Note 138 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138]

This knightly tale, the longest in the Nights (xliv-cxlv.), about one-eighth of the whole, does not appear in the Bres. Edit. Lane, who finds it "objectionable," reduces it to two of its episodes, Aziz-cum-Azízah and Táj al-Mulúk. On the other hand it has been converted into a volume (8vo, pp. 240) "Scharkan, Conte Arabe;" etc. Traduit par M. Asselan Riche, etc. Paris: Dondey-Dupré. 1829. It has its longueurs and at times is longsome enough; but it is interesting as a comparison between the chivalry of Al-Islam and European knight-errantry. Although all the characters are fictitious the period is evidently in the early crusading days. Cæsarea, the second capital of Palestine, taken during the Caliphate of Omar (A.H. 19) and afterwards recovered, was fortified in A.H. 353=963 as a base against the Arabs by the Emperor Phocas, the Arab. "Nakfúr" i.e. Nicephorus. In A.H. 498=1104, crusading craft did much injury by plundering merchantmen between Egypt and Syria, to which allusion is found in the romance. But the story-teller has not quite made up his mind about which Cæsarea he is talking, and M. Riche tells us that Césarée is a "ville de la Mauritanie, en Afrique" (p. 20).