written in Europeo-Arabic characters, after schoolboy fashion,
and probably by Scott. In vol. ii. there is no initial list, but
by way of Foreword we read, "This is volume the second of the
Thousand Nights and a Night from the xciiid. Night, full and
complete." And the Colophon declares, "And this is what hath been
finished for us of the fourth (probably a clerical error for
"second") tome of the Thousand Nights and a Night to the
clxxviith. Night, written on the twentieth day of the month
Sha'ban A.H., one thousand one hundred and seventy-seven" (=A.D.
1764). This date shows that the MS. was finished during the year
after incept.

The text from which our MS. was copied must have been valuable,
and we have reason to regret that so many passages both of poetry
and prose are almost hopelessly corrupt. Its tone and tenor are
distinctly Nilotic; and, as Mr. E. Wortley Montague lived for
some time in Egypt, he may have bought it at the Capital of the
Nile-land. The story of the Syrian (v. 468) and that of the Two
Lack facts (vi. 262), notably exalt Misr and Cairo at the expense
of Sham and Damascus; and there are many other instances of
preferring Kemi the Black Soil to the so called "Holy Land." The
general tone, as well as the special incidents of the book,
argues that the stories may have been ancient, but they certainly
have been modernised. Coffee is commonly used (passim) although
tobacco is still unknown; a youth learns archery and gunnery
(Zarb al-Risas, vol. vii. 440); casting of cannon occurs (vol. v.
186), and in one place (vol. vi. 134) we read of "Taban-jatayn,"
a pair of pistols; the word, which is still popular, being a
corruption of the Persian "Tabancheh" = a slap or blow, even as
the French call a derringer coup de poing. The characteristic of