Chapter I: Front Matter

THE PACHA OF MANY TALES

by

CAPTAIN MARRYAT

List of Tales

Story of the Camel-Driver Story of the Greek Slave Story of the Monk Story of the Monk (continued) Huckaback Manuscript of the Monk Third Voyage of Huckaback Fourth Voyage of Huckaback Fifth Voyage of Huckaback Sixth Voyage of Huckaback The Last Voyage of Huckaback The Scarred Lover The Story of Hudusi Tale of the English Sailor The Water-Carrier The Wondrous Tale of Han Story of the Old Woman

Prefatory Note

The Pacha of Many Tales, as indeed its title suggests, is constructed in direct imitation of the _Arabian Nights_. A Pacha of olden days, enchanted by the stories of Schezehezerade, becomes emulous of the great Haroun, and determines to procure his own stock of entertainment. By the assistance of a wily barber-vizier he succeeds in the attempt, and listens with greedy credulity to the marvellous histories herein set forth.

On one occasion an English sailor is dragged into the august presence, and demands, with all the dogged independence of his race, the reasons for such treatment.

"You must tell lies, and you will have gold," replies the vizier.

"Tell lies," says Jack Tar, "that is, spin yarns. Well, I can do that."

The volume before us could not be more suggestively described. It is a collection of admirable short stories of intrigue and adventure, traveller's wonders narrated with a perfect air of good faith and no regard for truth or probability. All the countries on the globe, and many existing only in the imagination, are called into requisition to produce a brilliant phantasmagoria of manners and customs. The stories move rapidly and defy criticism by the very occasion of their being, invented to amuse and astonish a jaded autocrat.

Hence we feel no shock in reading of an island where the commonest utensils are made of gold, a nursery of whales, five months in the interior of an iceberg, or a journey among the clouds during a thunderstorm. The demand for brevity strengthens Marryat's style, and saves him from padding. He is very happy in contriving expediences, and evinces considerable wit in the conception, for instance, of Yussuf the water-carrier. Some of the stories, again, are really dramatic, and the "Second Voyage of Huckaback" (p. 126) reaches a height of weird horror that recalls, without paling before the thought, certain passages in _The Ancient Mariner_.

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_The Pacha of Many Tales_ was first published in _The Metropolitan Magazine_, 1831-1835. During its appearance Marryat printed in the same magazine (in 1833) a drama, _The Monk of Seville_, of which the plot is almost exactly identical with _The Story of the Monk_ (p. 44). "Port Royal Tom," the shark, and his Government pension, also appear in _Jacob Faithful_, Chap. XXV.

_The Pacha of Many Tales_ is here printed, with a few corrections, from the second edition in 3 vols. A.K. Newman & Co., 1844.

R.B.J