But the modus operandi was my prime difficulty. I disliked the idea of an unartistic break or change in the style, ever
“Tâchant de rendre mien cet air d’antiquité,”
and I aimed at offering to my readers a homogeneous sequel. My first thought for securing uniformity of treatment was to render the French text into Arabic, and then to retranslate it into English. This process, however, when tried was found wanting; so I made inquiries in all directions for versions of the Gallandian histories which might have been published in Persian, Turkish, or Hindustani. Though assisted by the Prince of London Bibliopoles, Bernard Quaritch, I long failed to find my want: the vernaculars in Persian and Turkish are translated direct from the Arabic texts, and all ignore the French stories. At last a friend, Cameron MacDowell, himself well known to the world of letters, sent me from Bombay a quaint lithograph with quainter illustrations which contained all I required. This was a version of Totárám Sháyán (No. III.), which introduced the whole of the Gallandian Tales: better still, these were sufficiently orientalised and divested of their inordinate Gallicism, especially their longsome dialogue, by being converted into Hindustani, the Urdú Zabán (camp or court language) of Upper India and the Lingua Franca of the whole Peninsula.
During one of my sundry visits to the British Museum, I was introduced by Mr. Alexander G. Ellis to Mr. James F. Blumhardt, of Cambridge, who pointed out to me two other independent versions, one partly rhymed and partly in prose.
Thus far my work was done for me. Mr. Blumhardt, a practical orientalist and teacher of the modern Prakrit tongues, kindly undertook, at my request to english the Hindustani, collating, at the same time, the rival versions; and thus, at a moment when my health was at its worst, he saved me all trouble and labour except that of impressing the manner with my own sign manual, and of illustrating the text, where required, with notes anthropological and other.
Meanwhile, part of my plan was modified by a visit to Paris in early 1887. At the Bibliothèque Nationale I had the pleasure of meeting M. Hermann Zotenberg, keeper of Eastern manuscripts, an Orientalist of high and varied talents, and especially famous for his admirable _Chronique de Tabari_. Happily for me, he had lately purchased for the National Library, from a vendor who was utterly ignorant of its history, a MS. copy of The Nights, containing the Arabic originals of Zayn al-Asnam and Alaeddin. The two volumes folio are numbered and docketed “Supplément Arabe, Nos. 2522–23;” they measure 31 cent. by 20; Vol. i. contains 411 folios (822 pages) and Vol. ii. 402 (pp. 804); each page numbers fifteen lines, and each _folio_ has its catchword. The paper is French, English and Dutch, with four to five different marks, such as G. Gautier; D. and C. Blaew; Pro Patriâ and others. The highly characteristic writing, which is the same throughout the two folios, is easily recognised as that of Michel (Mikhaíl) Sabbágh, the Syrian, author of the _Colombe Messagère_, published in Paris A.D. 1805, and accompanied by a translation by the celebrated Silvestre de Sacy (Chrestomathie iii. 365). This scribe also copied, about 1810, for the same Orientalist, the Ikhwán al-Safá.