which contains 472 pages=92 Nights. It is rudely written, with
great carelessness and frequent corrections, and there is a noted
improvement in the subsequent vols. which Scott would attribute
to another transcriber. This, however, I doubt: in vol. i. the
scribe does not seem to have settled down to his work. The MS.
begins abruptly and without caligraphic decoration; nor is there
any red ink in vol. i. except for the terminal three words. The
topothesia is in the land of S�s�n, in the Isles of Al-Hind and
Al-Sind; the elder King being called "B�z" and "Sh�r-b�z" and the
younger "Kahram�n" (p. 1, ll. 5-6), and in the same page (l. 10)
"Saharb�n, King of Samarkand"; while the Wazir's daughters are
"Shahrz�dah" and "Duny�z�dah" (p. 8). The Introduction is like
that of the Mac. Edit. (my text); but the dialogue between the
Wazir and his Daughter is shortened, and the "Tale of the
Merchant and his Wife," including "The Bull and the Ass," is
omitted. Of novelties we find few. When speaking of the Queen and
Mas'�d the Negro (called Sa'id in my text, p. 6) the author
remarks:--
Take no black to lover; pure musk tho' he be * Carrion-taint
shall pierce to the nose of thee.
And in the "Tale of the Trader and the Jinni " (MS. 1, 9: see my
transl. 1, 25) the 'Ifrit complains that the Merchant had thrown
the date-stones without exclaiming "Dast�r!"--by thy leave.