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Updated: June 17, 2025
The articles contributed by J. E. TAYLOR, English vice-consul at Bassorah, to vol. xv. of the Journal of the Asiatic Society , may also be read with advantage. He passed over the same ground, and also made excavations at certain points in Lower Chaldæa which were passed over by Mr. Loftus.
But for an accident that sent his boats to the bottom of the Tigris not far from Bassorah this beautiful gateway would have been rebuilt in Paris. To fit all these squares into their proper places was a delicate operation, but it was rendered easy by long practice. Signs, or rather numbers, for the guidance of the workmen, have been noticed upon the uncovered faces of the crude brick walls.
With these resolutions I began to be restored to some degree of quiet in my mind; and having, after almost three months' stay at Bassorah, disposed of some goods, but having a great quantity left, we hired boats according to the Dutchman's direction, and went up to Bagdad, or Babylon, on the river Tigris, or rather Euphrates.
Quoth the Eunuch, "Know then that we did enter the shop of a cook while he was dressing conserve of pomegranate-grains and he set some of it before us: by Allah! Said the unsexed, "I will." Hasan of Bassorah laughed and answered, "By Allah, none can dress this dish as it should be dressed save myself and my mother, and she at this time is in a far country."
When he ceased versifying, he read the scroll and found in it recorded the dates of his brother's marriage with the daughter of the Wazir of Bassorah, and of his going in to her, and her conception, and the birth of Badr al-Din Hasan and all his brother's history and doings up to his dying day.
Even in the true Hasan of Bassorah type, the magical change does not always occur. A variant translated by Jonathan Scott from a Syrian manuscript merely enwraps the descending damsels in robes of light green silk. When her robe is taken the chosen beauty is kept from following her companions in their return flight. Similar to this is the Pomeranian saga already cited.
The Caliph forgave him and bade carry the damsel to the city- palace, where he set apart for her an apartment and appointed slaves to serve her, saying to her, "Know that we have sent thy lord to be Sultan in Bassorah and, Almighty Allah willing, we will dispatch him the dress of investiture and thee with it."
And never have I seen, O Commander of the Faithful, any when or any where, aught fairer than these six damsels fair." Now when Al-Maamun heard this story from Mohammed of Bassorah, he turned to him and said, "O Mohammed, knowest thou the abiding-place of these damsels and their master, and canst thou contrive to buy them of him for us?"
In "Sayf al Muluk," we make the acquaintance of that very singular jinni whose soul is outside his body, and meet again with Sindbad's facetious acquaintance, "The Old Man of the Sea." "Hasan of Bassorah" is woven as it were out of the strands of the rainbow. Burton is here at his happiest as a translator, and the beautiful words that he uses comport with the tale and glitter like jewels.
But when Hasan of Bassorah heard his son's words he repeated these lines: "Thou hast some art the hearts of men to clip; * Close-veiled, far-hidden mystery dark and deep: O thou whose beauties sham the lustrous moon, * Wherewith the saffron Morn fears rivalship!
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