In this Assembly Abû Zayd displays his eloquence and mastery of the Arabic tongue in various ways. Ḥaḍramowt in Yemen being celebrated both for its camel-breed and its cordwainery, the use of terms which might equally well apply to a young camel or a sandal, gives rise to an adventure, of which Abû Zayd renders a spirited account. Al Ḥârith, as usually amused and charmed by his friend’s descriptive powers, asks him whether he had ever met his equal in the gift of speech. Abû Zayd readily answers in the affirmative, and relates how once he was about to marry, but in the last moment grave doubts occurred to him as to the advisability of the step. After a sleepless night, passed in pondering anxiously the reasons for and against, he resolves early in the morning to go out and consult the first whom he would encounter. This happens to be a youth, a most unlikely person to speak authoritatively on the subject; he, however, keeping to his resolution, states his case, and when the lad inquires from him whether he had a maiden or a matron in view, he says that he has not made up his mind on the point, but was willing to abide by the decision of his interlocutor. The latter at once pictures with a celebrated modern debater’s skill first the white and then the black of either class of ladies, and when Abû Zayd, bewildered by his contradictory ruling, suggests that under the circumstances it might be safer to become a monk, he again confuses him, by severely condemning celibacy and extolling the advantages of matrimony, and finally leaves Abû Zayd more in doubt than ever, but determined not to consult striplings again on a question of home-rule. Ḥârith, however, shrewdly guesses that the stripling is fictitious, and the whole debate improvised by the Shaykh, as a fresh feat of his consummate art, which leads him to speak with effusion in praise of learning and literary accomplishments. Abû Zayd demurs that nowadays learning is only appreciated when backed up by wealth and high birth, and soon finds occasion to prove his assertion in a lively dialogue with a youthful inhabitant of a village on their road. While thus the enthusiastic Ḥârith is forced to acknowledge that erudition fetches less than nothing in the market of a deteriorated world, the unscrupulous Abû Zayd sees in the fact a sufficient excuse for himself to swindle, for a parting shot, his friend out of a more saleable commodity.
Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: Peregrination
that casts a man about, and troublesome travel had
wafted me to a tract where the experienced guide would
lose his way, and the venturesome be seized with terror,
and I met with that which the bewildered and lonely
meet with, and saw sights that I had loathed, though I
made stout my frightened heart and urged on my jaded
beast, journeying forth as one who throws both divining
arrows and resigns himself to destruction, and I ceased
not trotting and cantering and traversing mile after
mile until the sun was nigh setting and light veiling
itself, when I conceived fear because of the downfall of
darkness and the onslaught of the host of Ḥam [the
father of blackamoors], and knew not whether to gather
my skirts and tether, or to face the night and grope
my way. Now while I was revolving in my mind
for what I should decide myself, there appeared to
me the form of a camel in the shelter of a mountain,
and I hoped it to be the riding-beast of one taking rest,
and made for it cautiously. Then my surmise proved
soothsay, and the riding-beast a swift dromedary, whose
resting master was wrapped up in his striped cloak and
drowned in sleep. So I sat beside his head until he
awoke from his drowse; then when his lamps were lit
(i.e., his eyes opened), and he saw who had suddenly
come upon him, he started back, as starts the suspicious,
and said: “[Is it] thy brother or the wolf?” Said I:
“Nay, one groping in the night, who has lost his way:
so give me light, that I also may strike it for thee.”
He replied: “Let thy anxiety be at rest, for thou hast
many a brother whom thy mother bore not.” Then my
fear departed, and sleepfulness came to my eyne. But
he said: “In the morning people praise night-faring;
seest thou then fit what I see fit?” Said I: “Behold,
I am more obedient to thee than thy shoon, and agree
better with thee than thy food.” Then he commended
my friendly disposition, and hailed my companionship
applaudingly, whereupon we saddled our beasts in haste
and set out on our night-travel, and we ceased not to
speed our faring and to battle against sleep until the
night had reached her end and morning raised his
standard, and when the dawn broke and naught remained
that was not clearly visible, I scanned the features
of my mate in the journey, and the partner in my night-