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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Very true," replied the pacha; "Haroun Alraschid, if I recollect right, was very strict in his observances of the precepts of the Koran. After all, he was but a pastek a water-melon. You may proceed, Menouni."
May it please your highness, it so happened that the great Haroun Alraschid was one night seized with one of those fits of sleepless melancholy with which it had pleased Allah to temper his splendid destiny, and which fits are, indeed, the common lot of those who are raised by fortune above the ordinary fears and vicissitudes of life. "I can't say that I ever have them," observed the pacha.
And so little objection had Perch to being deferential in the last degree, that if he might have laid himself at Mr Dombey's feet, or might have called him by some such title as used to be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, he would have been all the better pleased.
When the Caliph Haroun Alraschid learned the true cause of such conduct, he remarked that it was punishment enough to be transformed into a beast; and, while the stripes should be remitted, still he would not have the woman to assume her own shape again, as she would be a dangerous person in his good city of Bagdad.
It is well known that the grand seignior amuses himself by going at night, in disguise, through streets of Constantinople; as the caliph Haroun Alraschid used formerly to do in Bagdad. One moonlight night, accompanied by his grand vizier, he traversed several of the principal streets of the city without seeing anything remarkable.
When seated in his palace at Bagdad, Haroun Alraschid could look across the river Tigris, down to which his garden sloped, and could watch the bustle, the arrival and departure of soldiers, courtiers, and citizens, which was incessantly taking place in the courtyard of the Grand Vizier's palace, which was situated opposite to him on the other side of the river.
Sir, said she, I have already had the honour to entertain your majesty with a ramble which the Caliph Haroun Alraschid made one night from his palace; I will give you an account of one more. This prince one day commanded the grand vizier Giafar to come to his palace the night following.
Then, with a sinister smile, he demanded of the prisoner, "Where is the most illustrious Caliph Haroun Alraschid? Say, Giafer, what hast thou done with him?" To this Giafer replied, "Haroun Alraschid, my master, is in the hand of God. But where he may be at this moment, I have told you that I do not know."
King Selim having led Haroun Alraschid up the steps of the throne and seated him upon it, would himself have stood upon the steps, but the Caliph bade him come up and be seated by his side.
At the moment of the Grand Vizier's arrival, Haroun Alraschid was seated on his throne in the splendid chamber of audience, holding a public reception of the Imaums, Viziers, Emirs, Governors of Provinces, and other great functionaries of his kingdom.
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