take some refreshment, and the carriers to take a
draught of water.
They at length reached the country of the Gangarids. The princess' heart palpitated with hope, love and joy. The phœnix stopped the vehicle before Amazan's house; but Amazan had been absent from home three hours, without any one knowing whither he had gone.
There are no words, even in the Gangaridian language, that could express Formosanta's extreme despair.
"Alas! that is what I dreaded," said the phœnix: "the three hours which you passed at the inn, upon the road to Bassora, with that wretched king of Egypt, have perhaps been at the price of the happiness of your whole life. I very much fear we have lost Amazan, without the possibility of recovering him."
He then asked the servants if he could salute the mother of Amazan? They answered, that her husband had died only two days before, and she could speak to no one. The phoenix, who was not without influence in the house, introduced the princess of Babylon into a saloon, the walls of which were covered with orange-tree wood inlaid with ivory. The inferior shepherds and shepherdesses, who were dressed in long, white garments, with gold-colored trimmings, served up, in a hundred plain porcelain baskets, a hundred various delicacies, among which no disguised carcasses were to be seen. They con-
