Note 266 — APPENDIX.

An abridged and “improved” version of the romance of Hatim Taï was printed at Calcutta about the year 1825, of which a translation—by James Atkinson, I understand—reprinted from the Calcutta Government Gazette, appeared in the Asiatic Journal, March-June 1829. Whoever may have been the learned Múnshí that made this version, he has certainly taken most unwarrantable liberties with his original. Thus: Husn Bánú’s father dies, leaving her “an orphan, poor, and unprotected.” She has the misfortune to “attract the admiration of a darvesh,” whom she “indignantly spurned from her presence.” The darvesh goes to the king and complains that “a certain woman has solicited me to marry her, and not being able to accomplish her object, enraged at my refusal, she has bitterly reproached and even beaten me”! The king orders her to be thrust out of the city, and so on. The “man” who appears to her in a vision is Khoja Khizar, which however is appropriate, that mystical personage being the tutelary friend of good Muslims in distress. He tells her where she may find the “treasure of the Seven Kings, buried in seven different places; seven splendid peacock thrones, adorned with gems beyond all price, and one precious pearl of unequalled beauty. All these are thine.” The king on hearing of her “find” attempts to seize the contents of six of the pits of treasure by force, but the gold and gems become serpents and dragons. In this version it does not appear that the queries, or rather tasks, were suggested by the nurse. Altogether it is much inferior to the story as translated by Forbes.