Zubaydah was the grand-daughter of the second Abbaside Al-Mansur, by his son Ja’afar whom The Nights persistently term Al-Kasim:  her name was Amat al-Aziz or Handmaid of the Almighty; her cognomen was Umm Ja’afar as her husband’s was Abu Ja’afar; and her popular name “Creamkin” derives from Zubdah,[FN#280] cream or fresh butter, on account of her plumpness and freshness.  She was as majestic and munificent as her husband; and the hum of prayer was never hushed in her palace.  Al-Mas’udi[FN#281] makes a historian say to the dangerous Caliph Al-Kahir, “The nobleness and generosity of this Princess, in serious matters as in her diversions, place her in the highest rank”; and he proceeds to give ample proof.  Al-Siyuti relates how she once filled a poet’s mouth with jewels which he sold for twenty thousand dinars.  Ibn Khallikan (i. 523) affirms of her, “Her charity was ample, her conduct virtuous, and the history of her pilgrimage to Meccah and of what she undertook to execute on the way is so well-known that it were useless to repeat it.”  I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 2) how the Darb al-Sharki or Eastern road from Meccah to Al-Medinah was due to the piety of Zubaydah who dug wells from Baghdad to the Prophet’s burial place and built not only cisterns and caravanserais, but even a wall to direct pilgrims over the shifting sands.  She also supplied Meccah, which suffered severely from want of water, with the chief requisite for public hygiene by connecting it, through levelled hills and hewn rocks, with the Ayn al-Mushash in the Arafat subrange; and the fine aqueduct, some ten miles long, was erected at a cost of 1,700,000 to 2,000,000 of gold pieces. [FN#282] We cannot wonder that her name is still famous among the Badawin and the “Sons of the Holy Cities.”  She died at Baghdad, after a protracted widowhood, in A.H. 216 and her tomb, which still exists, was long visited by the friends and dependents who mourned the loss of a devout and most liberal woman.

The reader will bear with me while I run through the tales and add a few remarks to the notices given in the notes:  the glance must necessarily be brief, however extensive be the theme.  The admirable introduction follows, in all the texts and MSS. known to me, the same main lines but differs greatly in minor details as will be seen by comparing Mr. Payne’s translation with Lane’s and mine.  In the Tale of the Sage Duban appears the speaking head which is found in the Kamil, in Mirkhond and in the Kitab al-Uyun:  M. C. Barbier de Meynard (v. 503) traces it back to an abbreviated text of Al-Mas’udi.  I would especially recommend to students The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (i. 82), whose mighty orgie ends so innocently in general marriage.  Lane (iii. 746) blames it “because it represents Arab ladies as acting like Arab courtesans”; but he must have known that during his day the indecent frolic was quite possible in some of the highest circles of his beloved Cairo.  To judge by the style and