Note 33 — ORIENTAL WIT AND HUMOUR.

This story has been taken from Arab Sháh into the Breslau printed Arabic text of the Thousand and One Nights, where it is related at great length. The original was rendered into French under the title of “Ruses des Femmes” (in the Arabic Ked-an-Nisa, Stratagems of Women) by Lescallier, and appended to his version of the Voyages of Sindbád, published at Paris in 1814, long before the Breslau text of The Nights was known to exist. It also forms part of one of the Persian Tales (Hazár ú Yek Rúz, 1001 Days) translated by Petis de la Croix, where, however, the trick is played on the kází, not on a young merchant. Return