with contentment, sitting in judgment on himself, and pronouncing that the work praised the master, and that, everything considered, it had fallen out better than he could have anticipated, his whole ideal being before his eyes, not only what was then, but what was to be made of it,—the Overseer, the Sultan’s favourite, stept into the garden, and said: “Frank, what art thou about? And how far art thou got with thy labour?” The Count easily perceived that the produce of his genius would now have to stand a rigorous criticism; however, he had long been ready for this accident. He collected all his presence of mind, and answered confidently: “Come, sir, and see! This former wilderness has obeyed the hand of art, and is now moulded, after the pattern of Paradise, into a scene which the Houris would not disdain to select for their abode.” The Shiek, hearing a professed artist speak with such apparent warmth and satisfaction of his own performance, and giving the master credit for deeper insight in his own sphere than he himself possessed, restrained the avowal of his discontentment with the whole arrangement, modestly ascribing this dislike to his inacquaintance with foreign taste, and leaving the matter to rest on its own basis. Nevertheless, he could not help putting one or two questions, for his own information; to which the garden satrap was not in the least behindhand with his answers.
“Where are the glorious fruit-trees,” began the Shiek, “which stood on this sandy level, loaded with peaches and sweet lemons, which solaced the eye, and invited the promenader to refreshing enjoyment?”
“They are all hewn away by the surface, and their place is no longer to be found.”
“And why so?”
“Could the garden of the Sultan admit such trash of trees, which the commonest citizen of Cairo cultivates, and the fruit of which is offered for sale by assloads every clay?”
“What moved thee to desolate the pleasant grove of dates and tamarinds, which was the wanderer’s shelter against the sultry noontide, and gave him coolness and refection under the vault of its shady boughs?”
“What has shade to do in a garden which, while the sun shoots forth scorching beams, stands solitary and deserted, and
