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Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp by Unknown
page 16 of 244 (06%)
who were extremely unwilling to part with them, looking upon them
as their stock in trade, and were in the habit of incorporating
with the genuine text all kinds of stories and anecdotes from
other sources, to fill the place of the missing portions of the
original work. This process of addition and incorporation, which
has been in progress ever since the first collection of the
Nights into one distinct work and is doubtless still going on in
Oriental countries, (especially such as are least in contact with
European influence,) may account for the heterogeneous character
of the various modern MSS. of the Nights and for the immense
difference which exists between the several texts, as well in
actual contents as in the details and diction of such stories as
are common to all. The Tunis MS. of the 1001 Nights (which is
preserved in the Breslau University Library and which formed the
principal foundation of Habicht's Edition of the Arabic text)
affords a striking example of this process, which we are here
enabled to see in mid-operation, the greater part of the tales of
which it consists having not yet been adapted to the framework of
the Nights. It is dated A.H. 1144 (A.D. 1732) and of the ten
volumes of which it consists, i, ii (Nights I--CCL) and x (Nights
DCCCLXXXV-MI) are alone divided into Nights, the division of the
remaining seven volumes (i.e. iii--ix, containing, inter alia, the
Story of the Sleeper Awakened) being the work of the German
editor. It is my belief, therefore, that the three "interpolated"
tales identified as forming part of the Baghdad MS. of 1703 are
comparatively modern stories added to the genuine text by Rawis
(story-tellers) or professional writers employed by them, and I
see no reason to doubt that we shall yet discover the Arabic text
of the remaining eight, either in Hanna's version (as written
down for Galland) or in some as yet unexamined MS. of the Nights
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