Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/316

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THE BLACK AND THE WHITE.

The adventure of the youthful Rustan is generally known throughout the whole province of Candahar. He was the only son of a mirza of that country. The title of mirza there is much the same as that of marquis among us, or that of baron among the Germans. The mirza, his father, had a handsome fortune. Young Rustan was to be married to a mirzasse, or young lady, of his own rank. The two families earnestly desired their union. Rustan was to become the comfort of his parents, to make his wife happy, and to live blessed in her possession.

But he had unfortunately seen the princess of Cachemir at the fair of Cabul, which is the most considerable fair in the world, and much more frequented than those of Bassora and Astracan. The occasion that brought the old prince of Cachemir to the fair with his daughter was as follows:

He had lost the two most precious curiosities of his treasury ; one of them was a diamond as thick as a man's thumb, upon which the figure of his daughter was engraved by an art which was then possessed by the Indians, and has since been lost ; the other was a javelin, which went of itself wherever its owner thought proper to send it. This is nothing very ex-

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