“Three weeks so passed in these monotonous grass lands among the nomad tribes, the road went forward to the east rising all the way, and the soil grew drier and drier. We reached the wells of Ayn-Ayoub and filled our skins with water, we traversed the desert belt and camped near the summit: at daybreak we came to the escarpment and saw the wooded slopes falling away in cascading forests at our feet to where, far below, lay the splendid plain of Dirak and in its midst, far off and dark in outline against the burning dawn, the battlements and mosques, the minarets and tapering cypress points of its capital Misawan.
“What joy was mine to fall by gentle gradations down the declivities of those noble woods into the warm fields of the Fortunate State! At every hour of my advance new delights met my eye! Great Country Houses standing in magnificent parks with carefully tended lawns all about, poor men who saluted low as I passed and rich men here and there who glanced a moment in haughty ease, fine horses passing at the trot mounted by subservient grooms, and, continually, posts bearing such notices as ‘Any one treading on this Lord’s ground will be bowstrung.’ ‘No spitting.’ ‘One insolent word and to jail with you!’: While at every few hundred yards an armed man, before whom the poorer people cowered, would frown at the slaves at the head of my column, and then, seeing my finely mounted guard and my own immutable face and shining garments coming up behind them, would smile and bow and hint at a few small coins--which I gave.
“In truth the Learned Man had not deceived me! This land of Dirak was a Paradise!
“I rode into the city like a king (as I was--for my wealth made me one in such a State) and took for the night a lodging in an Immense Building, which called itself a Caravanserai, but was, to the Caravanserais of my experience, as the Sultan’s Palace to a horse.
“There, in an apartment of alabaster and beaten silver, I eat such viands as I had not thought to be on this earth, while well-drilled slaves, trained by long starvation to obedience, moved noiselessly in and out or played soft music hidden behind a carven screen.
“Oh! Dirak! Dirak!... but I must conclude.... The matter was not long. With my gold I purchased my palace in the midst of this city of Misawan, entertained guests who asked nothing of my origin, bought (after a careful survey of prices) the excellent post of Chief Sweeper to his Majesty (which carried with it the conduct of The Treasury) and paid for a few laws which happened to suit my convenience, such as one to prevent street cries and another for the strangling of the red-headed poor: it is a colour of hair I cannot abide.