Prologue

The Journey There

O NCE upon a time there was a young Prince of Persia who possessed so many treasures he knew not what else to add to them. His simplest day-shirts were made of silk, so fine that each could be drawn through the ring from his little finger; his garden-shoes were studded with emeralds in the soles; his morning-coats, made of crystal tissue sewn with diamonds, were lined with ermine in the winter: so you can imagine how magnificent his best clothes were.

Of what use telling of the brooch of pearls and rubies on his Sunday turban? No one has ever seen such pearls and rubies out of a fairy-tale: they shone with inward fire as if their hearts were incandescent lamps, and cast the most becoming glow on their wearer, so that everyone who saw the brooch thought the face beneath it angelic in his beauty.

Then his horses were such mettlesome steeds, that each pranced, as a matter of course, with its dainty feet a yard from the ground, often a yard and a half: each had a flowing mane that curled and waved and never was untidy, and each was a paragon of speed.

His palaces were models of architectural magnificence, some stately and classical, furnished with statuary, and others, all gilt and satin, with embroidered wall-hangings; there were summer palaces and spring palaces, with gardens for every change of wind or season; and his collection of rugs gave Persia a name and fame for rugs which to this day she holds.

The eyes on his peacocks' tails were large as saucers and blue as lapis; the tusks of his elephants made fresh-fallen snow look yellow; in his menageries, Hippogriffs and Unicorns were commonplace; and when it came to jewels, one had to put on three pairs of horn spectacles at the entrance of the corridor leading to the treasury. Even then few escaped being blinded.

So it became quite a disheartening task to add to such treasures; and as that was the Prince's sole aim in life, he began to fret and dwindle. Everyone was distressed, and his mother particularly so; for it really seemed as if he had all the treasures on earth.

But one day, the Grand Vizier who took care of the Prince came hurrying to the Queen-Mother in great excitement. He was an enormous Nubian, and when he was excited his ebony forehead became covered with glistening pearls, giving a very striking black-and-white effect.

"Your Majesty, what is the matter with us all that no one has thought of the Prince going in person to the famous town of Timbuktu?" said he. "True, it is a long and difficult journey, but it would take up a wonderful lot of the Prince's time which he finds so hard to get rid of; then he would add greatly to his knowledge of the world; and he himself would have the satisfaction of choosing exactly which of the world's treasures he fancied, for they all are brought first to the market of Timbuktu."

"But won't it be very hot?" said the Queen-Mother.

"Terribly hot," said the Vizier, "and dusty. Think how he will appreciate his summer palaces on his return!"

"Won't it be monotonous across the desert of Sahara?" said the Queen-Mother.

"Unspeakably so," said the Vizier. "Think how varied he will find his gardens on his return!"

"Will his delicate sensibilities endure the discomfort?" said the Queen-Mother.

"Your Majesty, they cannot endure the comfort that now surrounds him," said the Vizier. "This morning he asked for a cold bath: commanded the silken carpet of his bedroom to be taken up, and the floor to be strewn with gravel, and ordered plain-boiled potatoes and stale crusts for dinner. He is in a state when luxury arouses loathing. I believe the pestiferous journey across Sahara will be something he will hail with joy, provided your Majesty opposes it with the arguments you have been putting forth to me and as many more as you can think of, similar in character."

"I was thinking something to that effect myself," said the Queen-Mother. "In fact, the wisdom of opposition occurred to me directly you mentioned it. Go now and propose this journey to my son: then let him communicate his intention to me: and then I will summon him to give my opinion. By the time he arrives I will have thought of several more reasons why he should not go."

So the Nubian Vizier hastened to the Prince, and by impressing on him very strongly all the discomforts and disadvantages and dangers of the journey, the Prince's contrariness was roused until a few words with his mother quite settled his desire to go.

What preparations followed for the journey! Caravans of camels, elephants, and dromedaries had to be assembled and loaded with the treasures which the Prince was tired of, and which he now beheld the chance of bartering for treasures which would really be worth while; the treasures of the world in Timbuktu.

He became quite interested in them, too, thinking of the unknown treasures they were to be exchanged for; and he looked forward to the difficulties of the journey because that meant few would be strong or brave enough to take it.

Then great provision for his comfort was being made, and when he meditated on the array of cooks and hairdressers and fly-fanners and personal attendants, and looked upon the jars of snow-water and Shiraz sherbet, and the baskets of dried fruits and sweetmeats and fine grain, and the dried milk and cream and junket powders, to say nothing of the camel-loads of essences and spices, it did not seem possible that he would have to endure much privation. There would be so many new foods, too, for his table, which they would buy en route;  and new styles of doing his hair; new perfumes and ointments; new sights and sounds and entertainment. There is nothing at the beginning of a journey but looking forward.

So one fine morning the Queen-Mother glanced out of her window, and there was the mighty procession starting down the hill, with the Prince on his Arabian charger, and the coal-black Nubian Grand Vizier at his side. Alas! the Prince was so eager to be off, he had forgotten to say good-bye to his mother. The treasures he was taking and the treasures he was going to find completely filled his mind.

Here is the Prince in his travelling clothes, the kind of clothes ordinary princes wear for festivals: to this Prince, attire such as you see was just something one puts on for a long and dusty journey, with a particularly hot sun ready to fade every colour.

The journey certainly took a long time. After they had crossed Arabia and Egypt, the great, bare desert of Sahara lay before them; but the Prince was so looking forward to the wonderful market, that he endured the heat remarkably well. On they journeyed while the days and the evenings vanished behind them, and one beautiful night they beheld the twinkling lights of a city rising straight out of the desert, and there was Timbuktu. It was morning before they reached it, and when they entered, the streets were crowded with travellers from all parts of the world, but specially the dark-skinned parts. What a wealth of colour gleamed and glowed in the wares they carried!

Here were carpets with wonderful twirly, twisty, criss-cross patterns like the shadows of the tamarisk leaves on the sand; and here were velvets, pink and rose and scarlet, as glossy as cactus flowers; and here were silks glistening and sparkling like salt crystals; and huge ivory tusks as white as the mud houses in the sunshine; and on the shady side of the market-place were traders with human treasures, fair slave-girls from the land of the Freshness of the Dawn.

There were less precious treasures from nearer at hand, bright fruits and flowers and gums and spices, all of them strange to the Prince and his caravan.

Then the crowds were so interesting: here was an Arab caravan from Tripoli, with huge cones of sugar and brilliantly striped linens; and here moved quiet, secret-looking Shuas with their droves of sheep and horses; and here were grinning Hausas, the porters and the carriers; and here was a lonely-eyed Tibetan in his odd fur hat, and a wild-looking mountaineer from Kashmir in far-off India; and yellow men from China and Korea peering out of almond eyes and stealing softly amongst the noise and turmoil.

Well, well, it was like shaking hands with the whole world!

But the Prince was not one to buy everything that was offered. Oh dear no! After the first excitement of seeing so many novelties, he was all for picking and choosing, and people soon saw he was used to fine treasures, and could tell the faults in a horse or a shawl or a necklace as well as the oldest trader in the market, aye, the Market King himself.

But he had been brought up well and had a very polite way of saying "No," and a most elegant manner when he pointed out the faults, so that the traders whom he wouldn't trade with went away determined to bring better goods to market next time.

But there came a night when the Prince sat on the roof-top of the caravanserai, amongst the cushions and rugs which had been placed for him to recline on: he was sheltered from the wind by the date-palm leaves that stretched over the parapet, and commanded the loveliest view of the waves and waves of silvery sand stretching away to where the stars began.

His faithful chief Grand Vizier sat there too, with his black skin shining in the starlight. And presently the Prince gave a deep sigh and said, "O Grand Vizier, have I seen all the treasures of Timbuktu?"

"Your Highness," said the Vizier, "every day new caravans will be coming, for all over the world, by day and by night, men are making and packing and carrying the chiefest treasures of the world to Timbuktu."

"More rugs?" said the Prince.

"And shawls, and ivory, and jewels, and dancers, and everything the heart of man counts treasure," said the magnificent Nubian Vizier.

"My camels are already overburdened," said the Prince. "And my palaces at home are filled. Grand Vizier, I am growing rather tired of treasures. I am wondering if those I have acquired are worth carrying home."

"Your Highness!" gasped the Vizier. "You do not mean to say this visit is a disappointment?"

"I would not go as far as that," said the Prince. "I enjoyed looking forward to the wonderful market, and it certainly is as wonderful as described; but there is no treasure here that would make me inclined to come back for more; and I am not sure there is any treasure I particularly want to take back with me."

"Oh, but my dear Prince, this is terrible," said the Vizier. "Can it be you have incurred the fatal complaint of over-riches?"

Directly the Prince heard the name, he knew this was his malady. He rose and stretched himself and yawned.

"Yes," said he. "There is no treasure on earth I would cross the street to look at, much less buy. And there is only one thing I dread more than trapesing across Sahara and Egypt and Arabia and Beluchistan and all the rest of it, with all this junk; and that is unpacking it and storing it when I get home."

"Heavens on earth!" said the Vizier, turning a greyish colour. "I see you have the worst sort of over-riches. What will your mother say when I bring you back with that?"

"Now I come to think of it, I believe it was beginning before I came," said the Prince rather severely. "If I had not been sick of the treasures I already had, I should not have been so excited to come all this way to Timbuktu. I believe I had started treasure sickness then, though it's nothing to what I have got now: treasure sickness and over-riches. I do not believe I shall ever have the strength to get home. Why should I go home? I don't want to return to the treasures I have at home."

"Don't you want to see your mother?" said the Vizier, recognising worse signs of the disease every minute.

"I don't want her to know I have this terrible complaint," said the Prince, looking very sick indeed.

Nor did the Vizier wish to distress her either. He took off his magnificent turban that glistened and flashed with diamonds and carbuncles, and asked permission to put on his thinking cap. He thought and thought, until it suddenly flashed upon him that as all the treasures of the earth came sooner or later to Timbuktu, maybe amongst them there would be a cure for over-riches. That would be a treasure indeed.

Well, he told the Prince, and the Prince said he would be willing to try anything, and gave his consent to a proclamation going out the next morning; and then he went to sleep and dreamed the most distracting dreams of millions of camels twisting and twining in endless lines over limitless deserts, carrying all the treasures of the earth, back and forth, back and forth, to the greatest market of the world in Timbuktu. The Prince dreamed he was at the head of the procession sometimes, and sometimes at the tail of it, according to whether the camels were going or returning, but he never could get free from the creaking, straining sounds and the marching feet and the blazing sands.

It is a bewildering dream, this dream of over-riches.

The Vizier had the same kind of dream, only he dreamed he was in charge of the camels, and either he couldn't get them on fast enough to please the Prince, or else they all raced on and left him tearing after them. It wasn't quite as confusing a dream as the Prince's, and it certainly was more exciting, but it was bad enough to make him wonder if he wasn't catching a touch of the complaint himself; and he took the proclamation himself to the Market King and asked that it should be proclaimed as loudly as possible so that it might penetrate to every street of Timbuktu, and ordered the services of the finest drummer in Timbuktu.

Then he stood and watched the Town Crier and the Drummer squatting in the market-place, bawling and drumming with a most tremendous noise; and then he turned to go home feeling he had done his part, and yet heavy-hearted, because the complaint of over-riches is so inclined to hang about a person and is so difficult to get rid of, and he dreaded seeing the Queen-Mother's face when she found that was the result of Timbuktu.

He was so heavy hearted that his head was bent as if weighed down, and he nearly fell over a group of Kaffirs lounging in the white dust, too lazy to go across the square into the shade of the palm trees by the well. Their skin was so brown and their hair so thick and woolly that they didn't mind the sun.

"Beg your pardon," said the Nubian Vizier, who, from being a tutor to the Prince, had very polite habits also; and he was trudging on when they said something that made his ears prick up.

"The Prince must have drunk of the juice of the wild aloe," said one of these porters. "If he wants treasure, why does he not summon the tale-market?"

The Nubian Vizier was not slow in inquiring about this tale-market, and the news he obtained made him return to the Prince at double-quick speed.

Here is the Nubian Vizier salaaming before the Prince.

"Oh, most munificent of Highnesses," said he.

"A tale-market?" said the Prince. "What is a tale-market? Kindly explain!"

"Your Highness," said the Vizier, "when a merchant departs from Timbuktu, it is his custom to invite all those whom he has benefited to a feast in the market-place, either at high noon or in the evening. Then his guests repay his munificence as best they can, with tales from their far countries."

"But whom have I benefited?" cried the Prince. "It seems to me that I have been chiefly concerned with my own benefit; I have picked and chosen the treasures I fancied and have never lifted my hand to benefit anyone."

"Well, it is the custom for a tale-market to be summoned," said the Nubian Vizier, "and all I can say is what I heard from the market porters: never, never, never has there been, or very likely would there be, a tale-market such as the one that would be assembled at your invitation."

"Consisting of those who have reason to be grateful to me?" said the Prince, opening his almond eyes till they looked almost round.

"Consisting of those whom your Highness's visit has benefited," said the Nubian Vizier, salaaming again, as was his custom.

"Well now you've really made me curious," said the Prince. "Firstly, to hear the tales these people would bring from such far countries; and secondly, and lastly, and most of all, to see whom I've benefited and how I've benefited them, for I couldn't tell you a single one."

So it came that immediately the Drummer and the Crier had finished the proclamation, they had to begin again to drum and cry the summons to the tale-market for that very day at noon. I needn't tell you that the Prince's servants had to exert themselves to prepare a suitable feast, because, though the Prince was certain there would only be a handful at most, the Nubian Vizier could tell by the way everyone was crowding round the bead-sellers and the shawl-merchants and the men who sold the little parchment boxes of blue chalk and little brushes of frayed bark for painting round the ladies' eyes that there was going to be a large attendance at the party: there wasn't a single person at the butcher's stall nor at the poulterer's either.

But that was just as well, because the Vizier had given orders to buy up all the meat, fish, yams, maize, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, millet, calabashes, peppers, capsicums, sugar cane, bananas, pawpaws, oranges, limes, pine-apples, honey, butter, milk, and sugar in the market; and the cooks whom the Prince had brought from Persia had had orders to show the city of Timbuktu what a feast could be. For, of course, they had brought the most wonderful flavourings with them, and sherbet, and roseleaf jam, and sugared violets, which had never yet been seen on cake at Timbuktu.

When the Prince arrived at the market-square, it was so crowded the Market King had to swing his yard-stick this way and that to make room for him, and by the time he reached the divan prepared for him, he was quite giddy, wondering how he could possibly have benefited all these people, and what sort of stories they had to tell.

Those Kaffir porters, now, who were sitting together eating roast meats and mealie-cobs and yams and sweetmeats until they shone with grease and mirth? Why, he had never spoken to one of those low fellows; and as for a story, what could they have to tell that a Prince would care to hear?

Presently he waggled his finger at the Nubian Vizier and said: "Kindly ask that particularly greasy Kaffir porter to say how my coming has benefited him."