242 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

" You already know, my Master," Achmet began, " that many hundred years ago all the people of Islam were governed by a caliph, whose capital was Baghdad, and I doubt not that you have heard of the great Caliph, Haroun Al-Raschid, who certainly was not only the wisest man of his day, but the wisest that has been known since the clays of our Prophet, Mohammed, whose name be exalted ! It rarely happens that a wise and great man ever finds a wife, whose wisdom is any match for his own ; for as the wise men whom Allah sends upon the earth are few, so are the wise women still fewer.

But herein was the Caliph favored of Heaven. Since the clays of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, whom even the prophet Solomon could not help but honor, there was no woman equal in virtue or in wisdom to the Sultana Zubeydeh (Zobeide). The Caliph never failed to consult her on all important matters, and her prudence and intelligence were united with his, in the government of his great empire, even as the sun and moon are sometimes seen shining in the heavens at the same time.

■' But do not imagine that Haroun Al-Baschid and the Sultana Zubeydeh were destitute of faults. None except the Prophets of God — may their names be extolled for ever ! — were ever entirely just, or wise, or prudent. The Caliph was subject to fits of jealousy and mistrust, which frequently led him to commit acts that obliged him, afterwards, to eat of the bitter fruit of repentance ; and as for Zubeydeh, with all her wisdom she had a sharp tongue in her head, and was often so little discreet as to say things which brought upon her the displeasure of the Commander of the Faithful.

" It chanced that, once upon a time, they were both seated in a window of the hareem, which overlooked one of the streets