- Nights in the Harem. By Emmeline Lott. (Chapman and Hall.)—
A very proper book, despite the exceeding bad taste of its title, and a very stupid one. Mrs. Lott, instead of continuing the narrative of her own experiences, which had from their novelty some interest, creates -fictitious characters who tell stories through two volumes. They are very dreary stories, being really exaggerated versions of anecdotes well known to all residents in Alexandria and Constantinople, and told so as te introduce as many descriptions of Mohamniedan manners, customs, and ways as possible. They are consequently mit amusing, and as for instruction, two hours' study of The Atahian Nights would teach the average Western reader a hundred times as much. He would be com- pelled, it is true, to confine himself to English, but we do not know that he would be greatly disappointed at the absence of this sort of thing :— "The day after my departure, Kaleb met the Calkdji Bachi at the 'Scale' of Top-Hand (Cannon Place) just as be was embarking in his calk, after having performed his devotions in the Mosque of Malan Mahmond. Salem Akilaan, khosk hulduk, Guitine liywn. Guemir bid abnadcm kalknadcen' (' Well met ! How do yon do? I must be gone, or the vessel will be off without us), said the Calkdji, pointing to the yacht. ' Aleikuni salons Doha tex-yuruyelim Makinanen gurut-tucunu- ichidiyonne senez' (' How are you ? Let us go quickly. Do you hear the noise of the engine r), replied Kaleb, as he ordered his own caikdjis to pull as rapidly as possible. It was his design, for his own purposes, to accompany Barbab All on board the Christian yacht ; so off started the two schemers in quest of an adventure, of which some faint idea had already crossed them." We have a very strong suspicion that the writer, who ever it is, knows very little Arabic, or Turkish either, at least this is sad nonsense as a translation. " Taibt ! Hashanah! Hashanah !' (' May your shadow never grow less ! May Allah never refrigerate your countenance !'), exclaimed the delighted ICaleb." The Indian story inserted in the middle of the first volume is the invention of some one with no knowledge of India whatever, Mussulman and Hindoo names and titles being mixed up in inextricable confusion. Imagine a Maharanee on a voyage to Mecca in a frigate !
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