Of the tales themselves, I do not mean to enter into a long and minute investigation; although such an investigation would be, if well conducted, highly amusing, and at the same time instructive. But to carry on an inquiry of this sort, to the extent it ought, would require great research and labour, and would in itself form a separate work. Mr. Hole has even produced a small volume in the illustration only of one story, which occupies not more than the fifth part of one volume of the present tales. All the peculiarities and customs, which are mentioned in the Arabian Nights, might be illustrated by similar peculiarities and customs, which are not only known to have existed among the very people, of whom this work delineates the manners, at the very time when the work itself was composed, but which also still exist among the same nations. Such an inquiry too would tend to explain some parts of the present work, which must, without it, now appear, if not absurd, at least unaccountable. To shew, however, that even the most common things are not inserted without a motive, and to illustrate what might be otherwise considered as ridiculous, I shall give one or two instances of the manner of investigation and sort of illustration proposed. In the story of the Merchant and Genius, Vol. I. page 29, the latter says, “I have sworn to kill thee, as thou hast killed my son; for whilst thou was throwing about the stones of the dates thou hadst eaten, my son passed by, and one of them struck him in the eye and caused his death.” Now this, at first sight, seems a singular, if not a ridiculous thing; but even this has its foundation in an Eastern custom. There are accounts (and I speak upon the authority of Warren Hastings, Esq. than whom no one is better acquainted with Oriental manners and history; and whose name is almost reverenced throughout that quarter of the world,) there are accounts of people having been killed by date stones, which were shot at them in a particular manner with both hands. Those persons who are in the habit of doing this, will send the stone with such velocity as to give a most violent blow. And it is in this manner that prisoners have sometimes been put to death: a man sits down at a little distance from the object he intends to destroy, and then attacks him by repeatedly shooting at him with the stone of the date, thrown from his two fore-fingers; and in this way puts an end to his life. --The former translation, by calling these stones, the “shells” of the date, besides totally mistaking the fact, dates having no shells but only stones, makes complete nonsense of the tale.