After these words, the magician drew a ring off his finger, and put it upon one of Aladdin’s telling him that it was a preservative against all evil, while he observed what he had prescribed to him. After this instruction, he said, “Go down boldly, child, and we shall both be rich all our lives.”
Aladdin jumped into the cave, went down the steps, and found the three halls just as the African magician had described them. He went through them with all the precaution the fear of death could inspire, if he failed to observe all that he was told very carefully; crossed the garden without stopping, took down the lamp from the niche, threw out the wick and the liquor, and, as the magician told him, put it in his bosom. But as he came down from the terrace, seeing it was perfectly dry, he stopped in the garden, to observe the fruit, which he only had a glimpse of in crossing it. All the trees were loaded with extraordinary fruit, of different colours on each tree: some bore fruit entirely white, and some clear and transparent as crystal; some pale red, and others deeper; some green, blue, and purple, and others yellow; in short, there was fruit of all colours. The white were pearls; the clear and transparent, diamonds; the deep red, rubies; the paler, ballas rubies; the green, emeralds; the blue, turquoises; the purple, amethysts; and those that were of yellow cast, sapphires; and so of the rest. All these fruits were so large and beautiful, that nothing was ever seen like them. Aladdin was altogether ignorant of their value; and would have preferred figs and grapes, or any other fruits, before them; and though he took them only for coloured glass of little value, yet he was so pleased with the variety of the colours, and the beauty and extraordinary size of the fruit, that he had a mind to gather some of every sort; and accordingly filled his two pockets, and the two new purses his uncle had bought for him with the clothes which he gave him; and as he could not put them in his pockets, he fastened them to his girdle. Some he wrapped up in the skirts of his gown, which was of silk, large and wrapping, and crammed his breast as full as it could hold.
Aladdin, having thus loaded himself with riches he knew not the value of, returned through the three halls with the same precaution, and made all the haste he could, that he might not make his uncle wait, and soon arrived at the mouth of the cave, where the African magician awaited him with the utmost impatience. As soon as Aladdin saw him, he cried out, “Pray, uncle, lend me your hand to help me out.” “Give me the lamp first,” replied the magician; “it will be troublesome to you.” “Indeed, uncle,” answered Aladdin, “I cannot now; it is not troublesome to me; but I will as soon as I am up.” The African magician was so obstinate, that he would have the lamp before he would help him up; and Aladdin, who had encumbered himself so much with his fruit, that he could not well get at it, refused to give him it till he was out of the cave. The African magician, provoked at this obstinate refusal of the lad, flew into a terrible passion, and threw a little of his incense into the fire, which he had taken care to keep in, and no sooner pronounced two magical words, but the stone which had closed the mouth of the cave moved into its place, with the earth over it, in the same manner as it lay at the arrival of the magician and Aladdin.