fuller than our text as is shown by sundry poetical and other passages which he apparently did not invent.  Lane (vol. ii. chap. 12), noting that its chief and best portion is an historical anecdote related as a fact, is inclined to think that it is not a genuine tale of The Nights.  He finds it in Al-Ishaki who finished his history about the close of Sultan Mustafa the Osmanli’s reign, circa A.H. 1032 (= 1623), and he avails himself of this version as it is “narrated in a simple and agreeable manner.”  Mr. Payne remarks, “The above title (Asleep and Awake) is of course intended to mark the contrast between the everyday (or waking) hours of Aboulhusn and his fantastic life in the Khalif’s palace, supposed by him to have passed in a dream;” I may add that amongst frolicsome Eastern despots the adventure might often have happened and that it might have given a hint to Cervantes.

[FN#2] i.e., The Wag.  See vol. i. 311:  the old version calls him “the Debauchee.”

[FN#3] Arab.  “Al-Fars”; a people famed for cleverness and debauchery.  I cannot see why Lane omitted the Persian, unless he had Persian friends at Cairo.

[FN#4] i.e., the half he intended for spending-money.

[FN#5] i.e., “men,” a characteristic Arab idiom:  here it applies to the sons of all time.

[FN#6] i.e., make much of thee.

[FN#7] In Lane the Caliph is accompanied by “certain of his domestics.”

[FN#8] Arab.  “Khubz Mutabbak,” = bread baked in a platter, instead of an oven, an earthen jar previously heated, to the sides of which the scones or bannocks of dough are applied:  “it is lighter than oven-bread, especially if it be made thin and leavened.”  See Al-Shakuri, a medical writer quoted by Dozy.

[FN#9] In other parts of The Nights Harun al-Rashid declines wine-drinking.

[FN#10] The ’Allamah (doctissimus) Sayce (p. 212, Comparative Philology, London, Trubner, 1885) goes far back for Khalifah = a deputy, a successor.  He begins with the Semitic (Hebrew?) root “Khaliph” = to change, exchange:  hence “Khaleph” = agio.  From this the Greeks got their {Greek} and Cicero his “Collybus,” a money-lender.

[FN#11] Arab.  “Harfush” (in Bresl.  Edit. iv. 138, “Kharfush"), in popular parlance a “blackguard.”  I have to thank Mr. Alexander J. Cotheal, of New York, for sending me a Ms. Copy of this tale.

[FN#12] Arab.  “Ta’am,” in Egypt and Somaliland = millet seed (Holcus Sorghum) cooked in various ways.  In Barbary it is applied to the local staff of life, Kuskusu, wheaten or other flour damped and granulated by hand to the size of peppercorns, and lastly steamed (as we steam potatoes), the cullender-pot being placed over a long-necked jar full of boiling water.  It is served with clarified butter, shredded onions and meat; and it represents the Risotto of Northern Italy.  Europeans generally find it too greasy for digestion.  This Barbary staff of life is of old date and is thus mentioned by Leo Africanus in early sixth century.  “It is made of a lump of Dow, first set upon the fire, in a vessel full of holes and afterwards tempered with Butter and Pottage.”  So says good Master John Pory, “A Geographical Historie of Africa, by John Leo, a Moor,” London, 1600, impensis George Bishop.