When it was the Five Hundred and Third Night,

Quoth Dunyazad, "O sister mine, an thou be other than sleepy,
tell us one of thy fair tales, so therewith we may cut short the
waking hours of this our night," and quoth Shahrazad:--It hath
reached me, O King of the Age, that Mubarak and Zayn al-Asnam
came upon a lake where, behold, they found a little craft whose
planks were of chaunders and lign-aloes of Comorin and therein
stood a ferryman with the head of an elephant while the rest of
his body wore the semblance of a lion.[FN#33] Presently he
approached them and winding his trunk around them[FN#34] lifted
them both into the boat and seated them beside himself: then he
fell to paddling till he passed through the middle of the lake
and he ceased not so doing until he had landed them on the
further bank. Here the twain took ground and began to pace
forwards, gazing around them the while and regarding the trees
which bore for burthen ambergris and lign-aloes, sandal, cloves,
and gelsamine,[FN#35] all with flowers and fruits bedrest whose
odours broadened the breast and excited the sprite. There also
the birds warbled, with various voices, notes ravishing and
rapturing the heart by the melodies of their musick. So Mubarak
turned to the Prince and asked him saying, "How seest thou this
place, O my lord?" and the other answered, "I deem, O Mubarak,
that in very truth this be the Paradise promised to us by the
Prophet (whom Allah save and assain!)." Thence they fared
forwards till they came upon a mighty fine palace all builded of
emeralds and rubies with gates and doors of gold refined: it was
fronted by a bridge one hundred and fifty cubits long to a
breadth of fifty, and the whole was one rib of a fish.[FN#36] At