Excuse me for reporting back your own words; but as the subject interested me much, I recollect well the observation you made, that no traveller had ever satisfied you in his delineation of Asiatic manners; for, said you, in in general their mode of treating the subject is by sweeping assertions, which leave no precise image on the mind, or by disjointed and insulated facts, which, for the most part, are only of consequence as they relate to the individual traveller himself. We were both agreed, that of all the books which have ever been published on the subject, the Arabian Nights Entertainments give the truest picture of the Orientals, and that, for the best of all reasons, because it is the work of one of their own community. But, said you, notwithstanding they have been put into an European dress, weeded of their numerous repetitions, and brought as near to the level of our ideas as can be, still few would be likely to understand them thoroughly who have not lived some time in the East, and who have not had frequent opportunities of associating with its inhabitants. For, you added, opening a volume of that work at the same time, to make a random observation upon the first instance which occurs here in the history of the three Calendars, I see that Anima, after having requested the porter whom she had met to follow her with his basket, stopped at a closed door, and having rapped, a Christian with a long white beard opened it, into whose hand she put some money without saying a single word. But the Christian, who knew what she wanted, went in again, and a little while after returned, bringing a large pitcher full of excellent wine. You observed, that although we who lived in Turkey might know that wine was in most cities prohibited to be sold openly, and that if it was to be found it would be in the house of a Christian, many of whom disposed of it in a mysterious manner to the Mohammedans; yet that circumstance would not immediately occur to the mere European reader, who, perhaps, would expect something to be forthcoming in the future narrative, from what is, in fact, only a trait of common life.
I then suggested, that, perhaps, if an European would give a correct idea of Oriental manners, which would comprehend an account of the vicissitudes attendant upon the life of an Eastern, of his feelings about his government, of his conduct in domestic life, of his hopes and plans of advancement, of his rivalities and jealousies, in short, of everything that is connected both with the operations of the mind and those of the body, perhaps his best method would be to collect so many facts and anecdotes of actual life as would illustrate the different stations and ranks which compose a Mussulman community, and then work them into one connected narrative, upon the plan of that excellent picture of European life, Gil Blas of Le Sage.