After taking my pleasure there
awhile I went from it and, having closed the door as it was before,
opened the third door, wherein I saw a high open hall pargetted with
particolored marbles and pietra dura of price and other precious
stones, and hung with cages of sandalwood and eagle wood, full of
birds which made sweet music, such as the "thousand-voiced," and the
cushat, the merle, the turtledove, and the Nubian ringdove. My heart
was filled with pleasure thereby, my grief was dispelled, and I
slept in that aviary till dawn.
Then I unlocked the door of the fourth chamber, and therein found
a grand saloon with forty smaller chambers giving upon it. All their
doors stood open, so I entered and found them full of pearls and
jacinths and beryls and emeralds and corals and carbuncles, and all
manner precious gems and jewels, such as tongue of man may not
describe. My thought was stunned at the sight and I said to myself,
"These be things methinks united which could not be found save in
the treasuries of a King of Kings, nor could the monarchs of the
world have collected the like of these!" And my heart dilated and my
sorrows ceased.
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