Note Page 198 — VATHEK: AN ARABIAN TALE BY WILLIAM BECKFORD (continued 2)
Reading edition
Not long after this proclamation, arrived in his metropolis a man so abominably hideous, that the very guards who arrested him were forced to shut their eyes as they led him along: the caliph himself appeared startled at so horrible a visage; but joy succeeded to this emotion of terror, when the stranger displayed to his view such rarities as he had never before seen,* and of which he had no conception.