Note 1 — THE ROSE OF BAKÁWALÍ.

Story-telling has been quite an art in the East time out of mind. Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali, in her Observations on the Mussulmans of India, vol. ii, pp. 81, 82, says: “Many of the ladies entertain women companions, whose chief business is to tell stories and fables to their employer when she is composing herself to sleep. When the lady is fairly asleep the story is stayed, and the companion resumes her employment when the next nap is sought by her mistress. Among the higher classes the males also indulge in the same practice of being talked to sleep by their men slaves, and it is a certain introduction, with either sex, to the favour of their employer when one of these dependants has acquired the happy art of ‘telling the khánie’ (fable) with an agreeable voice and manner. The more they embellish a tale by flights of their versatile imaginations, so much the greater the merit of the rehearser in the opinion of the listeners.”—In the Book of Esther, ch. vi, 1, we read that on a certain night “could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king.” Well was it for the Hebrew bondsmen that Ahasuerus did not call for a story-teller instead of the “state journal”!—The practice of sleepless khalífs and sultans sending for story-tellers is referred to in many Eastern tales. For an account of public reciters of tales and romances see Lane’s Modern Egyptians.