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As the caravan was passing through Jerusalem, Ali Cogia took the opportunity to visit the temple, which is considered by all Mussulmans as the most sacred after that of Mecca, and from which the place itself has obtained the title of the Holy City. Ali Cogia found the city of Damascus so delicious a spot, from the abundance of its streams, its meadows, and enchanting gardens, that everything he had read of its delights, in different accounts of the place, appeared to be far below the truth, and he was tempted to prolong his stay. As, however, he did not forget that he had to return to Bagdad, he at length took his departure and went to Aleppo, where he also passed some time, and from thence, after having crossed the Euphrates, he took the road to Moussoul, intending to shorten his journey by going down the Tigris.

But when Ali Cogia had reached Moussoul, the Persian merchants with whom he had travelled from Aleppo, and had formed an intimacy, gained so great an ascendancy over his mind by their obliging manners and agreeable conversation, that they had no difficulty in persuading him to accompany them to Shiraz, from whence it would be easy for him to return to Bagdad, and with considerable profit. They took him through the cities of Sultania, Rei, Coam, Kaschan, Ispahan, and then to Shiraz, where he was induced to go with them to India, and then return again to Shiraz.

In this way, reckoning also the time Ali Cogia resided in each city, it was now nearly seven years since he had quitted Bagdad, and he determined to return. Till this period the friend to whom he had intrusted the jar of olives before he left that city had never thought more of him or his jar. At the very time that Ali Cogia was on his return with a caravan from Shiraz, one evening as his friend the merchant was at supper with his family, the conversation by accident turned upon olives, and his wife expressed a desire of eating some, adding that it was a long time since any had been produced in her house.

“Now you speak of olives,” said the merchant, “you remind me that Ali Cogia, when he went to Mecca seven years since, left me a jar of them, which he himself placed in my warehouse, that he might find them there on his return. But I know not what is become of Ali Cogia. Some one, it is true, on the return of the caravan, told me that he was gone into Egypt. He must have died there, as he has never returned in the course of so many years; we may surely eat the olives if they are still good. Give me a dish and a light, and I will go and get some, that we may taste them.”

“In the name of God,” replied the wife, “do not, my dear husband, commit so disgraceful an action; you well know that nothing is so sacred as a trust of this kind. You say that it is seven years since Ali Cogia went to Mecca, and he has never returned; but you were informed he was gone into Egypt, and how can you ascertain that he has not gone still farther? It is enough that you have received no intelligence of his death; he may return to-morrow or the day after to-morrow. Consider how infamous it would be for you, as well as your family, if he were to return, and you could not restore the jar into his hands in the same state as when he intrusted it to your care. For my part, I declare that I neither wish for any of these olives, nor will eat any of them. What I said was merely by way of conversation. Besides, do you suppose that, after so long a time, the olives can be good? They must be spoiled. And if Ali Cogia returns, as I have a foreboding that he will, and he perceives that you have opened the jar, what opinion will he form of your friendship and integrity? I conjure you to abandon your design.”