_Page 30._ “Appointed him keeper of the treasury.”—The ārNāsudden elevation of persons from a humble and even distressed condition to places of great dignity and wealth has ever been a characteristic of the absolute monarchs of Eastern countries, as well as the degradation and ruin, frequently from mere caprice, and seldom with any justification, of men of the highest rank. The most remarkable instance of the many which Oriental history presents is the execrable conduct of the Khalif Hārūnu-’r-Rāshīd, so undeservedly celebrated in the _Thousand and One Nights_, in murdering his principal Vizier Ja`far and utterly ruining the other members of the noble house of Barmak (the Barmecides of our common translation of the _Arabian Nights_), all of whom were as famed for their unbounded liberality as for their brilliant abilities. An interesting account of the Barmakis and their ruin is given in Dr Jonathan Scott’s _Tales, Anecdotes, &c., from the Arabic and Persian_.
_Page 32._ “Put out the Merchant’s eyes.”—A too common and barbarous punishment in the East. In Turkey a needle was used for this purpose in the case of state prisoners. The Arabian poet-hero `Antar is said to have blinded his implacable and treacherous enemy Wezār by passing a red-hot sword-blade close before his eyes. Years afterwards the blinded chief executed poetical justice by slaying `Antar with a poisoned arrow, which he shot at him on the bank of the Euphrates.
In Cazotte’s version this story is entitled “The Obstinate Man,” perhaps more appropriately than our “Ill-fated Merchant,” since his own wrong-headedness was the main cause of his misfortunes. His place of abode is Bagdād, not Basra. The divers give him _ten_ pearls. The jeweller, having been lately robbed of some pearls, believes Kaskas (such is the man’s name) to be the thief, and accordingly he accuses him; and when the latter is proved to be innocent, the jeweller is punished with two hundred blows of the bastinado. The catastrophe is very differently related: One day he observed in the apartment which had been assigned to him, a door walled-up and concealed by a slight covering of mastic, which was now so much wasted by the effects of time that it crumbled into dust on the slightest touch. Without any exertion of strength, he opened this door and entered unthinkingly into a rich apartment entirely unknown to him, but which he found to be in the interior of the palace. Hardly had he advanced two or three steps when he was perceived by the chief of the eunuchs, who instantly reported what he had seen to the King. The monarch came immediately to the spot. The fragments of the mastic remained upon the ground to show that the door had been forced open, and the stupid amazement of Kaskas completed the appearance of his guilt. “Wretch!” said the King, “dost thou thus repay my favours? My justice saved thee, when I believed thee innocent; now thou art guilty, and I condemn thee to lose thy sight.” The imprudent Kaskas durst not even attempt to justify himself, but was immediately delivered into the hands of the executioner, of whom the only favour he asked was, that he would give him his eyes when he had torn them from their sockets.[46] He went groping through the streets of the capital with them in his hands, crying: “Behold, all ye good people who hear me, what the unfortunate Kaskas has gained by striving against the decrees of Destiny, and despising the advice of his friends!”