THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 246 She then declared, that as she intended to take charge of his household, he must give to her, every evening, all the money he had received for his wood during the day. The man consented to this likewise, produced a handful of copper coins, which altogether amounted to only one piastre — but you must know, my master, that a piastre, in the days of Haroun Al-Kaschid, was four or five times as much as it is now-a-days Thus they lived together for several weeks, the wood-cutter going to the forest every day, and paying his gains every night into the hands of Zubeydeh, who kept his miserable house clean and comfortable and prepared his food. She managed things with so much economy that she was enabled to save two paras every day, out of the piastre which he gave her. When she had amassed twenty piastres in this way, she gave them to the wood-cutter, saying : ' Go now to the market and buy thee an ass with this money. Thou canst thus bring home thrice as much wood as before, and the ass can subsist upon the grass which he finds in the forest, and which costs thee nothing.'

' By Allah ! ' exclaimed the wood-cutter ; f thou art a wonderful woman, and I will obey thee in every thing.'

" He forthwith did as Zubeydeh ordered, and was now enabled to give her three or four piastres every evening. She presented him with a more decent garment, and added butter to his pillau of rice, but still preserved such a strict economy, that in a short time he was master of three asses instead of one, and was obliged to hire a man to assist him in cuttingwood. One evening, as the asses came home with their loads, Zubeydeh remarked that the wood gave out a grateful fragrance, like that of musk or ambergris, and upon examining it more closely, she found that it was a most precious article—