in China the lover and his mistress reciprocally exchange cups, and drink each other’s health.”  At the same time she presented to him the cup which was in her hand, and held out her hand to receive his.  He hastened to make the exchange with the more pleasure, because he looked upon this favour as the most certain token of an entire conquest over the princess, which raised his rapture to the highest pitch.  Before he drank, he said to her, with the cup in his hand, “Indeed, princess, we Africans are not so refined in the art of love as you Chinese:  and your instructing me in a lesson I was ignorant of, informs me how sensible I ought to be of the favour done me.  I shall never, lovely princess, forget my recovering, by drinking out of your cup, that life, which your cruelty, had it continued, must have made me despair of.”

The princess, who began to be tired with this impertinent declaration of the African magician, interrupted him, and said, “Let us drink first, and then say what you will afterwards;” at the same time she set the cup to her lips, while the African magician, who was eager to get his wine off first, drank up the very last drop.  In finishing it, he had reclined his head back to shew his eagerness, and remained some time in that state.  The princess kept the cup at her lips, till she saw his eyes turn in his head, when he fell backwards lifeless on the sofa.

The princess had no occasion to order the private door to be opened to Alla ad Deen; for her women were so disposed from the great hall to the foot of the staircase, that the word was no sooner given that the African magician was fallen backwards, than the door was immediately opened.

As soon as Alla ad Deen entered the hall, he saw the magician stretched backwards on the sofa.  The princess rose from her seat, and ran overjoyed to embrace him; but he stopped her, and said, “Princess, it is not yet time; oblige me by retiring to your apartment; and let me be left alone a moment, while I endeavour to transport you back to China as speedily as you were brought from thence.”

When the princess, her women and eunuchs, were gone out of the hall, Alla ad Deen shut the door, and going directly to the dead body of the magician, opened his vest, took out the lamp, which was carefully wrapped up, as the princess had told him, and unfolding and rubbing it, the genie immediately appeared.  “Genie,” said Alla ad Deen, “I have called to command thee, on the part of thy good mistress this lamp, to transport this palace instantly into China, to the place from whence it was brought hither.”  The genie bowed his head in token of obedience, and disappeared.  Immediately the palace was transported into China, and its removal was only felt by two little shocks, the one when it was lifted up, the other when it was set down, and both in a very short interval of time.