beautiful couch, not without some dread to be alone in a desolate place; and this fear hindered my sleep.
About midnight I heard a man reading the Koran, in the same tone as it is read in our mosques. I immediately arose, going toward the sound of the voice until I found myself in an oratory. It had, as we have in our mosques, a niche, to direct us whither we are to turn to say our prayers: there were also lamps hung up, and two candlesticks with large tapers of white wax burning.
I saw a comely young man sitting on a carpet reading with great devotion the Koran, which lay before him on a desk. I wondered how it came to pass that he should be the only living creature in a town where all the people were turned into stone, and I did not doubt but there was something in the circumstance very extraordinary.
I exclaimed, “Bismillah! Praise be to God.” The young man turned toward me, and, having saluted me, inquired what had brought me to this desolate city. I told him in a few words my history, and I prayed him to tell me why he alone was left alive in the midst of such terrible desolation. At these words he shut the Koran, put it into a rich case, and laid it in the niche, and thus addressed me: “Know that this city was the metropolis of a mighty kingdom, over which the sultan, who was my father, reigned. That prince, his whole court, the inhabitants of the city, and all his other
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