This quasi-historical fiction is followed hy a succession of fabliaux, novelle and historiettes which fill the rest of the vol. iv. and the whole of vol. v. till we reach the terminal story, The Queen of the Serpents (vol. v. pp. 304-329).  It appears to me that most of them are historical and could easily be traced.  Not a few are in Al-Mas’udi; for instance the grim Tale of Hatim of Tayy (vol. iv. 94) is given bodily in “Meads of Gold” (iii. 327); and the two adventures of Ibrahim al-Mahdi with the barber-surgeon (vol. iv. 103) and the Merchant’s sister (vol. iv. 176) are in his pages (vol. vii. 68 and 18).  The City of Lubtayt (vol. iv. 99) embodies the legend of Don Rodrigo, last of the Goths, and may have reached the ears of Washington Irving; Many-columned Iram (vol. iv. 113) is held by all Moslems to be factual and sundry writers have recorded the tricks played by Al-Maamun with the Pyramids of Jizah which still show his handiwork.[FN#290] The germ of Isaac of Mosul (vol. iv. 119) is found in Al-Mas’udi who (vii. 65) names “Buran” the poetess (Ibn Khall. i. 268); and Harun al-Rashid and the Slave-girl (vol. iv. 153) is told by a host of writers.  Ali the Persian is a rollicking tale of fun from some Iranian jest-book:  Abu Mohammed hight Lazybones belongs to the cycle of “Sindbad the Seaman,” with a touch of Whittington and his Cat; and Zumurrud ("Smaragdine”) in Ali Shar (vol. iv. 187) shows at her sale the impudence of Miriam the Girdle-girl and in bed the fescennine device of the Lady Budur.  The “Ruined Man who became Rich,” etc. (vol. iv. 289) is historical and Al-Mas’udi (vii. 281) relates the coquetry of Mahbubah the concubine (vol. iv. 291):  the historian also quotes four couplets, two identical with Nos. 1 and 2 in The Nights (vol. iv. 292) and adding:—­

Then see the slave who lords it o’er her lord * In lover privacy
     and public site: 
Behold these eyes that one like Ja’afar saw:  * Allah on Ja’afar
     reign boons infinite!

Uns al-Wujud (vol. v. 32) is a love-tale which has been translated into a host of Eastern languages; and The Lovers of the Banu Ozrah belong to Al-Mas’udi’s “Martyrs of Love” (vii. 355), with the ozrite “Ozrite love” of Ibn Khallikan (iv. 537).  “Harun and the Three Poets” (vol. v. 77) has given to Cairo a proverb which Burckhardt (No. 561) renders “The day obliterates the word or promise of the Night,” for

The promise of night is effaced by day.

It suggests Congreve’s Doris:—­

For who o’er night obtain’d her grace,
She can next day disown, etc.

“Harun and the three Slave-girls” (vol. v. 81) smacks of Gargantua (lib. i. c. 11):  “It belongs to me, said one:  ’Tis mine, said another”; and so forth.  The Simpleton and the Sharper (vol. v. 83) like the Foolish Dominie (vol. v. 118) is an old Joe Miller in Hindu as well as Moslem folk-lore.  “Kisra Anushirwan” (vol. v. 87) is “The King, the Owl and the Villages