e
sent for us on the following day, desiring my companion to bring the
goods which he had to dispose of. Among other things he had two great
branches of coral so large and beautiful as had not been seen before,
which the king took great pleasure to look upon, and being astonished at
these things, he asked the Christian merchants what men we were. They
answered that we were Persians. The king then desired to know if we
would sell these things. Upon this my companion desired the interpreters
to say to the king, that they were all his own, and that he begged he
would do him the honour to accept them freely. The king then said that
he had been two years continually at war with the king of Ava, by which
his treasure was consumed, but if my companion would bargain for them by
way of exchange for precious stones, especially rubies, that he would
content him for the coral. Then said my companion to the interpreters,
"I pray you give the king to understand that I desire nothing else for
my goods than the good-will of his majesty, and therefore that I humbly
intreat he may take of my goods what pleases him best without money or
payment of my kind." When the king heard this, he said that he had often
been told the Persians were courteous and liberal men, but that he had
never known any one so generous as this, and swore by the head of the
devil, that he would try whether he or the Persian were most liberal.
Upon this he ordered one of his attendants to bring him a casket of
precious stones. This casket was a span and a half square, entirely full
of rubies, the inside being divided into many compartments where the
stones were sorted in order according to their sizes. When he had opened
the casket, he ordered it to be placed before the Persian, desiring him
to take of these precious rubies as many as he thought fit. But my
companion, as if still more provoked to generosity by the liberality of
the king, spoke to him in these words, "Most high and honourable
sovereign! Such is my sense of your generous conduct to me, that I swear
by the head of Mahomet and all the mysteries of his holy religion, that
I freely and gladly give you all my goods. I do not travel in search of
gain, but merely from a desire to see the world; in which I have not
hitherto found any thing that has given me so much delight as the
generous favour your majesty has now been pleased to shew me!" To this
the king answered, "Will you yet contend with me in liberality?