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On laying our first volume before the Public, we might perhaps be allowed to appeal, with some degree of pride, to its spirited Illustrations, by an artist of no common talents, to its varied contents of story and song, bon mot and bijou, anecdote and amusement, memoir and merriment, but that we remember a sage apophthegm of the erudite Doctor Pangloss,—

"On their own merits modest men are dumb."

We therefore forbear from doing more than to entreat our friends to glance at our Illustrations, that we may assure 'them we mean to abate no jot of our endeavour to render them "the admired of all observers ;" and refer to our varied contents, that we may faithfully promise them that those of our second volume shall not be found wanting in that interest, spirit, and raciness, which we take for granted are prominent qualities in THE OLIO. Having premised no more than we trust we are entitled to take to ourselves, and promised no more than we can and will perform, we return to our task, and begin our Second Volume with grateful recollections of the success which has attended our first.

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THE DEEV ALFAKIR.

To the KEEPSAKE, the most singularly
beautiful of all the Annuals, that has
been presented to the world at this season
of the year, by the liberality of their
highly deserving publishers, are we
indebted for the tale which has insertion
within these pages.
Our readers will
readily find on its perusal that it bears
some analogy to one of the Tales of the
Genii though not of equal merit with the
one from which it is evidently borrowed,
yet we think that it possesses sufficient
originality to warrant our submitting it to
the tastes of our readers.

See Page y.

The day was closing, and the rich autumnal beams gilded the pomegranates that flourished in Sadak's orchard, and the mournful cypresses that surrounded it. The heat of the day had been great, and the air was fraught with a full and heavy langour. The philosopher was seated at a favourite window reading, to catch the cool fragrance of the air. He had withdrawn the exquisitely woven curtains of peach coloured silk." His limbs reposed on a divan of downy softness: the most delightful sherbet sparkled in crystal vases; and a thousand flowers of every hue expanded their blossoms, and diffused their fragrance around him. Sadak raised his head, and cast a glance on the luxu-. THE DEEV ALFAKIR.-In the vine sur- riant scene, but withdrew it with discontent ounded city of Shiraz, under the reign and disgust. He recurred to his studies, of Otman, dwelt Sadak, surnamed Al-in a few moments he pushed away the Hahjim or the Philosopher. He lived in beautiful manuscript. almost uninterrupted solitude, his dwelling though not splendid was elegant; and his household consisted of a few slaves, who regarded their master with fidelity and affection. Sadak had few friends, and no acquaintances; but he had many well wishers in those to whom he had done good. He was rich, noble, learned, benevolent, and-unhappy. VOL. I. B

"Idle philosophy," he exclaimed, "able only to denote what is good, but powerless in teaching to attain it; useless to the happy, and to the wretched worse than useless, a mockery and a pain. Oh happiest phoenix of life, believed in but not found, I abandon the search, and ask but for forgetfulness."

He turned away as he spoke, and 1--SATURDAY, JAN. 12, 1828.

hastened to his most retired apartment. Here by the light of lamps fed with the purest frankincense of Shir, and veiled with the spiderlike webs of the Indian loom; he sat, melancholy and buried in reverie.

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He listened to the breezes, that now began to arise, as they rustled among the pliant branches of the cypresses, and swayed the lofty heads of the date palms. Why is it," said he, " that all external nature changes from rest to motion, and from motion again to rest, while thy mind, Sadak, abides from sun to sun, in unvaried and monotonous sadness? What avail the varying seasons, the rejoicing spring, and the abundant summer to me, whose life is one long and dreary winter ?"

Scarcely had he spoken, when the wind stayed, and the trees no longer rustled. They ceased not gradually, softening away into calmness; but at once, as if arrested by some magician's hand. A strange silence came on. The mellow song of the late birds was hushed.

The

loud humming bees and buzzing flies were still. The atmosphere was unaccountably oppressed, and nature seemed to stand in awe of some approaching phenomenon.

Sadak sprung on his feet. His restless mind had busied itself in wide researches into the secrets of nature; and he knew much of the occult powers of the universe, though he had holden no communion with them. A dim expectation was on his mind: it was fulfilled when the ceiling of the apartment divided, and the Deev Alfakir stood before him. He stood in the gloomy beauty of majesty degraded and obscured. The earthly lights that illuminated the place were extinguished on his entrance; a dull glow emitted from his body supplied their place, and filled the room with its lurid glare.

"Sadak," said the Deev, "thou wouldst have forgetfulness-of what? and why?"

Of the falsehood of woman, and the treachery of man. Why! because I have suffered by them, and suffer yet."

"I must know more," returned the Deev, " ere I grant the boon thou wouldst win. Speak out; make known thy sufferings."

"I will not," replied Sadak, "why should I rend open the veil for thee, enemy of my race and of me? why comest thou hither; say quickly, and depart."

"Rash mortal!" answered Alfakir, "I

am not thine enemy, but thy friend. Bethink thee ere I go, I have the power to serve thee, and the will."

"The power thou mayst, the will when did a Deev will well to man ?"

"Foolish Sadak, ask rather, when did man will well to himself? The friend that betrayed thee had not done so but for thy blindness, that would madly trust when temptation was beyond the power of man to resist. The woman that was loved and was false, deceived thee, because thy confidence was blind, weak, absurd; loathsome from its imbecility, even in the eyes of its object. Thou wonderest that I, thine enemy, should wish the well; but not that thyself should have laboured to work to thyself evil."

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Enough!" said Sadak, " thou recallest too much; but teach me, if thou canst to forget."

"Listen then," replied the Deev, "far away, in the midst of the ocean, beyond the points were ship has ever sailed, is an island girt with impassable barriers. This island was the dowry of a princess of our race; it holds treasures, to which the riches of the East are but as the dust in a silken purse. Here dwell the rulers of the elements; here are hidden the essences of life; here flow the waters of oblivion."

"Give me," exclaimed Sadak, "give me of these waters, that I may drink and be at peace."

"At peace, surely," answered the Deev, "but who would have of these waters must seek them."

"Seek them! and where? in thine unapproachable island? I should gain much by my quest."

"Thus hastily judge the children of ignorance and folly. Trust to me, and the way shall be easy. Seek at thy leisure the nearest port of the Southern Ocean. Thou shalt there learn more, and be brought to the object of thy search. Swear to do this, I promise thee the waters of oblivion shall be thine."

"I swear," said Sadak.

"Farewell then," said the Deev: ne spread his broad shadowy wings, the roof opened for his passage. It closed after him; and the lamps, self-lighted, burned brightly as before. Sadak heard the rustling of the trees, and the prolonged notes of the nightingale fell mournfully

on his ear.

He lost no time in preparing for his journey; and placing his household under the superintendance of a man of rank and probity, who was his friend, he departed, crossed the Lauristan mountains, and arrived at Nabon, on the Persian Gulf. Here, while rambling on the shore, medi

tating whether next to convey himself, his attention was aroused by the approach of a boat. It contained no one, but, selfguided, steered its course in a direct line to the spot were Sadak had stood still to watch it. What was he to do? to trust himself to such a vessel, for such a voyage seemed madness. Yet the power, that guided the boat, in an unerring line to that spot, might equally guard its course across the ocean. Sadak examined the boat; it was beautifully fitted up. A silken awning was suspended over a luxurious couch, and a plentiful supply of provisions occupied a sheltered part of the vessel. On the couch was written in letters of gold: " For Sadak, the searcher for the waters of oblivion."

He no longer hesitated, but seated himself in the boat, which instantly sailed away, as before, in a straight line, unmoved by wind or wave. It proceeded with great rapidity, and passing the straits of Ormuz, emerged into the Arabian Sea. The shores of Arabia and of Hindostan, speedily vanished from the eyes of the voyager. The sky was above, and the sea around him; land there was none. He was on the vast plain of the Indian

ocean.

Three days and three nights his course continued thus, during which no storm arose, no cloud dimmed the surface of the sky. On the fourth day Sadak discerned afar off, a dim grey speck on the surface of the waters. It came to his strained and wearied eye refreshing as the cool springs to the traveller of the desert.

To this object the course of the boat was plainly directed; and Sadak perceived, that he was carried along with still increased velocity. As he approached, he gazed earnestly on the island, for such he perceived it to be, and was terrified.

It seemed a vast rock, the sides of which, springing from the bosom of the waters, slanted outwardly to a great distance, veiling the waters beneath them in an impervious gloom; clothed in which the unseen waves thundered and boiled with increasing roar. The heart of the wanderer sickened, for escape seemed impossible. Here he must close his voyage and his life, in the conflicting waters of that angry sea.

The boat shot under the black and rugged sides of the overhanging precipice. Instead of being suddenly overwhelmed in the circling waters, or dashed against the rock, Sadak perceived that he was carried along softly as before. He heard the din on either side; till his hearing was nigh extinct, but his own course, though rapid was smooth and uninterrupted The gloom by which he was surrounded the

eye could not penetrate; but it appeared to Sadak, that the darkness was peopled by forms that flitted around him, and he thought he heard their laughs rising amid the roars of the waters; now and then too, a gleam of red light shot from fissures in the rock, but without dissolving the darkness into which it pierced, and serving only to render the horror more hideous. Åt length, and in a moment, the darkness was changed to extreme light, issuing from the cavern, the boat rushed into a torrent more violent and fearful than the imagination can conceive. Sadak instinctively closed his eyes with terror, when their gaze fell on the edge of a precipice, over which the stream threw the mass of its waters, that fell, and fell, till they broke in mists and thunder in the gulf below; but the vessel, instead of being hurried away by the torrent, sailed calmly across its waters, till it reached the opposite bank. Sadak leaped ashore, and gazed on the scene around him.

First he looked with astonishment on the rocky barrier that surrounded the place, and from beneath which he had emerged. This, rough and jagged with immense indentations, rose, cliff upon cliff, in dizzy grandeur, till the cloud-vestured heights of Kaf seemed to loose in the comparison. Dim caverns pierced its base, whence issued the elements in their strength. Volumes of murky and sulphureous flame were vomited forth by some; torrents issued from others, and in some Sadak believed he heard the roaring of imprisoned winds. The midway rocks were bare and black, their summits were the dwellings of the tempests and the storm. The thunder rolled there as in its own regions, and the lightenings vainly shot their fires against rocks coeval with the

heavens.

Sadak turned away to explore some other portion of the island. He stood at the bottom of a declivity, he ascended with labour to its top, what a sight met his eyes. All human splendour, faded into nothingness, by the side of the magnificence that met his view.

Before him were the marble palaces of the Deevs, built before their conquest by Sultan Soliman. Vast as magnificent, they covered hills, one beyond another, rising till lost in distance.

The face of external nature was changed ; trees of freshest foilage clustered into spreading screens, excluding from view the barren terrific region Sadak had just left; soft verdure covered the ground and perfumes of the sweetest flowers gushed before every step.

Sadak entered the eternal dwellingsdwellings now no more, for they were

desolate and uninhabited. As he roamed through halls paved with the purest marble, beneath roofs of fretted gold supported by pillars of porphyry and adamant. Sadak sighed to think, that all this goodly shew should be lost to its banished fabricators. He looked around and his eye fell on chests of marble, sealed with the signet of the conqueror. Here, century after century, pined the imprisoned Deevs, while nature was changing in successive ages, and the world was fading and reviving again in endless transformation.

Leaving these palaces, and rambling still farther, he arrived at another desolate region, resembling the first in which he had been placed. The same lofty rocks, the same barren soil, and the same display of elemental violence was there; but in the midst of the place a capacious lake extended its coal black waters, till, overflowing their natural basin, they fell down the precipices in rushing torrents. A dim cloud of exhalations arose on the margin of the lake; the sun beams withdrew from its surface on which the volcanic fires shot a wavering and murky gleam; Sadak felt that these were the Waters of Oblivion.

The

He stood on the brink of the wished for flood, yet hesitated to drink. While he deliberated, the noxious vapours mingled with his breathing; at once overcome by their influence, he staggered, reeled and fell. From the state of senselessness, he passed into one of uneasy sleep, disturbed by a thousand painful visions. calamities of the past, the faithless friend, the selfish mistress, rose before him. He awoke from his slumbers, calling aloud on death to free him from the pangs of memory. As he opened his eyes, he found to his horror he was hanging over the edge of a rocky shelf, that overlooked a fearful chasm. With all the energy of self-preservation, he sprung from his situation, and gained a place of safety.

Under the influence of the gloom that oppressed him, he again approached the lake. What a moment was this! to drink of the waters, and lose for ever the world of the past! Sadak trembled, and a cold shuddering pervaded his frame. He felt how dear is the memory even of sorrow that has been; how desolate without it must be the dreary future, until future things have gone by, and in fading created a new past for the mind to recall and dwell

on.

As these thoughts passed over his mind, he began to loathe the black and deadly flood that lay before him; he turned hastily away, and beheld the Deev Alfakir.

"Welcome Sadak !" he exclaimed;

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