The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-29 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Nov. 28.—Two o'Clock.—The complete
success of the new Austrian Loan has had no effect
on the market, and little or no business is doing.
A similar heaviness also pervades the London mar-
ket, Consols being telegraphed with a fall of 4 per
cent. The prices charged for carrying over Stock
and Shares are much the same as yesterday.
Threes, for the Account, are quoted without varia-
tion at 68f. 55c. Credit Mobilier Shares also remain
stationary. Italian Fives are sought after at an ad-
vance of 15c.—viz., 64f. 97ic. Lombard and
Austrian Shares unvaried. The obligations of the
new Austrian Loan are dealt in at a premium of 50c.
Three o'clock. The market left off as follows:

44 per Cents
Do. end month —
3 per Cents. 6B 60
Do. end month 6B 521
Credit Mobilier
Do. end month
Bank Shares —
Credit Foncier 1330
Italian Loan —
Do. end month 64 95
RAILNI

Roman
Ottoman Fives 44 15
Mexican Loan 49 75
Do. Bonds 331 25
Russian —
Austrian
Spanish Threes
Home Debt
Deferred

WAYS.
Cash. Amt.
Orleans
Northern — ... 1098
Lyons and Mediterranean ... 826
Southern — ... 567
Western ... 537
Eastern -
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard ... 400

North of Spain ... 161

Saragossa — 196
Ditto to Barcelona ,,,
Roman -

NG, NOVEMBER 29, 1865.

LITERATURE.

New Arabian Stories.

Mehemet, the Kurd, and Other Tales., from Eastern
Sources. By Charles Wells. One Vol., pp. 184.

Bell and Daldy.
Eureka !—it is found (that desired of kings) a
new sensation ! A collection of perfectly fresh and
original tales—fresh and original, that is, so far as
English readers are concerned—one, at least, among
which tales, the first and longest story of them all, is
worthy of taking its place and of holding its own
among the thousand and one tales of the Arabian
Nights' Entertainments ! Mehemet, the Kurd, is
the name of this exquisite Arabian Romance,
hitherto wholly unknown in the English language.
How it has so happened that never until now has
it been translated from the Arabic into our own
tongue simply passes our comprehension. At any
rate it is translated at last—thanks to a learned
and gifted Member of the Asiatic Society, the au-
thor of this charming volume in fact, Mr. Charles
Wells, already honourably known among English
cultivators of oriental literature as Turkish Prize-
man of King's College. Having, for our own part,
read "Mehemet, the Kurd," from beginning to end
—and whosoever, following our example, shall begin
with the beginning, we promise here, will infallibly,
like ourselves, end only with the end !—we
are Mr. Charles Wells' most obedient ! As
surely as ever the Wedding Guest was the
Ancient Mariner's most obedient in the weird and
wondrous ballad of Coleridge ! For, reading this
story of Mehemet the Kurd we aro fairly wafted
away into the regions of Fairyland, or, at least,
into the realms peopled with such marvellous
creatures as the Genii, the Gnome, the Cyclops, the
Troll, the Wizard, and the Mannikin. We seem
to breath a very atmospheie of black magic and
diablerie. Our feet are virtually shod, like Jack's,
with the shoes of swiftness. Clanking at our side,
ready to hand in its scabbard, hangs Jack's sword
of sharpness. On our head is the cap, in our
pocket is the purse of Fortunatus. Encircling our
finger glitters the ring, held in our grasp shines
the lamp of Aladdin. We sail through the air
cross-legged, either between the outstretched wings
of a roc or upon a square yard of the immemorial
wishing carpet. All this—while we are reading the
marvellous history of Mehemet, the Kurd, as it is
here related to us in an evidently most faithful
translation by Mr. Wells, an oriental scholar, so
ripe and truthful in his scholarship that he adheres
faithfully throughout to the very manner of the
original. Besides the story of Mehemet, the
Kurd, there are eight other (most of them
very brief) oriental narratives, such as " The
Tale of a Skull," " The Wife with Two Hus-
bands," " The Princess and the Cobbler," and
so forth, together with eleven very curious
specimens of Oriental Poetry, such as "The Butter-
fly and the Candle," or such again as " The Rose
and the Nightingale." But—ingenious and some-
times really beautiful though these new exemplars of
the imaginativeness of the oriental race undoubtedly
are—the pride of the book, the glory and wonder
of it, to our thinking, is the first story of
all, the story about Mehemet. The fascina-
tion of this particular story, as a narrative,
begins -with the decline of the fortunes of the
young Kurd, when, after squandering his wealth of
all kinds, whether in horses, camels, cattle, tents,
or raiment, he finds his friends dropping away
from him one by one—leaving him at last in the
desert with no shelter to his head, in the shape of an
inch of tent canvass, with scarcely a rag to cover
his nakedness, and he himself half dead from
drought and starvation. The darkest hour before
the dawn, says the proverb—and so it proves, in
truth, to be with regard to Mehemet. Presented
with five sheep by an old man who had known his
father and who pities the son's misfortunes in the
light of that remembrance—Mehemet is driving his
five sheep wearily through the desert in search of
better fortune, when he encounters a knave of a
courier or letter - carrier (as he turns out
to be afterwards), to whom Mehemet, in his sim-
plicity, sells his five sheep—for what ? For
a dream ! " Yesterday," quoth the man, in answer
to Mehemet's inquiries as to whither he was going,
—" Yesterday, know that I had a dream, and now
I am going to catch it before any one can take it
before me." So said Mehemet to the man, " Will
you not sell me your dream ?" " Yes, with great
pleasure," answered the man; and—as Mehemet
wished to get rid of the sheep (being weary of them),
and as the man (in his cunning) wished to get
possession of them—they, that is Mehemet and the
man, are not long in coming to an agree-
ment. The man—laughing in his sleeve or
under the shadow of his burnous rather—marches
off with the five sheep triumphantly. Mehemet,
hastening on in the direction pointed out to him,
goes eagerly in quest of the dream he is bent upon
catching ! The marvel of the whole sequel of the
story being this, that in point of fact a dream,
such as Kurd had never dreamt before, is actually
caught by Mehemet, and realized by him magni-
ficently From the City of the Four Towers
he bears off thebeautiful Princess Durat-el-Muluk,
carrying her far away from the dominions of
King Hassan (her father) to those of King
Gulnar ! How, having changed his rags for
princely robes, and taken to wife the
lovely young Princess Durat-el-Muluk, Mehe-
met obtains, with his first wife's consent,
a second wife, in the still lovelier form of the Prin-
cess Bahr-el-Maha, and afterwards, with the con-
sent of both first and second wife, of yet a third,
the loveliest of all three, in the person of the Prin-
cess Nuzat-ez-Zeman How he first engratiates
himself with King Gulnar, by presenting him a
golden dish filled with precious stones, representing
himself to be the son of King Fidous, a far -away
monarch of formidable power ! How he builds up a
noble city in place of a ruined village and, in the
midst of it, raises the walls of a sumptuous palace,
in which he lives in great splendour, peace, and
popularity with his three wives, the Princesses
Durat-el-Muluk, Bahr-el-Maha, and Nuzhat-ez-
Zeman How he wins the one of them by a mid-
night flight on horseback—the second by ravishing
the sword made of seven metals from among the
Treasures of the Wise—and the third, by plucking
ten apples in the Garden of the Philosophers ! How
one and another in this story sail about in mid-air in
a golden balloon ! How we make the acquaintance of
the Magician Zirajjan, of King Hassan, and even-
tually of King Fidous, and how all ends happily'
for—no longer Mehemet, the Kurd, but—Mehemet,
the King ! Let the translator of this gorgeous
romance from the far east relate himself in his own
truthful and eloquent translation of the tale as
it is told in the Arabic original ! For, mar the
effect of it we will not by any cold-blooded and
deliberate epitome of the chain of incidents.
Altogether it is an exquisite and fascinating tale,
according to our appreciation of it—a tale so truly
Oriental in its character, and so magnificent in its
imaginings, that we unhesitatingly place it upon the
same shelf with the Zadig of Voltaire, and the
Vathek of Beckford, and best of all, beyond all,
that world's wilderness of nzirages of the imagina-
tion, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments them-
selves !

EARL RUSSELL AND THE BRADFORD REFORM
MEETING.—The deputation from the Bradford Re
form meeting, consisting of the following gentlemen--
Messrs. H. W. Wickham, M.P., W. E. Forster, M.P.,
Alderman Brown, Robert Kell, and W. 11. Arnold—waited
upon Earl Russell in Downing-street yesterday afternoon.
His lordship expressed generally his concurrence with most
of the views of the memorialists as to the admission of the
working classes to such a share in the representation as
their intelligence and interests require, and stated that he
was himself of opinion that the time had come for a further
admission of the working classes to a share in the repre-
sentation, but that, considering the great opposition any
bill might meet with, the Government would not think it
wise to bring forward a bill unless it was fully matured and
grounded upon well-ascertained facts.
THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH AT CAMBERWELL.--AR
inquest was held yesterday by Mr. Carter on the
body of Walter Isaac Acklin, the man who was found
dead with his head fixed between the palings of a piece of
waste ground in Brunswick-square, Camberwell, under
the circumstances reported on Monday. It seemed per-
fectly clear from the evidence that no foul play had been
practised towards the deceased, who probably was sud-
denly taken ill and fell while leaning towards the palings,
and his hands being in his pockets was unable to extri-
cate himself. The jury returned a verdict of " Accidehtal
death."

THE MEDITERRANEAN.

-' "--0---

The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-
ship Delta, Captain J. R. Kellock, arrived at
Southampton yesterday afternoon with the heavy
portion of the Bombay mails, in charge of Mr.
Douglas, of the General Post-office. She brought
41 passengers (among whom were Surgeon-Major
Seaman, from Bombay, and General Castilla, from
Gibraltar), and on freight £4,788 in specie, 3 bales
of silk, 11 cases of raw silk, 67 cases of shawls, 148
packages of elephants' tusks, 279 boxes of lemons,
27 boxes of oranges, 4 casks of wine, and 104 pack-
ages of general merchandise.

The Delta left Alexandria on the 14th instant,
Malta the 18th, and Gibraltar the 23d, and was in
quarantine both at Malta and Gibraltar. Between
Alexandria and Malta she experienced fresh, variable
winds ; thence to Gibraltar, moderate head winds
and fine weather ; off the coast of Portugal she en-
countered a hard gale on the 24th inst. from S.W.,
with high following sea ; across the Bay of Biscay
moderate fresh breezes with heavy confused swell,
and in the Channel a fresh gale from S.E., with
high sea.

On the 25th, off the mouth of the river Tagus, the
Delta passed her Majesty's ship Magicienne, on her
way home from the Mediterranean station to be paid
off, with invalids on board, and on the 26th, in the
Bay of Biscay, she saw the screw steamship Rhone,
steering south-west.

The Sardinian corvette Etna, two Austrian men-
of-war, and the usual Egyptian fleet, were at Alex-
andria.

Her Majesty's ships Victoria, Orlando, Terrible,
Royal Oak, Firefly, and Cossack were in harbour
when the Delta left.

The Italian screw frigate Regina, Capt. Armajon,
flag of Rear-Admiral Ricordi, and screw gunboat
Arditi, Commander J. de Racchiu, nine days from
Naples, and five from Cagliari, arrived at Gibraltar
on the 17th inst.

The Spanish paddlewheel corvette Isabel la Cato-
lica, which had left some days previously for the
Havannah, returned to Cadiz on the 13th inst.
The Isabel encountered in full force the late stormy
weather in the Atlantic, and was obliged to put back
with loss of rudder, paddle boxes, and bulwarks, be-
sides suffering other damage. This vessel will have
to undergo thorough repair preparatory to proceed-
ing on her voyage.
The Turkish screw corvettes Ismir and Brousse,
of 17 guns each, which left Gibraltar on the night
of the 11th, put into Cadiz on the following day.
Both corvettes are bound for the Turkish ports on
the Red Sea.

The Cadiz Palnza reports the stranding, a league
to the west of Conil, at 7 a.m. on the 7th inst., of
the British bark Souvenir, with coal, from Sunder-
land for Alexandria. The master and ten of the
crew reached the shore in safety. One man missing
is supposed to have been drowned.

His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, about to em-
bark at Trieste on board her Majesty's ship Racoon,
was expected shortly to visit Gibraltar. The follow-
ing general order, respecting his Royal Highness's
reception, had been issued to the garrison :
"Notification having been received from the
Secretary of State that his Royal Highness Prince
Alfred will shortly embark at Trieste, on board
H.M.S. Racoon and will probably visit this for-
tress, his Royal Highness, having attained his majo-
rity, will be received as a member of the royal family,
unless he notifies his intention of dispensing with
the usual forms of reception. All communications
will be sent to Lieutenant Haig, Royal Engineers,
Equerry, who will submit them to Prince Alfred,
and through him his Royal Highness's pleasure will
be notified."

It is reported from Tangier that the Sultan is
about to establish a Custom-house on the Moorish
frontier opposite to the Spanish fortress of Melilla.
Melilla has been made a free port, and the Sultan's
Customs' revenue suffers in consequence by the ex-
tensive smuggling across the Spanish line into the
mountains of Riff. As the only means of preventing
the evasion of import duties in this quarter the Sul-
tan has determined to erect a Custom-house, in
which the same duties will be recovered on goods
from Melilla as on those introduced into his domi-
nions by other ports.
The following British merchant steamers had ar-
rived out at Gibraltar :—November 15, the Isis,
Capt. G. Creig, six days from Liverpool, for Malta,
&c. ; 17th, the Osiris, Capt. M. Conolly, eight days
from Liverpool, for Malta and Alexandria ; 18th,
the Ripon, Capt. J. M. Rogers, five days 19 hours
from Southampton, with mails, &c., for Malta and
Alexandria ; 19th, the Britannia, Capt. J. Mullett,
seven and a half days from London, with Govern-
ment stores ; 21st, the Mercury, Capt. J. Jacques,
eight days from Cardiff, with coals.

Latest quotations of exchange at Gibraltar were
as follows :—London, 90 days' date, 49f ; Paris,
ditto, sf. 23c. ; Marseilles, ditto, sf. 23c. ; Madrid,
eight days' sight, dis. ; Cadiz, ditto, 2to 2+ dia. ;
Seville, ditto, par ; Malaga, ditto, par to + pm. ;
Barcelona, 1 to 1+ pm. ; premium on five-franc
pieces, i to 4 per cent.

The Spanish Consul at Gibraltar, in reply to a
communication he had addressed to the Spanish
Minister for Foreign Affairs, reporting the satisfac-
tory state of the health in Gibraltar, on the 20th
received a communication from the Minister in-
forming' him that in consequence of such favourable
report instructions had that day (16th) been given
to the Civil Governor of Cadiz for the removal of
the cordon.

MARKETS—This Day.

MARK-LANE.

The supply of English wheat on sale at Mark-lane to-
day was very moderate, and the condition of the bulk of
the samples was poor. Good and fine dry samples changed
hands at full prices, but damp produce was very dull at
about Monday's currency.
A fair supply of foreign wheat was on the stands. The
demand for most descriptions ruled quiet, nevertheless
Monday's quotations were fully supported.
Floating cargoes of grain moved off slowly at late
. _

prices.
The supply of barley on sale was tolerably large. Fine
malting parcels changed hands at full prices, but secondary
and inferior qualities were very dull. Grinding and
distilling barley moved off slowly, at late rates.
Malt was in slow request, at late prices.
Oats were in but moderate supply, and the trade ruled
firm, with an upward tendency in the quotations.
Beans and peas were very firm, at fully late rates.
There was a fair demand for flour, at full currencies.
SHIP ARRIVALS THIS WEEK.
Wheat. Barley. Malt. Oats. Flour.
English and Scotch. 330 390 220 250 340
Irish —
Foreign lB7O 1950

4,510 710 sks.

brls.

COMPARATIVE QUANTITIES AND PRICES OF GRAIN.
:For the week ending Nov. For the corresponding week
• 25, 1865. last year.
Qrs. Aver. Qrs. Aver.
Wheat 70,904-46s 10d Wheat 78,113-38s 9d
Barley 76,782-34 s Odd Barley 79,205-29 s 9d
Oats