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Updated: June 27, 2025
"'What is the Southern Cross? she asked, in a sad, downcast voice. "I was struck with admiration for this indomitable love, outdoing the most ingenious marvels of fairy tales in real life a love that would spring over a precipice to find a roc's egg, or to gather the singing flower.
We set sail with the first favorable wind, and after a long voyage upon the open seas we landed upon an unknown island which proved to be uninhabited. We determined, however, to explore it, but had not gone far when we found a roc's egg, as large as the one I had seen before and evidently very nearly hatched, for the beak of the young bird had already pierced the shell.
Our final inference, then, is, that the Kabyles preserve strong traces of certain primitive customs, which in certain cases are attributable to a Christian origin. A true city of romance, a Venice isolated by waves of mountains, and built upon piles whose beams are of living crystal, Kalaa, all but inaccessible, attracts the tourist as the roc's egg attracted Aladdin's wife.
When the princess told Aladdin of her desire, he summoned the genie of the lamp and said to him, "Genie, I command thee in the name of this lamp, bring a roc's egg to be hung in the middle of the dome of the hall of the palace."
When, however, Kalyb found out that Carelessness had become his nurse, instantly she hurried to the sea-shore; when, embarking in an egg-shell, the shell, be it known, of a huge roc's egg she set sail for the shores of England.
It used to be a matter of hopeless wonder to me that Aladdin's innocent request for a roc's egg to hang in the dome of his palace should have been regarded as a crime worthy of punishment by the loss of the wonderful lamp; the obscurest part of the whole affair being perhaps the Jinni's passionate allusion to the egg as his master: "Wretch! dost thou command me to bring thee my master, and hang him up in the midst of this vaulted dome?"
"Princess," said the false Fatima, with great dissimulation, "forgive me the liberty I have taken; but my opinion is, if it can be of any importance, that if a roc's egg were hung up in the middle of the dome, this hall would have no parallel in the four quarters of the world, and your palace would be the wonder of the universe."
Every man who loved a woman wished to believe that she came to him out of the garden of a convent out of a roc's egg, like the princess in the Arabian story. All these things he had experienced in himself, in a shattered romance, in a disillusioned youth, when he was young like the lad somewhere in France.
"Genie," said Aladdin, "I command thee, in the name of this lamp, bring a roc's egg to be hung up in the middle of the dome of the hall of the palace."
And then it is easy for me to have a story seem strange. I seem to have a natural gift for it. Any one can be surprised the first time he hears an adventure, but if one is to become a professional listener he must cultivate the habit of being surprised. Now that story about the roc's egg grows upon me; indeed it does! I don't think I appreciated it at first.
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