entreated me with kindness and consideration: moreover, he made
me his agent for the port and registrar of all ships that entered
the harbour. I attended him regularly, to receive his
commandments, and he favoured me and did me all manner of
kindness and invested me with costly and splendid robes. Indeed,
I was high in credit with him, as an intercessor for the folk and
an intermediary between them and him, when they wanted aught of
him. I abode thus a great while and, as often as I passed through
the city to the port, I questioned the merchants and travellers
and sailors of the city of Baghdad; so haply I might hear of an
occasion to return to my native land, but could find none who
knew it or knew any who resorted thither. At this I was
chagrined, for I was weary of long strangerhood; and my
disappointment endured for a time till one day, going in to King
Mihrjan, I found him with a company of Indians. I saluted them
and they returned my salam; and politely welcomed me and asked me
of my country.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and
ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Five Hundred and Forty-first Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that
Sindbad the Seaman said:--When they asked me of my country I
questioned them of theirs and they told me that they were of
various castes, some being called Shakiriyah[FN#14] who are the
noblest of their castes and neither oppress nor offer violence to
any, and others Brahmans, a folk who abstain from wine, but live
in delight and solace and merriment and own camels and horses and
cattle. Moreover, they told me that the people of India are
divided into two-and-seventy castes, and I marvelled at this with