598 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Sep*. 



so far transported me, that my mind sans savoir ce que je faisais, et au 

 said to me, " Sit down in it." Accord- me'me instant je me sentis enlever en 

 ingly I sat down, and when those who haut. Je fus recu sur la terrasse par 

 let down the basket to me felt I was quatre belles esclaves qui m'engager- 

 within, they drew it up to the top of the ent a descendre dans la maison. L'une 

 wall : and behold four damsels who said, d'elles marcha devant moi, un flambeau 

 " Alight freely and without restraint." a la main, et me conduisit dans une 

 And one of them walked before me salle, dont la magnificence ne pouvait 

 with a taper till I entered into a house : £tre compared qu'a celle des apparte- 

 and there were sitting rooms strewed mens du palais du Khalife. 

 out such as I had never seen even* in 

 the Khaliph's palace. 



To the method so apparent in the above extract, of seizing only the 

 points of the narrative, and neglecting the orientalisms of style and man- 

 ner by which they are introduced, I should ascribe even the places where 

 the two copies appear discordant; as, where in Trebutien (after the long 

 interview with the lady described in substance exactly as in the MS.) Isaac 

 is made to go down by the basket as he came: — " On me descendit dans 

 la corbeille ;" whereas the Arabic MS. distinctly says in that place, " A 

 damsel went down stairs with me and opened [the door") to me, and I 

 went out and walked to my house." (Night 279): where it seems to me 

 at least as probable that the translator hastening with the story after his 

 manner, left out the circumstances of descent and added " dans la cor- 

 beille" afterwards, on revising his French, than that he found the basket 

 in his original. The conclusion of the story furnishes another striking 

 example of his manner, and of the disadvantage which these tales suffer 

 by being so translated. 



MS. (literally.) Trebutien. 



Then we went out: and he said, Nous sortlmes de la maison, Le 



" O, Ishak, do not tell this story to any Khalife m' ordonna de ne pas parler 

 one ;" so I concealed it till the death de ce qui venait de se passer ; et j'en ai 

 of Mamun. Never had any one an garde" le secret jusqu'a sa mort. Ces 

 interview such as I had during these trois nuits, dit Ishak de Mossoul, je 

 four days, sitting in the day with Mam un les mettrai toujours au rang des plus 

 and in the night conversing with Kha- agr£ables que j'aie jamais passees dans 

 dija. By Allah I never saw any one la plus aimable society, 

 of men like Mamun, and never did I 

 behold a woman like Khadija, who even 

 approached her in wit and under- 

 standing and eloquence. But God 

 knows best. 



Similar conclusions were obtained by comparing the preceding story in 

 the 2nd volume of the MS.— the adventure of Abdallah the son of Abu- 

 Kolaba, and his discovery of the paradisiacal city of Sheddad the son of 

 Ad — occupying from p. 284—289 of Trebutien (who calls him Abdallah, 

 son of Kotaiba, and with whom his ndkah or she-camel is a mule). The 

 text of the two Egyptian MSS. of M. Trebutien and Major Macan must 

 be almost entirely the same. 



Very different, however, is the text of Professor Habicht's edition, which, 

 if it contains either of the above " Anecdotes" of M. Trebutien, must 

 place them in a very different place from that in which the numbers lad 

 me to search for them without success. And this is not wonderful, as the 

 arrangement of the nights is altogether different in the two editions. For 

 example, the Voyages of Sindbad in both the Egyptian MSS. (MS. vol. 3, 

 and Trebutien, Preface p. xlvi.) occupy night 536 — 565, but in the 

 Tunis MS., Night 250—271, as appears in Habicht's 3rd and 4th volumes. 



* The discrepancy from the French may here very probably arise from the omis- 

 sion of the word J}j by the copyist— but the mistake may just as probably lie on 

 the other side. 



