THE ARAB STORY-TELLER. 
193 
in some measure for the deficiency by talking and listening a 
good deal. This is especially the case with the Orientals. 
In the absence of a general circulation of newspapers, of print¬ 
ed histories of wars, philosophical essays on man, and books 
of travel, they must have professional story-tellers, or romanc¬ 
ers ; that is to say, men whose regular business it is to deal 
in tradition or fiction. Throughout the whole East there is 
not a more important personage than the story-teller, or one 
who wields a greater influence upon the public mind. He is 
a walking newspaper, a living history, a breathing essay, a 
personified hook of travels, which evolves its stores of knowl¬ 
edge on self-acting principles. As such, being considered a 
responsible agent, he is entitled to the confidence of the com¬ 
munity, and generally enjoys it to the fullest extent. The 
more marvelous his stories are, the greater credit they obtain ; 
the more rabid his political satires, the greater his circulation ; 
the more incomprehensible his theories and illustrations of 
human life, the profounder his philosophy. He is always a 
popular character, and is indispensable at every smoking-house. 
The grandest Pashas listen to him with profound attention; 
the morals which he points and the tales which he adorns 
find their way even into the sacred precincts of the Harem. 
In the highest circles and in the lowest his traditions and 
anecdotes are swallowed with avidity. Men who have lis¬ 
tened for years to the same stories and the same jokes, con¬ 
tinue to listen for years again with undiminished delight, and 
always applaud at the same points and laugh at the same 
strokes of wit. No child of ten years, in our cold clime of 
common sense, could devour his first fairy-tale or ghost-story 
with half the delight that an Arab grandfather devours the oft- 
told romances of the old story-teller. 
The way I happened to take Ben-Hozain s portrait was 
this: One afternoon I rode out with our dragoman to the pine 
grove, where the towns-people go to smoke the narguilla and 
display their feats <)f horsemanship, and where I had already 
displayed some feats of horsemanship myself. It was shady 
and pleasant under the trees, and I dismounted and amused 
myself taking a view of a Syrian coffee-house, near which 
I 
