About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs
unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of
the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it
suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a
camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to him:

'Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are brothers,
and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art bound by
thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not accursed
by the prophet.'

The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed his
legs and answered:

'Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel.
Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where
Oonrana, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old
stream Plegáthanees. These, together, enter her northern gate
rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill that
Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Marvel.
Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in the
appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in
Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing.
Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret way
of the air. Once, from his twilit kingdom, which he rules equally
with the sun, the moon saw and loved Babbulkund, clad with her
purple garden; and the moon wooed Babbulkund, and she sent him
weeping away, for she is more beautiful than all her sisters the
stars. Her sisters come to her at night into her maiden chamber.