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Updated: May 1, 2025
When it was the Five Hundred and Eighth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "Shaykh Nasr pursued, 'Thou must know that the lord Solomon com misted this castle to my charge and taught me the language of birds and made me ruler over all the fowls which be in the world; wherefore each and every come hither once in the twelvemonth, and I pass them in review: then they depart; and this is why I dwell here. When Janshah heard this, he wept sore and said to the Shaykh, 'O my father, how shall I do to get back to my native land? Replied the old man, 'Know, O my son, that thou art near to the mountain Kaf, and there is no departing for thee from this place till the birds come, when I will give thee in charge to one of them, and he will bear thee to thy native country.
I will follow thee, if it be thy will, beyond the Kaf in the land of the Afrits; I will not hesitate to climb for thee the nest of the Simurgh, who, this lady excepted, is the most awful of created existences.” “We have here then,” subjoined Carathis, “a girl both of courage and science!”
All through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock for they dared not rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back, for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they sought.
The Russians have done little to dispel these mysteries, if they have not tried to envelop these lands in profounder obscurity, for political purposes; but had we been established in Affghanistan, we might have discovered Jibel Kaf, the retreat of Gog and Magog, the strange stony river, the ten tribes, and all the other objects of Jewish and Mohammedan superstition.
They are all air-cities, these seats of the celestials, whatever be the creed, summery, ethereal climes, fanned with spice-winds and zephyrs. Meru, Kaf, Olympus, Elboorz, they are all alike. The ethnic superior daemons were well termed the powers of the air. Upward into the far blue gazes the weary and longing saint and devotee of every faith.
Then they abode three days in the palace, the scouting Marids returned with the news that Barkan had fled to the Mountain Kaf and craved protection of the Blue King who granted it; whereupon quoth Mura'ash to Gharib, "What sayest thou, O my brother?" and quoth Gharib, "Except we attack them they will attack us."
The pronunciation is also very different, the kaf being pronounced as a G, and only marked with one nunnation, and F is pointed below; they have no idea of arithmetic, but reckon every thing by dots on the sand, ten in a line; many can hardly tell how much two and two amount to. They expressed great surprise at the Europeans being able to add numbers together without fingering.
They reached, at length, a hall of great extent, and covered with a lofty dome, around which appeared fifty portals of bronze, secured with as many fastenings of iron; a funereal gloom prevailed over the whole scene; here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay recumbent the fleshless forms of the pre-adamite kings, who had been monarchs of the whole earth; they still possessed enough of life to be conscious of their deplorable condition; their eyes retained a melancholy motion; they regarded each other with looks of the deepest dejection; each holding his right hand motionless on his heart; at their feet were inscribed the events of their several reigns, their power, their pride, and their crimes; Soliman Raad, Soliman Daki, and Soliman Di Gian Ben Gian, who, after having chained up the Dives in the dark caverns of Kaf, became so presumptuous as to doubt of the Supreme Power; all these maintained great state, though not to be compared with the eminence of Soliman Ben Daoud.
She replied, "O Hasib, thou shalt not have leave to depart from us till winter come, and needs must thou go with us to the Mountain Kaf and solace thyself with the sight of the hills and sands and trees and birds magnifying the One God, the Victorious; and look upon Marids and Ifrits and Jinn, whose number none knoweth save Almighty Allah."
At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two thousand others into the east.
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