the candlestick and placed it at the bottom of his sacks.  At daybreak he took leave of the generous Dervish and set off.  When about half a day’s journey from his own city he sold the slave, that there should be no witness to his former poverty, and bought another in his stead.  Arriving home, he carefully placed his loads of treasure in a private chamber, and then put a light in each branch of the candlestick; and when the twelve dervishes appeared, he dealt each of them a blow with a stick.  But he had not observed that the good Dervish employed his left hand, and he had naturally used his right, in consequence of which the twelve dervishes drew each from under their robes a heavy club and beat him till he was nearly dead, and then vanished, as did also the treasure, the camels, the slave, and the wonder-working candlestick![49]

   [49] The same story is given by the Comte de Caylus—­but,
        like Noble, without stating where the original is to be
        found—­in his Contes Orientaux, first published in
        1745, under the title of “Histoire de Dervich
        Abounadar.”  These entertaining tales are reproduced in
        Le Cabinet des Fees, ed. 1786, tome xxv.—­It will be
        observed that the first part of the story bears a close
        resemblance to that of our childhood’s favourite, the
        Arabian tale of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” of
        which many analogues and variants, both European and
        Asiatic, are cited in the first volume of my Popular
        Tales and Fictions, 1887;—­see also a supplementary
        note by me on Aladdin’s Lamp in Notes and Queries,
        Jan. 5, 1889, p. 1.

* * * * *

A warning against avarice is intended to be conveyed in the tale, or rather apologue, or perhaps we should consider it as a sort of allegory, related by the sagacious bird on the 47th Night, according to the India Office MS., but the 16th Night of Kadiri’s abridgment.  It is to the following effect, and may be entitled

The Four Treasure-Seekers.

Once on a time four intimate friends, who made a common fund of all their possessions, and had long enjoyed the wealth of their industrious ancestors, at length lost all their goods and money, and, barely saving their lives, quitted together the place of their nativity.  In the course of their travels they meet a wise Brahman, to whom they relate the history of their misfortunes.  He gives each of them a pearl, which he places on their heads, telling them, whenever the pearl drops from the head of any of them, to examine the spot, and share equally what they find there.  After walking some distance the pearl drops from the head of one of the companions, and on examining the place he discovers a copper mine, the produce of which he offers to share with the others, but they refuse, and, leaving him, continue their journey.  By-and-by