In “The Story of Judar"[FN#450] we find by the side of a character of angelic goodness characters of fiendish malevolence—­Judar’s brothers—­a feature that links it with the stories of Abdullah bin Fazil[FN#451] and Abu Sir and Abu Kir.[FN#452] Very striking is the account of the Mahrabis whom Judar pushed into the lake, and who appeared with the soles of their feet above the water and none can forget the sights which the necromancy of the third Maghrabi put before the eyes of Judar.  “Oh, Judar, fear not,” said the Moor, “for they are semblances without life.”  The long and bloody romance of Gharib and Ajib is followed by thirteen storyettes, all apparently historical, and then comes the detective work of “The Rogueries of Dalilah,” and ’the Adventures of Mercury Ali.”  If “The Tale of Ardashir” is wearisome, that of “Julnar the Sea Born and her son King Badr,” which like “Abdullah of the Land, and Abdullah of the Sea,"[FN#453] concerns mer-folk, amply atones for it.  This, too, is the tale of the Arabian Circe, Queen Lab, who turns people into animals.  In “Sayf al Muluk,” we make the acquaintance of that very singular jinni whose soul is outside his body, and meet again with Sindbad’s facetious acquaintance, “The Old Man of the Sea.”

“Hasan of Bassorah” is woven as it were out of the strands of the rainbow.  Burton is here at his happiest as a translator, and the beautiful words that he uses comport with the tale and glitter like jewels.  It was a favourite with him.  He says, “The hero, with his hen-like persistency of purpose, his weeping, fainting, and versifying, is interesting enough, and proves that ’Love can find out the way.’  The charming adopted sister, the model of what the feminine friend should be; the silly little wife who never knows that she is happy till she loses happiness, the violent and hard-hearted queen with all the cruelty of a good woman; and the manners and customs of Amazon-land are outlined with a life-like vivacity.”

Then follow the stories of Kalifah, Ali Nur al Din and Miriam the Girdle Girl[FN#454]; the tales grouped together under the title of “King Jalead of Hind;” and Abu Kir and Abu Sir, memorable on account of the black ingratitude of the villain.

“Kamar al Zaman ii.” begins with the disagreeable incident of the Jeweller’s Wife—­“The Arab Lady Godiva of the Wrong Sort”—­and the wicked plot which she contrived in concert with the depraved Kamar al Zaman.  However, the storyteller enlists the reader’s sympathies for the Jeweller, who in the end gains a wife quite as devoted to him as his first wife had been false.  The unfaithful wife gets a reward which from an Arab point of view precisely meets the case.  Somebody “pressed hard upon her windpipe and brake her neck.”  “So,” concludes the narrator, “he who deemeth all women alike there is no remedy for the disease of his insanity.”  There is much sly humour in the tale, as for example when we are told that even the cats and dogs were comforted when “Lady Godiva” ceased to make her rounds.  “Abdullah bin Fazil” is simply “The Eldest Lady’s Tale” with the sexes changed.