constrained to quit Najd, and move westwards; this is what is properly called the taghriba (Emigration to the West). They proceed to Tunis, where the power is held by Al-Zanâtî Khalîfa-a name in which we easily recognise the Berber tribe of the Zanâta. Accounts of fantastic fights with the Persians and with Tamerlane, full of names recalling distant memories of the Crusades (such as Bardewil and Baldwin), of the taking of Tangiers and of Morocco, complete this cycle of adventures, all more or less connected with the invasion of Northern Africa by the Beni-Hilâl, during the eleventh century of the Christian era.

ROMANCE OF SAIF DHU'L-YAZAN

Here he

Saif is the son of a King of Yemen. His mother, a slave, causes him to be exposed in the desert. is miraculously fed by a gazelle which has lost her young, is found by a hunter, and is carried away to Abyssinia. When he grows up, he fights with the giant Mukhtaṭif, and slays him. As a reward, the king would give him his daughter Shâma to wife, but the Prime Minister opposes the plan, and insists that the young man shall first bring him the head of Sa'dûn alZanjî, the terror of Abyssinia, and find the book of the history of the Nile, which lies in an inaccessible country, protected by talismans. He is presently recognised by his mother, who desires to kill him, so that she may reign alone. After every kind of wonderful adventure, full of genii and sorceresses, Saif returns to his own country, abdicates in favour of his son, and lives like a patriarch; but undeserved misfortunes soon bring his life to a close.

A French translation from the Arabic of this story, adorned with five lithographs by Ali-Bey, has appeared at Constantinople, under the title of Sultan Saif-Zuliazan (J.-J. Wick, 1847, 368 pp. 8vo).

The Saif al-Tîjân (Sword of the Crowns) is the story, divided into parts, of the adventures of a fabulous prince, who goes from one country to another, conquering the world, fighting fairies and magicians with mighty swordthrusts, and warring against multitudinous armies, which are all converted to the Moslem faith, by the intervention of the prophets Abraham and Ismâ'îl. It has been translated into French by Dr. Perron.

THE FABLES OF LUQMAN

The matter of the ancient fables known to us as Æsop's, with their axioms of practical morality put into the mouths of animals, has passed into the Arabic tongue, and is ascribed by Arabs to the sage LUQMAN. Who was this sage? In the chapter of the Koran entitled Luqmân, we read: "We have given wisdom to Luqmân, saying to him, 'Be grateful to God,'" and again: “Luqmân said one day to his son, by way of admonition, 'O my child, associate no other divinities with God, for idolatry is a tremendous sin!'"

The Sacred Book of the Moslems contained two allusions to this legendary personage, whose name occurs twice over in the ancient Arab traditions. The first occasion is that of the destruction of the first population of Âd, in the south of the Peninsula. He had been sent as ambassador to Mecca, to crave help against the drought, when the people's refusal to accept the prophet Hûd was avenged by the appearance of a black cloud

which ruined the whole country. His piety was rewarded by the gift of a long life, equal to those of seven generations of vultures. The second time, we hear of him in connection with the game called Maisir, which consisted in drawing lots with arrows for the parts of a camel killed at the general expense. His passion for this pastime had become a proverb. We also hear of his cunning and cleverness. Nothing more appears in the pre-Islamic traditions concerning him. Yet in the days of Mahomet, as we have just seen, he was accepted as the incarnation of wisdom. The prophet must have taken this idea from the belief of the populations round him, for the scoffers about him would have had a fine opportunity if he had ventured to be the first to attribute the wisdom of the learned to an individual whose celebrity rested principally on his perspicacity. Luqmân was said, indeed, to be the author of some proverbs, but this honour he shared with many others of both sexes. These fables, like other works which passed from the Greek into the Arabic, were translated not directly, but through the medium of a Syriac version, from the pen of a Christian, Barsûma, who died in 1316, and whose work is dated 1299. There is another collection of the same kind, which bears the Syriac title of Matlé de Soufos (Æsop's Fables). From these is drawn the Arabic version ascribed to the ancient sage Luqmân, of whose wisdom we find proof in the very pages of the Koran.

CHAPTER XI

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

IN Egypt, Syria, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, among Arabic-speaking countries, there is a more or less active stir in literary matters, denoted by the publication of a number of newspapers, and evidenced also by the production of various works in book form. This is not confined to the countries in which Arabic is the current language, but is also noticeable in certain large cities, where it is familiar only to the learned, as in Constantinople, and in others, such as Paris, where it is utterly unknown, except to a few scholars, but where, thanks to the incessant circulation due to our present facilities for communication, certain Oriental writers, whose works have been published in the city, occasionally meet.

MIKнÂ'ÎL ibn Niqûlâ ibn Ibrâhîm ṢABBAGH, who was born at St. Jean d'Acre about 1784, spent his youth at Damascus, served the French during the expedition into Egypt, and accompanied the army when it retired from that country. When the Turks re-entered Cairo, his house was sacked, his goods confiscated, and his fortune engulfed. He was appointed copyist, or rather repairer of manuscripts, at the Imperial Library in Paris. He had formed the acquaintance of Silvestre de Sacy, who made a French translation of his treatise on the pigeonpost, entitled Musâbaqat al-barq wa'l-ghamâm, and be

stowed on it the poetic title of La colombe messagère, plus rapide que l'éclair, plus prompte que la nue. At a later period, this little treatise was still further popularised by a German translation due to Arnold, and an Italian rendering, the work of Cataneo. A hymn, addressed by him to Napoleon I. on the occasion of the birth of the King of Rome, was also translated by Silvestre de Sacy in 1811. When, at a later date, the aspect of politics underwent a change, Sabbâgh wrote a congratulatory hymn to Louis XVIII. (Nashid tahânî), which was done into French by Grangeret de Lagrange in 1814. He drew up some notes on the modern forms of Arabic poetry (mawâliya, zajal), which were in the possession of Grangeret de Lagrange, and utilised by G. W. Freytag in the composition of his work on Arabic metres. He died in June 1816, leaving the manuscripts of a history of the Arab tribes and of a history of Syria and Egypt, and a grammar of the Arabic vulgarly spoken in Egypt and Syria (Risâla al-tâmma), which was published at Strasburg by Thorbecke in 1886. The manuscript of this work, at one time in the collection of Etienne Quatremère, has passed, with all other papers belonging to the famous French Orientalist, into the possession of the Munich Library.

Sabbagh's friend, ELYÛS BOQTOR (Bocthor), who was born, of Copt parents, at Suyût, in Upper Egypt, on 12th April 1784, was attached to the headquarters staff of the French army as interpreter, when only fifteen years of age. In 1812 he was employed to translate Arabic works in the archives of the Ministry of War, and was afterwards attached to the general depôt of the army as interpreter. This post was done away with in 1814. In 1817 he was given leave to deliver a course of