I cannot take up the Nights in their present condition, without feeling that the work has been written down from the Rawi or Nakkal,[FN#300] the conteur or professional story-teller, also called Kassas and Maddah, corresponding with the Hindu Bhat or Bard.  To these men my learned friend Baron A. von Kremer would attribute the Mu’allakat vulgarly called the Suspended Poems, as being “indited from the relation of the Rawi.”  Hence in our text the frequent interruption of the formula Kal’ al-Rawi = quotes the reciter; dice Turpino.  Moreover, The Nights read in many places like a hand-book or guide for the professional, who would learn them by heart; here and there introducing his “gag” and “patter”.  To this “business” possibly we may attribute much of the ribaldry which starts up in unexpected places:  it was meant simply to provoke a laugh.  How old the custom is and how unchangeable is Eastern life is shown, a correspondent suggests, by the Book of Esther which might form part of The Alf Laylah.  “On that night (we read in Chap. vi. 1) could not the King sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the King.”  The Rawi would declaim the recitative somewhat in conversational style; he would intone the Saj’a or prose-rhyme and he would chant to the twanging of the Rabab, a one-stringed viol, the poetical parts.  Dr. Scott[FN#301] borrows from the historian of Aleppo a life-like picture of the Story-teller.  “He recites walking to and fro in the middle of the coffee-room, stopping only now and then, when the expression requires some emphatical attitude.  He is commonly heard with great attention; and not unfrequently in the midst of some interesting adventure, when the expectation of his audience is raised to the highest pitch, he breaks off abruptly and makes his escape, leaving both his hero or heroine and his audience in the utmost embarrassment.  Those who happen to be near the door endeavour to detain him, insisting upon the story being finished before he departs; but he always makes his retreat good[FN#302]; and the auditors suspending their curiosity are induced to return at the same time next day to hear the sequel.  He has no sooner made his exit than the company in separate parties fall to disputing about the characters of the drama or the event of an unfinished adventure.  The controversy by degrees becomes serious and opposite opinions are maintained with no less warmth than if the fall of the city depended upon the decision.”

At Tangier, where a murder in a “coffee-house” had closed these hovels, pending a sufficient payment to the Pasha; and where, during the hard winter of 1885-86, the poorer classes were compelled to puff their Kayf (Bhang, cannabis indica) and sip their black coffee in the muddy streets under a rainy sky, I found the Rawi active on Sundays and Thursdays, the market days.  The favourite place was the “Soko de barra,” or large bazar, outside