III.

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of M. Zorenberg’s long and interesting introduction is a series of extracts from the (as yet unpublished) Ms. Diary regularly kept by Galland, the last four volumes (1708-15) of which are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale.  These extracts effectually settle the question of the origin of the interpolated tales, as will be seen from the following abstract.

On the 25th March, 1709, Galland records having that day made the acquaintance of a Maronite scholar, by name Youhenna Diab, [FN#12] who had been brought from Aleppo to Paris by Paul Lucas, the celebrated traveller, and with whom he evidently at once broached the question of the Nights, [FN#13] probably complaining to him of the difficulty (or rather impossibility) of obtaining a perfect copy of the work; whereupon Hanna (as he always calls him) appears to have volunteered to help him to fill the lacune by furnishing him with suitable Oriental stories for translation in the same style as those already rendered by him and then and there (says Galland) “told me some very fine Arabian tales, which he promised to put into writing for me.”  There is no fresh entry on the subject till May 5 following, when (says Galland) “The Maronite Hanna finished telling me the tale of the Lamp.” [FN#14]

Hanna appears to have remained in Paris till the autumn of the year 1709 and during his stay, Galland’s Diary records the communication by him to the French savant of the following stories, afterwards included in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth volumes of the latter’s translation, (as well as of several others which he probably intended to translate, had he lived,) [FN#15] i.e. (May 10, 1709) “Babe Abdalla” and “Sidi Nouman,” (May 13, 1709) “The Enchanted Horse,” (May 22, 1709) " Prince Ahmed and Pari Banou,” (May 25, 1709) " The Two Sisters who envied their younger Sister,” (May 27, 1709) “All Baba and the Forty Thieves,” (May 29, 1709) “Cogia Hassan Alhabbal” and (May 31, 1709) “Ali Cogia.”  The Maronite seems to have left for the East in October, 1709, (Galland says under date October 25, “Received this evening a letter from Hanna, who writes me from Marseilles, under date the 17th, in Arabic, to the effect that he had arrived there in good health,”) but not without having at least in part fulfilled his promise to put in writing the tales communicated by him to Galland, as appears by the entry of November 3, 1710, “Began yesterday to read the Arabian story of the Lamp, which had been written me in Arabic more than a year ago by the Maronite of Damascus [FN#16] whom M. Lucas brought with him, with a view to putting it into French.  Finished reading it this morning.  Here is the title of this tale, ’Story of Aladdin, son of a tailor, and that which befell him with an African Magician on account of (or through) a lamp.’” (The Diary adds that he began that evening to put his translation into writing and finished it in the