But I repeat (p. xiv.) there is another element in The Nights and that is one of absolute obscenity utterly repugnant to English readers, even the least prudish.  It is chiefly connected with what our neighbours call le vice contre nature—­as if anything can be contrary to nature which includes all things.[FN#357] Upon this subject I must offer details, as it does not enter into my plan to ignore any theme which is interesting to the Orientalist and the Anthropologist.  And they, methinks, do abundant harm who, for shame or disgust, would suppress the very mention of such matters:  in order to combat a great and growing evil deadly to the birth-rate—­the mainstay of national prosperity—­the first requisite is careful study.  As Albert Bollstoedt, Bishop of Ratisbon, rightly says.—­Quia malum non evitatum nisi cognitum, ideo necesse est cognoscere immundiciem coitus et multa alla quae docentur in isto libro.  Equally true are Professor Mantegazza’s words:[FN#358] Cacher les plates du coeur humain au nom de la pudeur, ce n’est au contraire qu’hypocrisie ou peur.  The late Mr. Grote had reason to lament that when describing such institutions as the far-famed of Thebes, the Sacred Band annihilated at Chaeroneia, he was compelled to a reticence which permitted him to touch only the surface of the subject.  This was inevitable under the present rule of Cant[FN#359] in a book intended for the public:  but the same does not apply to my version of The Nights, and now I proceed to discuss the matter serieusement, honnetement, historiquement; to show it in decent nudity not in suggestive fig-leaf or feuille de vigne.

D.—­Pederasty.

The “execrabilis familia pathicorum” first came before me by a chance of earlier life.  In 1845, when Sir Charles Napier had conquered and annexed Sind, despite a fraction (mostly venal) which sought favour with the now defunct “Court of Directors to the Honourable East India Company,” the veteran began to consider his conquest with a curious eye.  It was reported to him that Karachi, a townlet of some two thousand souls and distant not more than a mile from camp, supported no less than three lupanars or borders, in which not women but boys and eunuchs, the former demanding nearly a double price,[FN#360] lay for hire.  Being then the only British officer who could speak Sindi, I was asked indirectly to make enquiries and to report upon the subject; and I undertook the task on express condition that my report should not be forwarded to the Bombay Government, from whom supporters of the Conqueror’s policy could expect scant favour, mercy or justice.  Accompanied by a Munshi, Mirza Mohammed Hosayn of Shiraz, and habited as a merchant, Mirza Abdullah the Bushiri[FN#361] passed many an evening in the townlet, visited all the porneia and obtained the fullest details, which were duly despatched to Government House.  But the “Devil’s Brother” presently quitted Sind leaving in his office my unfortunate official:  this found its way with sundry other reports[FN#362] to Bombay and produced the expected result.  A friend in the Secretariat informed me that my summary dismissal from the service had been formally proposed by one of Sir Charles Napier’s successors, whose decease compels me parcere sepulto.  But this excess of outraged modesty was not allowed.