Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/347

313 coffee is introduced, whilst the mention of tobacco (which was introduced into Europe by Jean Nicot in 1560 and the use of which did not probably become common in the East until (at earliest) the next century), stamps the (Egyptian) story of as the most modern of the whole collection. is also an undoubtedly Egyptian and modern story, as well as the story of the, though the former appears to be somewhat less recent than the latter in date, whilst the, and , all three of which are free from the gross anachronisms and historical and topographical errors that characterize so many of the stories whose scene is laid in Baghdad in the reign of Er Reshid and his immediate successors, may therefore, in the absence of any distinctive sign of foreign origin, be supposed to have been written by a native of one of the metropolitan provinces of the Khalifate, soon after the composition of the original work.

Many of the short stories and anecdotes of historical places and persons, Khalifs, Sultans, princes, princesses