 Section 13 of the Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, Volume 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by phone. The Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, Volume 10 by Anonymous. Translated by Richard Francis Burton. Conclusion Now, during this time, Charizat had borne the king three boy children. So, when she had made an end of the story of Mara Roof, she rose to her feet and kissing ground before him, said, Oh, king of the time and unique one of the age and the tide, I and thine handmaid, And these Thousand Nights and the Night, have I entertained thee with stories of folk gone before, And that monetary instances of the men of yore. May I then make bold to crave a boon of thy highness? He replied, Ask, oh Charizat, and it shall be granted to thee. Whereupon she cried out to the nurses and the eunuchs, saying, Bring me my children. So they brought them to her in haste, and they were three boy children, one walking, one crawling, and one sucking. She took them and setting them before the king, again kissed the ground and said, Oh, king of the age, these are thy children, and I crave that thou release me from the doom of death as a dole to these infants. For, and thou kill me, they will become motherless and will find none among women to rear them as they should be reared. When the king heard this, he wept and straining the boys to his bosom, said, By Allah, oh Charizat, I pardon thee before the coming of these children, for that I found thee chaste, pure, ingenious, and pious. Allah bless thee and thy father and thy mother and thy root and thy branch. I take thee almighty to witness against me that I exempt thee from ought that can harm thee. So she kissed his hands and feet and rejoiced with exceeding joy, saying, The Lord make thy life long and increase thee in dignity and majesty. Presently adding, Thou marvelest at that which befell thee on the part of women, yet there be tided the kings of the cause rows before thee greater mishaps and more grievous than that which hath befallen thee. And indeed I have set forth unto thee that which happened to caliphs and kings and others with their women, but the relation is longsome and harkening growth tedious. And in this is all sufficient warning for the man of wits and admonishment for the wise. Then she ceased to speak, and when King Chariar heard her speech and profited by that which she sent, he summoned up his reasoning powers and cleansed his heart and caused his understanding revert and turned to Allah Almighty and said to himself, Since there be fell the kings of the cause rows more than that which hath befallen me, never whilst thou live shall I cease to blame myself for the past. As for this Charizard, her like is not found in the lands, so praise be to him who appointed her a means for delivering his creatures from oppression and slaughter. Then he arose from his seance and kissed her head, whereas she rejoiced, she and her sister Dunyazad, with exceeding joy. When the morning morrowed, the king went forth and sitting down on the throne of the kingship, summoned the lords of his land, whereupon the chamberlains and nabops and captains of the host went into him and kissed ground before him. He distinguished the vizier Charizard's sire with special favour and bestowed on him a costly and splendid robe of honour and entreated him with the utmost kindness and said to him, Allah protect thee for that thou gavest me to wife thy noble daughter, who hath been the means of my repentance from slaying the daughters of folk. Indeed I have found her pure and pious, chaste and ingenious, and Allah hath vouchsafed me by her three-boy children, wherefore praise be he for his passing favour. Then he bestowed robes of honour upon his viziers and emirs and chief officers, and he set forth to them briefly that which had betided him with Charizard and how he had turned from his former ways and repented him of what he had done and purposed to take the vizier's daughter, Charizard, to wife and let draw up the marriage contract with her. When those who were present heard this, they kissed the ground before him and blessed him and his betrothed Charizard and the vizier thanked her. Then Charizard made an end of his sitting in all wheel, whereupon the folk dispersed to their dwelling-places, and the news was brooted abroad that the king purposed to marry the vizier's daughter, Charizard. Then he proceeded to make ready the wedding-gear, and presently he sent after his brother, King Shah Zaman, who came, and King Sharia went forth to meet him with the troops. Furthermore, they decorated the city after the goodliest fashion and diffused scents from censors and burnt aloe's wood and other perfumes in older markets and thoroughfares and rubbed themselves with saffron, what while the drums beat and the flutes and pipes sounded and mimes and mounty-bangs played and played their arts, and the king lavished on them gifts and largesse, and in very deed it was a notable day. When they came to the palace, King Sharia commanded to spread the tables with beasts, roasted whole, and sweet-meats, and all manner of veons, and they, the crier, cried to the folk that they should come up to the divan and eat and drink, and that this should be a means of reconciliation between him and Dan. So high and low, great and small, came up unto him, and they abode on that wise, eating and drinking, seven days with their knights. Then the king shut himself up with his brother, and related to him that which had betided him with the wazir's daughter, Shah Rizant, during the past three years, and told him what he had heard from her of proverbs and parables, chronicles and pleasantries, quips and jests, stories and anecdotes, dialogues and histories and elegies, and other verses, where at King Shazaman marveled with the uttermost marvel, and said, Faine would I take her younger sister to wife, so we may be two brothers German to two sisters German, and they, unlike wise, be sisters to us, for that the calamity which befell me was the cause of our discovering that which befell thee, and all this time of three years past, I have taken no delight in women, save that I lie each night with the damsel of my kingdom, and every morning I do her to death, but now I desire to marry thy wife's sister Dunyazant. When King Shah Riyar heard his brother's words, he rejoiced with joy exceeding, and a rising forthright went into his wife Shah Rizant, and acquainted her with that which his brother purposed, namely that he sought her sister Dunyazant in wedlock, whereupon she answered, O king of the age, we seek of him one condition to wit that he take up his abode with us, for that I cannot brook to be parted from my sister an hour, because we were brought up together, and may not endure separation from each other. If he accept this pact, she is his handmaid. King Shah Riyar returned to his brother, and acquainted him with that which Shah Rizat had sent, and he replied, Indeed, this is what was in my mind, for that I desire never more to be parted from thee one hour. As for the kingdom, Allah the Most High shall send to it whom so he chooses, for that I have no longer a desire for the kingship. When King Shah Riyar heard his brother's words, he rejoiced exceedingly, and said, Fairly, this is what I wished, O my brother. So Alhamdulillah, praise be Allah, who had brought about union between us. Then he sent after the Qaziz and Ulema, captains and notables, and they married the two brothers to the two sisters. The contracts were written out, and the two kings bestowed robes of honour of silk and satin on those who were present, whilst the city was decorated, and the rejoicings were renewed. The king commanded each emir and wazir and chamberlain and nabab to decorate his palace, and the folk of the city were gladdened by the pre-sage of happiness and contentment. King Shah Riyar also bade slaughter sheep and set up kitchens and made bride-feasts, and fed all comers high and low, and he gave alms to the poor and needy, and extended his bounty to great and small. Then the eunuchs went forth, that they might perfume the Hamam for the brides, so they scented it with rose-water and willow-flower water, and pods of musk and fumigated it with cakili eaglewood and ambergris. Then Charazad entered, she and her sister Dunyazad, and they cleansed their heads and clipped their hair. When they came forth of the Hamam bath, they dawned raiment and ornaments, such as men were wanted to prepare for the kings of the cause roads, and among Charazad's apparel was a dress purpled with red gold and wrought with counterfeit presentiments of birds and beasts, and to two sisters encircled their necks with necklaces of jewels of price, in the lake whereof Iskander rejoiced not, for therein were great jewels such as amazed the wit and dazzled the eye, and the imagination was bewildered at their charms, for indeed each of them was brighter than the sun and the moon. Before them they lighted brilliant flambos of wax and candelabra of gold, but their faces outshone the flambo, for that they had eyes sharper than unsheathed swords, and the lashes of their eyelids bewitched all hearts. Their cheeks were rosy red, and their necks and shapes gracefully suede, and their eyes wantoned like the gazelles, and the slave girls came to meet them with instruments of music. Then the two kings entered the Hamam Bath, and when they came forth they sat down on a couch set with curls and gems, whereupon the two sisters came up to them and stood between their hands, as they were moons bending and leaning from side to side in their beauty and loveliness. Presently they brought forward Charazad and displayed her for the first dress in a red suit, whereupon King Charayar rose to look upon her, and the wits of all present men and women were bewitched for that she was even assess with one of her describers. A sun unwound in knoll of sand she showed, clanned in her cramoisie huge chemizette, of her lips honeydew she gave me drink, and with her rosy cheek quenched fire she sent. Then they attired Dunyazad in a dress of blue brocade, and she became, as she were, the full moon when it shined at forth. So they displayed her in this for the first dress, before King Shazamam, who rejoiced in her and well nice wound away for lovelonging and amorous desire. Yea, he was distraught with passion for her, when as he saw her because she was assess of one of her describers in these couplets. She comes apperelled in an azure vest, ultramarine as skies are decked and guide. I viewed the unparalleled sight which showed my eyes a summer moon upon a winter night. Then they returned to Charazad and displayed her in the second dress, a suit of surpassing goodness, and veiled her face with her hair like a chin veil. Moreover, they let down her side blocks, and she was even assess of her one of her describers in these couplets. O hail to him who's locks his cheeks or shade, who slew my life by cruel heart despite. Said I, has failed the morn in night? he said. Nay, I but feel moon in hue of night. Then they displayed Dujñazad in a second and a third and a fourth dress, and she paced forward like the rising sun, and swayed to and fro in the insolence of beauty, and she was even assess the poet of her in these couplets. The sun of beauty she to all appears, and lovely coy she mocks all loveliness, and when he fronts her favor and her smile, amorn the sun of day in clouds must dress. Then they displayed Charazad in the third dress, and the fourth, and the fifth, and she became as she were a band branch snail, or a thirsting gazelle, lovely of face, and perfect in attributes of grace, even as set of her one in these couplets. She comes, like fullest moon, on happy night, taper of waste but shape of magic might. She has an eye whose glances quell mankind, and ruby on her cheeks reflect his light, and veils her hips the blackness of her hair, beware of curls that bite with vibe or bite. Her sides are silken soft, that while the heart mere rock behind that surface escapes our sight. From the fringed curtains of her eye she shoots, shafts that at furthest range on mark a light. Then they returned to Duñezad and displayed her in the fifth dress, and in the sixth, which was green, when she surpassed with her loveliness the fare of the four quarters of the world, and outvied with the brightness of her countenance the full moon at rising time, for she was even as set of her the poet in these couplets. A damsel twas the Tyre's art had decked with snare and slate, and robed with rays as though the sun from her had borrowed light. She came before us wondrous clad in shemezette of green, as veiled by his leafy screen pomegranate heights from sight. And when he said, how call us thou the fashion of thy dress? She answered us in pleasant way with double meaning guide. We call this garment crev-cur, and rightly it is height, for many a heart with this rubric, and herried many a sprite. Then they displayed Charizard in the sixth and seventh dresses, and clad her in youth's clothing, whereupon she came forward swaying from side to side, and coquettishly moving, and indeed she ravished wits and hearts, and ensorcelled all eyes with her glances. She shook her sides and swayed her haunches, then put her hair on sword-hilt, and went up to King Chariar, who embraced her as hospitable host embraces the guest, and threatened her in her ear with the taking of the sword, and she was even as said of her the poet in these words, were not the murk of gender male, then feminine, surpassing fair, Tyre women they had grudge to grind, who made her beard and whiskers wear. Thus also they did with her sister Dunyazad, and when they had made an end of the display, the king bestowed robes of honor, while all who were present, and sent to brides to their own apartments. Then Charizard went in to King Chariar, and Dunyazad to King Shazaman, and each of them solaced himself with the company of his beloved consort, and the hearts of the folk were comforted. When morning morrowed, the wazir came in to the two kings, and kissed ground before them, wherefore they thanked him, and were large of bounty to him. Presently they went forth, and sat down upon the couches of kingship, whilst all the wazirs and emirs, and grandees, and lords of the land, presented themselves, and kissed ground. King Chariar ordered them dresses of honor, and largesse, and they prayed for the permanence and prosperity of the king and his brother. Then the two sovereigns appointed their sire-in-law, the wazir, to be viceroy in Samarkand, and assigned him five of the chief emirs to accompany him, charging them, attend him, and do him service. The minister kissed the ground, and prayed that he might be vouchsafed length of life. Then he went into his daughters, whilst the eunuchs and ushers walked before him, and saluted them, and farewelled them. They kissed his hands, and gave him joy of the kingship, and bestowed on him immense treasures, after which he took leave of them, and setting out, fared days and nights, till he came near Samarkand, where the townspeople met him at a distance of three marches, and rejoiced in him with exceeding joy. So he entered the city, and they decorated the houses, and it was a notable day. He sat down on the throne of his kingship, and wazirs to them homage, and the grandees and emirs of Samarkand, and all prayed that he might be vouchsafed justice, and victory, and length of continuance. So he bestowed on them robes of honour, and entreated them with distinction, and they made him sultan over them. As soon as his father-in-law had departed for Samarkand, King Shariar summoned the grandees of his realm, and made them a stupendous banquet of all manner of delicious meats and exquisite sweet meats. He also bestowed on them robes of honour, and girdened them, and divided the kingdoms between himself and his brother in their presence, where at the folk rejoiced. Then the two kings abode, each ruling a day in turn, and they were ever in harmony, each with other, while on similar wise their wives continued in the love of Allah Almighty, and in thanksgiving to him. And the peoples and the provinces were at peace, and the preachers prayed for them from the pulpits, and their report was brooted abroad, and the travellers bore tidings of them to all lands. In due time King Shariar summoned chroniclers and copyists, and bat him right all that had betided him with his wife, first and last. So they wrote this, and named it, The Stories of the Thousand Nights and the Night. The book came to thirty volumes, and these the king laid up in his treasury, and the two brothers abode with their wives and all pleasant in solace of life, and it's the lights, for that indeed Allah the Most High had changed their annoy into joy, and on this wise they continued till there took them the destroyer of the lights, and the severer of societies, the desolator of dwelling places, and the garnerer of graveyards, and they were translated to the Ruth of Almighty Allah. Their houses fell waste, and their palaces lay in ruins, and the kings inherited their riches. Then there reigned after them a wise ruler, who was just, keen-witted, and accomplished, and loved tales and legends, especially those which chronicle the doings of sovereigns and sultans, and he found, in the treasury, these marvellous stories and wondrous histories, contained in the thirty volumes aforesaid. So he read in them a first book, and the second, and a third, and so on to the last of them, and each book astounded and delighted him more than that which proceeded it, till he came to the end of them. Then he admired what so he had read therein of description and discourse, and rare traits and anecdotes, and moral instances, and reminiscences, and bade the folk copy them, and disparate them over all lands and clines, wherefore their report was brooted abroad, and the people named them, the marvels and wonders of the Thousand Nights and the Night. This is all that has come down to us of the origin of this book, and Allah is all-knowing, so glory be to him whom the shifts of time waste not a way, nor dot odd of chance or change effect his way, whom one case diverted not from other case, and who is soul in the attributes of perfect grace, and prayer and peace be upon the Lord's pontiff and chosen one among his creatures, our Lord Muhammad, the Prince of Mankind, through whom we supplicate him for a goodly and a godly phoenix. Section 14 of the book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, volume 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Safa Ghanem, Berlin, Germany. The Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, volume 10, by Anonymous, translated by Richard Francis Burton. Terminal essay, preliminary. The reader who has reached this terminal stage will hardly require my assurance that he has seen the medieval Arab at his best, and perhaps at his worst. In glancing over the myriad pictures of this panorama, those who can discern the soul of goodness and things evil will note the true nobility of the Muslim's mind in the Moyan Aj, and the cleanliness of his life from cradle to grave. As a child, he is devoted to his parents, fond of his comrades, and respectful to his pastors and masters, even school masters. As a lad, he prepares for manhood with a will and this training occupies him throughout youth tide. He is a gentleman in manners without awkwardness, vulgar, astonishment, or mauvaise ent. As a man, he is high-spirited and energetic, always ready to fight for his sultan, his country, and especially his faith, crudious and affable, rarely failing in temperaments of mind and self-respect, self-control and self-command, hospitable to the stranger, attached to his fellow-citizens, submissive to superiors, and kindly to inferiors. If such classes exist, eastern despotisms have arrived near the idea of equality and fraternity than any republic yet invented. As a friend, he proves a model to the daemons and pythiases as a lover and exemplar to donkey hote without the noble old caballero's touch of eccentricity. As a knight, he is a mirror of chivalry, doing battle for the weak and debelling the strong, while ever defending the honour of women. As a husband, his patriarchal position causes him to be loved and fondly loved by more than one wife. As a father, affection for his children rules his life. He is domestic in the highest degree, and he finds few pleasures beyond the bosom of his family. Lastly, his death is simple, pathetic and edifying as the life which led to it. Considered in a higher phase, the medieval Muslim mind displays, like the ancient Egyptian, a most exalted moral idea, the deepest reverence for all things connected with his religion, and a sublime conception of the unity and omnipotence of the deity. Noteworthy, too, is a proud resignation to the decrees of fate and fortune, kaza wa qadar, of destiny and predestination, a feature which ennobles a low aspect of al-Islam even in these, her days of comparative degeneration and local decay. Hence, his moderation and prosperity, his fortitude and adversity, his dignity, his perfect self-dominance, and lastly, his lofty quietism, which sounds the true heroic ring. This, again, is softened and tempered by a simple faith in the supremacy of love over fear, an unbounded humanity and charity for the poor and helpless, an unconditional forgiveness of the direst injuries, which is the note of the noble, a generosity and liberality which at times seem impossible, and an enthusiasm for universal benevolence and beneficence, which, exalting, kindly deeds done to man above every form of holiness, constitute the root and base of Oriental, nay, of all courtesy, and the wholeness crowned by pure trust and natural confidence in the progress and perfectability of human nature, which he exalts instead of degrading. This he holds to be the foundation stone of society and indeed the very purpose of his existence. His pessimism resembles far more the optimism which the so-called books of Moses borrowed from the ancient Copt, than the mournful and melancholy creed of the true pessimist as Solomon the Hebrew, the Indian Buddhist, and the esoteric European imitators of Buddhism. He cannot but sigh when contemplating the sin and sorrow, the pathos and bathos of the world, and feel the pity of it, with its shifts and changes ending in nothingness, its scanty happiness, and its copious misery, but his melancholy is expressed in a voice divinely sweet, a voice no less divinely sad. Nor does he mourn as they mourn who have no hope, he has an absolute conviction in future compensation, and meanwhile his lively poetic impulse, the poetry of ideas, not a formal verse, and his radiant innate idealism, breathe the soul into the merest matter of squalid workaday life, and awaken the sweetest harmonies of nature, epitomized in humanity. Such was the Muslim at a time, when the dark clouds of ignorance and superstition hung so thick on the intellectual horizon of Europe, as to exclude every ray of learning that darted from the east, when all that was polite or elegant in literature was classed among the studia Arabum. Nor is the shady side of the picture less notable. Our Arab, at his worst, is a mere barbarian who has not forgotten the savage. He is a model mixture of childishness and astuteness, of simplicity and cunning, concealing levity of mind under solemnity of aspect. His stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler. His mental torpedoity founded upon physical indolence renders immediate action in all manner of exertion distasteful. His conscious weakness shows itself in the overweening arrogance and intolerance. His crass and self-satisfied ignorance makes him glorify the most ignoble superstitions, while acts of revolting savagery are the natural results of a malignant fanaticism and a furious hatred of every creed beyond the pale of el-Islam. It must be confessed that these contrasts make a curious and interesting tout ensemble. Section 15 of the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Saffiganame, Berlin, Germany. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10, by Anonymous, translated by Richard Francis Burton. 1. The Origin of the Nights. A. The Birthplace. Here occur the questions. Where and when was written? And to whom do we owe a prose poem, which, like the dramatic epos of Herodotus, has no equal? I proceed to lay before the reader a procé verbal of the sundry pleadings already in court, as concisely as is compatible with intelligibility, furnishing him with references to original authorities, and warning him that a fully detailed account would fill a volume. Even my own reasons for decidedly taking one side and rejecting the other must be stated briefly. And before entering upon the subject, I would distribute the prose matter of our racoi of folklore under three heads. 1. The Apolog or Beastfable Proper. A theme which may be of any age, as it is found in the hieroglyphics and in the cuneiforms. 2. The Fairy Tale. As for brevity, we may term the stories based upon supernatural agency. This was a favorite with Olden Persia and Muhammad, most a steer and puritanical of the prophets, strongly objected to it because, preferred by the more sensible of his converts to the dry legends of the Talmud and the Qur'an, white as fabulous without the halo and glamour of fancy. 3. The Histories and Historical Anecdotes, Analex and Acroamata, in which the names, when not used acronistically by the editor or copier, give unerring data for the earliest data quo and which, by the mode of treatment, suggests the latest. Each of these constituents will require further notice when the subject matter of the book is discussed. The metrical portion of the knights may also be divided into three categories, viz. 1. The oldest and classical poetry of the Arabs. Example, the various quotations from the suspended poems. 2. The medieval beginning with the laureates of El Rashid's court, such as El Esma'i, Abu Noah's, and ending with El Hariri AH, 446 to 516, equals 1030 to 1100. 3. The modern quotations and the pièce de circonstance by the editors or copyists of the compilation. Upon the metrical portion, also further notices must be offered at the end of this essay. In considering the uncle derivateur of the knights, we must carefully separate subject matter from language matter. The neglect of such essential difference has caused the remark, it is not a little curious that the origin of a work which has been known to Europe and has been studied by many during nearly two centuries should still be so mysterious and that students have failed in all attempts to detect the secret. Hence, also the chief authorities at once branched off into two directions. One held the work to be practically Persian, the other as persistently declared it to be purely Arab. Professor Galland, in his epistol dedicatory to the Marquis d'eau, daughter of his patron, Monsieur de Goyarage, show his literary acumen and unfailing sagacity by deriving the knights from India via Persia and held that they had been reduced to their present shape by an auteur Arab in canoe. This reference to India also learnedly advocated by Monsieur Langlais was inevitable in those days. It had not then been proved that India owed all her literature to far older civilizations and even that her alphabet the Nagari erroneously called Devanagari was derived through Phoenicia and Himyar land from ancient Egypt. So Europe was contented to compare the knights with the fables of Pilpe for upwards of a century. At last, a Pellavi or old Iranian origin of the work was found an able and strenuous advocate in Baron von Hammer Perkstahl who worthily continued what Galland had begun. Although a most inexact writer, he was extensively read in Oriental history and poetry. His contention was that the book is an Arabization of the Persian Hazar Afsana or Thousand Tales and he proved his point. Von Hammer began by summoning into court the Herodotus of the Arabs, Ali Abu Al-Hassan, El-Masudi who in A.H. 333 equals 944. About one generation before the founding of Cairo, published at Basra, the first edition of his far-famed Maruj al-Dahab wa Madin el-Johar, Meads of Gold and Mines of Gems. The Syrian Orientalist quotes with sundry misprints an Ampler version of a passage in chapter 68 which is abbreviated in the French translation of M.C. Barbier de Manard. And indeed, many men well acquainted with their Arab histories opined that the stories above mentioned with other trifles were strung together by men who commended themselves to the kings by relating them and who found favor with their contemporaries by committing them to memory and by reciting them. Of such fashion is the fashion of the books which have come down to us translated from the Persian, Farasya, the Indian, Hindia, and the Greco-Roman, Rumiya. We have noted the judgment which should be passed upon compositions of this nature, such as the book entitled Hazar Afsane or The Thousand Tales, which word in Arabic signifies Khurafa, Faciti. It is known to the public under the name of The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night. This is in history of a king and his Wazir, the minister's daughter and a slave girl, Jaria, who are named Shirhzad Lionborn and Dinarzad Duketborn. Such also is the tale of Farzah, Ali Firzah, and Simas, containing details concerning the kings and Wazirs of Hind. The book of Sindabad and others of a similar stamp. Von Hammer adds, quoting chapters 68 of Al-Masudi and Al-Mansur, 2nd Abbasid, A.H. 136-158 equals 754-775 and grandfather of Al-Rashid caused many translations of Greek and Latin, Syriac and Persian, Pahlavi, works to be made into Arabic, specifying the Kalila wa Damna, the fables of Bidpai, Pilpeh, the logic of Aristotle, the geography of Ptolemy, and the elements of Euclid. Hence, he concludes, Also, he notes that, about a century after Al-Masudi had mentioned the Hazar Afsanay, it was versified and probably remodeled by one Rasti, the Takkulus, or nom de plume of a bard, at the core of Mahmud, the Raznavit Sultan, who, after a reign of 33 years, died AD-1030. Von Hammer, some 12 years afterwards, Jeun Asier Auguste, 1839, brought forward in his notes l'origine prosanne de mille et une huit, a second, and an even more important witness. This was the famous Kitab al-Firist, or index list of Arabic works written in A.H. 387 equals 987, by Muhammad bin Ishaq, al-Nadim, cup companion, or aquary, popularly known as Abu Yaqub al-Warak. The following is an extract, page 304, from the eighth discourse, which consists of three arts, founum. The first section, on the history of the confabulateurs nocturni, tellers of night tales, and the relators of fanciful adventures, together with the names of books treating upon such subjects. Muhammad ibn Ishaq Saith, the first who indicted themes of imagination and made books of them, consigning these works to the libraries, and who ordered some of them as though related by the tongues of brute beasts were the paleopersians, and the kings of the first dynasty. The Ashkanian kings of the third dynasty appended others to them, and they were augmented and amplified in the days of the sassanids, the fourth and last royal house. The Arabs also translated them into Arabic, and the locant and eloquent polished and embellished them, and wrote others resembling them. The first work of such kind was entitled The Book of Hazar Afsan, signifying Elf Khurafah, the argument whereof was a follows. A king of their kings was want, when he wedded a woman and had lain one night with her to slay her on the next morning. Presently he exposed a damsel of the daughters of the kings, Shah Razad. Height one endowed with intellect and erudition, and when as she lay with him, she fell to telling him tales of fancy. Moreover, she used to connect the story at the end of the night with that which might induce the king to preserve her alive, and to ask her of its ending on the next night until a thousand nights had passed over her. Meanwhile, he cohabitated with her till she blessed by Boon of child of him. When she acquainted him with the device she had brought upon him, wherefore he admired her intelligence and inclined to her and preserved her life. That king had also a Karamana, nurse and duena, not entrematus. Height a dinarazad who aided the wife in his artifice. It is also said that this book was composed for or by Humay, daughter of Bahman, and in it were included other matters. Muhammad bin Ishaq adds, And the truth is, insha'Allah, the first who soullessed himself with hearing night tales was Al-Iskander, he of Macedon, and he had a number of men who used to relate to him imagery, stories, and provoke him to laughter. He, however, designed not therein merely to please himself, but that he might thereby become the more cautious and alert. After him and the kings, in like fashion, made use of the book entitled Hazar Afsan, it containeth a thousand nights, but less than 200 night stories. For a single history, often occupied several nights. I have seen it complete sundry times, and it is, in truth, a corrupted book of cold tales. A writer in the Athenium, objecting to Lane's modern date for the nights, adduces evidence to prove the greater antiquity of the work. Abu El-Hassan, Ibn Said, bin Musa El-Rannati of Granada, born in AH 615 equals 1218, and died in Tunis, AH 685 equals 1286, left his native city and arrived at Cairo in AH 639 equals 1241. This Spanish poet and historian wrote El-Muhalla Bi El-Ashar, the adorned with verses, a topography of Egypt and Africa, which is apparently now lost. In this, he quotes from El-Kurtubi, the Kordovan, and he, in turn, is quoted by the Arab historian of Spain, Abu El-Abas, Ahmed bin Muhammad El-Makari, in the Wind Wafs of Perfume from the branches of Andalusia the Blooming, AD 1628 to 29. Mr. Payne, 10301, thus translates from Dr. Dosey's published text. Ibn Said, may God have mercy upon him, sets forth in his book El-Muhalla Bi-Ashar. Quoting from El-Kurtubi, the story of the building of the Hudej in the Garden of Cairo, the witch was the magnificent pleasurances of the Fatimid Khalif, the rare of ordnance and surpassing, to wit that the Khalif el-Amyr bi Akam ila, let build it for the Bedouin woman, the love of whom had gotten the mastery of him in the neighborhood of the chosen garden, and used to resort often there too, and was slain as he went thither, it ceased not to be a pleasuring place for the Khalif's after him. The folk abound in stories of the Bedouin girl and Ibn Maya, of the sons and her uncle, cousin, and wit hangs thereby of the mansion of El-Amyr, so that the tales told of them on this account became likened to the story of El-Batal, and the Thousand Nights in a Night, and what resembled them. The same passage from Ibn Said, corresponding in three MSS, occurs in the famous Khetat, attributed to El-Makrizi, died AD 1444, and was thus translated from an MS in the British Museum by Mr. John Payne, 9303. The Khalif el-Amyr bi Akam ila, set apart in the neighborhood of the chosen garden, a place for his beloved, the Bedouin maid, Aliyeh, which he named El-Hudij, Quoth Ibn Said in the book El-Muhallabil Ashhaar, in the history of El-Gurdubi, concerning the traditions of the folk story of the Bedouin maid and Ibn Manna, Maya, of the sons of her uncle, and what hangs thereby of the mansion of the Khalif el-Amyr bi Akam ila, so that their traditions or tales upon the garden became like unto El-Batal and the Thousand Nights and what resembled them. This evidently means either that the nights existed in the days of El-Amyr, 12th century, or that the author compared them with a work popular in his own age. Mr. Payne attaches much importance to the discrepancy of titles, which appears to me a minor detail. The change of names is easily explained. Amongst the Arabs, as amongst the wild Irish, there is divinity, the proverb says luck, in odd numbers, and consequently the others are inauspicious. Hence, as Sir William Owsley says, travels to 21, the number Thousand Nights is a favorite in the east. Olivier, voyage, 6, 385, Paris, 1807, and quotes the cistern of the Thousand Nights columns at Constantinople. Kempfer, Amen, Exot, page 38, notes of the Takias, or Derwishes, Convents, and the Mazars, or Santans, tombs near Conia, Econium. That is to say, Mil et unum mausolia. A book, the Hazar or Yacruz, equals 1001 days, was composed in the mid 17th century by the famous Derwish Mughlis, chief Sufi of Isfahan. It was translated into French by Pétis de la Croix, with a preface by Cazote, and was Englished by Ambrose Phillips. Lastly, in India and throughout Asia, where Indian influence extends, the number of ciphers, not followed by a significant number, is indefinite. For instance, to determine hundreds, the Hindus affix the required figure to the end, and for 100, right, 101. For 1000, 1001. But the grand fact of the Hazar as Fane, is it's being the archetype of the knights, unquestionably proving that the Arab work borrows from the Persian bodily its cadre or framework, the principal characteristic. It's Exordium, and it's Denouement, whilst the two heroines still bear the old Persian names. Baron Sylvester de Sassi, Clarem et venerible nomen, is the chief authority for the Arab provenance of the knights, apparently founding his observations upon Gallend. He is of the opinion that the work, as now known, was originally composed in Syria and written in the vulgar dialect, that it was never completed by the author, whether he was prevented by death or by other cause, and that imitators endeavored to finish the work by inserting romances, which were already known but which formed no part of the original Rakhoy, such as the travels of Sinbad, the semen, the book of Seven Wazirs, and others. He accepts the Persian scheme and cadre of the work, but no more. He contends that no considerable body of pre-Muhammadin or non-Arabic fiction appears in the actual texts, and that all details, even those dealing with events localized in Persia, India, China, and other infidel lands, and dated them from anti-Islamite ages, mostly with the naivist anachronism, confined themselves to depicting the people, manners and customs of Baghdad and Mosul, Damascus and Cairo, during the Abbasid epoch. And he makes a point of the whole being impregnated with the strongest and most zealous spirit of Muhammedinism. He points out that the language is the popular or vulgar dialect, differing widely from the classical and literary, that it contains many words in common modern use, and that generally suggests the decadence of Arabian literature. Of one tale, he remarks, the history of the loves of Cameral Zaman and Bodur, princess of China, is no more Indian or Persian than the others. The princess' father has Muslims for subjects, his mother is named Fatima, and when imprisoned, he solaces himself with reading the qan'an. The jen ni, who interpose in these adventures, are, again, those who had dealings with Solomon. In fine, all that we here find of the city of the Magyans, as well as of the fire worshipers, suffices to show that one would not expect to discover in it anything save the production of a Muslim writer. All this, with due deference, to so high an authority, is very superficial. Granted, which nobody denies, that the archetypal Hazar Esfene was translated from Perzik into Arabic nearly a thousand years ago, it had ample time and verge enough to assume another and a foreign dress. The corpus, however, remaining untouched. Under the hands of a host of editors, scribes and copyists, who have no scruples and end changing words, names, and dates, abridging descriptions and attaching their own decorations, the Florid and rhetorical Persians would readily be converted into the straightforward business-like matter of fact Arabic. And what easier than to Islamize the old Zoroastrism to transform Ahreman into Iblis, the sheytan, Jean Ben-Jean into Father Adam, and Divs and Paris of Cayomars, and the Olden Gubre kings, into the Jinns and Jinnias of Suleiman. Volumes are spoken by the fact that the Arab adapter did not venture to change the Perzik names of the two heroines, and of the royal brothers, or to transfer the mise en scène, any wither from Khurzan, or Outer Persia. Where the story has not been too much worked by the literato's pen, for instance the Ten Wazeers in the Brezel edition 6191-343, which is the The names and incidents are Old Iranian, and with few exceptions, distinctly Persian. And at times we can detect the process of transition, for example when Mazin of Khurzan and the wordly Montagu MS becomes the Hassan of Basura, of the Turner Makhan MS, Mack edition. Evidently, the learned baron had not studied such works of the Tota Kahani, or parrot chat, which notably translated by Nakhshabi from the Sanskrit Suka Saptati, has now become as orthodoxically Muslim as the Knights. The Old Hindu Rajah becomes Ahmad Sultan of Bach, the Prince of Maimun, and his wife, Khujista. Another instance of such radical change is the later Syriac version of Khalilo Wadimna, Old Pilpeh, converted to Christianity. We find precisely the same process in European folklore, for instance the Ghasta Romanorum, in which, after 500 years, the life, manners, and customs of the Romans lapse into the nightly and chivalrous, the Christian and ecclesiastical developments of medieval Europe. Here, therefore, I hold that the Austrian Arabist has proved his point whilst the Frenchman has failed. Mr. Lane, during his three years as laborer of translation, first accepted von Hammer's view and then came around to that of De Sassi, differing however in minor details, especially in the native country of the Knights. Syria had been chosen because then the most familiar to Europeans. The wife of Bath had made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem, but few cared to visit the barbarous and dangerous Nile Valley. Mr. Lane, however, was an enthusiast for Egypt, or rather for Cairo. The only part of it he knew. And when he pronounces the Knights, to be of purely Arab, that is, of Nelotic origin, his opinion is entitled to no more deference than his deriving the sub-African and negroid Fela from Arabia, the land pre-exalantium of pure and noble blood. Other authors have wandered still further afield, some finding Mosul idioms in the Rikoi, proposed middle gates for its birthplace, and Mr. W. G. Pahlgrave boldly says, the origin of this entertaining work appears to have been composed in Baghdad, about the 11th century. Another, less popular, but very spirited version is probably of Tunisian authorship, and somewhat later. End of Section 15, recording by Safaganame Berlin, Germany. Section 16 of the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume 10, by Anonymous, translated by Richard Francis Burton. The origin of the Knights, be the date. The next point to consider is the date of the Knights in its present form, and here opinions range between the 10th and the 16th centuries. Professor Gallant began by placing it arbitrarily in the middle of the 13th. Desacy, who abstained from detailing reasons and who, forgetting the number of editors and scribes, through whose hands it must have passed, argued only from the nature of the language and the peculiarities of style, proposed Le Melu du Nouvième Secdélégie, equals AD 1445-6 as its latest date. Mr. Hull, who knew the Knights only through Gallant's version, had already advocated in his remarks the close of the 15th century, and Monsieur Caussat, de Perceval, upon the authority of a supposed note in Gallant's manuscript, volume 3, folio 20, Versailles, declares the compiler to have been living in AD 1548 and 1565. Mr. Lane says, not begun earlier than the last fourth of the 15th century, nor ended before the first fourth of the 16th. That is, soon after Egypt was conquered by Selim, Sultan of the Osmanli Turks, in AD 1517. Lastly, the learned Dr. Wiles says, in his too far scanty, vorvert, page 9, second edition, But, as just Lee observed by Mr. Payne, the first step when inquiring into the original date of the Knights is to determine the nucleus of the repertory by a comparison of the four printed texts and the dozen manuscripts which had been collated by scholars. This process makes it evident that the tales common to all were the following thirteen. One, the introduction with a single incidental story, the bull and the ass. Two, the trader and the genie, with three incidentals. Three, the fisherman and the genie, with four. Four, the porter and the three ladies of Baghdad, with six. Five, the tale of the three apples. Six, the tale of the Nur al-Din Ali and his son Badr al-Din Hassan. Seven, the hunchback's tale with eleven incidentals. Eight, Nur al-Din and Anis al-Jaliz. Nine, the tale of Ghanim bin Ayyub, with two incidentals. Ten, Ali bin Baqar and Shams al-Nahar, with two. Eleven, tale of Qamar al-Zaman. Twelve, the ebony horse. And thirteen, Junar the seaborn. These forty-two tales occupying one hundred and twenty knights form less than a fifth part of the whole collection which in the Macedonian edition contains a total of two hundred and sixty-four. Hence Dr. Patrick Russell, the natural historian of Aleppo, whose valuable monograph amply deserves study even in this hour day, believed that the original knights did not outnumber two hundred, to which subsequent writers added till the total of a thousand and one was made up. Dr. Jonathan Scott, who quotes Russell, quote, held it highly probable that the tales of the original Arabian knights did not run through more than two hundred and eighty knights, if so many, end quote. To this subjection I may sub-join, Aben Suafate Lebelli. Galland, who preserves in his meal et une nuit, only about one-fourth of the knights, ends them in number two hundred sixty-four, with the seventh voyage of Sindbad. After that, he intentionally omits the dialogue between the sisters and the reckoning of time to proceed uninterruptedly with the tales. And so his imitator, Petit de la Croix, in his meal et une jour, reduces the thousand to two hundred and thirty-two. The internal chronological evidence offered by the collection is useful only in enabling us to determine that the tales were not written after a certain epic. The actual dates, and consequently all deductions from them, are vitiated by the habits of the scribes. For instance, we find the tale of the fisherman and the genie, vol. 141, placed in A.H. 169 equals A.D. 785, which is hardly possible. The immortal barber in the tailor's tale, vol. 1.304, places his adventure with the unfortunate lover on safar 10, A.H. 653, equals March 25, 1255, and 7,320 years of the era of Alexander. This is supported in his tale of himself, vol. 1, pages 317 to 348, where he dates his banishment from Baghdad during the reign of the penultimate Abbasid, al-Mustansir Bila, A.H. 623 to 640, equals 1225 to 1242, and his return to Baghdad after the accession of another Caliph, who can be no other than al-Mutasim Bila, A.H. 640 to 656, equals A.D. 1242 to 1258. Again at the end of the tale, vol. 1.350, he is described as, quote, an ancient man past his 90th year, end quote, and a very old man in the days of al-Mustansir, vol. 1.318, so that the hunchback's adventure can hardly be placed earlier than A.D. 1265, or seven years after the storming of Baghdad by Hulaku Khan, successor of Genghis Khan, a terrible catastrophe which resounded throughout the civilized world. Yet there is no allusion to this crucial epoch, and the total silence suffices to invalidate the date. Could we assume it as true, by adding to A.D. 1265, half a century, for the composition of the hunchback's story and its incidentals, we should place the earliest date in A.D. 1315. As little can we learn from inferences which have been drawn from the body of the book. At most they point to its several additions or redactions. In the tale of the ensorcelled prince, vol. 1.77, Mr. Lane, vol. 1.135, conjectured that the four colors of the fishes were suggested by the sumptuary laws of the Mamalukh Sultan, Mohammed ibn Qalaun, quote, subsequently to the commencement of the eighth century of the flight, or fourteenth of our era, end quote. But he forgets that the same distinction of dress was enforced by the Caliph Omar after the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 636, that it was revived by Haroun al-Rashid, a contemporary of Carolus Magnus, and that it was noticed as a long-standing grievance by the so-called Mandeville in A.D. 1322. In the tale of the porter and the ladies of Baghdad, the Sultani oranges, vol. 183, have been connected with Sultaniya city in Persian Iraq, which was founded about the middle of the thirteenth century, but Sultani may simply mean royal, a superior growth. The same story makes mention, vol. 194, of calendars or religious mendicants, a term popularly corrupted even in writing, to Karandal. Here again, Kalandar may be due only to the scribes as the Breslau edition reads, Salauk equals Asker beggar. The Khan al-Masur in the Nazarene broker's story, vol. 1265, was a ruin during the early ninth century A.H. equals A.D. 1420, but the Bab Zuella, vol. 1269, dates from A.D. 1087. In the same tale occurs the Darb al-Munkari, or Munakari, which is probably the Darb al-Munkari of Valmakrisi's careful topography, the Kitat 240. Here we learn that in his time, about A.D. 1430, the name had become obsolete, and the highway was known as Darb al-Amir-Bakhtamir al-Ustadar from one of the two high officials who both died in the 14th century, circa A.D. 1350. And lastly, we have the Khan al-Jawali built about A.D. 1320. In Badar al-Din Hasan, vol. 1237, Sahib is given as a wazirial title, and it dates only from the end of the 14th century. In Sindbad the Seaman, there is an illusion, vol. 667, to the great Hindu kingdom, Vijayanangar of the Narasimha, the great power of the Deccan, but this may be due to editors or scribes as the despotism was founded only in the 14th century A.D. 1320. The ebony horse, vol. 5-1, apparently dates before Chaucer, and the sleeper and the waker, Breslau edition 4-134-189, may precede Shakespeare's taming of the shrew. No stress, however, can be laid upon such resemblances, the new vells being worldwide. But when we come to the last stories, especially to Kamar al-Zaman II and the tale of Ma'a Ruf, we are apparently in the 15th and 16th centuries. The first contains, vol. 977, the word Lawandaya, 11, the mention of Awaj, Sa'a in the next night, and further on, vol. 926, the Shaik al-Islam, an officer invented by Muhammad II after the capture of Stanboul in A.D. 1453. In Ma'a Ruf, the Adalia is named, the mosque founded outside the Bab al-Nasser by al-Malik al-Adil, Tuman Bay in A.H. 906, equals A.D. 1501. But I repeat, all these names may be mere interpolations. On the other hand, a study of the vi intame in al-Islam, and of the manners and customs of the people, proves that the body of the work, as it now stands, must have been written before A.D. 1400. The Arabs use wines, ciders, and barley beer, not distilled spirits. They have no coffee or tobacco, and, while familiar with smallpox, judri, they ignore syphilis. The battles in the nights were fought with bows and javelins, swords, spears, for infantry, and lances for cavalry. And, whenever firearms are mentioned, we must suspect the scribe. Such is the case with the madfa or canon, by means of which butter al-Din Hassan breaches the bulwarks of the Lady of Beauty's virginity, I. 223. This consideration would determine the work to have been written before the 14th century. We ignore the invention date and the inventor of gunpowder, as of all old discoveries which have affected mankind at large. All we know is that the popular ideas betray great ignorance, and we are led to suspect that an explosive compound, having been discovered in the earliest ages of human society, was utilized by steps so gradual that history has neglected to trace the series. According to Damien, bullets for stuffing with some incendiary composition, in fact bombs, were discovered by Dr. Keller in the Palafites or Cranogs of Switzerland, and the Hindu's Agni Astar, Fire Weapon, Agni Bhan, Fire Arrow, and Chattagni, Hundred Killer, like the Roman Fallarica and the Greek Fire of Byzantium, suggest explosives. Indeed, Dr. Opert accepts the statement of Flavius Philastratus that when Apollonius of Tiana, that grand semi-mythical figure, was traveling in India, he learned the reason why Alexander of Macedon desisted from attacking the Asa Dracy who lived between the Ganges and the High Faces. Satadru or Sutledge, quote, these holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their walls, end quote. Passing over the Arab sieges of Constantinople AD 668 and Mecca AD 690, and the disputed passage in Firishtah touching the Tufang or Musket during the reign of Mohammed the Gazenevite, Obe AD 1030, we come to the days of Alfonso the Valiant, whose long and short guns used at the Siege of Madrid in 1810-84 are preserved in the Armeria Real. Viardot has noted that the African Arabs first employed canon in AD 1200, and that the Maghrebists defended Al-Ghassiras near Gibraltar with great guns in AD 1247, and utilized them to besiege Seville in AD 1342. This last feat of arms introduced the canon into barbarous northern Europe, and it must have been known to civilized Asia for many a decade before that date. The mention of wine in the Nights, especially the Nabiz, or fermented infusion of raisins well known to the pre-Mohammedin Badawis, perpetually recurs. As a rule, except only in the case of holy personages and mostly of the caliph al-Rashid, the service of wine appears immediately after the hands are washed, and women as well as men drink, like true Orientals, for the honest purpose of getting drunk, la Rache des Lidals, as the process has been called. Yet distillation became well known in the 14th century. Amongst the Greeks and Romans it was confined to manufacturing aromatic waters, and Nicander the poet, BC 140, used for a still the term word omitted. Like the Irish pot and its produce patine. The simple art of converting saltwater into fresh by boiling the former and passing the steam through a cooled pipe into a recipient would not have escaped the students of the philosopher's stone, and thus we find throughout Europe the Arabic modification of Greek terms alchemy alembic chemistry and elixir. While alcohol, alcohol, originally meaning extreme tenuity or impelpable state of pulveral and substances, clearly shows the origin of the article. Aviciana, who died in A.H. 428, equals 1036, nearly 200 years before we read of distillation in Europe, compared the human body with an alembic, the belly being the cucurbit and the head the capital. He forgot one important difference but named Porte. Spirits of wine were first noticed in the 13th century when the Arabs head over run the western Mediterranean by Arnaldes de Villanova, who dubs the new invention a universal panacea, and his pupil Raymond Lully, born Majorca, A.D. 1236, declared this essence of wine to be a boon from the deity. Now the knights, even in the latest adjuncts, never allude to the white coffee of the respectable Muslim, the rocky raisin brandy, or mahayat aquavite of the modern Mohammedan. The drinkers can find themselves to wine like our contemporary Dalmatians, one of the healthiest and the most vigorous of seafaring races in Europe. Syphilis also, which at the end of the 15th century began to infect Europe, is ignored by the knights. I do not say it actually began, diseases do not begin except with the dawn of humanity, and their history as far as we know is simply not. They are at first sporadic and comparatively non-lethal, at certain epics, which we can determine, and for reasons which as yet we cannot, they break out into epidemics raging with frightful violence. They then subside into the endemic state, and lastly they return to the milder sporadic form. For instance, English cholera was known of old. In 1831, October 26, the Asiatic type took its place, and now, after sundry violent epidemics, the disease is becoming endemic on the northern seaboard of the Mediterranean, notably in Spain and Italy. So smallpox, al-Judri, Volume 1, 256, passed over from Central Africa to Arabia in the year of Mohammed's birth, 8570, and thence overspread the civilized world as an epidemic and endemic and a sporadic successively. The greater pox has appeared in human bones of prehistoric graves, and Moses seems to mention Ganara, Leviticus 1512. Passing over allusions in juvenile and martial, we find Eusebius relating that Galerius died, AD 302, of ulcers on the genitals and other parts of his body, and about a century afterwards, Bishop Palladius records that one hero, after conversation with a prostitute, fell a victim to an abscess on the penis. In 1347, the famous Joanna of Naples founded, at age 23, in her town of Avignon, a bordell whose inmates were to be medically inspected, a measure to which England, Pro-Pudor, still objects. In her Statutes du Liupubliques d'Avignon, number 4, she expressly mentions the Malinvue de PRDs. Such houses says Reichard, who studied the subject since 1832, were common in France after AD 1200, and sporadic venerals were known there. But in AD 1493 to 94, an epidemic broke out with alarming intensity at Barcelona, as we learn from the tractado llamado fructo de todos los santos contra el mal serpentino, venido de la isla española, of Rodrigo Ruiz Diaz, the specialist. In Santo Domingo, the disease was common under the names Hippas, Guainaras, and Tainastisas, hence the opinion in Europe that it arose from the mixture of European and Indian blood. Some attributed it to the Gypsies, who migrated to western Europe in the 15th century, others to the Moriscos expelled from Spain. But the pest got its popular name after the violent outbreak at Naples in AD 1493 to 4, when Charles the Eighth of Anjou, with a large army of mercenaries, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans, attacked Ferdinand II. Thence it became known as the Maldes Naples and Morbus Gallicus, Una Gallica being still the popular term in Neolatin lands, and the French disease in England. As early as July 1496, Marine Sanuto, Journal 1, 171, describes with details the Malfransozo. The scientific syphilis dates from Fracastori's poem AD 1521 in which syphilis the shepherd is struck like Job for abusing the sun. After crippling a pope, Sixtus IV, and killing a king, Francis I, the gross verole began to abate its violence under the effects of Mercury it is said, and became endemic, a stage still shown at Shirley-Evo near Fium, where legend says it was implanted by the Napoleonic soldiery. The Aleppo and other Buttons also belong apparently to the same grade. Elsewhere it settled as a sporadic, and now it appears to be dying out, while gonorrhea is on the increase. The knights, I have said, belongs to the days before Kaffi, AD 1550, and Tobacco, AD 1650, had overspread the east. The former, which derives its name from the Kafa, or Kafa province, lying south of Abyssinia proper, and peopled by the Sidama Gallas, was introduced to Mocha of Al-Yaman in AD 1429-30 by the Shaik al-Shazili who lies buried there, and found a congenial name in the Arabic kawa old wine. In the knights, Macedonian edition, it is mentioned 12 times, but never in the earlier tales, except in the case of Kamar al-Zaman II it evidently does not belong to the epic, and we may fairly suspect the scribe. In the sixteenth century, Kaffi began to take the place of wine in the nearer east, and it gradually ousted the classical drink from daily life and from folktales. It is the same with Tobacco, which is mentioned only once by the knights, 931, in conjunction with meat, vegetables, and fruit, and where it is called taba. Lain, III, 615, holds it to be the work of a copyist, but in the same tale of Abu Qir and Abu Sir, sherbet and Kaffi appear to have become en vogue, in fact to have gained the ground they now hold. The result of Lord McCartney's mission to China was a suggestion that smoking might have originated spontaneously in the old world. This is undoubtedly true. The Bushmen and other wild tribes of southern Africa, through their Dhaka, cannabis indica, on the fire, and sat around it inhaling the intoxicating fumes. Smoking without tobacco was easy enough. The North American Indians of the great red-pipe stone quarry, and those who lived above the line where Nicotiana grew, used the Kenny Kinic, or bark of the red willow, and some seven other susedania. But tobacco properer, which soon superseded all materials except hemp and opium, was first adopted by the Spaniards of Santo Domingo in AD 1496 and reached England in 1565. Hence the word which, amongst the so-called red men, denoted the pipe, the container, not the contained, spread over the old world as a generic term with additions, like to-tune, for special varieties. The change in English manners brought about by the cigar after dinner has already been noticed, and much of the modified sobriety of the present day may be attributed to the influence of the holy herb in cigarette. Such, we know from history, was its effect amongst Muslims, and the normal wine parties of the Knights suggest that the pipe was unknown even when the latest tales were written. The Book of the Thousand Knights and a Knight Volume 10 by Anonymous Translated by Richard Francis Urton The Origin of the Knights C. We know absolutely nothing of the author or authors who produced our marvellous requiel. Galore justly observes, probably this great work is not by a single hand, for how can we suppose that one man alone could own a fancy fertile enough to invent so many ingenious fictions? Mr. Lane, and Mr. Lane alone, opined that the work was written in Egypt by one person, or at most by two, one ending what the other had begun, and that he, or they, had rewritten the tales, and completed the collection by new matter composed or arranged for the purpose. It is hard to see how the distinguished Arabists came to such a conclusion. At most, it can be true only of the editors and scribes of manuscripts, evidently copied from each other, such as the Macnaughton and the Bulak texts. As the reviewer in the Asiatic Journal says, Every step we have taken in the collation of these agreeable fictions has confirmed us in the belief that the work called the Arabian Knights is rather a vehicle for stories, partly fixed, and partly arbitrary, than a collection fairly deserving from its conscious identity with itself, the name of distinct work, and the reputation of having wholly emanated from the same inventive mind, to say nothing of the improbability of supposing that one individual, with every license to build upon the foundation of popular stories, a work which had once received a definite form from a single writer, would have been multiplied by their copyist, with some regard, at least, to his arrangement of words, as well as matter. But the various copies we have seen bear about as much mutual resemblance, as if they had passed through the famous process recommended for disguising a plagiarism, translate your English author into French, and again into English. Moreover, the style of the several tales, which will be considered in a future page, so far from being homogenous, is heterogeneous in the extreme. Different nationalities show themselves, West Africa, Egypt, and Syria are all represented. And while some authors are intimately familiar with Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo, others are equally ignorant. All copies, written and printed, absolutely differ in the last tales, and a measure of the divergence can be obtained by comparing the Brezhlau edition with the Macnaughton text. Indeed, it is my conviction that the manuscripts preserved in Europe would add sundry volumes full of tales to those hitherto translated, and here the Watley-Montague copy can be taken as a test. We may, I believe, safely compare the history of the Knights with the so-called Homeric poems, the Iliad, and the Odyssey, a collection of immortal ballads and old epic-formulian verses traditionally handed down from rhapsody to rhapsody, incorporated in a slowly increasing body of poetry and finally welded together about the age of Pericles. To conclude, from the data above given, I hold myself justified in drawing the following deductions. 1. The framework of the book is purely Persian, perfectorally Arabized, the archetype being the Hazar Hafsana. 2. The oldest tales, such as Sindabad, the Seven Wazirs, and King Jaliad, may date from the reign of Almanso, 8th century AD. 3. The thirteen tales mentioned above as the nucleus of the repertory, together with Jaliad of the crafty, may be placed in our tenth century. 4. The latest tales, notably Kamar al-Saman II and Ma'aruf the Cobbler, are as late as the 16th century. 5. The work assumed its present form in the 13th century. 6. The author is unknown for the best reason. There never was one. 7. For information touching the editors and copyists, we must await the fortunate discovery of some manuscripts.