To while away the time by repeating tales has always been a favourite
recreation in the East; and to this practice Sprenger attributes the episodic
form of many passages in the life of Mahomet. The habit survives in the
professional story-tellers who in our own day recite romances like that of
Antar; and they do so with a histrionic power for which, compared with that of
European actors, Sprenger avows his preference. These romances are committed
to memory, and, as occasion requires, repeated in a shorter or longer form;
but, however varied and in different shape, when the expressions are compared
with the original model, there is found a substantial agreement to prevail.