Zotenberg has, therefore, exercised a wise discretion in
selecting the former for publication.




III.



Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of M. Zorenberg's long and
interesting introduction is a series of extracts from the (as yet
unpublished) MS. Diary regularly kept by Galland, the last four
volumes (1708-15) of which are preserved in the Bibliotheque
Nationale. These extracts effectually settle the question of the
origin of the interpolated tales, as will be seen from the
following abstract.

On the 25th March, 1709, Galland records having that day made the
acquaintance of a Maronite scholar, by name Youhenna Diab, [FN#12]
who had been brought from Aleppo to Paris by Paul Lucas, the
celebrated traveller, and with whom he evidently at once broached
the question of the Nights, [FN#13] probably complaining to him of
the difficulty (or rather impossibility) of obtaining a perfect
copy of the work; whereupon Hanna (as he always calls him)
appears to have volunteered to help him to fill the lacune by
furnishing him with suitable Oriental stories for translation in
the same style as those already rendered by him and then and
there (says Galland) "told me some very fine Arabian tales, which
he promised to put into writing for me." There is no fresh entry