ent, from a comparison with Galland's
rendering and making allowance for the latter's system of translation,
that the Arabic version of Aladdin given 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of Zeyn Alasnam, (the Arabic text of which still remains unpublished) as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.

There [21] was [once] in the city of Bassora a mighty Sultan and he was
exceeding rich, but he had no child who should be his successor [22]
after him. For this he grieved sore and fell to bestowing alms galore
upon the poor and the needy and upon the friends [23] of God and the
devout, seeking their intercession with God the Most High, so He to whom
belong might and majesty should of His favour vouchsafe him a son. And
God accepted his prayer, for his fostering of the poor, and answered his
petition; so that one night of the nights he lay with the queen and she
went from him with child. When the Sultan knew this, he rejoiced with
an exceeding joy, and as the time of her child-bearing drew nigh, he
assembled all the astrologers and those who smote the sand [24] and said
to them, "It is my will that ye enquire concerning the child that shall
be born to me this month, whether it will be male or female, and tel