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2

ndar's Tale

d. The Eldest Lady's Tale

e. Tale of the Portress

Conclusion of the Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies

4. Tale of the Three Apples

5. Tale of Nur Al-din Ali and his Son

6. The Hunchback's Tale

a. The Nazarene Broker's Story

b. The Reeve's Tale

c. Tale of the Jewish Doctor

d. Tale of the Tailor

e. The Barber's Tale of Himself

ea. The Barber's Tale of his First Brother

eb. The Barber's Tale of his Second Brother

ec. The Barber's Tale of his Third Brother

ed. The Barber's Tale of his Fourth Brother

ee. The Barber's Tale of his Fifth Brother

ef. The Barber's Tale of his Sixth Brother

The End of the Tailor's Tale

The Translator's Foreword.

This work, labourious as it may appear, has been to me a labour of love, an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western Africa, and to the dull and dreary half clearings of South America, it proved itself a charm, a talisman against ennui and despondency. Impossible even to open the pages without a vision starting into view; with out drawing a picture from the pinacothek of the brain; without reviving a host of memories and reminiscences which are not the common property of travellers, however widely they may have travelled. From my dull and commonplace and "respectable" surroundings, the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my pre-direction, Arabia, a region so familiar to my mind that even at first sight, it seemed a reminiscence of some by gone metem-psychic life in the distant Past. Again I stood under the diaphanous skies, in air glorious as aether, whose every breath raises men's spirits like sparkling wine. Once more I saw the evening star hanging like a solitaire from the pure front of the western firmament; and the after glow transfiguring and transforming, as by magic, the homely and rugged features of the scene into a fair

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