him by Hanna must either have been derived from the Baghdad text
or from some other practically identical source, and it is
therefore probable that Shawish, having apparently been employed
to make up the missing portion of Galland's Arabic text and not
having the Hanna MS. at his command, had (with the execrable
taste and want of literary morality which distinguished Cazotte's
monkish coadjutor) endeavoured to bring his available text up to
what he considered the requisite standard by modernizing and
Gallicizing its wording and (in particular) introducing numerous
European phrases and turns of speech in imitation of the French
translator. The whole question is, of course, as yet a matter of
more or less probable hypothesis, and so it must remain until
further discoveries and especially until the reappearance of
Galland's missing text, which I am convinced must exist in some
shape or other and cannot much longer, in the face of the revived
interest awakened in the matter and the systematic process of
investigation now likely to be employed, elude research.

M. Zotenberg's publication having been confined to the text of
Aladdin, I have to thank my friend Sir R. F. Burton for the loan
of his MS. copy of Zeyn Alasnam, (the Arabic text of which still
remains unpublished) as transcribed by M. Houdas from the Sebbagh
MS.






ZEIN UL ASNAM AND THE KING OF THE JINN.