Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 1.djvu/37

Rh follow the purist and mortify the reader by startling innovation. For instance, Aleppo, Cairo and Bassorah are preferred to Halab, Kahirah and Al-Basrah; when a word is half-naturalised, like Alcoran or Koran, Bashaw or Pasha, which the French write Pacha; and Mahomet or Mohammed (for Muhammad), the modern form is adopted because the more familiar. But I see no advantage in retaining, simply because they are the mistakes of a past generation, such words as "Roc" (for Rukh), Khalif (a pretentious blunder for Khalifah and better written Caliph) and "genie" (= Jinn) a mere Gallic corruption not so terrible, however, as "a Bedouin" (= Badawi). As little too would I follow Mr. Lane in foisting upon the public such Arabisms as "Khuff" (a riding-boot), " Mikra'ah (a palm-rod) and a host of others for which we have good English equivalents. On the other hand I would use, but use sparingly, certain Arabic exclamations, as "Bismillah" ( = in the name of Allah!) and "Inshallah' (= if Allah please!), which have special applications and which have been made familiar to English ears by the genius of Fraser and Morier. I here end these desultory but necessary details to address the reader in a few final words. He will not think lightly of my work when I repeat to him that with the aid of my annotations supplementing Lane's, the student will readily and pleasantly learn more of the Moslem's manners and customs, laws and religion, than is known to the average Orientalist; and if my labours induce him to attack the text of The Nights, he will become master of much more Arabic than the ordinary Arab owns. This book is indeed a legacy which I bequeath to my fellow-countrymen in their hour of need. Over-devotion to Hindu, and especially to Sanskrit literature, has led them astray from those (so-called) "Semitic" studies, which are the more requisite for us, as they teach us to deal successfully with a race more powerful than any pagans—the Moslem. Apparently England is ever forgetting that she is at present the greatest Mohammedan empire in the world. Of late years she has systematically neglected Arabism and, indeed, actively discouraged it in examinations for the Indian Civil Service,