UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 223 



very extensive, as to contain seventeen hundred 

 chambers, besides baths and shops, and besides 

 accommodation for thousands of cattle within its 

 walls. It is said to have been erected by one of 

 those wealthy Eastern merchants, who delighted 

 in perpetuating their names by acts of public 

 utility. While it was building, and a large quan- 

 tity of straw and clay were mixing up for that 

 purpose on the road near it, a cafilah, consisting of 

 a hundred camels, loaded with saffron, chanced to 

 pass; and one of them, slipping into the clay, fell, 

 and was disabled. Their owner inveighed bitterly 

 against those who by so carelessly doing their 

 work on the public road, had occasioned such a 

 serious loss to him. The merchant, who was 

 himself superintending the progress of the build- 

 ing, on hearing these complaints, inquired what 

 might be the value not only of the camel, which 

 had been disabled, but of all the rest ; and pur- 

 chasing the whole on the spot, ordered the saffron 

 to be tumbled into the clay, and worked up with 

 it, instead of chopped straw. It was from this 

 that the caravanserai obtained the name of Zaf- 

 ferounee, or Saffron. 



This rich merchant, however, fell afterwards 

 into difficulties, as might have been expected, 

 from his extravagance, and at last became a 

 beggar. Travelling in search of subsistence, into 

 foreign countries, he happened to visit the place 

 where the camel-driver, now grown immensely 



