Page:The Perfumed Garden - Burton - 1886.djvu/243

Rh all friends of his, or friends of his friends, and for whose benefit he has worked. For this reason he is not going to claim an indulgence which has been already extended to him, his wish only to make clear to everybody the exact value and nature of the book which he is offering, and to make known on what foundations the work has been done, in how far the remarkable translations of M—— has been respected, and, in short, what reliance may be placed in the title, "Translated from the Arabic by HM [sic]——, Staff Officer."

It is, in fact, important that there should be no misunderstanding on this point, and that the reader should not imagine that he holds an exact copy of that translation in his hands; for we confess that we have modified it, and we give these explanations in order to justify the alterations which were imposed by the attending circumstances.

As far as we are aware, there have been made until now only two proper translations of the work of the Cheikh Nefzaoui. One, of which we have availed ourselves, is due, as is well known, to M——, a fanatical and distinguished Arabophile; the other is the work of Doctor L——; the latter we have never seen.

A learned expounder commenced a translation which promised to leave the others far behind. Unfortunately, death interrupted the accomplishment of this work, and there was no one to continue it.

Our intention, at the outset, was to reproduce simply the first of the aforenamed translations, making, however; such rectifications as were necessitated by gross mistakes in the orthography, and in the French idiom, by which the manuscript in our possession was