till there came to him the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer
of societies; and extolled be the perfection of Him to whom
belong glory and permanence and He is the Living, the Eternal,
who shall never die!



NOTE. I have followed the example of Mr. Payne and have
translated in its entirety the Tale of Khalifah the Fisherman
from the Breslau Edit. (Vol. iv. Pp. 315-365, Night ccxxi-
ccxxxii.) in preference to the unsatisfactory process of
amalgamating it with that of the Mac. Edit. given above.




Khalifah The Fisherman of Baghdad.



There was once, in days of yore and in ages and times long gone
before, in the city of Baghdad, a fisherman, by name Khalif, a
man of muckle talk and little luck. One day, as he sat in his
cell,[FN#263] he bethought himself and said, "There is no Majesty
and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!
Would Heaven I knew what is my offence in the sight of my Lord
and what caused the blackness of my fortune and my littleness of
luck among the fishermen, albeit (and I say it who should not) in
the city of Baghdad there is never a fisherman like myself." Now
he lodged in a ruined place called a Khan, to wit, an