THE TALE OF THE KAZI AND THE
BHANG-EATER.[FN#224]



There was a certain eater of Bhang--And Shahrazad was surprised
by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her
permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy
story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth
she, "And where is this compared with that I would relate to you
on the coming night an the King suffer me to survive?" Now when
it was the next night and that was

The Three Hundred and Ninety-third Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that there was
a certain eater of Bhang whose wont it was every day to buy three
Faddahs' worth of hemp and he would eat one third thereof in the
morning and a second at noon and the rest about sundown. He was
by calling a fisherman; and regularly as dawn appeared he would
take hook and line and go down to the river a-fishing; then he
would sell of his catch a portion, expending half a Faddah on
bread and eat this with the remaining part of the fish broiled.
He would also provide himself day by day with a waxen taper and
light it in his cell and sit before it, taking his pleasure and