NOTES TO VOL. I.

[a] It is a custom with the Arabian women, in order to give the veins of their hands and arms a more brilliant appearance, to make slight punctures along them, and to rub into the incisions a blue powder, which they renew occasionally as it happens to wear out.

[b] The vapour here alluded to, called by the Arabians Serab, is not unlike in appearance (and probably proceeding from a similar cause) to those white mists which we often see hovering over the surface of a river in a summer’s evening, after a hot day. They are very frequent in the sultry plains of Arabia, and when seen at a distance, resemble an expanded lake, but upon a nearer approach, the thirsty traveller perceives his deception. Hence the Serab, in Arabian poetry, is a common emblem of disappointed expectation. This word occurs in Isaiah xxxv. 7, which is rendered by our translators, “and the parched ground shall become a pool.” But in a prophecy consisting of promises for the confirming of happiness and the fulfilling of hope, perhaps we may translate the word שרב with as much propriety, according to its Arabic acceptation. “And the sultry vapour shall become a real lake.”

[c] The great empires of the Mogul of Persia, of the Turks, of Morocco, besides many other powerful kingdoms, have been founded on the ruins of the wide-extended dominions of the Khalifs; which at one time comprehended Arabia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Persia, the Khorassan, Samarkand, Bokhara, Cabul, Chandahar, Zableston, &c. the greatest part of India, many districts along the Oxus or Ginon, and the Caspian Sea, Circassia, Georgia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, part of Asia Minor, Egypt, the Mediterranean coasts of Africa, Morocco, Fez, Spain, Sicily, Naples, part of France, &c. &c. in all which countries, (if we except the European states) the Arabic is to this day cultivated with care, as being the language of their religion and their law.

[d] Vol. II. page 84.

[e] Marco Paulo resided seventeen years in the court of the Khan of Tartary, and was the first European, who gave any account of China to be depended upon. What he speaks from his own knowledge has been generally confirmed by subsequent voyagers. His fabulous narratives are of a similar kind to those mentioned by Mandeville, Vertomannus, and other ancient travellers into the East, Sindbad included, as a farther examination of his voyages will plainly shew.

[f] Lib. iii. ch. 40. Novus Orbis. See also Ramusio’s collection of voyages, printed at Venice, A. D. 1633, Tom. II. page 58.

[g] Ramusio, Tom. I. page 369.

[h] See the works of Sir W. Jones, Mr. Maurice, Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Kindersley, Mr. Beloe, Mr. Scott, Dr. Russell, &c.

[i] See Dell’ Origine, Progressi, e Stato attuale d’ogni Letteratura dell’ Abate D. Giovanni Andres, Tomo primo, capitolo xi. Dell’ influenza degli Arabi nella moderna coltura delle belle lettere.

He followed, however, the French edition; and he believes he was fortunately right, though he had many doubts on the subject, as Susa, sometimes called Susiana, whence Sussanians might, though incorrectly, be formed, was a principal city of Persia.

The Sassanians, however, or the family who bore that name, constituted the fourth dynasty of the Persian monarchs; the name of one of whom was not unlike that of Schahriar, the hero of the present tales; being Jezdegerd Ben Schecheriar, who reigned in the thirty-ninth year of the Hegira.

The French, as well as the former English Translators, have been in their progress so aware of this, that they have all omitted it, as they proceeded with their works though they have all carried it on for some length of way. The French Translator omits a part of the interruption; namely, the repeated request of Dinarzadè to her sister every morning, at the end of the first volume, and the whole of it after the third. The former English editions stopped at different places, guided, as it should seem, merely by the caprice, or whim, of the Translator.

It was from this interruption, and this division, that the title of “Nights,” was given to the work; the whole being, as it is supposed, divided into one thousand and one.

Now although the present Translator did not think it right to drop the word “Nights” from his title-page, a word by which this work is so universally known, yet he thought it useless to continue the repetition, as the first was fully sufficient to shew the plan; besides which, this continual recurrence of the same speech, together with the division of matter, would have considerably lengthened the work; and, as the Translator is of opinion, for no good purpose.

In the present translation, therefore, this division into nights is entirely omitted, and the conversation, which is supposed to pass between Schahriar, Scheherazadè, and Dinarzadè, whenever day-light appears, is never inserted, except at the conclusion of a story, or when it takes a wider range than the common interruption.

END OF VOL. I.

W. Lewis, Printer, St. John’s-square, London.