[FN#141] In Bresl. Edit. vi. 198 by misprint "Kutr": Chavis and Cazotte have "Kassera." In the story of Bihkard we find a P.N. "Yatr."

[FN#142] i.e. waylaying travellers, a term which has often occurred.

[FN#143] i.e. the royal favour.

[FN#144] i.e. When the fated hour came down (from Heaven).

[FN#145] As the Nights have proved in many places, the Asl (origin) of a man is popularly held to influence his conduct throughout life. So the Jeweller's wife (vol. ix.) was of servile birth, which accounted for her vile conduct; and reference is hardly necessary to a host of other instances. We can trace the same idea in the sayings and folk-lore of the West, e.g. Bon sang ne peut mentir, etc., etc.

[FN#146] i.e. "What deemest thou he hath done?"

[FN#147] The apodosis wanting "to make thee trust in him?"

[FN#148] In the Braj Bkh dialect of Hindi, we find quoted in the Akhlk-i-Hindi, "Tale of the old Tiger and the Traveller":—

Jo jko paryo subho je n jo-sun; Nm na mitho hoe sichh gur ghio sun.

Ne'er shall his nature fall a man whate'er that nature be, The Nm-tree bitter shall remain though drenched with Gur and Gh.

The Nm (Melia Azadirachta) is the "Persian lilac" whose leaves, intensely bitter, are used as a preventive to poison: Gur is the Anglo-Indian Jaggeri=raw sugar and Ghi clarified butter. Roebuck gives the same proverb in Hindostani.

[FN#149] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Kaskas; or the Obstinate Man." For ill-luck, see Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days" (p. 171), and Giles's "Strange Stories," &c. (p. 430), where the young lady says to Ma, "You often asked me for money; but on account of your weak luck I hitherto refrained from giving it."

[FN#150] True to life in the present day, as many a standing hay-rick has shown.

[FN#151] The "Munajjim" is a recognised authority in Egyptian townlets, and in the village republics of Southern India the "Jyoshi" is one of the paid officials.

[FN#152] Arab. "Amn" sub. and adj. In India it means a Government employ who collects revenue; in Marocco a commissioner sent by His Sharifian Majesty.

[FN#153] Our older word for divers=Arab "Ghawwsn": a single pearl (in the text Jauhar=the Port. AIjofar) is called "habbah"=grain or seed.

[FN#154] The kindly and generous deed of one Moslem to another, and by no means rare in real life.

[FN#155] "Eunuch," etymologically meaning chamberlain ( + ), a bed-chamber-servant or slave, was presently confined to castrated men found useful for special purposes, like gelded horses, hounds, and cockerels turned to capons. Some writers hold that the creation of the semivir or apocopus began as a punishment in Egypt and elsewhere; and so under the Romans amputation of the "peccant part" was frequent: others trace the Greek "invalid," i.e., impotent man, to marital jealousy, and not a few to the wife who wished to use the sexless for hard work in the house without danger to the slave-girls. The origin of the mutilation is referred by Ammianus Marcellinus (lib. iv. chap. 17), and the Classics generally, to Semiramis, an "ancient queen" of decidedly doubtful epoch, who thus prevented the propagation of weaklings. But in Genesis (xxxvii. 36; xxxix. 1, margin) we find Potiphar termed a "Sarm" (castrato), an "extenuating circumstance" for Mrs. P. Herodotus (iii. chap. 48) tells us that Periander, tyrant of Corinth, sent three hundred Corcyrean boys to Alyattes for castration , and that Panionios of Chios sold caponised lads for high prices (viii. 105): he notices (viii. 104 and other places) that eunuchs "of the Sun, of Heaven, of the hand of God," were looked upon as honourable men amongst the Persians whom Stephanus and Brissonius charge with having invented the name (Dabistan i. 171). Ctesias also declares that the Persian kings were under the influence of eunuchs. In the debauched ages of Rome the women found a new use for these effeminates, who had lost only the testes or testiculi=the witnesses (of generative force): it is noticed by Juvenal (i. 22; ii. 365-379; vi. 366)

—sunt quos imbelles et mollia semper Oscula delectant.

So Martial,

—vult futui Gallia, non parere,

And Mirabeau knew (see Kadsah) "qu'ils mordent les femmes et les liment avec une prcieuse continuit." (Compare my vol. ii. 90; v. 46.) The men also used them as catamites (Horace i. Od. xxxvii.).

"Contaminato cum grege turpium, Morbo virorum."

In religion the intestabilis or intestatus was held ill-omened, and not permitted to become a priest (Seneca Controv. ii. 4), a practice perpetuated in the various Christian churches. The manufacture was forbidden, to the satisfaction of Martial, by Domitian, whose edict Nero confirmed; and was restored by the Byzantine empire, which advanced eunuchs, like Eutropius and Narses, to the highest dignities of the realm. The cruel custom to the eternal disgrace of mediaeval Christianity was revived in Rome for providing the choirs in the Sistine Chapel and elsewhere with boys' voices. Isaiah mentions the custom (Ivi. 3-6). Mohammed, who notices in the Koran (xxiv. 31), "such men as attend women and have no need of women," i.e., "have no natural force," expressly forbade (iv. 118), "changing Allah's creatures," referring, say the commentators, to superstitious earcropping of cattle, tattooing, teeth-sharpening, sodomy, tribadism, and slave-gelding. See also the "Hidyah," vol. iv. 121; and the famous divine AI-Siyti, the last of his school, wrote a tractate Fi 'I-Tahrmi Khidmati 'I-Khisyn=on the illegality of using eunuchs. Yet the Harem perpetuated the practice throughout AI-Islam and African jealousy made a gross abuse of it. To quote no other instance, the Sultan of Dr-For had a thousand eunuchs under a Malik or king, and all the chief offices of the empire, such as Ab (father) and Bb (door), were monopolised by these neutrals. The centre of supply was the Upper Nile, where the operation was found dangerous after the age of fifteen, and when badly performed only one in four survived. For this reason, during the last century the Coptic monks of Girgah and Zawy al-Dayr, near Assiout, engaged in this scandalous traffic, and declared that it was philanthropic to operate scientifically (Prof. Panuri and many others). Eunuchs are now made in the Sudn, Nubia, Abyssinia, Kordofn, and Dr-For, especially the Messalmiyah district: one of those towns was called "Tawshah" (eunuchry) from the traffic there conducted by Fukah or religious teachers. Many are supplied by the district between Majarah (Majarash?) and the port Masawwah; there are also depts at Mbadr, near Tajurrah-harbour, where Yusuf Bey, Governor in 1880, caponised some forty boys, including the brother of a hostile African chief: here also the well-known Abu Bakr was scandalously active. It is calculated that not less than eight thousand of these unfortunates are annually exported to Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. Article IV. of the AngIo-Egyptian Convention punishes the offense with death, and no one would object to hanging the murderer under whose mutilating razor a boy dies. Yet this, like most of our modern "improvements" in Egypt, is a mere brutum fulmen. The crime is committed under our very eyes, but we will not see it.

The Romans numbered three kinds of eunuchs:—1. Castrati, clean-shaved, from Gr. ; 2. Spadones, from , when the testicles are torn out, not from "Spada," town of Persia; and, 3. Thlibii, from , to press, squeeze, when the testicles are bruised, &c. In the East also, as I have stated (v. 46), eunuchs are of three kinds:—1. Sandali, or the clean-shaved, the classical apocopus. The parts are swept off by a single cut of a razor, a tube (tin or wooden) is set in the urethra, the wound is cauterised with boiling oil, and the patient is planted in a fresh dunghill. His diet is milk; and if under puberty, he often survives. This is the eunuque aqueduc, who must pass his water through a tube. 2. The eunuch whose penis is removed: he retains all the power of copulation and procreation without the wherewithal; and this, since the discovery of caoutchouc, has often been supplied. 3. The eunuch, or classical Thlibias and Semivir, who has been rendered sexless by removing the testicles (as the priests of Cybele were castrated with a stone knife), or by bruising (the Greek Thlsias), twisting, searing, or bandaging them. A more humane process has lately been introduced: a horsehair is tied round the neck of the scrotum and tightened by slow degrees till the circulation of the part stops and the bag drops off without pain. This has been adopted in sundry Indian regiments of Irregular Cavalry, and it succeeded admirably: the animals rarely required a day's rest. The practice was known to the ancients. See notes on Kadsah in Mirabeau. The Eunuchata virgo was invented by the Lydians, according to their historian Xanthus. Zachias (Quaest. medico-legal.) declares that the process was one of infibulation or simple sewing up the vulva; but modern experience has suggested an operation like the "spaying" of bitches, or mutilation of the womb, in modern euphuism "baby-house." Dr. Robert ("Journey from Delhi to Bombay, Mller's Archiv. 1843") speaks of a eunuch'd woman who after ovariotomy had no breasts, no pubes, no rotundities, and no desires. The Australians practice exsection of the ovaries systematically to make women barren. Miklucho Maclay learned from the traveller Retsch that about Lake Parapitshurie men's urethras were split, and the girls were spayed: the latter showing two scars in the groin. They have flat bosoms, but feminine forms, and are slightly bearded; they mix with the men, whom they satisfy mechanically, but without enjoyment (?). MacGillivray, of the "Rattlesnake," saw near Cape York a woman with these scars: she was a surdo-mute, and had probably been spayed to prevent increase. The old Scandinavians, from Norway to Iceland, systematically gelded "sturdy vagrants" in order that they might not beget bastards. The Hottentots before marriage used to cut off the left testicle, meaning by such semi-castration to prevent the begetting of twins. This curious custom, mentioned by the Jesuit Tochard, Boeving, and Kolbe, is now apparently obsolete— at least, the traveller Fritsch did not find it.

[FN#156] Arab. "Harm"="forbidden," sinful.

[FN#157] In Chavis and Cazotte, who out-galland'd Galland in transmogrifying the Arabic, this is the "Story of Illage (AI-Hjj) Mahomet and his sons; or, the Imprudent Man." The tale occurs in many forms and with great modifications. See, for instance, the Gesta Romanorum "Of the miraculous recall of sinners and of the consolation which piety offers to the distressed," the adventures of the knight Placidus, vol. ii. 99. Charles Swan, London. Rivington, 1824.

[FN#158] i.e. For fear of the "eye"; see vol. i. 123 and passim. In these days the practice is rare; but, whenever you see at Cairo an Egyptian dame daintily dressed and leading by the hand a grimy little boy whose eyes are black with flies and whose dress is torn and unclean, you see what has taken its place. And if you would praise the brat you must not say "Oh, what a pretty boy!" but "Inshallah!"—the Lord doth as he pleaseth.

[FN#159] The adoption of slave lads and lasses was and is still common among Moslems.

[FN#160] I have elsewhere noted this "pathetic fallacy" which is a lieu commun of Eastern folk-lore and not less frequently used in the mediaeval literature of Europe before statistics were invented.

[FN#161] Arab. "Yaskut min 'Aynayh," lit.=fall from his two eyes, lose favour.

[FN#162] i.e. killing a man.

[FN#163] i.e. we can slay him whenever we will.

[FN#164] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Abosaber the Patient." "Ab-Sbir" would mean "Father of the Patient (one)."

[FN#165] Arab. "Dihkn," in Persian a villager; but here something more, a villageelder or chief. AI-Mas'udi (chap. xxiv.), and other historians apply the term to a class of noble Persians descended from the ten sons of Wahkert, the first,"Dihkn," the fourth generation from King Kayomars.

[FN#166] Reminding one not a little of certain anecdotes anent Quakers, current in England and English-speaking lands.

[FN#167] Arab. "Karyah," a word with a long history. The root seems to be Karaha, he met; in Chald. Karih and Kria (emphatic Krita)=a town or city; and in Heb. Kirjath, Kirythayim, etc. We find it in Carthage= Kart hdisah, or New Town as opposed to Utica (Atkah)=Old Town; in Carchemish and in a host of similar compounds. In Syria and Egypt Kariyah, like Kafr, now means a hamlet, a village.

[FN#168] i.e. wandering at a venture.

[FN#169] Arab. "Sakhrah," the old French Corve, and the "Begr" of India.

[FN#170] Arab. "Matmrah:" see vol. ii. 39, where it was used as an "underground cell." The word is extensively used in the Maghrib or Western Africa.

[FN#171] Arab. "Y Ab Sbir." There are five vocative particles in Arabic; "Y," common to the near and far; "Ay" (ho!) and "Hay" (holla!) addressed to the far, and "Ay" and "A" (A-'Abda-llhi, O Abdullah), to those near. All govern the accusative of a noun in construction in the literary language only; and the vulgar use none but the first named. The English-speaking races neglect the vocative particle, and I never heard it except in the Southern States of the AngloAmerican Union=Oh, Mr. Smith.

[FN#172] He was not honest enough to undeceive them; a neat Quaker-like touch.

[FN#173] Here the oath is justified; but the reader will have remarked that the name of Allah is often taken in vain. Moslems, however, so far from holding this a profanation deem it an acknowledgment of the Omnipotence and Omnipresence. The Jews from whom the Christians have borrowed had an interest in concealing the name of their tribal divinity; and therefore made it ineffable.

[FN#174] i.e. the grave, the fosse commune of slain men.

[FN#175] A fancy name; "Zawash" in Pers. is = the planet Jupiter, either borrowed from Greece, or both descended from some long forgotten ancestor.

[FN#176] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zd (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar = better) and superlative (bih-tarin=best).

[FN#177] i.e. the moiety kept by the bridegroom, a contingent settlement paid at divorce or on the death of the husband.

[FN#178] Arab. "Rumh"=the horseman's lance not the footman's spear.

[FN#179] i.e. became a highwayman (a time-honoured and honourable career) in order to collect money for completing the dowry.

[FN#180] i.e. to the bride, the wedding-day; not to be confounded with "going in unto" etc.

[FN#181] Probably meaning that she saw the eyes espying through the crevice without knowing whose they were.

[FN#182] A fancy name intended to be Persian

[FN#183] i.e. thy Harem, thy women.

[FN#184] i.e. thy life hath been unduly prolonged.

[FN#185] See Chavis and Cazotte, "Story of Ravia (Arw!) the Resigned." Ddbn (Persian)=one who looks to justice, a name hardly deserved in this case.

[FN#186] For this important province and city of Persia, see Al-Mas'ud, ii. 2; iv. 86, etc. It gave one of the many names to the Caspian Sea. The adjective is Tabari, whereas Tabarni=native of Tiberias (Tabariyah).

[FN#187] Zor-khn=Lord Violence, and Kr-dn=Business-knower; both Persian.

[FN#188] "Arw" written with a terminal of y is a woman's P.N. in Arabic.

[FN#189] i.e. Not look down upon me with eyes of contempt. This "marrying below one" is still an Eastern idea, very little known to women in the West.

[FN#190] Chavis and Cazotte call the Dabbs a "dabour" and explain it as a "sort of scepter used by Eastern Princes, which serves also as a weapon." For the Dabbs, or mace, see vol. vi. 249.

[FN#191] i.e. Let thy purposes be righteous as thine outward profession.

[FN#192] See vol. vi. 130. This is another lieu commun amongst Moslems; and its unfact requires only statement.

[FN#193] Afterwards called his "chamberlain," i.e. guardian of the Harem-door.

[FN#194] i.e. Chosros, whom Chavis and Cazotte make "Cyrus."

[FN#195] Arab. "Tkiyah," used for the Persian Takhtrawn, common in The Nights.

[FN#196] Arab. "Kubbah," a dome-shaped tent, as elsewhere.

[FN#197] This can refer only to Abu al-Khayr's having been put to death on Kardan's charge, although the tale-teller, with characteristic inconsequence, neglected to mention the event.

[FN#198] Not referring to skull sutures, but to the forehead, which is poetically compared with a page of paper upon which Destiny writes her irrevocable decrees.

[FN#199] Said in the grimmest earnest, not jestingly, as in vol. iv. 264.

[FN#200] i.e. the lex talionis, which is the essence of Moslem, and indeed, of all criminal jurisprudence. We cannot wonder at the judgment of Queen Arwa: even Confucius, the mildest and most humane of lawgivers, would not pardon the man who allowed his father's murderer to live. The Moslem lex talionis (Koran ii. 173) is identical with that of the Jews (Exod. xxi. 24), and the latter probably derives from immemorial usage. But many modern Rabbins explain away the Mosaical command as rather a demand for a pecuniary mulct than literal retaliation. The well-known Isaac Aburbanel cites many arguments in proof of this position: he asks, for instance, supposing the accused have but one eye, should he lose it for having struck out one of another man's two? Moreover, he dwells upon the impossibility of inflicting a punishment the exact equivalent of the injury; like Shylock's pound of flesh without drawing blood. Moslems, however, know nothing of these frivolities, and if retaliation be demanded the judge must grant it. There is a legend in Marocco of an English merchant who was compelled to forfeit tooth for tooth at the instance of an old woman, but a profitable concession gilded the pill.

[FN#201] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Bhazmant (!); or the Confident Man." "Bakht (-i-) Zamn" in Pers. would=Luck of the Time.

[FN#202] Chavis and Cazotte change the name to "Abadid," which, like "Khaddn," is nonsignificant.

[FN#203] Arab. "Fris," here a Reiter, or Dugald Dolgetti, as mostly were the hordes led by the mediaeval Italian Condottiri.

[FN#204] So Napoleon the Great also believed that Providence is mostly favorable to "gros bataillons."

[FN#205] Pers. and Arab.="Good perfection."

[FN#206] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Baharkan." Bihkard (in Shiraz pronounced "Kyard")="Well he did."

[FN#207] See "Katr" in the Introduction to the Bakhtiyr-nmah.

[FN#208] The text has "Jaukaln" for Saulajn, the Persian "Chaugn"=the crooked bat used in Polo. See vol. 1. 46.

[FN#209] Amongst Moslems, I have noted, circumstantial evidence is not lawful: the witness must swear to what he has seen. A curious consideration, how many innocent men have been hanged by "circumstantial evidence." See vol. v. 97.

[FN#210] In Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Abattamant (!), or the Prudent Man;" also Ayln Shah becomes Olensa after Italian fashion.

[FN#211] In Arab. idiom a long hand or arm means power, a phrase not wholly unused in European languages. Chavis and Cazotte paraphrase "He who keeps his hands crossed upon his breast, shall not see them cut off."

[FN#212] Arab. "Jama'a atrfah," lit.=he drew in his extremities, it being contrary to "etiquette" in the presence of a superior not to cover hands and feet. In the wild Argentine Republic the savage Gaucho removes his gigantic spurs when coming into the presence of his master.

[FN#213] About the equivalent to the Arab. or rather Egypto- Syrian form "Jiddan," used in the modern slang sense.

[FN#214] i.e. that he become my son-in-law.

[FN#215] For the practice of shampooing often alluded to in The Nights, see vol. iii. 17. The king "sleeping on the boys' knees" means that he dropped off whilst his feet were on the laps of the lads.

[FN#216] Meaning the honour of his Harem.

[FN#217] Pardon, lit.=security; the cry for quarter already introduced into English

"Or raise the craven cry Aman."

It was Mohammed's express command that this prayer for mercy should be respected even in the fury of fight. See vol. i. 342.

[FN#218] A saying found in every Eastern language beginning with Hebrew; Proverbs xxvi. 27, "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein."

[FN#219] i.e. a domed tomb where prayers and perlections of the Koran could be made. "Kubbah" in Marocco is still the term for a small square building with a low medianaranja cupola under which a Santon lies interred. It is the "little Waly" of our "blind travellers" in the unholy "Holy Land."

[FN#220] i.e. to secure her assistance in arousing the king's wrath.

[FN#221] i.e. so slow to avenge itself.

[FN#222] Story of Sultan Hebriam (!), and his Son" (Chavis and Cazotte). Unless they greatly enlarged upon the text, they had a much fuller copy than that found in the Bresl. Edit.

[FN#223] A right kingly king, in the Eastern sense of the word, would strike off their heads for daring to see omens threatening his son and heir: this would be constructive treason of the highest because it might be expected to cause its own fulfilment.

[FN#224] Mohammed's Hads "Kazzib 'l-Munajjimna bi Rabbi 'I-Ka'abah"=the Astrologers lied, by the Ka'abah's Lord!

[FN#225] Arab. "Khawtn," plur. of Khtn, a matron, a lady, vol. iv. 66.

[FN#226] See Al-Mas'udi, chapt. xvii. (Fr. Transl. ii. 48-49) of the circular cavity two miles deep and sixty in circuit inhabited by men and animals on the Caucasus near Derbend.

[FN#227] Arab. "Nafas" lit.=breath. Arabs living in a land of caverns know by experience the danger of asphyxiation in such places.

[FN#228] This simple tale is told with much pathos not of words but of sense.

[FN#229] Arab. "Ajal"=the appointed day of death, also used for sudden death. See vol. i. 74.

[FN#230] i.e. the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two great festival days (the other being the New Year) of the Persians, and surviving in our Michaelmas. According to Al-Mas'ud (chap. xxi.), it was established to commemorate the capture of Zahhk (Azhi-Dahka), the biting snake (the Hindu Ahi) of night and darkness, the Greek Astyages, by Furaydun or Feridun. Prof. Sayce (Principles of Comparative Philology, p. 11) connects the latter with the Vedic deity Trita, who harnessed the Sun-horse (Rig. v. i. 163, 2, 3), the of Homer, a title of Athene, the Dawn-goddess, and Burnouf proved the same Trita to be Thrataona, son of Athwya, of the Avesta, who finally became Furaydn, the Greek Kyrus. See vol. v. 1.

[FN#231] In Chavis and Cazotte, "Story of Selimansha and his Family."

[FN#232] Arab. for Pers. Pahluwn (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him "Balavan"; and the Bresl. text in more than one place (p. 312) calls him "Bahwn."

[FN#233] i.e. King (Arab.) King (Persian): we find also Sultan Malik Shah=King King King.

[FN#234] Arab. "Auld-," a vulgarism, plural for dual.

[FN#235] Mr. Payne translates, "so he might take his father's leavings" i.e. heritage, reading "sr" which I hold to be a clerical error for Sr=Vendetta, blood revenge (Bresl. Edit. vi. 310).

[FN#236] Arab. "Al-'s" the pop. term for one who refuses to obey a constituted authority and syn. with Pers. "Ygh." "Ant 's?" Wilt thou not yield thyself? says a policeman to a refractory Fellah.

[FN#237] i.e. of the Greeks: so in Kor. xxx. 1. "Alif Lam Mim, the Greeks (Al-Roum) have been defeated." Mr. Rodwell curiously remarks that "the vowel-points for defeated' not being originally written, would make the prophecy true in either event, according as the verb received an active or passive sense in pronunciation." But in discovering this mare's nest, a rank piece of humbug like Aio te Aeacida, etc., he forgets that all the Prophet's "Companions," numbering some 5000, would pronounce it only in one way and that no man could mistake "ghalabat" (active) for "ghulibat" (passive).

[FN#238] The text persistently uses "Jriyah"=damsel, slave-girl, for the politer "Sabiyah"=young lady, being written in a rude and uncourtly style.

[FN#239] So our familiar phrase "Some one to back us."

[FN#240] Arab. "'Akkada lahu ry," plur. of ryat, a banner. See vol. iii. 307.

[FN#241] i.e. "What concern hast thou with the king's health?" The question is offensively put.

[FN#242] Arab. "Masalah," a question; here an enigma.

[FN#243] Arab. "Liall" (i.e. li, an, l) lest; but printed here and elsewhere with the y as if it were "laylan,"=for a single night.

[FN#244] i.e. if my death be fated to befal to-day, none may postpone it to a later date.

[FN#245] Arab. "Dust": so the ceremony vulgarly called "Doseh" and by the ItaloEgyptians "Dosso," the riding over disciples' backs by the Shaykh of the Sa'diyah Darwayshes (Lane M.E. chapt. xxv.) which took place for the last time at Cairo in 1881.

[FN#246] In Chavis and Cazotte she conjures him "by the great Maichonarblatha Sarsourat" (Mat wa arba'at ashar Srat)=the 114 chapters of the Alcoran.

[FN#247] I have noted that Moslem law is not fully satisfied without such confession which, however, may be obtained by the bastinado. It is curious to compare English procedure with what Moslem would be in such a case as that of the famous Tichborne Claimant. What we did need hardly be noticed. An Arab judge would in a case so suspicious at once have applied the stick and in a quarter of an hour would have settled the whole business; but then what about the "Devil's own," the lawyers and lawyers' fees? And he would have remarked that the truth is not less true because obtained by such compulsory means.

[FN#248] The Hudhud, so called from its cry "Hood! Hood!" It is the Lat. upupa, Gr. from its supposed note epip or upup; the old Egyptian Kukufa; Heb. Dukiphath and Syriac Kikuph (Bochart Hierozoicon, part ii. 347). The Spaniards call it Gallo de Marzo (March-Cock) from its returning in that month, and our old writers "lapwing" (Deut. xiv. 18). This foul-feeding bird derives her honours from chapt. xxvii. of the Koran (q.v.), the Hudhud was sharp-sighted and sagacious enough to discover water underground which the devils used to draw after she had marked the place by her bill.

[FN#249] Here the vocative Y is designedly omitted in poetical fashion (e.g., Khalliyya—my friend!) to show the speaker's emotion. See p. 113 of Captain A. Lockett's learned and curious work the "Miet Amil" (=Hundred Regimens), Calcutta, 1814.

[FN#250] The story-teller introduces this last instance with considerable art as a preface to the dnoement.

[FN#251] See Chavis and Cazotte "Story of the King of Haram and the slave."

[FN#252] i.e. men caught red-handed.

[FN#253] Arab. "Libwah," one of the multitudinous names for the king of beasts, still used in Syria where the animal has been killed out, soon to be followed by the bear (U. Syriacus). The author knows that lions are most often found in couples.

[FN#254] Arab. "Himyn or Hamyn,"=a girdle.

[FN#255] As he would kiss a son. I have never yet seen an Englishman endure these masculine kisses, formerly so common in France and Italy, without showing clearest signs of his disgust.

[FN#256] A cheap way of rewarding merit, not confined to Eastern monarchs, but practised by all contemporary Europe.

[FN#257] Arab. "Kasf,"=houghing a camel so as to render it helpless. The passage may read. "we are broken to bits (Kis) by our own sin."

[FN#258] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 251-4, Night dlxv.

[FN#259] See vol. vi. 175. A Moslem should dress for public occasions, like the mediaeval student, in vestibus (quasi) nigris aut subfuscis; though not, except amongst the Abbasides, absolutely black, as sable would denote Jewry.

[FN#260] A well-known soldier and statesman, noted for piety and austerity. A somewhat fuller version of this story, from which I have borrowed certain details, is given in the Biographical Dictionary of Ibn Khallikn (i. 303-4). The latter, however, calls the first Abd al-Malik "Ibn Bahrn" (in the index Ibn Bahrm), which somewhat spoils the story. "Ibn Khallikan," by-the-by, is derived popularly from "Khalli" (let go), and "Kna" (it was, enough), a favourite expression of the author, which at last superseded his real name, Abu al-Abbs Ahmad. He is better off than the companion nicknamed by Mohammed Ab Horayrah=Father of the She-kitten (not the cat), and who in consequence has lost his true name and pedigree.

[FN#261] In Ibn Khallikn (i. 303) he is called the "Hashimite," from his ancestor, Hashim ibn Abd Manf. The Hashimites and Abbasides were fine specimens of the Moslem "Pharisee," as he is known to Christians, not the noble Purushi of authentic history.

[FN#262] Meaning a cap, but of what shape we ignore. Ibn Khallikan afterwards calls it a "Kalansa," a word still applied to a mitre worn by Christian priests.

[FN#263] Arab. "L baas," equivalent in conversation to our "No matter," and "All right."

[FN#264] As a member of the reigning family, he wore black clothes, that being the especial colour of the Abbasides, adopted by them in opposition to the rival dynasty of the Ommiades, whose family colour was white, that of the Fatimites being green. The Moslems borrowed their sacred green, "the hue of the Pure," from the old Nabatheans and the other primitive colours from the tents of the captains who were thus distinguished. Hence also amongst the Turks and Tartars, the White Horde and the Black Horde.

[FN#265] The word has often occurred, meaning date-wine or grape-wine. Ibn Khaldn contends that in Ibn Khallikan it here means the former.

[FN#266] 25,000. Ibn Khallikan (i. 304) makes the debt four millions of dirhams or 90,000-100,000.

[FN#267] In the Biographer occurs the equivalent phrase, "That a standard be borne over his head."

[FN#268] Here again we have a suggestion that Ja'afar presumed upon his favour with the Caliph; such presumption would soon be reported (perhaps by the austre intrigant himself) to the royal ears, and lay the foundation of ill-will likely to end in utter destruction.

[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 258-60, Night dlxvii.

[FN#270] Fourth Abbaside, A.D. 785-786, vol. v. 93. He was a fantastic tyrant who was bent upon promoting to the Caliphate his own son, Ja'afar; he cast Harun into prison and would probably have slain him but for the intervention of the mother of one of the two brothers, Khayzarn widow of Al-Mahdi, and Yahya the Barmecide.

[FN#271] Third Abbaside, A.D. 775-785, vol. vii. 136; ix. 334.

[FN#272] This reminds us of the Bir Al-Khtim (Well of the Signet) at Al-Medinah; in which Caliph Osman during his sixth year dropped from his finger the silver ring belonging to the founder of Al-Islam, engraved in three lines with "Mohammed / Apostle (of) / Allah /." It had served to sign the letters sent to neighboring kings and had descended to the first three successors (Pilgrimage ii. 219). Mohammed owned three seal- rings, the golden one he destroyed himself; and the third, which was of carnelian, was buried with other objects by his heirs. The late Subhi Pasha used to declare that the latter had been brought to him with early Moslem coins by an Arab, and when he died he left it to the Sultan.

[FN#273] Mr. Payne quotes Al-Tabari's version of this anecdote. "El-Mehdi had presented his son Haroun with a ruby ring, worth a hundred thousand dinars, and the latter being one day with his brother (the then reigning Khalif), El Hadi saw the ring on his finger and desired it. So, when Haroun went out from him, he sent after him, to seek the ring of him. The Khalif's messenger overtook Er Reshid on the bridge over the Tigris and acquainted him with his errand; whereupon the prince, enraged at the demand, pulled off the ring and threw it into the river. When El Hadi died and Er Rashid succeeded to the throne, he went with his suite to the bridge in question and bade his Vizier Yehya ben Khalid send for divers and cause them to make search for the ring. It had then been five months in the water and no one believed it would be found. However, the divers plunged into the river and found the ring in the very place where he had thrown it in, whereat Haroun rejoiced with an exceeding joy, regarding it as a presage of fair fortune."

[FN#274] Not historically correct. Al-Rashid made Yhy, father of Ja'afar, his Wazir; and the minister's two sons, Fazl and Ja'afar, acted as his lieutenants for seventeen years from A.D. 786 till the destruction of the Barmecides in A.D. 803. The tale-teller quotes Ja'afar because he was the most famous of the house.

[FN#275] Perhaps after marrying Ja'afar to his sister. But the endearing name was usually addressed to Ja'afar's elder brother Fazl, who was the Caliph's foster-brother.

[FN#276] Read seventeen: all these minor inaccuracies tend to invalidate the main statement.

[FN#277] Arab. "Yar'ad" which may mean "thundereth." The dark saying apparently means, Do good whilst thou art in power and thereby strengthen thyself.

[FN#278] The lady seems to have made the first advances and Bin Ab Hjilah quotes a sixaine in which she amorously addresses her spouse. See D'Herbelot, s.v. Abbassa.

[FN#279] The tale-teller passes with a very light hand over the horrors of a massacre which terrified and scandalised the then civilised world, and which still haunt Moslem history. The Caliph, like the eking, can do no wrong; and, as Viceregent of Allah upon Earth, what would be deadly crime and mortal sin in others becomes in his case an ordinance from above. These actions are superhuman events and fatal which man must not judge nor feel any sentiment concerning them save one of mysterious respect. For the slaughter of the Barmecides, see my Terminal Essay, vol. x.

[FN#280] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 260-1, Night dlxviii.

[FN#281] Ibn al-Sammk (Son of the fisherman or fishmonger), whose name was Ab al-Abbs Mohammed bin Sabh, surnamed Al- Mazkr (Ibn al-Athir says Al-Muzakkar), was a native of Kufah (where he died in A.H. 183 = 799-80), a preacher and professional tale-teller famed as a stylist and a man of piety. Al-Siyuti (p. 292) relates of him that when honoured by the Caliph with courteous reception he said to him, "Thy humility in thy greatness is nobler than thy greatness." He is known to have been the only theologician who, ex cathedr, promised Al-Rashid a place in Paradise.

[FN#282] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 261-2, Night dlxviii.

[FN#283] Seventh Abbaside, A.H. 198-227 = 813-842. See vol. iv. 109. He was a favourite with his father, who personally taught him tradition; but he offended the Faithful by asserting the creation of the Koran, by his leaning to Shi'ah doctrine, and by changing the black garments of the Banu Abbas into green. He died of a chill at Budandun, a day's march from Tarsus, where he was buried: for this Podendon = = stretch out thy feet, see Al-Siyuti, pp. 326-27.

[FN#284] Sixth Abbaside, A.D. 809-13. See vol. v. 93: 152. He was of pure Abbaside blood on the father's side and his mother Zubaydah's. But he was unhappy in his Wazir Al-Fazl bin Rab, the intriguer against the Barmecides, who estranged him from his brothers Al-Ksim and Al-Maamn. At last he was slain by a party of Persians, "who struck him with their swords and cut him through the nape of his neck and went with his head to Tahir bin al-Husayn, general to Al-Maamn, who set it upon a garden-wall and made proclamation, This is the head of the deposed Mohammed (Al-Amn)." Al-Siyuti, pp. 306-311. It was remarked by Moslem annalists that every sixth Abbaside met with a violent death: the first was this Mohammed al-Amin surnamed Al-Makhl' = The Deposed; the second sixth was Al-Musta'n; and the last was Al- Muktad bi'llh.

[FN#285] Lit. "Order and acceptance." See the Tale of the Sandal-wood Merchant and the Sharpers: vol. vi. 202.

[FN#286] This is not noticed by Al-Siyuta (p. 318) who says that his mother was a slave-concubine named Marjil who died in giving him birth. The tale in the text appears to be a bit of Court scandal, probably suggested by the darkness of the Caliph's complexion.

[FN#287] Bresl. Edit., vol. viii. pp. 226-9, Nights dclx-i.

[FN#288] King of the Arab kingdom of Hirah, for whom see vol. v. 74. This ancient villain rarely appears in such favourable form when tales are told of him.

[FN#289] The tribe of the chieftain and poet, Htim T, for whom see vol. iv. 94.

[FN#290] i.e. I will make a covenant with him before the Lord. Here the word "Allah" is introduced among the Arabs of The Ignorance.

[FN#291] i.e. the man of the Tribe of Tay.

[FN#292] A similar story of generous dealing is told of the Caliph Omar in The Nights. See vol. v. 99 et seq.

[FN#293] Bresl. Edit., vol. viii. pp. 273-8, Nights dclxxv-vi. In Syria and Egypt Firz (the Persian "Proz") = victorious, triumphant, is usually pronounced Fayrs. The tale is a rechauff of the King and the Wazir's Wife in The Nights. See vol. vi. 129.

[FN#294] i.e. I seek refuge with Allah = God forfend.

[FN#295] Bresl. Edit., vol. xi. pp. 84318, Nights dccclxxvdccccxxx. Here again the names are Persian, showing the provenance of the tale; Shah Bakht is=King Luck and Rahwn is a corruption of Rahbn=one who keeps the (right) way; or it may be Ruhbn=the Pious. Mr. W. A. Clouston draws my attention to the fact that this tale is of the Sindibad (Seven Wise Masters) cycle and that he finds remotely allied to it a Siamese collection, entitled Nonthuk Pakaranam in which Princess Kankras, to save the life of her father, relates eighty or ninety tales to the king of Pataliput (Palibothra). He purposes to discuss this and similar subjects in extenso in his coming volumes, "Popular Tales and Fictions: their Migrations and Transformations," to which I look forward with pleasant anticipations.

[FN#296] So far this work resembles the Bakhtiyr-nmeh, in which the ten Wazirs are eager for the death of the hero who relates tales and instances to the king, warning him against the evils of precipitation.

[FN#297] One pilgrimage (Hajjat al-Islam) is commanded to all Moslems. For its conditions see The Nights, vol. v. 202, et seq.

[FN#298] Arab. "Hajj al-Shrif." For the expenses of the process see my Pilgrimage iii. 12. As in all "Holy Places," from Rome to Benares, the sinner in search of salvation is hopelessly taken in and fleeced by the "sons of the sacred cities."

[FN#299] Here a stranger invites a guest who at once accepts the invitation; such is the freedom between Moslems at Meccah and Al-Medinah, especially during pilgrimagetime.

[FN#300] i.e. the master could no longer use her carnally.

[FN#301] i.e. wantoned it away.

[FN#302] Here "Al-Hajj"=the company of pilgrims, a common use of the term.

[FN#303] The text says, "He went on with the caravan to the Pilgrimage," probably a clerical error. "Hajj" is never applied to the Visitation (Ziyrah) at Al-Medinah.

[FN#304] Arab. "Jwar," that is, he became a mujwir, one who lives in or near a collegiate mosque. The Egyptian proverb says, "He pilgrimaged: quoth one, Yes, and for his villainy lives (yujawir) at Meccah," meaning that he found no other place bad enough for him.

[FN#305] I have often heard of this mysterious art in the East, also of similarly making rubies and branch-coral of the largest size, but, despite all my endeavours, I never was allowed to witness the operation. It was the same with alchemy, which, however, I found very useful to the "smasher." See my History of Sindh, chapt. vii.

[FN#306] Elsewhere in The Nights specified as white woolen robes.

[FN#307] Whilst she was praying the girl could not address her; but the use of the rosary is a kind of "parergon."

[FN#308] Arab. "Y Hjjah" (in Egypt pronounced "Hggeh"), a polite address to an elderly woman, who is thus supposed to have "finished her faith."

[FN#309] Arab. "Kansah" (from Kans=sweeping) a pagan temple, a Jewish synagogue, and especially a Christian church.

[FN#310] i.e. standeth in prayer or supplication.

[FN#311] i.e. fell into hysterics, a very common complaint amongst the highly nervous and excitable races of the East.

[FN#312] Arab. "Kahramnah," a word which has often occurred in divers senses, nurse, duenna, chamberwoman, stewardess, armed woman defending the Harem, etc.

[FN#313] Which is supposed to contain the Harem.

[FN#314] Especially mentioned because the guide very often follows his charges, especially when he intends to play them an ugly trick. I had an unpleasant adventure of the kind in Somaliland; but having the fear of the "Aborigines Protection Society" before my eyes, refrained from doing more than hinting at it.

[FN#315] i.e. otherwise than according to ordinance of Allah.

[FN#316] A well-known city of lrk 'Ajam (or Persian).

[FN#317] i.e. spare pegs and strings, plectra, thumb-guards, etc.

[FN#318] Arab. "Hasr," the fine matting used for sleeping on during the hot season in Egypt and Syria.

[FN#319] i.e. The bed where the "rough and tumble" had taken place.

[FN#320] This word, which undoubtedly derives from cuculus, cogul, cocu, a cuckoo, has taken a queer twist, nor can I explain how its present meaning arose from a shebird which lays her egg in a strange nest. Wittol, on the other hand, from Witan, to know, is rightly applied to one whom La Fontaine calls "cocu et content," the Arab Dayys.

[FN#321] Arab. "Shabakah," here a net like a fisherman's, which is hung over the hole in the wall called a shop, during the temporary absence of the shopkeeper. See my Pilgrimage, i. 100.

[FN#322] i.e. of which the singer speaks.

[FN#323] i.e., she found him good at the to-and-fro movement; our corresponding phrase is "basket-making."

[FN#324] Arab. "Mu'arris": in vol. i. 338, 1 derived the word from 'Ars marriage, like the Germ. Kupplerin. This was a mere mistake; the root is 'Ars (with a Sd not a Sn) and means a pimp who shows off or displays his wares.

[FN#325] Arab. "Akhmitu Ghazla-h" lit.=thicken her yarn or thread.

[FN#326] I must again warn the reader that the negative, which to us appears unnecessary, is emphatic in Arabic.

[FN#327] i.e. By removing the goods from the "but" to the "ben." Pilgrimage i. 99.

[FN#328] Arab. "Tannr," here the large earthern jar with a cover of the same material, round which the fire is built.

[FN#329] Being a musician the hero of the tale was also a pederast.

[FN#330] Here Mr. Payne supplies "Then they returned and sat down" (apparently changing places). He is quite correct in characterising the Bresl. Edit. as corrupt and "fearfully incoherent." All we can make certain of in this passage is that the singer mistook the Persian for his white slave (Mameluke).

[FN#331] Arab. "Bazaka," normally used in the sense of spitting; here the saliva might be applied for facilitating insertion.

[FN#332] In Persian "ward o burd,"=brought and bore away, gen. applied to the movement of the man as in the couplet,

Chenn burd o ward o ward o burd, Kih dyeh pas-i-pardeh zi ghussah murd.

He so came and went, went and came again, That Nurse who lay curtained to faint was fain.

[FN#333] Alluding to the fighting rams which are described by every Anglo-Indian traveller. They strike with great force, amply sufficient to crush the clumsy hand which happens to be caught between the two foreheads. The animals are sometimes used for Fl or consulting futurity: the name of a friend is given to one and that of a foe to the other; and the result of the fight suggests victory or defeat for the men.

[FN#334] Arab. "Jauhar"=the jewel, the essential nature of a substance. Compare M. Alcofribas' "Abstraction of the Quintessence."

[FN#335] In parts of the Moslem world Al-Jabr=the tyranny, is the equivalent of what we call "civil law," as opposed to Al-Shar'ah, or Holy Law, the religious code; Diwan al-Jabr (Civil Court) being the contrary of the Mahkamah or Kazi's tribunal. See "First Footsteps in East Africa," p. 126.

[FN#336] i.e. in offering thee the kingship.

[FN#337] i.e. "a man of fourscore."

[FN#338] i.e. outside the city.

[FN#339] See the conclusion of the story.

[FN#340] i.e. I have said my say.

[FN#341] Arab. "Al-Mutabattil," usually=one who forsakes the world. The Katart alNaysn or rain-drops in the month Naysn (April) produce pearls when falling into the oyster-shells and poison in the serpent's mouth. The allusions to them are innumerable in Persian poetry, and the idea gives rise to a host of moralities more or less insipid.

[FN#342] This is the general idea concerning the diamond in all countries where the gem is dug, but I never heard it of the pearl.

[FN#343] Arab. "Faras," properly a mare; but the writer begins by using the feminine, and then employs the masculine. It is an abominable text.

[FN#344] Arab. "Rutab wa manzil," may also mean "stations and mansions (of the moon and planets)." The double entendre was probably intended.

[FN#345] Arab. "Za-f," still a popular word, meaning feeble, sick, ailing, but especially, weak in venery.

[FN#346] See the original of this tale in King Al-Af': Al-Mas'ud, chap. xlvi.

[FN#347] He says this without any sense of shame, coolly as Horace or Catullus wrote.

[FN#348] i.e. of the caravan with which he came.

[FN#349] Arab. "Al-'Adl." In the form of Z 'adl it = a legal witness, a man of good repute; in Marocco and other parts of the Moslem world 'Adul (plur. 'Udl) signifies an assessor of the Kazi, a notary. Padre Lerchundy (loc. cit. p. 345) renders it notario.

[FN#350] i.e. I would marry thy daughter, not only for her own sake, but for alliance with thy family.

[FN#351] i.e. the bride's face.

[FN#352] The Ghusl or complete ablution after car. cop.

[FN#353] Thus the girl was made lawful to him as a concubine by the "loathly ladye," whose good heart redeemed her ill-looks.

[FN#354] Meaning the poor man and his own daughter.

[FN#355] Mr. Payne changes the Arab title to the far more appropriate heading, "Story of the Rich Man and his Wasteful Son." The tale begins with sop's fable of the faggot; and concludes with the "Heir of Linne," in the famous Scotch ballad. Mr. Clouston refers also to the Persian Tale of Murchlis (The Sorrowful Wazir); to the Forty Vezirs (23rd Story) to Cinthio and to sundry old English chap-books.

[FN#356] Arab. "Tafrk wa'l-jam'a."

[FN#357] Arab. "Waft" pop. used as death, decease, departure; but containing the idea of departing to the mercy of Allah and "paying the debt of nature." It is not so illomened a word as Maut=death.

[FN#358] i.e. gifts and presents. See vol. iv. 185.

[FN#359] i.e. Turcomans; presently called Sstn, for which see vol. ii. 218.

[FN#360] In my Pilgrimage (i. 38), 1 took from Mr. Galton's Art of Travel, the idea of opening with a lancet the shoulder or other fleshy part of the body and inserting into it a precious stone. This was immensely derided by not a few including one who, then a young man from the country, presently became a Cabinet Minister. Despite their omniscience, however, the "dodge" is frequently practised. See how this device was practised by Jeshua Nazarenus, vol. v. 238.

[FN#361] Arab. "'Alam," a pile of stones, a flag or some such landmark. The reader will find them described in "The Sword of Midian," i. 98, and passim.

[FN#362] Mr. Clouston refers to the "Miles Gloriosus" (Plautus); to "Orlando Innamorato" of Berni (the Daughter of the King of the Distant Isles); to the "Seven Wise Masters" ("The Two Dreams," or "The Crafty Knight of Hungary"); to his Book of Sindibad, p. 343 ff.; to Miss Busk's Folk-Lore of Rome, p. 399 ("The Grace of the Hunchback"); to Prof. Crane's "Italian Popular Tales," p. 167, and "The Elopement," from Pitr's Sicilian collection.

[FN#363] In sign of impatience; "Look sharp!"

[FN#364] i.e. the resemblance of the supposed sister to his wife. This is a rechauff of Kamar al-Zamn iid.

[FN#365] This leaving a long lock upon the shaven poll is a very ancient practice: we find it amongst the old Egyptians. For the Shshah or top-knot of hair, see vol. i. 308. It is differently worn in the several regions of the Moslem world: the Maroccans of the Rf country grow it not on the poll but on one side of the head. As a rule, however, it is confined to boys, and is shaved off at puberty.

[FN#366] Suspecting her to be a witch because she was old and poor. The same was the case in Europe when these unfortunates were burned during the early part of the last century and even now the country-folk are often ready to beat or drown them. The abominable witchcraft acts, which arose from bibliolatry and belief in obsolete superstitions, can claim as many victims in "Protestant" countries, England and the Anglo-American States as the Jesuitical Inquisition.

[FN#367] It is not easy to make sense of this passage especially when the Wazir is spoken of.

[FN#368] This is a rechauff of the Sandal-Wood Merchant and the Sharpers. Vol. vi. 202.

[FN#369] I have followed Mr. Payne's adaptation of the text as he makes sense, whilst the Arabic does not. I suppose that the holes are disposed crosswise.

[FN#370] i.e. Thy skill is so great that thou wilt undermine my authority with the king.

[FN#371] This famous tale is first found in a small collection of Latin fables (Adolphi Fabul apud Leyser Hist. Poet. Medii vi, p. 2008), beginning

Ccus erat quidam, cui pulcra virago, etc.

The date is 1315, and Caxton printed it in English in 1483; hence it was adopted by Boccaccio, Day vii., Novella 9; whence Chaucer's "Marchaundes Tale": this, by-the-by, was translated by Pope in his sixteenth or seventeenth year, and christened "January and May." The same story is inserted in La Fontaine (Contes, lib. ii., No. 8), "La Gageure des trois Commres," with the normal poirier; and lastly it appears in Wieland's "Oberon," canto vi.; where the Fairy King restores the old husband's sight, and Titania makes the lover on the pear-tree invisible. Mr. Clouston refers me also to the Bahr-i-Dnish, or Prime of Knowledge (Scott's translation, vol. ii., pp. 6468); "How the Brahman learned the Tirrea Bede"; to the Turkish "Kirk Wazir" (Forty Wazirs) of the Shaykh-Zadeh (xxivth Wazir's story); to the "Comdia Lydi," and to Barbazan's "Fabliaux et Contes" t. iii. p. 451, "La Saineresse," the cupping-woman.

[FN#372] In the European versions it is always a pear-tree.

[FN#373] This supernatural agency, ever at hand and ever credible to Easterns, makes this the most satisfactory version of the world-wide tale.

[FN#374] i.e. till next harvest time.

[FN#375] The "'Ashshr," or Tither, is most unpopular in the Nile-valley as in Wales; and he generally merits his ill-repute. Tales concerning the villainy of these extortioners abound in Egypt and Syria. The first step in improvement will be so to regulate the tithes that the peasants may not be at the mercy of these "publicans and sinners" who, however, can plead that they have paid highly for appointment to office and must recoup themselves.

[FN#376] Arab. "'Ammir"=cause to flourish.

[FN#377] Arab. "Afkah," a better Fakh or theologian; all Moslem law being based upon the Koran, the Sayings (Hadis) and Doings (Sunnat) of the Prophet; and, lastly, the Rasm or immemorial custom of the country provided that it be not opposed to the other three.

[FN#378] If the number represent the days in the Moslem year it should be 354=6 months of 29 days and the rest of 30).

[FN#379] The affirmative particle "kad" preceding a verb in the past gives it a present and at times a future signification.

[FN#380] A danik, the Persian "Dng," is one-sixth of a dirham, i.e. about one penny. See vol. ii. 204.

[FN#381] It would mightily tickle an Eastern audience to hear of a Tither being unable to do any possible amount of villainy.

[FN#382] i.e. The oath of triple divorce which is, I have said, irrevocable, and the divorce may not be taken again by her husband till her marriage with another man (the Mustahill of The Nights) has been consummated. See vol. iv., 48.

[FN#383] i.e. thousandfold cuckold.

[FN#384] Arab. "Wad'ah"=the blows which the Robber had given him.

[FN#385] Arab. "Sindiyn" (from the Persian) gen. used for the holm-oak, the Quercus pseudococcifera, vulgarly termed ilex, or native oak, and forming an extensive scrub in Syria, For this and other varieties of Quercus, as the Malll and the Ballt, see Unexplored Syria, i. 68.

[FN#386] Hibernic

[FN#387] Lit. "In the way of moderation"=at least, at the most moderate reckoning.

[FN#388] Arab. "Rasml," the vulg. Syrian and Egyptian form of Raas al-ml=stockin-trade.

[FN#389] Usually a ring or something from his person to show that all was fair play; here however, it was a watchword.

[FN#390] Arab. "Ya Madybah," prob. a clerical error for "Madynah," alluding to her many debts which he had paid. Here, however, I suspect the truly Egyptian term "Y Manykah!"=O thou berogered; a delicate term of depreciation which may be heard a dozen times a day in the streets of Cairo. It has also a masculine form, "Y Manyk!"

[FN#391] About=100 lb. Mr. Sayce (Comparative Philol. p. 210) owns that Mn is old Egyptian but makes it a loan from the "Semites," like Ss (horse), Sar (prince), Sepet (lip) and Murcabutha (chariot), and goes to its origin in the Acratan column, because "it is not found before the times when the Egyptians borrowed freely from Palestine." But surely it is premature to draw such conclusion when we have so much still to learn concerning the dates of words in Egyptian.

[FN#392] Arab. Jmi'. This anachronism, like many of the same kind, is only apparent. The faith preached by Sayyidn Is was the Islam of his day and dispensation, and it abrogated all other faiths till itself abrogated by the mission of Mahommed. It is therefore logical to apply to it terms which we should hold to be purely Moslem. On the other hand it is not logical to paint the drop-curtain of the Ober-Ammergau "Miracle-play" with the Mosque of Omar and the minarets of Al-Islam. I humbly represented this fact to the mechanicals of the village whose performance brings them in so large a sum every decade; but Snug, Snout and Bottom turned up the nose of contempt and looked upon me as a mere "shallow sceptic."

[FN#393] Arab. "Talmizah," plur. of Tilmz, a disciple, a young attendant. The word is Syriac and there is a Heb. root but no Arabic. In the Durrat al-Ghawws, however, Tilmz, Bilks, and similar words are Arabic in the form of Fa'll and Fi'll

[FN#394] Rh Allah, lit.=breath of Allah, attending to the miraculous conception according to the Moslems. See vol. v. 238.

[FN#395] Readers will kindly pronounce this word "Sahr" not Sahr.

[FN#396] Mr. Clouston refers for analogies to this tale to his "Oriental Sources of some of Chaucer's Tales" (Notes and Queries, 188586), and he finds the original of The Pardoner's Tale in one of the Jtakas or Buddhist Birth-stories entitled Vedabbha Jataka. The story is spread over all Europe; in the Cento Novelle Antiche; Morlini; Hans Sachs, etc. And there are many Eastern versions, e.g. a Persian by Fard al-Dn "'Attar" who died at a great age in A.D. 1278; an Arabic version in The Orientalist (Kandy, 1884); a Tibetan in Rollston's Tibetan Tales; a Cashmirian in Knowles' Dict. of Kashmr Proverbs, etc., etc., etc.

[FN#397] Arab. "'Awn" lit.=aids, helpers; the "Aun of the Jinn" has often occurred.

[FN#398] i.e. the peasant.

[FN#399] i.e. those serving on the usual feudal tenure; and bound to suit and service for their fiefs.

[FN#400] i.e. the yearly value of his fief.

[FN#401] i.e. men who paid taxes.

[FN#402] Arab. "Rastk" plur. of Rustk. See vol. vi. 289.

[FN#403] This adventure is a rechauff of Amjad's adventure (vol. iii. 333) without, however, its tragic catastrophe.

[FN#404] The text is so concise as to be enigmatical. The house was finely furnished for a feast, as it belonged to the Man who was lavish, etc.

[FN#405] Arab. "Khubz Samz;" the latter is the Arabisation of the Pers. Samd, fine white bread, simnel, Germ. semmel.

[FN#406] The text has "Baklt"=pot-herbs; but it is probably a clerical error for "Baklwt." See vol. ii. 311.

[FN#407] Egyptian-like he at once calls upon Allah to witness a lie and his excuse would be that the lie was well-intentioned.

[FN#408] i.e. The private bagnio which in old days every grand house possessed.

[FN#409] This is a fancy title, but it suits the tale better than that in the text (xi. 183) "The Richard who lost his wealth and his wits." Mr. Clouston refers to similar stories in Sacchetti and other early Italian novelists.

[FN#410] Arab. "Al-Muwaswis": for "Wisws" see vol. i. 106. This class of men in stories takes the place of our "cunning idiot," and is often confounded with the Saudwi, the melancholist proper.

[FN#411] Arab. "Hamhama," an onomapoeic, like our hum, hem, and haw.

[FN#412] Arab. "Barniyah," a vessel either of glass or pottery like that in which the manna was collected (Exod. xvi. 33).

[FN#413] A hasty man, as Ghazbn=an angry man.

[FN#414] The Bresl. Edit. misprint. "Khablas" in more places than one, now with a Sn, then with a Sd. Khalbas suggests "Khalbs," a buffoon, for which see vol. ii. 143. In Egypt, however, the latter generally ends in a Sad (see Lane's "Khalboos," M. E. chap. xxvii).

[FN#415] This story is a rechauff of the Jewish Kazi and his pious wife; see vol. v. 256.

[FN#416] The Arab form of "Nayshpr"=reeds of (King) Shapr: see vol. ix. 230.

[FN#417] Arab. "Al Tark al-Satr wa al-Salmah," meaning that each other's wives did not veil before their brothers-in-law as is usually done. It may also mean that they were under Allah's protection and in best of condition.

[FN#418] i.e. he dared not rape her.

[FN#419] i.e. her "yes" meant "yes" and her "no" meant "no."

[FN#420] "Ignorance" (Jahl) may, here and elsewhere, mean wickedness, forwardness, folly, vicious folly or uncalled-for wrath. Here Arabic teaches a good lesson, for ignorance, intemperance and egoism are, I repeat, the roots of all evil.

[FN#421] So Mohammed said of a child born in adultery "The babe to the blanket (i.e. let it be nursed and reared) and the adultress to the stone."

[FN#422] Arab. "Wa h," etc., an interjection corresponding with the Syriac "ho" lo! (i.e., look) behold! etc.

[FN#423] This paragraph is supplied by Mr. Payne: something of the kind has evidently fallen out of the Arab text.

[FN#424] i.e. in the presence of witnesses, legally.

[FN#425] Lit. a myriad, ten thousand dirhams. See vol. iv. 281.

[FN#426] The fire was intended to defend the mother and babe from Jinns, bad spirits, the evil eye, etc. Romans lit candles in the room of the puerpara; hence the goddess Candelifera, and the term Candelaria applied to the B.V. In Brand's Popular Antiquities (ii. 144) we find, "Gregory mentions an ordinary superstition of the old wives who dare not trust a child in a cradle by itself alone without a candle;" this was for fear of the "night-hag" (Milton, P. L., ii. 662). The same idea prevailed in Scotland and in Germany: see the learned Liebrecht (who translated the Pentamerone) "Zur Folkskunde," p. 31. In Sweden if the candle go out, the child may be carried off by the Trolls (Weckenstedt, Wendische Sagen, p. 446). The custom has been traced to the Malay peninsula, whither it was probably imported by the Hindus or the Moslems, and amongst the Tajiks in Bokhara. For the Hindu practice, see Katha S. S. 305, and Prof. Tawney's learned note analysed above.

[FN#427] Arab. "Khinah," fem. of Khin (Cohen): see Kahnah, vol. i. 28.

[FN#428] i.e. for a long time, as has been before explained.

[FN#429] i.e. at his service. Arabia was well provided with Hetair and public women long before the days of Al-Islam.

[FN#430] Arab. "Athar"=sign, mark, trail.

[FN#431] i.e. Persia. See vol. v. 26.

[FN#432] Arab. "'Akkr" plur. of 'Akkr prop.=aromatic roots; but applied to vulgar drugs or simples, as in the Tale of the Sage Duban, i. 46.

[FN#433] Arab. "Si'at rizki-h" i.e., the ease with which he earned his copious livelihood.

[FN#434] i.e. the ten thousand dirhams of the bond, beside the unpaid and contingent portion of her "Mahr" or marriage-settlement.

[FN#435] Arab. "Al-Hzr" from Hazr=loquacity, frivolous garrulity. Every craft in the East has a jargon of its own and the goldsmith (Zargar) is famed for speaking a language made unintelligible by the constant insertion of a letter or letters not belonging to the word. It is as if we rapidly pronounced How d'ye do=Howth doth yeth doth?

[FN#436] Arab. "Asm al-Adwiyah," such as are contained in volumes like the "Alfz al-Adwi-yah" (Nomenclature of Drugs).

[FN#437] I am compelled to insert a line in order to make sense.

[FN#438] "Galen," who is considered by Moslems as a kind of pre-Islamitic Saint; and whom Rabelais (iii. c. 7) calls Le gentil Falot Galen, is explained by Eustathius as the Serene {Greek} from {Greek}=rideo.

[FN#439] Arab. "Shah" the clear space before the house as opposed to the "Bathah" (Span. Patio) the inner court.

[FN#440] A nave description of the nave style of rclame adopted by the Eastern Bob Sawyer.

[FN#441] Which they habitually do, by the by, with an immense amount of unpleasant detail. See Pilgrimage i. 18.

[FN#442] The old French name for the phial or bottle in which the patient's water is sent.

[FN#443] A descendant from Mohammed, strictly through his grandson Husayn. See vol. iv. 170.

[FN#444] Arab. "Al-Futh" lit. the victories; a euphemistic term for what is submitted to the "musculus guineaorum."

[FN#445] Arab. "Firsah" lit. judging the points of a mare (faras). Of physiognomy, or rather judging by externals, curious tales are told by the Arabs. In Al-Mas'udi's (chapt. lvi.) is the original of the camel blind of one eye, etc., which the genius of Voltaire has made famous throughout Europe.

[FN#446] I here quote Mr. Payne's note. "Sic in the text; but the passage is apparently corrupt. It is not plain why a rosy complexion, blue eyes and tallness should be peculiar to women in love. Arab women being commonly short, swarthy and blackeyed, the attributes mentioned appear rather to denote the foreign origin of the woman; and it is probable, therefore, that this passage has by a copyist's error, been mixed up with that which relates to the signs by which the mock physician recognised her strangerhood, the clause specifying the symptoms of her love-lorn condition having been crowded out in the process, an accident of no infrequent occurrence in the transcription of Oriental works."

[FN#447] Most men would have suspected that it was her lover.

[FN#448] The sumptuary laws, compelling for instance the Jews to wear yellow turbans, and the Christians to carry girdles date from the Capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 636 by Caliph Omar. See vol. i. 77; and Terminal Essay 11.

[FN#449] i.e. Our Sunday: the Jewish week ending with the Sabbath (Saturday). I have already noted this term for Saturn's day, established as a God's rest by Commandment No. iv. How it lost its honours amongst Christians none can say: the text in Col. ii. 16, 17, is insufficient to abolish an order given with such pomp and circumstance to, and obeyed, so strictly and universally by, the Hebrews, including the Founder of Christianity. The general idea is that the Jewish Sabbath was done away with by the Christian dispensation (although Jesus kept it with the usual scrupulous care), and that sundry of the Councils at Coloss and Laodicea anathematised those who observed the Saturday after Israelitish fashion. With the day its object changed; instead of "keeping it holy," as all pious Jews still do, the early Fathers converted it into the "Feast of the Resurrection," which could not be kept too joyously. The "Sabbatismus" of the Sabbatarian Protestant who keeps holy the wrong day is a marvellous perversion and the Sunday feast of France, Italy, and Catholic countries generally is far more logical than the mortification day of England and the so-called Reformed countries.

[FN#450] Haris, plur. of Harsah: see vol. i. 131.

[FN#451] It would have been cooked on our Thursday night, or the Jewish Friday night and would be stale and indigestible on the next day.

[FN#452] Marw (Margiana), which the Turkomans pronounce "Mawr," is derived by Bournouf from the Sansk. Maru or Marw; and by Sir H. Rawlinson from Marz or Marj, the Lat. Margo; Germ. Mark; English March; Old French Marche and Neo-Lat. Marca. So Marzbn, a Warden of the Marches: vol. iii. 256. The adj. is not Marz, as stated in vol. iii. 222; but Marwazi, for which see Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 7, etc.: yet there are good writers who use "Marz" as Rz for a native of Rayy.

[FN#453] i.e. native of Rayy city. See vol. iv. 104.

[FN#454] Normally used for fuel and at times by funny men to be put into sweetmeats by way of practical joke: these are called "Nukl-i-Pishkil"=goat-dung bonbons. The tale will remind old Anglo-Indians of the two Bengal officers who were great at such "sells" and who "swopped" a spavined horse for a broken-down "buggy."

[FN#455] In the text "khandik," ditches, trenches; probably (as Mr. Payne suggests) a clerical or typographical error for "Fandik," inns or caravanserais; the plural of "Funduk" (Span. Fonda), for which see vol. viii. 184.

[FN#456] This sentence is supplied by Mr. Payne to remedy the incoherence of the text. Moslems are bound to see True Believers decently buried and the poor often beg alms for the funeral. Here the tale resembles the opening of Hajji Baba by Mr. Morier, that admirable picture of Persian manners and morals.

[FN#457] Arab. "Al-ajr" which has often occurred.

[FN#458] Arab. "Hant," i.e., leaves of the lotus-tree to be infused as a wash for the corpse; camphor used with cotton to close the mouth and other orifices; and, in the case of a wealthy man, rose-water, musk, ambergris, sandal-wood, and lignaloes for fumigation.

[FN#459] Which always begin with four "Takbrs" and differ in many points from the usual orisons. See Lane (M. E. chapt. xxviii.) who is, however, very superficial upon an intricate and interesting subject. He even neglects to mention the number of Ruk't (bows) usual at Cairo and the absence of prostration (sujd) for which see vol. ii. 10.

[FN#460] Thus requiring all the ablutional offices to be repeated. The Shaykh, by handling the corpse, became ceremonially impure and required "Wuzu" before he could pray either at home or in the Mosque.

[FN#461] The Shaykh had left it when he went out to perform Wuzu.

[FN#462] Arab. "Satl"=the Lat. and Etruscan "Situla" and "Situlus," a water-pot.

[FN#463] Arab. "Lahd, Luhd," the niche or cell hollowed out in the side of the oblong trench: here the corpse is deposited and covered with palm-fronds etc. to prevent the earth touching it. See my Pilgrimage ii. 304.

[FN#464] For the incredible amount of torture which Eastern obstinacy will sometimes endure, see Al-Mas'udi's tale of the miserable little old man who stole the ten purses, vol. viii. 153 et seq.

[FN#465] Arab. "Jardah" (whence the Jard-game) a palm-frond stripped of its leaves and used for a host of purposes besides flogging, chairs, sofas, bedsteads, cages, etc. etc. Tales of heroism in "eating stick" are always highly relished by the lower orders of Egyptians who pride themselves upon preferring the severest bastinado to paying the smallest amount of "rint."

[FN#466] Arab. "Nws," the hollow tower of masonry with a grating over the central well upon which the Magian corpse is placed to be torn by birds of prey: it is kept up by the Parsi population of Bombay and is known to Europeans as the "Tower of Silence." Ns and Nws also mean a Pyrethrum, a fire-temple and have a whimsical resemblance to the Greek .

[FN#467] For Munkar and Nakir, the Interrogating Angels, see vol. v. iii. According to Al-Mas'udi (chapt. xxxi.) these names were given by the Egyptians to the thirteenth and fourteenth cubits marked on the Nilometer which, in his day, was expected to show seventeen.

[FN#468] The text (xi. 227) has "Tannr"=an oven, evidently a misprint for "Kubr"=tombs.

[FN#469] Arab. "'An Ab"=(a propitiatory offering) for my father. So in Marocco the "Powder-players" dedicate a shot to a special purpose or person, crying "To my sweetheart!" "To my dead!" "To my horse!" etc.

[FN#470] For this formula see vol. i. 65. It is technically called "Haukalah" and "Haulakah," words in the third conjugation of increased triliterals, corresponding with the quadriliteral radicals and possessing the peculiar power of Kasr=abbreviation. Of this same class is Basmalah (vol. v. 206; ix. 1).

[FN#471] This scene with the watch would be relished in the coffee-house, where the tricks of robbers, like a gird at the police, are always acceptable.

[FN#472] Arab. "L af'al"; more commonly M af'al. M and L are synonymous negative particles, differing, however, in application. M (Gr. ) precedes definites, or indefinites: L and Lam (Gr. ) only indefinites as "L ilha" etc.

[FN#473] Alluding to the proverb, "What hast thou left behind thee, O Asm?" i.e., what didst thou see?

[FN#474] Arab. "Sayrafi," s.s. as "Sarrf': see vol. i. 210.

[FN#475] Arab. "Al-Ma'rafah"=the place where the mane grows.

[FN#476] i.e. though the ass remain on thy hands.

[FN#477] "Halves," i.e. of dirhams: see vol. ii. 37.

[FN#478] Arab. "Taannaf,"=the Germ. lange Nase.

[FN#479] About forty shillings.

[FN#480] About 220.

[FN#481] Characteristically Eastern and Moslem is this action of the neighbours and bystanders. A walk through any Oriental city will show a crowd of people screaming and gesticulating, with thundering yells and lightning glances, as if about to close in mortal fight, concerning some matter which in no way concerns them. Our European cockneys and badauds mostly content themselves with staring and mobbing.

[FN#482] Arab. "Muruwwah," lit. manliness, especially in the sense of generosity. So the saying touching the "Miyn," or Moslem of India:—

F 'l-riuz Kuwwah: F 'I Hind muruwwah.

When rice have strength, you'll haply find, In Hindi man, a manly mind.

[FN#483] i.e. His claim is just and reasonable.

[FN#484] I have noted (vol. i. 17) that good Moslems shun a formal oath, although "by Allah!" is ever on their tongues. This they seem to have borrowed from Christianity, which expressly forbade it, whilst Christians cannot insist upon it too much. The scandalous scenes lately enacted in a certain legislative assembly because an M.P. did not believe in a practice denounced by his creed, will be the wonder and ridicule of our descendants.

[FN#485] Most Arabs believe that the black cloud which sometimes produces, besides famine, contagious fevers and pestilence, like that which in 1799 depopulated the cities and country of Barbary, is led by a king locust, the Sultan Jard.

[FN#486] The text is hopelessly corrupt, and we have no other with which to collate. Apparently a portion of the tale has fallen out, making a non-sens of its ending, which suggests that the kite gobbled up the two locusts at her ease, and left the falcon to himself.

[FN#487] The lines have occurred in vol. i. 265. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#488] The fabliau is a favourite in the East; this is the third time it has occurred with minor modifications. Of course the original was founded on fact, and the fact was and is by no means uncommon.

[FN#489] This would hardly be our Western way of treating a proposal of the kind; nor would the European novelist neglect so grand an opportunity for tall-talk.

[FN#490] This is a rechauff of "The House with the Belvedere;" see vol. vi. 188.

[FN#491] Arab. "Mastrah,"=veiled, well-guarded, confined in the Harem.

[FN#492] Arab. "'Ajz nahs"=an old woman so crafty that she was a calamity to friends and foes.

[FN#493] Here, as in many places the text is painfully concise: the crone says only, "The Wuzu for the prayer!"

[FN#494] I have followed Mr. Payne who supplies this sentence to make the Tale run smoothly.

[FN#495] i.e. the half of the marriage-settlement due to the wife on divorcement and whatever monies he may have borrowed of her.

[FN#496] Here we find the vulgar idea of a rape, which is that a man can, by mere force, possess a woman against her will. I contend that this is impossible unless he use drugs like chloroform or violence, so as to make the patient faint or she be exceptionally weak. "Good Queen Bess" hit the heart of the question when she bade Lord High Chancellor sheath his sword, she holding the scabbard-mouth before him and keeping it in constant motion. But it often happens that the woman, unless she have a loathing for her violator, becomes infected with the amorous storge, relaxes her defense, feels pleasure in the outer contact of the parts and almost insensibly allows penetration and emission. Even conception is possible in such cases as is proved in that curious work, "The Curiosities of Medical Experience."

[FN#497] i.e. thou wilt have satisfied us all three.

[FN#498] Here I follow Mr. Payne who has skilfully fine-drawn the holes in the original text.

[FN#499] See vol. vii. 363; ix. 238.

[FN#500] Arab. "Musall," which may be either a praying carpet, a pure place in a house, or a small chapel like that near Shiraz which Hafiz immortalised,

"Bring, boy, the sup that's in the cup; in highest Heaven man ne'er shall find Such watery marge as Ruknbd, MusalI's mazes rose entwined."

[FN#501] Arab. "Ihtid,"=divine direction to Hud or salvation. The old bawd was still dressed as a devotee, and keeps up the cant of her caste. No sensible man in the East ever allows a religious old woman to pass his threshold.

[FN#502] In this tale "poetical justice" is neglected, but the teller skilfully caused the wife to be ravished and not to be a particeps criminis. The lover escapes scot-free because Moslems, as well as Hindus, hold that the amourist under certain conditions is justified in obtaining his object by fair means or foul. See p. 147 of "Early Ideas, a Group of Hindoo Stories," collected and collated by Anaryan: London, Allens, 1881.

[FN#503] This is supplied from the "Tale of the King and his Wazir's Wife," vol. vi. 129.

[FN#504] Arab. "Ibl," a specific name: it is presently opposed to "Nkah," a she-dromedary, and "Rhilah," a riding-camel.

[FN#505] Here "Amsaytu" is used in its literal sense "I evened" (came at evening), and this is the case with seven such verbs, Asbaha, Ams, Azh, Azhara, A'tama, Zalla, and Bta, which either conjoin the sense of the sentence with their respective times, morning, evening, forenoon, noon and the first sundown watch, all day and all night or are used "elegantly," as grammarians say, for the simple "becoming" or "being."

[FN#506] The Badawi dogs are as dangerous as those of Montenegro but not so treacherous: the latter will sneak up to the stranger and suddenly bite him most viciously. I once had a narrow escape from an ignoble death near the slaughter-house of Alexandria-Ramlah, where the beasts were unusually ferocious. A pack assailed me at early dawn and but for an iron stick and a convenient wall I should have been torn to pieces.

[FN#507] These elopements are of most frequent occurrence: see Pilgrimage iii. 52.

[FN#508] The principal incidents, the loss and recovery of wife and children, occur in the Story of the Knight Placidus (Gesta Romanorum, cx.). But the ecclesiastical taleteller does not do poetical justice upon any offenders, and he vilely slanders the great Csar, Trajan.

[FN#509] i.e. a long time: the idiom has already been noticed. In the original we have "of days and years and twelvemonths" in order that "A'wm" (years) may jingle with "Ayym" (days).

[FN#510] Nothing can be more beautiful than the natural parks which travellers describe on the coasts of tropical seas.

[FN#511] Arab. "Khayyl" not only a rider but a good and a hard rider. Hence the proverb "Al-Khayyl" kabr mafth=uomo a cavallo sepoltura aperta.

[FN#512] i.e. the crew and the islanders.

[FN#513] Arab. "Hadas," a word not easy to render. In grammar Lumsden renders it by "event" and the learned Captain Lockett (Miut Amil) in an awful long note (pp. 195 to 224) by "mode," grammatical or logical. The value of his disquisition is its proving that, as the Arabs borrowed their romance from the Persians, so they took their physics and metaphysics of grammar and syntax; logic and science in general, from the Greeks.

[FN#514] We should say the anchors were weighed and the canvas spread.

[FN#515] The rhymes are disposed in the quaintest way, showing extensive corruption. Mr. Payne has ordered them into couplets with a "bob" or refrain. I have followed suit, preserving the original vagaries of rhymes.

[FN#516] Arab. "Nuwab," broken plur. (that is, noun of multitude) of Naubah, the Anglo-Indian Nowbut. This is applied to the band playing at certain intervals before the gate of a Rajah or high official.

[FN#517] Arab. "Hjib"; Captain Trotter ("Our Mission to the Court of Morocco in 1880": Edinburgh, Douglas, 1881) speaks, passim, of the "cheery little Hjeb or Eyebrow." Really this is too bad: why cannot travellers consult an Orientalist when treating of Oriental subjects?

[FN#518] Suicide is rare in Moslem lands, compared with India, China, and similar "pagan" countries; for the Mussulman has the same objection as the Christian "to rush into the presence of his Creator," as if he could do so without the Creator's permission. The Hindu also has some curious prejudices on the subject; he will hang himself, but not by the neck, for fear lest his soul be defiled by exiting through an impure channel. In England hanging is the commonest form for men; then follow in due order drowning, cutting or stabbing, poison, and gun-shot: women prefer drowning (except in the cold months) and poison. India has not yet found a Dr. Ogle to tabulate suicide; but the cases most familiar to old Anglo-Indians are leaping down cliffs (as at Giruar), drowning, and starving to death. And so little is life valued that a mother will make a vow obliging her son to suicide himself at a certain age.

[FN#519] Arab. "Zarad-Khnah," before noticed: vol. vii. 363. Here it would mean a temporary prison for criminals of high degree. De Sacy, Chrestom, ii. 179.

[FN#520] Arab. "'Adl," I have said, means in Marocco, that land of lies and subterfuges, a public notary.

[FN#521] This sentence is inserted by Mr. Payne to complete the sense.

[FN#522] i.e. he intended to marry her when time served.

[FN#523] Arab. from Pers. Khwjah and Khawjt: see vol. vi. 46.

[FN#524] Probably meaning by one mother whom he loved best of all his wives: in the next page we read of their sister.

[FN#525] Come down, i.e. from heaven.

[FN#526] This is the Bresl. Edit.'s form of Shahryr=city-keeper (like Marzbn, guardian of the Marches), for city-friend. The learned Weil has preferred it to Shahryr.

[FN#527] Sic: in the Mac. Edit. "Shahrzd" and here making nonsense of the word. It is regretable that the king's reflections do not run at times as in this text: his compunctions lead well up to the dnoement.

[FN#528] The careless text says "couplets." It has occurred in vol. i. 149: so I quote Torrens (p. 149).

[FN#529] In the text Salma is made to speak, utterly confusing the dialogue.

[FN#530] The well-known Baloch province beginning west of Sind: the term is supposed to be a corruption of Mh-Khorn=Ichthyophagi. The reader who wishes to know more about it will do well to consult "Unexplored Baluchistan," etc. (Griffith and Farran, 1882), the excellent work of my friend Mr. Ernest A. Floyer, long Chief of the Telegraphic Department, Cairo.

[FN#531] Meaning the last city in Makran before entering Sind. Al-Sharr would be a fancy name, "The Wickedness."

[FN#532] i.e. think of nothing but his present peril.

[FN#533] Arab. "Munkati'ah"=lit. "cut off" (from the weal of the world). See Pilgrimage i. 22.

[FN#534] The lines are in vol. i. 207 and iv. 189. 1 here quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#535] I have another proposal to make.

[FN#536] i.e. In my heart's core: the figure has often occurred.

[FN#537] These sudden elevations, so common in the East and not unknown to the West in the Napoleonic days, explain how the legend of "Joanna Papissa" (Pope John XIII), who succeeded Leo IV. in A.D. 855 and was succeeded by Benedict III., found ready belief amongst the enemies of papacy. She was an English woman born in Germany who came to Rome and professed theology with clat, wherefore the people enthroned her. "Pope Joan" governed with exemplary wisdom, but during a procession on Rogation Sunday she was delivered of a fine boy in the street: some make her die on the spot; others declare that she perished in prison.

[FN#538] That such things should happen in times of famine is only natural; but not at other seasons. This abomination on the part of the butcher is, however, more than once alluded toin The Nights: see vol. i. 332.

[FN#539] Opinions differ as to the site of this city, so celebrated in the medival history of Al-Islam: most probably it stood where Hyderabad of Sind now is. The question has been ably treated by Sir Henry M. Elliot in his "History of India," edited from his posthumous papers by Professor Dowson.

[FN#540] Which, by-the-by, the average Eastern does with even more difficulty than the average European. For the most part the charge to secrecy fixes the matter in his mind even when he has forgotten that it is to be kept secret. Hence the most unpleasant results.

[FN#541] Such an act appears impossible, and yet history tells us of a celebrated Sufi, Khayr al-Nassj (the Weaver), who being of dark complexion was stopped on return from his pilgrimage at Kufah by a stranger that said, "Thou art my negro slave and thy name is Khayr." He was kept at the loom for years, till at last the man set him free, and simply said, "Thou wast not my slave" (Ibn Khall. i. 513).

[FN#542] These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#543] Arab. "Tasill saliata 'l-Munkat'n"=lit. "raining on the drouth-hardened earth of the cut-off." The metaphor is admissible in the eyes of an Arab who holds water to be the chiefest of blessings, and makes it synonymous with bounty and beneficence."

[FN#544] Possibly this is said in mere fun; but, as Easterns are practical physiognomists, it may hint the fact that a large nose in womankind is the sign of a masculine nature.

[FN#545] Arab. "Zakt wa Sadakat,"=lit. paying of poor rate and purifying thy property by almsdeeds. See vol. i. 339.

[FN#546] I have noted (i. 293) that Kams ( , Chemise, Cameslia, Camisa) is used in the Hindostani and Bengali dialects. Like its synonyms prtexta and shift, it has an equivocal meaning and here probably signifies the dress peculiar to Arab devotees and devout beggars.

[FN#547] I omit here and elsewhere the parenthetical formula "Kla al-Rwi," etc.=The Story-teller sayeth, reminding the reader of its significance in a work collected from the mouths of professional Tale-tellers and intended mainly for their own use.

[FN#548] The usual sign of emotion, already often mentioned.

[FN#549] It being no shame to Moslems if a slave become King.

[FN#550] Arab. "Tarbiyat," i.e., he was brought up in my house.

[FN#551] There is no Salic law amongst Moslems; but the Rasm or custom of AlIslam, established by the succession of the four first Caliphs, to the prejudice of Ayishah and other masterful women would be a strong precedent against queenly rule. It is the reverse with the Hindus who accept a Rani as willingly as a Rajah and who believe with Europeans that when kings reign women rule, and vice versa. To the vulgar Moslem feminine government appears impossible, and I was once asked by an Afghan, "What would happen if the queen were in childbed?"

[FN#552] Arab. "Khutbah," the sermon preached from the pulpit (Mimbar) after the congregational prayers on Friday noon. It is of two kinds, for which see Lane, M.E., chap. iii. This public mention of his name and inscribing it upon the newly-minted money are the special prerogatives of the Moslem king: hence it often happens that usurpers cause a confusion of Khutbah and coinage.

[FN#553] For a specimen of which, blowing a man up with bellows, see Al-Mas'udi, chap. cxxiii.

[FN#554] i.e. a long time: the idiom has been noted before more than once.

[FN#555] i.e. with what he had heard and what he was promised.

[FN#556] Arab. "Shakhs mafsd," i.e. an infidel.

[FN#557] Arab. "Bund," plur. of Persian "band"=hypocrisy, deceit.

[FN#558] Arab. "Burj" pl. of Burj. lit.=towers, an astrological term equivalent to our "houses" or constellations which form the Zodiacal signs surrounding the heavens as towers gird a city; and applied also to the 28 lunar Mansions. So in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Damascus) "I swear by the sky with its towers," the incept of Koran chapt. lxxxv.; see also chapts. xv. 26 and xxv. 62. "Burj" is a word with a long history: {Greek} burg, burgh, etc.

[FN#559] Arab. "Bundukah"=a little bunduk, nut, filbert, pellet, rule, musket bullet.

[FN#560] See John Raister's "Booke of the Seven Planets; or, Seven Wandering Motives," London, 1598.

[FN#561] i.e. for the king whom I love as my own soul.

[FN#562] The Bresl. Edit. (xi. 318-21) seems to assume that the tales were told in the early night before the royal pair slept. This is no improvement; we prefer to think that the time was before peep of day when Easterns usally awake and have nothing to do till the dawn-prayer.

[FN#563] See vol. ii. 161.

[FN#564] Arab. Al-Fkhir. No wonder that the First Hand who moulded the Man-mud is a lieu commun in Eastern thought. The Pot and the Potter began with the old Egyptians. "Sitting as a potter at the wheel, god Cneph (in Phil) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life (the Genesitic "breath") to the nostrils of Osiris." Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being, "by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated." We find him next in Jeremiah (xviii. 2) "Arise and go down unto the Potter's house," etc., and in Romans (ix. 20), "Hath not the Potter power over the clay?" He appears in full force in Omar-i- Khayym (No. xxxvii.):—

For I remember stopping by the way To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: An with its all obliterated Tongue I murmur'd"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"

Lastly the Potter shows in the Kasidah of Haj Abd al-Yezid (p.4):—

"The first of pots the Potter made by Chrysorrhoas' blue- green wave; Methinks I see him smile to see what guerdon to the world he gave.

THE END