oh, my fa ther! if I have faltered in my steps; if I have, for a moment, appeared to deviate from the path of duty to you; I know that you will pardon the wanderings of your darling Zulima, when she declares, that you shall have no rival in her heart in future.

"In my more than physician, my dear, my estimable friend, Nadir, I present to your attention, O father and brother! a man whose honour and integrity are such, that, lovesick as I was, I should not, had I, even in the erratic emotions of my imagination, been inclined, have dared to have proposed to him the