of words and idioms peculiar to Egypt and Syria[FN#306] also takes from the pleasure of the perusal.  Yet we cannot deny that it has its use:  this unadorned language of familiar conversation, in its day adapted for the understanding of the people, is best fitted for the Rawi’s craft in the camp and caravan, the Harem, the bazar and the coffee-house.  Moreover, as has been well said, The Nights is the only written half-way house between the literary and colloquial Arabic which is accessible to all, and thus it becomes necessary to the students who would qualify themselves for service in Moslem lands from Mauritania to Mesopotamia.  It freely uses Turkish words like “Khatun” and Persian terms as “Shahbandar,” thus requiring for translation not only a somewhat archaic touch, but also a vocabulary borrowed from various sources:  otherwise the effect would not be reproduced.  In places, however, the style rises to the highly ornate approaching the pompous; e. g. the Wazirial addresses in the tale of King Jali’ad.  The battle-scenes, mostly admirable (vol. v. 365), are told with the conciseness of a despatch and the vividness of an artist; the two combining to form perfect “word-pictures.”  Of the Badi’a or euphuistic style, “Parleying euphuism,” and of Ai Saj’a, the prose rhyme, I shall speak in a future page.

The characteristics of the whole are naivete and simplicity, clearness and a singular concision.  The gorgeousness is in the imagery not in the language; the words are weak while the sense, as in the classical Scandinavian books, is strong; and here the Arabic differs diametrically from the florid exuberance and turgid amplifications of the Persian story-teller, which sound so hollow and unreal by the side of a chaster model.  It abounds in formulae such as repetitions of religious phrases which are unchangeable.  There are certain stock comparisons, as Lokman’s wisdom, Joseph’s beauty, Jacob’s grief, Job’s patience, David’s music, and Maryam the Virgin’s chastity.  The eyebrow is a Nun; the eye a Sad, the mouth a Mim.  A hero is more prudent than the crow, a better guide than the Kata grouse, more generous than the cock, warier than the crane, braver than the lion, more aggressive than the panther, finer-sighted than the horse, craftier than the fox, greedier than the gazelle, more vigilant than the dog, and thriftier than the ant.  The cup-boy is a sun rising from the dark underworld symbolised by his collar; his cheek-mole is a crumb of ambergris, his nose is a scymitar grided at the curve; his lower lip is a jujube; his teeth are the Pleiades or hailstones; his browlocks are scorpions; his young hair on the upper lip is an emerald; his side beard is a swarm of ants or a Lam ( -letter) enclosing the roses or anemones of his cheek.  The cup-girl is a moon who rivals the sheen of the sun; her forehead is a pearl set off by the jet of her “idiot-fringe;” her eyelashes scorn the sharp sword; and her glances are arrows shot from the bow of the eyebrows.  A