Behold, while thy
servant is at thy side, he will pour forth the treasures of his
memory, as the fountain sendeth her stream beside the pathway,
for the refreshment or him that walketh thereon."
After this exordium, Hassan uplifted his voice, and began a tale
of love and magic, intermixed with feats of warlike achievement,
and ornamented with abundant quotations from the Persian poets,
with whose compositions the orator seemed familiar. The retinue
of the physician, such excepted as were necessarily detained in
attendance on the camels, thronged up to the narrator, and
pressed as close as deference for their master permitted, to
enjoy the delight which the inhabitants of the East have ever
derived from this species of exhibition.
At another time, notwithstanding his imperfect knowledge of the
language, Sir Kenneth might have been interested in the
recitation, which, though dictated by a more extravagant
imagination, and expressed in more inflated and metaphorical
language, bore yet a strong resemblance to the romances of
chivalry then so fashionable in Europe.
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