Note Page 256 — VATHEK: AN ARABIAN TALE BY WILLIAM BECKFORD (continued 2)

In this manner they conversed the whole day, and at night they bathed together in a basin of black marble, which admirably set off the fairness of Nouronihar. Bababalouk, whose good graces this beauty had regained, spared no attention, that their repasts might be served up with the minutest exactness: some exquisite rarity was ever placed before them; and he sent even to Schiraz, for that fragrant and delicious wine which had been hoarded up in bottles, prior to the birth of Mahomet.* He had excavated little ovens in the rock,* to bake the nice manchets which were prepared by the hands of Nouronihar, from whence they had derived a flavour so grateful to Vathek, that he regarded the ragouts of his other wives as entirely mawkish: whilst they would have died of chagrin at the emir’s, at finding themselves so neglected, if Fakreddin, notwithstanding his resentment, had not taken pity upon them.