After they had sat down, the magician pulled from his girdle a handkerchief with cakes and fruit, which he had provided, and laid them on the edge of the basin.  He broke a cake in two, gave one half to Alla ad Deen, and ate the other himself; and in regard to the fruit, left him at liberty to take which sort he liked best.  During this short repast, he exhorted his nephew to leave off keeping company with vagabonds, and seek that of wise and prudent men, to improve by their conversation.  “For,” said he, “you will soon be at man’s estate, and you cannot too early begin to imitate their example.”  When they had eaten as much as they liked, they got up, and pursued their walk through gardens separated from one another only by small ditches, which marked out the limits without interrupting the communication; so great was the confidence the inhabitants reposed in each other.  By this means, the African magician drew Alla ad Deen insensibly beyond the gardens, and crossed the country, till they nearly reached the mountains.

Alla ad Deen, who had never been so far before, began to find himself much tired with so long a walk, and said to the magician, “Where are we going, uncle?  We have left the gardens a great way behind us, and I see nothing but mountains; if we go much further, I do not know whether I shall be able to reach the town again?” “Never fear, nephew,” said the false uncle; “I will shew you another garden which surpasses all we have yet seen; it is not far off; and when we come there, you will say that you would have been sorry to have been so nigh, and not seen it.”  Alla ad Deen was soon persuaded; and the magician, to make the way seem shorter and less fatiguing, told him a great many stories.

At last they arrived between two mountains of moderate height, and equal size, divided by a narrow valley, which was the place where the magician intended to execute the design that had brought him from Africa to China.  “We will go no farther now,” said he to Alla ad Deen:  “I will shew you here some extraordinary things, which, when you have seen, you will thank me for:  but while I strike a light, gather up all the loose dry sticks you can see, to kindle a fire with.”

Alla ad Deen found so many dried sticks, that before the magician had made a light, he had collected a great heap.  The magician presently set them on fire, and when they were in a blaze, threw in some incense which raised a cloud of smoke.  This he dispersed on each side, by pronouncing several magical words which Alla ad Deen did not understand.

At the same time the earth trembling, opened just before the magician, and uncovered a stone, laid horizontally, with a brass ring fixed into the middle.  Alla ad Deen was so frightened at what he saw, that he would have run away; but the magician caught hold of him, abused him, and gave him such a box on the ear, that he knocked him down.  Alla ad Deen got up trembling, and with tears in his eyes, said to