the eyes of the people, sometimes with their talons and sometimes with their beaks, and sometimes they beat with their wings upon the faces of the combatants, while the wild beasts bit the horses and tore in pieces the men, until the greater portion of the party lay upon the face of the earth like the trunks of palm-trees. As to me, I flew from before Ed-Dimiryat; but he followed me a journey of three months, until he overtook me. I had fallen down through fatigue, and he rushed upon me, and made me a prisoner. So I said to him, By Him who hath exalted thee and abased me, pity me, and take me before Suleyman, on whom be peace! But when I came before Suleyman, he met me in a most evil manner: he caused this pillar to be brought, and hollowed it, and put me in it, and sealed me with his signet; after which, he chained me, and Ed-Dimiryat conveyed me to this place, where he set me down as thou seest me; and this pillar is my prison until the day of resurrection. He charged a great king to guard me in this prison, and I am in this condition tortured as thou seest me.
The party therefore wondered at him, and at the horrible nature of his form; and the Emir Musa said, There is no deity but God! Suleyman was endowed with a mighty dominion!And the sheykh 'Abd-Es-Samad said to the 'Efrit, O thou, I ask thee concerning a thing of which do thou inform us. The 'Efrit replied, Ask concerning what thou wilt. And the sheykh said, Are there in this place any of the 'Efrits confined in bottles of brass from the time of Suleyman, on whom be peace? He answered, Yes, in the Sea of E]-Karkar, where are a people of the descendants of Nuh (on whom be peace!), whose country the deluge reached not, and they are separated there from [the rest of] the sons of Adam.-And where, said the sheykh, is the way to the City of Brass, and the place wherein are the bottles? What distance is there between us and it?The 'Efrit answered, It is near. So the party left him, and proceeded; and there appeared to them a great black object, with two [seeming] fires corresponding with each other in position, in the distance, in that black object; whereupon the Emir Musa said to the sheykh, What is this great black object, and what are these two corresponding fires? The guide answered him, Be rejoiced, O Emir; for this is the City of Brass, and this is the appearance of it that I find
