wa APPENDIX

raft on which I came, and which was of sandal-wood,
and he commissioned the crier to announce it for sale.
The merchants came, and opened the bidding for the
wood, and increased their offers for it until its price
amounted to a thousand pieces of gold; whereupon they
ceased to bid more; and the sheykh, looking towards me,
said, “Hear, O my son: this is the price of thy goods in
such days as the present. Wilt thou then sell them for
this price, or wilt thou wait, and shall I put them for
thee in my magazines until the time come when their
price will be greater, and then sell them for thee?”
I answered him, “O my master, the affair is thine: so
do what thou desirest.” And he said, “O my son, wilt
thou sell me this wood fora hundred pieces of gold above
what the merchants have offered for it ?”—“ Yes,” I
answered him: “I have sold it to thee, and received the
price.” And upon this he ordered his young men to
transport that wood to his magazines, and I returned
with him to his house, where we sat, and he counted to
me the whole price of the wood, brought to me bags, and,
having put the money into them, locked them up with a
lock of iron, of which he gave me the key.

And after a period of some days and nights, the sheykh
said, “O my son, I will propose to thee something, and I
hope that thou wilt comply with my desire respecting it.”
So I said to him, “ And what is that affair?” And he
answered me, “ Know that I have become a man of great
age, and I have not a male child; but I have a daughter,
small in age, elegant in form, having abundant wealth
and loveliness; therefore I desire to marry her to thee,
and thou shalt reside with her in our country; then I