TO THE CALIPH HARUN-AL-RASHID Religion's gems can ne'er adorn The flimsy robe by pleasure worn; Its feeble texture soon would tear, And give those jewels to the air.

LINES TO HARUN AND YAHIA Th' affrighted sun ere while he fled, And hid his radiant face in night; A cheerless gloom the world overspread

But Harun came, and all was bright.

Again the sun shoots forth his rays, Nature is deck'd in beauty's robe For mighty Harun's sceptre sways, And Yahia's arm sustains the globe.

ARABIAN NIGHTS [Selected tales edited by Andrew Lang] THE SEVEN VOYAGES OF SINDBAD In the times of the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid there lived in Bagdad a poor porter named Hindbad, who, on a very hot day, was sent to carry a heavy load from one end of the city to the other.

Moreover, he loaded me with rich gifts, and when I went to take leave of him he intrusted me with a royal present and a letter to the Commander of the Faithful, our sovereign lord, saying, "I pray you give these to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, and assure him of my friendship.

The King's letter was written in blue characters upon a rare and precious skin of yellowish color, and these were the words of it: "The King of the Indies, before whom walk a thousand elephants, who lives in a palace, of which the roof blazes with a hundred thousand rubies, and whose treasure-house contains twenty thousand diamond crowns, to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid sends greeting.

One day, however, when I was entertaining a number of my friends, I was told that an officer of the Caliph wished to speak to me, and when he was admitted he bade me to follow him into the presence of Harun-al-Rashid, which I accordingly did.

These will add field to field, but unless some stronger stream of immigration is led into the land, it will take many generations to recover its ancient prosperity; for in the ninth century A.D. Northern Mesopotamia paid Harun-al-Rashid as great a revenue as Egypt, and its cotton commanded the market of the world[50].

They are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid.

SEE Collins, Ashton B. PHILBY, H. A. R. Harun Al Rashid.

Harun Al Rashid.

SEE Collins, Ashton B. PHILBY, H. A. R. Harun Al Rashid.

Harun Al Rashid.

He sat daily on the judgment seat to dispense justice to all who chose to appeal to him, and, like the famous Harun-al-Rashid, he would at times put on disguises and wander unattended among the people, to keep himself informed of their real condition and to check the malpractices of his officials.

Just at the point of dawn, what looked like the Sultan Harun-al-Raschid's own private shallop, all spangled with coloured lights, stole across the iron-grey water, and disappeared into the darkness of a slip.

Their jesters are known to have surpassed in refinement the jesters of Damascus, as did their twelve police captains the hardiest and most corrupt of Bagdad in the tolerant days of Harun-al-Raschid; while their old women, not to mention their young wives, could deceive the Father of Lies himself.

Harun-al-Raschid, in roaring Bagdad of old, never delighted himself to the limits of such a delight as was mine, that afternoon.