The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, vol 1 | Page 5

the Kurdish Sharper. To this
magnetising mood the sole exception is when a Badawi of superior
accomplishments, who sometimes says his prayers, ejaculates a
startling "Astagh-faru'llah"--I pray Allah's pardon!--for listening, not to
Carlyle's "downright lies," but to light mention of the sex whose name
is never heard amongst the nobility of the Desert.
Nor was it only in Arabia that the immortal Nights did me such notable
service: I found the wildlings of Somali land equally amenable to its
discipline; no one was deaf to the charm and the two women cooks of
my caravan, on its way to Harar, were in continently dubbed by my
men "Shahrazad" and "Dinazad."
It may be permitted me also to note that this translation is a natural
outcome of my Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah. Arriving at
Aden in the (so called) winter of 1852, I put up with my old and dear
friend, Steinhaeuser, to whose memory this volume is inscribed; and,
when talking over Arabia and the Arabs, we at once came to the same
conclusion that, while the name of this wondrous treasury of Moslem
folk lore is familiar to almost every English child, no general reader is
aware of the valuables it contains, nor indeed will the door open to any
but Arabists. Before parting we agreed to "collaborate" and produce a
full, complete, unvarnished, uncastrated copy of the great original, my
friend taking the prose and I the metrical part; and we corresponded
upon the subject for years. But whilst I was in the Brazil, Steinhaeuser
died suddenly of apoplexy at Berne in Switzerland and, after the
fashion of Anglo India, his valuable MSS. left at Aden were dispersed,
and very little of his labours came into my hands.
Thus I was left alone to my work, which progressed fitfully amid a host

of obstructions. At length, in the spring of 1879, the tedious process of
copying began and the book commenced to take finished form. But,
during the winter of 1881-82, I saw in the literary journals a notice of a
new version by Mr. John Payne, well known to scholars for his prowess
in English verse, especially for his translation of "The Poems of Master
Francis Villon, of Paris." Being then engaged on an expedition to the
Gold Coast (for gold), which seemed likely to cover some months, I
wrote to the "Athenaeum" (Nov. 13, 1881) and to Mr. Payne, who was
wholly unconscious that we were engaged on the same work, and freely
offered him precedence and possession of the field till no longer
wanted. He accepted my offer as frankly, and his priority entailed
another delay lasting till the spring of 1885. These details will partly
account for the lateness of my appearing, but there is yet another cause.
Professional ambition suggested that literary labours, unpopular with
the vulgar and the half educated, are not likely to help a man up the
ladder of promotion. But common sense presently suggested to me that,
professionally speaking, I was not a success, and, at the same time, that
I had no cause to be ashamed of my failure. In our day, when we live
under a despotism of the lower "middle class" Philister who can pardon
anything but superiority, the prizes of competitive services are
monopolized by certain "pets" of the Médiocratie, and prime favourites
of that jealous and potent majority--the Mediocnties who know "no
nonsense about merit." It is hard for an outsider to realise how perfect
is the monopoly of common place, and to comprehend how fatal a
stumbling stone that man sets in the way of his own advancement who
dares to think for himself, or who knows more or who does more than
the mob of gentlemen employee who know very little and who do even
less.
Yet, however behindhand I may be, there is still ample room and verge
for an English version of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments."
Our century of translations, popular and vernacular, from (Professor
Antoine) Galland's delightful abbreviation and adaptation (A.D. 1704),
in no wise represent the eastern original. The best and latest, the Rev.
Mr. Foster's, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir Bussey's,
which is a re- correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and
one and all degrade a chef d'oeuvre of the highest anthropological and
ethnographical interest and importance to a mere fairy book, a nice

present for little boys.
After nearly a century had elapsed, Dr. Jonathan Scott (LL.D.
H.E.I.C.'s S., Persian Secretary to the G. G. Bengal; Oriental Professor,
etc., etc.), printed his "Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from
the Arabic and Persian," (Cadell and Davies, London, A.D. 1800); and
followed in 1811 with an edition of "The Arabian Nights'
Entertainments" from the MS. of Edward Wortley Montague (in 6 vols.,