(Night 1xxiii.) would relieve the Gallic mind from the mortification of “Destiny decreed.”  “Plusieurs sortes de fruits et de bouteilles de vin” (Night ccxxxi. etc.) Europeanises flasks and flaggons; and the violent convulsions in which the girl dies (Night cliv., her head having been cut off by her sister) is mere Gallic squeamishness:  France laughs at “le shoking” in England but she has only to look at home especially during the reign of Galland’s contemporary—­ Roi Soleil.  The terrible “Old man” (Shaykh) “of the Sea” (- board) is badly described by “l’incommode vieillard” ("the ill-natured old fellow"):  “Brave Maimune” and “Agreable Maimune” are hardly what a Jinni would say to a Jinniyah (ccxiii.); but they are good Gallic.  The same may be noted of “Plier les voiles pour marque qu’il se rendait” (Night ccxxxv.), a European practice; and of the false note struck in two passages.  “Je m’estimais heureuse d’avoir fait une si belle conquete” (Night 1xvii.) gives a Parisian turn; and, “Je ne puis voir sans horreur cet abominable barbier que voila:  quoiqu’il soit ne dans un pays ou tout le monde est blanc, il ne laisse pas a resembler a un Ethiopien; mais il a l’ame encore plus noire et horrible que le visage” (Night clvii.), is a mere affectation of Orientalism.  Lastly, “Une vieille dame de leur connaissance” (Night clviii.) puts French polish upon the matter of fact Arab’s “an old woman.”

The list of absolute mistakes, not including violent liberties, can hardly be held excessive.  Professor Weil and Mr. Payne (ix. 271) justly charge Galland with making the Trader (Night i.) throw away the shells (ecorces) of the date which has only a pellicle, as Galland certainly knew; but dates were not seen every day in France, while almonds and walnuts were of the quatre mendiants.  He preserves the ecorces, which later issues have changed to noyaux, probably in allusion to the jerking practice called Inwa.  Again in the “First Shaykh’s Story” (vol. i. 27) the “maillet” is mentioned as the means of slaughtering cattle, because familiar to European readers:  at the end of the tale it becomes “le couteaufuneste.”  In Badral Din a “tarte a la creme,” so well known to the West, displaces, naturally enough, the outlandish “mess of pomegranate-seeds.”  Though the text especially tells us the hero removed his bag-trousers (not only “son habit”) and placed them under the pillow, a crucial fact in the history, our Professor sends him to bed fully dressed, apparently for the purpose of informing his readers in a foot-note that Easterns “se couchent en calecon” (Night lxxx.).  It was mere ignorance to confound the arbalete or cross-bow with the stone-bow (Night xxxviii.), but this has universally been done, even by Lane who ought to have known better; and it was an unpardonable carelessness or something worse to turn Nar (fire) and Dun (in lieu of) into “le faux dieu Nardoun” (Night lxv.):  as this has been untouched by De Sacy, I cannot but conclude