While eating, they were
waited upon by the slave who had introduced them, and who invited
them to eat of what she knew to be the greatest dainties; when
they had done, they were served with excellent wine by the other
slaves, who afterwards presented to each of them a fine gold
basin full of water to wash their hands, and also a golden pot
full of the perfume of aloes, with which they both perfumed their
beards and clothes; nor was odoriferous water forgotten, which
the slaves brought to them in a golden vessel, enriched with
diamonds and rubies, made particularly for that use, and which
they threw upon their beards and faces, according to custom. They
then went to their places; but had scarcely seated themselves,
when the slave entreated them to rise and follow her; and opening
a gate of the hall in which they were, they entered into a
spacious saloon of a marvellous structure. It was a dome of the
most agreeable fashion, supported by a hundred pillars of marble,
white as alabaster; the bases and chapiters of the pillars were
adorned with four-footed beasts and birds of several sorts
gilded. The foot-carpet of this noble parlour consisted of one
piece of gold cloth, embroidered with garlands of roses in red
and white silk; and the dome being painted in the same manner,
after the Arabian form, was one of the most charming objects the
eye ever beheld: betwixt each column was placed a little sofa
adorned in the same manner, and great vessels of china, crystal,
jasper, jet, porphyry, agate, and other precious materials,
garnished with gold and jewels: the spaces betwixt the columns
were so many large windows, with jets high enough to lean on,
covered with the same sort of stuff as the sofas, from which was
a prospect into one of the most delightful gardens in the world,
the walks of which, being made of little pebbles of different
colours, much resembled the foot-carpet of the saloon; so that it
appeared, both within and without, as if the dome and the garden,
with all their ornaments, had stood upon the same carpet.
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