in other words, are stories of random incident, loosely but charmingly told, with always the note of strangeness and unexpectedness.  The incidents, however, reflect accurately the manners and customs of time and place.  We do not believe that a door ever opened to the magic of mere words, but we do believe and cannot help believing that the author tells the truth when he writes of leather jars full of oil, of bands of mounted robbers, of a poor man who could support himself by hauling wood from the free-for-all forest, of slavery from which one might escape by notable fidelity, of funeral rites performed by the imaum and other ministers of the mosque, and of the unwillingness of an assassin to attempt the life of a man with whom he had just eaten salt.  Fancy, it is true, mingles with fact in “The Arabian Nights,” but it does not replace fact.

Characters.  Morgiana is the leading character.  She furnishes all the brains employed in the story.  The narrator praises her “courage” twice, but she had more than courage.  Fidelity, initiative, and resourcefulness must also be put among her assets.  We can hardly imagine her as acting from Esther’s high motive, but she lived up to the best standards of conduct that she knew.  Whoever serves as a model for his own time may serve as a model for ours.  Duties change, but duty remains.]

I

CASSIM, ALI BABA’S BROTHER, DISCOVERED AND KILLED BY THE ROBBERS

There once lived in a town of Persia two brothers, one named Cassim and the other Ali Baba.  Their father divided his small property equally between them.  Cassim married a very rich wife, and became a wealthy merchant.  Ali Baba married a woman as poor as himself, and lived by cutting wood and bringing it upon three asses into the town to sell.

One day, when Ali Baba had cut just enough wood in the forest to load his asses, he noticed far off a great cloud of dust.  As it drew nearer, he saw that it was made by a body of horsemen, whom he suspected to be robbers.  Leaving the asses, he climbed a large tree which grew on a high rock, and had branches thick enough to hide him completely while he saw what passed beneath.  The troop, forty in number, all well mounted and armed, came to the foot of the rock on which the tree stood, and there dismounted.  Each man unbridled his horse, tied him to a shrub, and hung about his neck a bag of corn.  Then each of them took off his saddle-bag, which from its weight seemed to Ali Baba full of gold and silver.  One, whom he took to be their captain, came under the tree in which Ali Baba was concealed; and, making his way through some shrubs, spoke the words:  “Open, Sesame."[*] As soon as the captain of the robbers said this, a door opened in the rock, and after he had made all his troop enter before him, he followed them, when the door shut again of itself.

[* Sesame (pronounced sessamy), a small grain.]