Folk-Lore and Legends: Oriental. Charles John Tibbitts

beneath them plant, in the by-streets and great-thoroughfare streets, varieties of trees bearing different kinds of ripe fruits, and make rivers to run beneath them in channels of gold and silver.” To this they all replied, “How can we accomplish that which thou hast described to us, and how can we procure the chrysolites and rubies and pearls that thou hast mentioned?” But he said, “Know ye not that the kings of the world are obedient to me, and under my authority, and that no one who is in it disobeyeth my command?” They answered, “Yes, we know that.” “Depart then,” said he, “to the mines of chrysolite and ruby, and to the places where pearls are found, and gold and silver, and take forth and collect their contents from the earth, and spare no exertions. Take also for me, from the hands of me, such of those things as ye find, and spare none, nor let any escape you; and beware of disobedience!”

      “ ‘He then wrote a letter to each of the kings in the regions of the earth, commanding them to collect all the articles of the kinds above mentioned that their subjects possessed, and to repair to the mines in which these things were found, and extract the precious stones that they contained, even from the beds of the seas. And they collected the things that he required in the space of twenty years; after which he sent forth the geometricians and sages, and labourers and artificers, from all the countries and regions, and they dispersed themselves through the deserts and wastes, and tracts and districts, until they came to a desert wherein was a vast open plain, clear from hills and mountains, and in it were springs gushing forth, and rivers running. So they said, “This is the kind of place which the king commanded us to seek, and called us to find.” They then busied themselves in building the city according to the direction of the King Sheddád, king of the whole earth, in its length and breadth; and they made through it the channels for the rivers, and laid the foundations conformably with the prescribed extent. The kings of the various districts of the earth sent thither the jewels and stones, and large and small pearls, and carnelian and pure gold, upon camels over the deserts and wastes, and sent great ships with them over the seas; and a quantity of those things, such as cannot be described nor calculated nor defined, was brought to the workmen, who laboured in the construction of this city three hundred years. And when they had finished it, they came to the king and acquainted him with the completion; and he said to them, “Depart, and make around it impregnable fortifications of great height, and construct around the circuit of the fortifications a thousand pavilions, each with a thousand pillars beneath it, in order that there may be in each pavilion a vizier.” So they went immediately, and did this in twenty years; after which they presented themselves before Sheddád, and informed him of the accomplishment of his desire.

      “ ‘He therefore ordered his viziers, who were a thousand in number, and his chief officers, and such of his troops and others as he confided in, to make themselves ready for departure, and to prepare themselves for removal to Irem Zat-el-’Emád, in attendance upon the king of the world, Sheddád, the son of ’A’d. He ordered also such as he chose of his women and his hareem, as his female slaves and his eunuchs, to fit themselves out. And they passed twenty years in equipping themselves. Then Sheddád proceeded with his troops, rejoiced at the accomplishment of his desire, until there remained between him and Irem Zat-el-’Emád one day’s journey, when God sent down upon him and upon the obstinate infidels who accompanied him a loud cry from the heaven of His power, and it destroyed them all by the vehemence of its sound. Neither Sheddád nor any of those who were with him arrived at the city, or came in sight of it, and God obliterated the traces of the road that led to it, but the city remaineth as it was in its place until the hour of the judgment!’

      “At this narrative, related by Kaab el-Ahbár, Mo’áwiyeh wondered, and he said to him, ‘Can any one of mankind arrive at that city?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Kaab el-Ahbár; ‘a man of the companions of Mohammed (upon whom be blessing and peace!), in appearance like this man who is sitting here, without any doubt.’ Esh-Shaabee also saith, ‘It is related, on the authority of the learned men of Hemyer, in El-Yemen, that when Sheddád and those who were with him were destroyed by the loud cry, his son Sheddád the Less reigned after him; for his father, Sheddád the Greater, had left him as successor to his kingdom, in the land of Hadramót and Seba, on his departure with the troops who accompanied him to Irem Zat-el-’Emád. And as soon as the news reached him of the death of his father, on the way before his arrival at the city of Irem, he gave orders to carry his father’s body from those desert tracts to Hadramót, and to excavate the sepulchre for him in a cavern. And when they had done this, he placed his body in it, upon a couch of gold, and covered the corpse with seventy robes, interwoven with gold and adorned with precious jewels; and he placed at his head a tablet of gold, whereon were inscribed these verses:—