ARABIAN NIGHTS ARACATSCHA. 



225 



was ushered Into the world by Mr von Hammer. 

 Still more valuable was a Tunisian manuscript in the 

 possession of professor Habicht, of Breslau, by the 

 assistance of which every defect was corrected, and, 

 with the advice of two other learned men, a German 

 translation was made, far excelling every previous 

 one Tausend und eine Nacht, vollstandig ubersetzt, 

 von Max. Habicht, v. der Hagen und K. Schall, (the 

 Thousand and one Nights, translated in full, by Max. 

 Habicht, v. der Hagen and K. Schall), 15 vols. 12mo. 

 Breslau, 1825 ; also the original Arabic was publish- 

 ed by doctor Habicht, with a glossary, in one vol., 

 Breslau, 1825., A Danish translation of the Arabic 

 text, printed in Culcutta, in 1814, has been published 

 by Rasmussen, professor of Oriental languages at Co- 

 penhagen (1st vol., Copenhagen, 1824). With these 

 exertions to restore to its original beauty and value 

 one of the most remarkable monuments of Eastern 

 manners, inquiries into the origin of the Arabian 

 Nights were also prosecuted with success. It was 

 easy to show that the position maintained by Caussin, 

 that the work was a production of the 16th century, 

 was untenable, and every other hypothesis which con- 

 siders them as all composed at the same time. Von 

 Hammer certainly took a more correct view of the 

 subject. It was his opinion, that these fables sprang 

 up in the soil of India, were afterwards transplanted 

 to Persia, and finally made Arabian property by a 

 translation into that language, in the time of the 

 caliph Al Mansur, about thirty years before the time 

 of Haroun al Raschid, the contemporary of Charle- 

 magne. After a time, new branches, native and 

 exotic, were grafted upon this original stock, which 

 soon sent fortli new shoots, like the parent tree. And 

 no one can doubt the reasonableness of this opinion, 

 who knows that stories of this sort allow of the intro- 

 duction of every circumstance and every event in any 

 way connected with the subject of the tale ; and in 

 fact it is plain, that many of these fables have a later 

 origin and another home. According to Jonathan 

 Scott, no two manuscripts in different countries agree ; 

 the copies found in every nation are corrupted by the 

 traditions of the people. The story which forms the 

 point of union among the Thousand and one Nights 

 is as follows : The sultan Schahriar, exasperated 

 by the faithlessness of his bride, made a law, that 

 every one of his future wives should be put to death 

 the morning after marriage. At length one of them, 

 named Sheherazade, the generous daughter of the 

 grand vizier, succeeded in abolishing the cruel custom. 

 By the charm of her stories* the fair narrator induced 

 the sultan to defer her execution every day till the 

 dawn of another, by breaking off in the middle of an 

 interesting tale which she had begun to relate. Thus 

 passed a thousand and one nights, two years and 

 nine months, and, in the course of this period, She- 

 herazade became the mother of three children. These 

 she led before the throne of her husband. The stern 

 monarch was melted by her tears ; he clasped his 

 wife and children to his bosom, gave Sheherazade her 

 life, and required of her no return, but the frequent 

 relation of some of those tales, which had often kept 

 him fascinated with delight at her side. Only a part 

 of this story was known to the first French translator of 

 the work ; the conclusion was unknown till von Ham- 

 mer discovered the circumstances just related, and laid 

 them before the world. The delight felt by Schahriar 

 has been felt by thousands more of his own faith, and 

 still continues in the greatest part of Asia, in Egypt, 

 and along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. 

 It has been spread by the translations through the 

 countries of Christian Europe, and will continue as 

 long as men delight in the phenomena of a mysteri- 

 ous world, summoned up by the magic of an innocent 

 and playful imaginatiofi. Most of the Arabian talcs 



aim merely to delight the fancy, yet many of them 

 contain much knowledge of mankind, and sometimes 

 acute delineations of the hidden passions and vices of 

 man's heart, and much practical wisdom. They are 

 doubly interesting to the European reader, because 

 they place before us, in a far more striking light than 

 travellers can do it, all the peculiarities of the Eastern 

 nations. The fearless courage of the Arab knight, 

 his propensity to bold adventures, his dexterity and 

 skill, his love and his revenge, the cunning of the 

 women, the hypocrisy of the priests, the vena- 

 lity of the judges, all stand before us in full 

 relief. Golden palaces, beautiful women, splen- 

 did gardens, and rich banquets captivate our senses, 

 and fetter us to a soil in which we delight to 

 view the shadowy forms of a foreign world of 

 fancy. Besides this, the poetical language of many 

 passages, and the great naivete of the whole, cannot 

 but interest the reader. If we were to give an idea, 

 of the Arabian Nights by pointing out its very anti- 

 pode in literature, we would mention Dante's Divina 

 Commedia. Both are creations of the boldest fancy : 

 but the latter is grave, sometimes harsh, reflective, and 

 speaks design throughout ; the former, playful, na'tf, 

 sometimes childish, exhibiting the natural flow of a 

 lively imagination. There are, however, some truly 

 and deeply tragical tales among them ; we only men- 

 tion that of Ali Ebn Becar and Schemselnihar. The 

 pleasure inspired by the Arabian Nights soon gave 

 rise to numerous imitations and changes. We ought 

 to mention, among the first, the Thousand and one 

 Days ; an imitation, in Persian, of the Thousand and 

 one Nights. It is less artless than the pattern, and exe- 

 cuted with more apparent design. It attempts to 

 remove the prejudice of a king's daughter against 

 men, by recounting numerous examples of honour and 

 faithfulness in that sex. Of the ancient French and 

 German paraphrases, we have already spoken inci- 

 dentally. Among modern paraphrases, we will men- 

 tion only Oehlenschlager's Aladdin, which is founded 

 on one of the Arabian tales. 



ARABIAN SEA ; a part of the Eastern ocean, on the 

 southern coast of Arabia. 



ARABICI ; a sect of Christian teachers who arose in 

 Arabia, in the first half of the third century. Their 

 distinguishing doctrine was, that the human soul dies, 

 uecays, and rises again, at the same time with the 

 body. Origen refuted and converted them, A. D. 

 246. Their error took its rise from the opinion, at 

 that time prevalent, of the materiality of the soul. 



ARACATSCHA ; a plant ; a native of the chain of the 

 Andes, and first discovered hi Santa Fe de Bogota 

 (New Grenada, in Spanish South America). It is 

 more nourishing and prolific than the potatoe (solatium 

 tuberosum), which grows wild in that country, in the 

 woods of Santa Fe de Bogota, and in Peru and Chile. 

 In taste andsolidity, thearacatscha resembles the Span- 

 ish walnut. The soil requires no greater degree of 

 warmth or moisture than is afforded by Europe. In 

 Germany, it was first cultivated successfully in Bam- 

 berg or Wurzburg. In the 19th page of the Quarterly 

 Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts (Oct. 

 1820), Mr Lambert gives an account of the aracat- 

 scha (heradeum tuberosum Molina'), and its cultivation 

 in England. Mr Jackson, in the 20th page of the 

 same journal, asserts that this plant grows also in the 

 country of Sus, on the south side of the Atlas, and is 

 called, by the Arabians, aracatscha, or atscliu, i. e. 

 dry root. How did it find its way to America, and 

 maintain its original name there ? Had the old Ara- 

 bians more knowledge of navigation than is com- 

 monly supposed ? Or shall we l)elieve that a for- 

 mer continent, by name Jltlantis, has sunk below the 

 ocean, which, before its destruction, formed a con- 

 nexion between Africa and South America ? 

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