Strona 2 z 1116

The Barber's Tale of his Second Brother ec. The Barber's Tale of

his Third Brother ed. The Barber's Tale of his Fourth Brother ee.

The Barber's Tale of his Fifth Brother ef. The Barber's Tale of

his Sixth Brother The End of the Tailor's Tale

The Translator's Foreword.

This work, labourious as it may appear, has been to me a labour

of love, an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During

my long years of official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly

deserts of Western Africa, and to the dull and dreary half

clearings of South America, it proved itself a charm, a talisman

against ennui and despondency. Impossible even to open the pages

without a vision starting into view; with out drawing a picture

from the pinacothek of the brain; without reviving a host of

memories and reminiscences which are not the common property of

travellers, however widely they may have travelled. From my dull

and commonplace and "respectable" surroundings, the Jinn bore me

at once to the land of my pre-dilection, Arabia, a region so

familiar to my mind that even at first sight, it seemed a

reminiscence of some by gone metem-psychic life in the distant

Past.