on his knee.[FN#673] He had scarcely taken seat before there came to him a young lady (never eye saw fairer) clad in garments of the most sumptuous; whereupon my brother rose to his feet, and she smiled in his face and welcomed him, signing to him to be seated. Then she bade shut the door and, when it was shut, she turned to my brother, and taking his hand conducted him to a private chamber furnished with various kinds of brocades and gold cloths. Here he sat down and she sat by his side and toyed with him awhile; after which she rose and saying, "Stir not from thy seat till I come back to thee;" disappeared. Meanwhile as he was on this wise, lo! there came in to him a black slave big of body and bulk and holding a drawn sword in hand, who said to him, "Woe to thee! Who brought thee hither and what dost thou want here?" My brother could not return him a reply, being tongue tied for terror; so the blackamoor seized him and stripped him of his clothes and bashed him with the flat of his sword blade till he fell to the ground, swooning from excess of belabouring. The ill omened nigger fancied that there was an end of him and my brother heard him cry, "Where is the salt wench?"[FN#674] Where upon in came a handmaid holding in hand a large tray of salt, and the slave kept rubbing it into my brother's wounds;[FN#675] but he did not stir fearing lest the slave might find out that he was not dead and kill him outright. Then the salt girl went away, and the slave cried Where is the souterrain[FN#676] guardianess?" Hereupon in came the old woman and dragged my brother by his feet to a souterrain and threw him down upon a heap of dead bodies. In this place he lay two full days, but Allah made the salt the means of preserving his life by staunching the blood and staying its flow Presently, feeling himself able to move, Al-Nashshar rose and opened the trap door in fear and trembling and crept out into the open; and Allah protected him, so that he went on in the darkness and hid himself in the vestibule till dawn, when he saw the accursed beldam sally forth in quest of other quarry. He followed in her wake without her knowing it, and made for his own lodging where he dressed his wounds and medicined himself till he was whole. Meanwhile he used to watch the old woman, tracking her at all times and seasons, and saw her accost one man after another and carry them to the house. However he uttered not a word; but, as soon as he waxed hale and hearty, he took a piece of stuff and made it into a bag which he filled with broken glass and bound about his middle. He also disguised himself as a Persian that none might know him, and hid a sword under his clothes of foreign cut. Then he went out and presently, falling in with the old woman, said to her, speaking Arabic with a Persian accent, "Venerable lady,[FN#677] I am a stranger arrived but this day here where I know no one. Hast thou a pair of scales wherein I may weigh eleven hundred dinars? I will give thee somewhat of them for thy pains." "I have a son, a money changer, who keepeth all kinds of scales," she answered, "so come with me to him before he goeth out and he will weigh thy gold." My brother answered "Lead the way!" She led him to the house and the young lady herself came out and opened it, whereupon the old woman smiled in her face and said, "I bring thee fat meat today."[FN#678] Then the damsel took my brother by the hand, and led him to the same chamber as before; where she sat with him awhile then rose and went forth saying, "Stir not from thy seat till I come back to thee." Presently in came the accursed slave with the drawn sword and cried to my brother, "Up and be damned to thee." So he rose, and as the slave walked on before him he drew the sword from under his clothes and smote him with it, making head fly from body. Then he dragged the corpse by the feet to the souterrain and called out, "Where is the salt wench?" Up came the girl carrying the tray of salt and, seeing my brother sword in hand, turned to fly; but he followed her and struck off her head. Then he called out, "Where is the souterrain guardianess? , and in came the old woman to whom he said, "Dost know me again, ill omened hag?" "No my lord," she replied, and he said, "I am the owner of the five hundred gold pieces, whose house thou enteredst to make the ablution and to pray, and whom thou didst snare hither and betray." "Fear Allah and spare me," cried she; but he regarded her not and struck her with the sword till he had cut her in four. Then he went to look for the young lady; and when she saw him her reason fled and she cried out piteously "Aman![FN#679] Mercy!" So he spared her and asked, "What made thee consort with this blackamoor?", and she answered, "I was slave to a certain merchant, and the old woman used to visit me till I took a liking to her. One day she said to me, 'We have a marriage festival at our house the like of which was never seen and I wish thee to enjoy the sight.' 'To hear is to obey,' answered I, and rising arrayed myself in my finest raiment and ornaments, and took with me a purse containing an hundred gold pieces. Then she brought me hither and hardly had I entered the house when the black seized on me, and I have remained in this case three whole years through the perfidy of the accursed beldam." Then my brother asked her, "Is there anything of his in the house?"; whereto she answered, "Great store of wealth, and if thou art able to carry it away, do so and Allah give thee good of it" My brother went with her and she opened to him sundry chests wherein were money bags, at which he was astounded; then she said to him, "Go now and leave me here, and fetch men to remove the money.", He went out and hired ten men, but when he returned he found the door wide open, the damsel gone and nothing left but some small matter of coin and the household stuffs.[FN#680] By this he knew that the girl had overreached him; so he opened the store rooms and seized what was in them, together with the rest of the money, leaving nothing in the house. He passed the night rejoicing, but when morning dawned he found at the door some twenty troopers who laid hands on him saying, "The Governor wants thee!" My brother implored them hard to let him return to his house; and even offered them a large sum of money; but they refused and, binding him fast with cords, carried him off. On the way they met a friend of my brother who clung to his skirt and implored his protection, begging him to stand by him and help to deliver him out of their hands. The man stopped, and asked them what was the matter, and they answered, "The Governor hath ordered us to bring this fellow before him and, look ye, we are doing so." My brother's friend urged them to release him, and offered them five hundred dinars to let him go, saying, "When ye return to the Governor tell him that you were unable to find him." But they would not listen to his words and took my brother, dragging him along on his face, and set him before the Governor who asked him, "Whence gottest thou these stuffs and monies?"; and he answered, "I pray for mercy!" So the Governor gave him the kerchief of mercy;[FN#681] and he told him all that had befallen him from first to last with the old woman and the flight of the damsel; ending with, "Whatso I have taken, take of it what thou wilt, so thou leave me sufficient to support life."[FN#682] But the Governor took the whole of the stuffs and all the money for himself; and, fearing lest the affair come to the Sultan's ears, he summoned my brother and said, "Depart from this city, else I will hang thee." "Hearing and obedience" quoth my brother and set out for another town. On the way thieves fell foul of him and stripped and beat him and docked his ears; but I heard tidings of his misfortunes and went out after him taking him clothes; and brought him secretly into the city where I assigned to him an allowance for meat and drink. And presently the Caliph gave ear to



The Barber's Tale of his Sixth Brother.

My sixth brother, O Commander of the Faithful, Shakashik,[FN#683] or Many clamours, the shorn of both lips, was once rich and became poor, so one day he went out to beg somewhat to keep life in him. As he was on the road he suddenly caught sight of a large and handsome mansion, with a detached building wide and lofty at the entrance, where sat sundry eunuchs bidding and forbidding.[FN#684] My brother enquired of one of those idling there and he replied "The palace belongs to a scion of the Barmaki house;" so he stepped up to the door keepers and asked an alms of them "Enter," said they, "by the great gate and thou shalt get what thou seekest from the Wazir our master." Accordingly he went in and, passing through the outer entrance, walked on a while and presently came to a mansion of the utmost beauty and elegance, paved with marble, hung with curtains and having in the midst of it a flower garden whose like he had never seen.[FN#685] My brother stood awhile as one bewildered not knowing whither to turn his steps; then, seeing the farther end of the sitting chamber tenanted, he walked up to it and there found a man of handsome presence and comely beard. When this personage saw my brother he stood up to him and welcomed him and asked him of his case; whereto he replied that he was in want and needed charity. Hearing these words the grandee showed great concern and, putting his hand to his fine robe, rent it exclaiming, "What! am I in a City, and thou here an hungered? I have not patience to bear such disgrace!" Then he promised him all manner of good cheer and said, "There is no help but that thou stay with me and eat of my salt."[FN#686] "O my lord," answered my brother, "I can wait no longer; for I am indeed dying of hunger." So he cried, "Ho boy! bring basin and ewer;" and, turning to my brother, said, "O my guest come forward and wash thy hands." My brother rose to do so but he saw neither ewer nor basin; yet his host kept washing his hands with invisible soap in imperceptible water and cried, "Bring the table!" But my brother again saw nothing. Then said the host, "Honour me by eating of this meat and be not ashamed." And he kept moving his hand to and fro as if he ate and saying to my brother, "I wonder to see thee eating thus sparely: do not stint thyself for I am sure thou art famished." So my brother began to make as though he were eating whilst his host kept saying to him, "Fall to, and note especially the excellence of this bread and its whiteness!" But still my brother saw nothing. Then said he to himself, "This man is fond of poking fun at people;" and replied, "O my lord, in all my days I never knew aught more winsome than its whiteness or sweeter than its savour." The Barmecide said, "This bread was baked by a hand maid of mine whom I bought for five hundred dinars." Then he called out, "Ho boy, bring in the meat pudding[FN#687] for our first dish, and let there be plenty of fat in it;" and, turning to my brother said, "O my guest, Allah upon thee, hast ever seen anything better than this meat pudding? Now by my life, eat and be not abashed." Presently he cried out again, "Ho boy, serve up the marinated stew[FN#688] with the fatted sand grouse in it;" and he said to my brother, "Up and eat, O my guest, for truly thou art hungry and needest food." So my brother began wagging his jaws and made as if champing and chewing,[FN#689] whilst the host continued calling for one dish after another and yet produced nothing save orders to eat. Presently he cried out, "Ho boy, bring us the chickens stuffed with pistachio nuts;" and said to my brother, "By thy life, O my guest, I have fattened these chickens upon pistachios; eat, for thou hast never eaten their like." "O my lord," replied my brother, "they are indeed first rate." Then the host began motioning with his hand as though he were giving my brother a mouthful; and ceased not to enumerate and expatiate upon the various dishes to the hungry man whose hunger waxt still more violent, so that his soul lusted after a bit of bread, even a barley scone.[FN#690] Quoth the Barmecide, "Didst thou ever taste anything more delicious than the seasoning of these dishes?"; and quoth my brother, "Never, O my lord!" "Eat heartily and be not ashamed," said the host, and the guest, "I have eaten my fill of meat;" So the entertainer cried, "Take away and bring in the sweets;" and turning to my brother said, "Eat of this almond conserve for it is prime and of these honey fritters; take this one, by my life, the syrup runs out of it." "May I never be bereaved of thee, O my lord," replied the hungry one and began to ask him about the abundance of musk in the fritters. "Such is my custom," he answered: "they put me a dinar weight of musk in every honey fritter and half that quantity of ambergris." All this time my brother kept wagging head and jaws till the master cried, "Enough of this. Bring us the dessert!" Then said he to him,' "Eat of these almonds and walnuts and raisins; and of this and that (naming divers kinds of dried fruits), and be not abashed." But my brother replied, "O my lord, indeed I am full: I can eat no more." "O my guest," repeated the host, "if thou have a mind to these good things eat: Allah! Allah![FN#691] do not remain hungry;" but my brother rejoined, "O my lord, he who hath eaten of all these dishes how can he be hungry?" Then he considered and said to himself, "I will do that shall make him repent of these pranks." Presently the entertainer called out "Bring me the wine;" and, moving his hands in the air, as though they had set it before them, he gave my brother a cup and said, "Take this cup and, if it please thee, let me know." "O my lord," he replied, "it is notable good as to nose but I am wont to drink wine some twenty years old." "Knock then at this door,"[FN#692] quoth the host "for thou canst not drink of aught better." "By thy kindness," said my brother, motioning with his hand as though he were drinking. "Health and joy to thee," exclaimed the house master and feigned to fill a cup and drink it off; then he handed another to my brother who quaffed it and made as if he were drunken. Presently he took the host unawares; and, raising his arm till the white of his armpit appeared, dealt him such a cuff on the nape of his neck that the palace echoed to it. Then he came down upon him with a second cuff and the entertainer cried aloud "What is this, O thou scum of the earth?" "O my lord," replied my brother, "thou hast shown much kindness to thy slave, and admitted him into thine abode and given him to eat of thy victual; then thou madest him drink of thine old wine till he became drunken and boisterous; but thou art too noble not to bear with his ignorance and pardon his offence." When the Barmaki heard my brother's words he laughed his loudest and said, "Long have I been wont to make mock of men and play the madcap among my intimates, but never yet have I come across a single one who had the patience and the wit to enter into all my humours save thyself: so I forgive thee, and thou shalt be my boon companion in very sooth and never leave me." Then he ordered the servants to lay the table in earnest and they set on all the dishes of which he had spoken in sport; and he and my brother ate till they were satisfied; after which they removed to the drinking chamber, where they found damsels like moons who sang all manner songs and played on all manner instruments. There they remained drinking till their wine got the better of them and the host treated my brother like a familiar friend, so that he became as it were his brother, and bestowed on him a robe of honour and loved him with exceeding love. Next morning the two fell again to feasting and carousing, and ceased not to lead this life for a term of twenty years; at the end of which the Barmecide died and the Sultan took possession of all his wealth and squeezed my brother of his savings, till he was left a pauper without a penny to handle. So he quitted the city and fled forth following his face;[FN#693] but, when he was half way between two towns, the wild Arabs fell on him and bound him and carried him to their camp, where his captor proceeded to torture him, saying, "Buy thy life of me with thy money, else I will slay thee!" My brother began to weep and replied, "By Allah, I have nothing, neither gold nor silver; but I am thy prisoner; so do with me what thou wilt." Then the Badawi drew a knife, broad bladed and so sharp grinded that if plunged into a camel's throat it would sever it clean across from one jugular to the other,[FN#694] and cut off my brother's lips and waxed more instant in requiring money. Now this Badawi had a fair wife who in her husband's absence used to make advances to my brother and offer him her favours, but he held off from her. One day she began to tempt him as usual and he played with her and made her sit on his lap, when behold, in came the Badawi who, seeing this, cried out, "Woe to thee, O accursed villain, wouldest thou debauch my wife for me?" Then he took out a knife and cut off my brother's yard, after which he bound him on the back of a camel and, carrying him to a mountain, left him there. He was at last found by some who recognised him and gave him meat and drink and acquainted me with his condition; whereupon I went forth to him and brought him back to Baghdad where I made him an allowance sufficient to live on. This, then, O Commander of the Faithful, is the history of my six brothers, and I feared to go away without relating it all to thee and leave thee in the error of judging me to be like them. And now thou knowest that I have six brothers upon my hands and, being more upright than they, I support the whole family. When the Caliph heard my story and all I told him concerning my brothers, he laughed and said, "Thou sayest sooth, O Silent Man! thou art indeed spare of speech nor is there aught of forwardness in thee; but now go forth out of this city and settle in some other." And he banished me under edict. I left Baghdad and travelled in foreign parts till I heard of his death and the accession of another to the Caliphate. Then I returned to Baghdad where I found all my brothers dead and chanced upon this young man, to whom I rendered the kindliest service, for without me he had surely been killed. Indeed he slanders me and accuses me of a fault which is not in my nature; and what he reports concerning impudence and meddling and forwardness is idle and false; for verily on his account I left Baghdad and travelled about full many a country till I came to this city and met him here in your company. And was not this, O worthy assemblage, of the generosity of my nature?



The End of the Tailor's Tale.

Then quoth the Tailor to the King of China: When we heard the Barber's tale and saw the excess of his loquacity and the way in which he had wronged this young man, we laid hands on him and shut him up, after which we sat down in peace, and ate and drank and enjoyed the good things of the marriage feast till the time of the call to mid afternoon prayer, when I left the party and returned home. My wife received me with sour looks and said, "Thou goest a pleasuring among thy friends and thou leavest me to sit sorrowing here alone. So now, unless thou take me abroad and let me have some amusement for the rest of the day, I will cut the rope[FN#695] and it will be the cause of my separation from thee." So I took her out and we amused ourselves till supper time, when we returned home and fell in with this Hunchback who was brimful of drink and trolling out these rhymes:

"Clear's the wine, the cup's fine; * Like to like they combine: It is wine and not cup! * 'Tis a cup and not wine!"

So I invited him to sup with us and went out to buy fried fish; after which we sat down to eat; and presently my wife took a piece of bread and a fid of fish and stuffed them into his mouth and he choked; and, though I slapped him long and hard between the shoulders, he died. Then I carried him off and contrived to throw him into the house of this leach, the Jew; and the leach contrived to throw him into the house of the Reeve; and the Reeve contrived to throw him on the way of the Nazarene broker. This, then, is my adventure which befell me but yesterday. Is not it more wondrous than the story of the Hunchback? When the King of China heard the Tailor's tale he shook his head for pleasure; and, showing great surprise, said, "This that passed between the young man and the busy-body of a Barber is indeed more pleasant and wonderful than the story of my lying knave of a Hunchback." Then he bade one of his Chamberlains go with the Tailor and bring the Barber out of jail, saying, "I wish to hear the talk of this Silent Man and it shall be the cause of your deliverance one and all: then we will bury the Hunchback, for that he is dead since yesterday, and set up a tomb over him."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her per misted say.

When it was the Thirty-fourth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the King of China bade, "Bring me the Barber who shall be the cause of your deliverance; then we will bury this Hunchback, for that he is dead since yesterday and set up a tomb over him." So the Chamberlain and the Tailor went to the jail and, releasing the Barber, presently returned with him to the King. The Sultan of China looked at him and considered him carefully and lo and behold! he was an ancient man, past his ninetieth year; swart of face, white of beard, and hoar of eyebrows; lop eared and proboscis-nosed,[FN#696] with a vacant, silly and conceited expression of countenance. The King laughed at this figure o' fun and said to him, "O Silent Man, I desire thee to tell me somewhat of thy history." Quoth the Barber, "O King of the age, allow me first to ask thee what is the tale of this Nazarene and this Jew and this Moslem and this Hunchback (the corpse) I see among you? And prithee what may be the object of this assemblage?" Quoth the King of China, "And why dost thou ask?" "I ask," he replied, "in order that the King's majesty may know that I am no forward fellow or busy body or impertinent meddler; and that I am innocent of their calumnious charges of overmuch talk; for I am he whose name is the Silent Man, and indeed peculiarly happy is my sobriquet, as saith the poet:

When a nickname or little name men design, * Know that nature with name shall full oft combine."

Then said the King, "Explain to the Barber the case of this Hunchback and what befell him at supper time; also repeat to him the stories told by the Nazarene, the Jew, the Reeve, and the Tailor; and of no avail to me is a twice told tale." They did his bidding, and the Barber shook his head and said, "By Allah, this is a marvel of marvels! Now uncover me the corpse of yonder Hunchback. They undid the winding sheet and he sat down and, taking the Hunchback's head in his lap, looked at his face and laughed and guffaw'd[FN#697] till he fell upon his back and said, "There is wonder in every death,[FN#698] but the death of this Hunchback is worthy to be written and recorded in letters of liquid gold!" The bystanders were astounded at his words and the King marvelled and said to him, "What ails thee, O Silent Man? Explain to us thy words !" "O King of the age," said the Barber, "I swear by thy beneficence that there is still life in this Gobbo Golightly!" Thereupon he pulled out of his waist belt a barber's budget, whence he took a pot of ointment and anointed therewith the neck of the Hunchback and its arteries. Then he took a pair of iron tweezers and, inserting them into the Hunchback's throat, drew out the fid of fish with its bone; and, when it came to sight, behold, it was soaked in blood. Thereupon the Hunchback sneezed a hearty sneeze and jumped up as if nothing had happened and passing his hand over his face said, "I testify that there is no god, but the God, and I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle of God." At this sight all present wondered; the King of China laughed till he fainted and in like manner did the others. Then said the Sultan, "By Allah, of a truth this is the most marvellous thing I ever saw! O Moslems, O soldiers all, did you ever in the lives of you see a man die and be quickened again? Verily had not Allah vouchsafed to him this Barber, he had been a dead man!" Quoth they, "By Allah, 'tis a marvel of marvels." Then the King of China bade record this tale, so they recorded it and placed it in the royal muniment-rooms; after which he bestowed costly robes of honour upon the Jew, the Nazarene and the Reeve, and bade them depart in all esteem. Then he gave the Tailor a sumptuous dress and appointed him his own tailor, with suitable pay and allowances; and made peace between him and the Hunchback, to whom also he presented a splendid and expensive suit with a suitable stipend. He did as generously with the Barber, giving him a gift and a dress of honour; moreover he settled on him a handsome solde and created him Barber surgeon[FN#699] of state and made him one of his cup companions. So they ceased not to live the most pleasurable life and the most delectable, till there came to them the Destroyer of all delights and the Sunderer of all societies, the Depopulator of palaces and the Garnerer for graves. Yet, O most auspicious King! (continued Shahrazad) this tale is by no means more wonderful than that of the two Wazirs and Anis al-Jalis. Quoth her sister Dunyazad, "And what may that be?", whereupon she began to relate the following tale of

End of Vol. 1.



Arabian Nights, Volume 1 Footnotes

[FN#1] Allaho A'alam, a deprecatory formula, used because the writer is going to indulge in a series of what may possibly be untruths.

[FN#2] The "Sons of Sasan" are the famous Sassanides whose dynasty ended with the Arabian Conquest (A.D.641). "Island" Jazirah) in Arabic also means "Peninsula," and causes much confusion in geographical matters.

[FN#3] Shahryar not Shahriyar (Persian) = "City-friend." The Bulak edition corrupts it to Shahrbaz (City-hawk), and the Breslau to Shahrban or "Defender of the City," like Marz-ban=Warden of the Marshes. Shah Zaman (Persian)="King of the Age:" Galland prefers Shah Zenan, or "King of women," and the Bull edit. changes it to Shah Rumman, "Pomegranate King." Al-Ajam denotes all regions not Arab (Gentiles opposed to Jews, Mlechchhas to Hindus, Tajiks to Turks, etc., etc.), and especially Persia; Ajami (a man of Ajam) being an equivalent of the Gr. {Greek Letters}. See Vol.. ii., p. 1.

[FN#4] Galland writes "Vizier," a wretched frenchification of a mincing Turkish mispronunciation; Torrens, "Wuzeer" (Anglo- Indian and Gilchristian); Lane, "Wezeer"; (Egyptian or rather Cairene); Payne, "Vizier," according to his system; Burckhardt (Proverbs), "Vizir;" and Mr. Keith-Falconer, "Vizir." The root is popularly supposed to be "wizr" (burden) and the meaning "Minister;" Wazir al-Wuzara being "Premier." In the Koran (chaps. xx., 30) Moses says, "Give me a Wazir of my family, Harun (Aaron) my brother." Sale, followed by the excellent version of the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, translates a "Counsellor," and explains by "One who has the chief administration of affairs under a prince." But both learned Koranists learnt their Orientalism in London, and, like such students generally, fail only upon the easiest points, familiar to all old dwellers in the East.

[FN#5] This three-days term (rest-day, drest-day and departure day) seems to be an instinct-made rule in hospitality. Among Moslems it is a Sunnat or practice of the Prophet.)

[FN#6] i.e., I am sick at heart.

[FN#7] Debauched women prefer negroes on account of the size of their parts. I measured one man in Somali-land who, when quiescent, numbered nearly six inches. This is a characteristic of the negro race and of African animals; e.g. the horse; whereas the pure Arab, man and beast, is below the average of Europe; one of the best proofs by the by, that the Egyptian is not an Asiatic, but a negro partially white-washed. Moreover, these imposing parts do not increase proportionally during erection; consequently, the "deed of kind" takes a much longer time and adds greatly to the woman's enjoyment. In my time no honest Hindi Moslem would take his women-folk to Zanzibar on account of the huge attractions and enormous temptations there and thereby offered to them. Upon the subject of Imsak = retention of semen and "prolongation of pleasure," I shall find it necessary to say more.

[FN#8] The very same words were lately spoken in England proving the eternal truth of The Nights which the ignorant call "downright lies."

[FN#9] The Arab's Tue la!

[FN#10] Arab. "Sayd wa kanas": the former usually applied to fishing; hence Sayda (Sidon) = fish-town. But noble Arabs (except the Caliph Al-Amin) do not fish; so here it means simply "sport," chasing, coursing, birding (oiseler), and so forth.

[FN#11] In the Mac. Edit. the negro is called "Mas'ud"; here he utters a kind of war-cry and plays upon the name, "Sa'ad, Sa'id, Sa'ud," and "Mas'ud", all being derived from one root, "Sa'ad" = auspiciousness, prosperity.

[FN#12] The Arab. singular (whence the French "genie"), fem. Jinniyah; the Div and Rakshah of old Guebre-land and the "Rakshasa," or "Yaksha," of Hinduism. It would be interesting to trace the evident connection, by no means "accidental," of "Jinn" with the "Genius" who came to the Romans through the Asiatic Etruscans, and whose name I cannot derive from "gignomai" or "genitus." He was unknown to the Greeks, who had the Daimon {Greek Letters}, a family which separated, like the Jinn and the Genius, into two categories, the good (Agatho-daemons) and the bad (Kako-daemons). We know nothing concerning the status of the Jinn amongst the pre-Moslemitic or pagan Arabs: the Moslems made him a supernatural anthropoid being, created of subtile fire (Koran chapts. xv. 27; lv. 14), not of earth like man, propagating his kind, ruled by mighty kings, the last being Jan bin Jan, missionarised by Prophets and subject to death and Judgment. From the same root are "Junun" = madness (i.e., possession or obsession by the Jinn) and "Majnun"=a madman. According to R. Jeremiah bin Eliazar in Psalm xii. 5, Adam was excommunicated for one hundred and thirty years, during which he begat children in his own image (Gen. v. 3) and these were Mazikeen or Shedeem- Jinns. Further details anent the Jinn will presently occur.

[FN#13] Arab. "Amsar" (cities): in Bull Edit. "Amtar" (rains), as in Mac. Edit. So Mr. Payne (I., 5) translates: And when she flashes forth the lightning of her glance, She maketh eyes to rain, like showers, with many a tear. I would render it, "She makes whole cities shed tears," and prefer it for a reason which will generally influence merits superior exaggeration and impossibility.

[FN#14] Not "A-frit," pronounced Aye-frit, as our poets have it. This variety of the Jinn, who, as will be shown, are divided into two races like mankind, is generally, but not always, a malignant being, hostile and injurious to mankind (Koran xxvii. 39).

[FN#15] i.e., "I conjure thee by Allah;" the formula is technically called "Inshad."

[FN#16] This introducing the name of Allah into an indecent tale is essentially Egyptian and Cairene. But see Boccaccio ii. 6, and vii. 9.

[FN#17] So in the Mac. Edit.; in others "ninety." I prefer the greater number as exaggeration is a part of the humour. In the Hindu "Katha Sarit Sagara" (Sea of the Streams of Story), the rings are one hundred and the catastrophe is more moral, the good youth Yashodhara rejects the wicked one's advances; she awakes the water-sprite, who is about to slay him, but the rings are brought as testimony and the improper young person's nose is duly cut off. (Chap. Ixiii.; p. 80, of the excellent translation by Prof. C. H. Tawney: for the Bibliotheca Indica: Calcutta, 1881.) The Katha, etc., by Somadeva (century xi), is a poetical version of the prose compendium, the "Vrihat Katha" (Great Story) by Gunadhya (cent. vi).

[FN#18] The Joseph of the Koran, very different from him of Genesis. We shall meet him often enough in The Nights.

[FN#19] "Iblis," vulgarly written "Eblis," from a root meaning The Despairer, with a suspicious likeness to Diabolos; possibly from "Bales," a profligate. Some translate it The Calumniator, as Satan is the Hater. Iblis (who appears in the Arab. version of the N. Testament) succeeded another revolting angel Al-Haris; and his story of pride refusing to worship Adam, is told four times in the Koran from the Talmud (Sanhedrim 29). He caused Adam and Eve to lose Paradise (ii. 34); he still betrays mankind (xxv. 31), and at the end of time he, with the other devils, will be "gathered together on their knees round Hell" (xix. 69). He has evidently had the worst of the game, and we wonder, with Origen, Tillotson, Burns and many others, that he does not throw up the cards.

[FN#20] A similar tale is still told at Akka (St. John d'Acre) concerning the terrible "butcher"—Jazzar (Djezzar) Pasha. One can hardly pity women who are fools enough to run such risks. According to Frizzi, Niccolo, Marquis of Este, after beheading Parisina, ordered all the faithless wives of Ferrara to be treated in like manner.

[FN#21] "Shahrazad" (Persian) = City-freer, in the older version Scheherazade (probably both from Shirzad=lion-born). "Dunyazad"=World-freer. The Bres. Edit. corrupts former to Shahrzad or Shahrazad, and the Mac. and Calc. to Shahrzad or Shehrzad. I have ventured to restore the name as it should be. Galland for the second prefers Dinarzade (?) and Richardson Dinazade (Dinazad = Religion-freer): here I have followed Lane and Payne; though in "First Footsteps" I was misled by Galland. See Vol. ii. p. 1.

[FN#22] Probably she proposed to "Judith" the King. These learned and clever young ladies are very dangerous in the East.

[FN#23] In Egypt, etc., the bull takes the place of the Western ox. The Arab. word is "Taur" (Thaur, Saur); in old Persian "Tore" and Lat. "Taurus," a venerable remnant of the days before the "Semitic" and "Aryan" families of speech had split into two distinct growths. "Taur" ends in the Saxon "Steor" and the English "Steer "

[FN#24] Arab. "Abu Yakzan" = the Wakener, because the ass brays at dawn.

[FN#25] Arab. "Tibn"; straw crushed under the sledge: the hay of Egypt, Arabia, Syria, etc. The old country custom is to pull up the corn by handfuls from the roots, leaving the land perfectly bare: hence the "plucking up" of Hebrew Holy Writ. The object is to preserve every atom of "Tibn."

[FN#26] Arab. "Ya Aftah": Al-Aftah is an epithet of the bull, also of the chameleon.

[FN#27] Arab. "Balid," a favourite Egyptianism often pleasantly confounded with "Wali" (a Santon), hence the latter comes to mean "an innocent," a "ninny."

[FN#28] From the Calc. Edit., Vol. 1., p. 29.

[FN#29] Arab. "Abu Yakzan" is hardly equivalent with "Pere l'Eveille."

[FN#30] In Arab. the wa (x) is the sign of parenthesis.

[FN#31] In the nearer East the light little plough is carried afield by the bull or ass.

[FN#32] Ocymum basilicum, the "royal herb," so much prized all over the East, especially in India, where, under the name of "Tulsi," it is a shrub sacred to the merry god Krishna. I found the verses in a MS. copy of The Nights.

[FN#33] Arab. "Sadaf," the Kauri, or cowrie, brought from the Maldive and Lakdive Archipelago. The Kamus describes this "Wada'" or Concha Veneris as "a white shell (whence to "shell out") which is taken out of the sea, the fissure of which is white like that of the date-stone. It is hung about the neck to avert the evil eye." The pearl in Arab. is "Murwarid," hence evidently "Margarita" and Margaris (woman's name).

[FN#34] Arab. "Kat'a" (bit of leather): some read "Nat'a;" a leather used by way of table-cloth, and forming a bag for victuals; but it is never made of bull's hide.

[FN#35] The older "Cadi," a judge in religious matters. The Shuhud, or Assessors, are officers of the Mahkamah or Kazi's Court.

[FN#36] Of which more in a future page. He thus purified himself ceremonially before death.

[FN#37] This is Christian rather than Moslem: a favourite Maltese curse is "Yahrak Kiddisak man rabba-k!" = burn the Saint who brought thee up!

[FN#38] A popular Egyptian phrase: the dog and the cock speak like Fellahs.

[FN#39] i. e. between the last sleep and dawn when they would rise to wash and pray.

[FN#40] Travellers tell of a peculiar knack of jerking the date-stone, which makes it strike with great force: I never saw this "Inwa" practised, but it reminds me of the water splashing with one hand in the German baths.

[FN#41] i.e., sorely against his will.

[FN#42] Arab. "Shaykh"=an old man (primarily), an elder, a chief (of the tribe, guild, etc.), and honourably addressed to any man. Comp. among the neo Latins "Sieur," "Signora," "Senor," "Senhor," etc. from Lat. "Senior," which gave our "Sire" and "Sir." Like many in Arabic the word has a host of different meanings and most of them will occur in the course of The Nights. Ibrahim (Abraham) was the first Shaykh or man who became grey. Seeing his hairs whiten he cried, "O Allah what is this?" and the answer came that it was a sign of dignified gravity. Hereupon he exclaimed, "O Lord increase this to me!" and so it happened till his locks waxed snowy white at the age of one hundred and fifty. He was the first who parted his hair, trimmed his mustachios, cleaned his teeth with the Miswak (tooth-stick), pared his nails, shaved his pecten, snuffed up water, used ablution after stool and wore a shirt (Tabari).

[FN#43] The word is mostly plural = Jinnis: it is also singular = a demon; and Jan bin Jan has been noticed.

[FN#44] With us moderns "liver" suggests nothing but malady: in Arabic and Persian as in the classic literature of Europe it is the seat of passion, the heart being that of affection. Of this more presently.

[FN#45] Originally in Al-Islam the concubine (Surriyat, etc.) was a captive taken in war and the Koran says nothing about buying slave-girls. But if the captives were true believers the Moslem was ordered to marry not to keep them. In modern days concubinage has become an extensive subject. Practically the disadvantage is that the slave-girls, knowing themselves to be the master's property, consider him bound to sleep with them; which is by no means the mistress's view. Some wives, however, when old and childless, insist, after the fashion of Sarah, upon the husband taking a young concubine and treating her like a daughter—which is rare. The Nights abound in tales of concubines, but these are chiefly owned by the Caliphs and high officials who did much as they pleased. The only redeeming point in the system is that it obviated the necessity of prostitution which is, perhaps, the greatest evil known to modern society.

[FN#46] Arab. "Al-Kahanah"=the craft of a "Kahin" (Heb. Cohen) a diviner, soothsayer, etc.

[FN#47] Arab. "Id al-kabir = The Great Festival; the Turkish Bayram and Indian Bakar-eed (Kine-fete), the pilgrimage-time, also termed "Festival of the Kurban" (sacrifice) because victims are slain, Al-Zuha (of Undurn or forenoon), Al-Azha (of serene night) and Al-Nahr (of throat-cutting). For full details I must refer readers to my "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" (3 vols. 8vo, London, Longmans, 1855). I shall have often to refer to it.

[FN#48] Arab. "Kalam al-mubah," i.e., that allowed or permitted to her by the King, her husband.

[FN#49] Moslem Kings are expected, like the old Gabble Monarchs, to hold "Darbar" (i.e., give public audience) at least twice a day, morning and evening. Neglect of this practice caused the ruin of the Caliphate and of the Persian and Moghul Empires: the great lords were left uncontrolled and the lieges revolted to obtain justice. The Guebre Kings had two levee places, the Rozistan (day station) and the Shabistan (night-station - istan or stan being a nominal form of istadan, to stand, as Hindo-stan). Moreover one day in the week the sovereign acted as "Mufti" or Supreme Judge.

[FN#50] Arab. "Al-Basharah," the gift everywhere claimed in the East and in Boccaccio's Italy by one who brings good news. Those who do the reverse expose themselves to a sound strappado.

[FN#51] A euphemistic formula, to avoid mentioning unpleasant matters. I shall note these for the benefit of students who would honestly prepare for the public service in Moslem lands.

[FN#52] Arab. "Dinar," from the Latin denarius (a silver coin worth ten ounces of brass) through the Greek {Greek Letters}: it is a Koranic word (chaps. iii.) though its Arab equivalent is "Miskal." It also occurs in the Katha before quoted, clearly showing the derivation. In the "Book of Kalilah and Dimnah" it is represented by the Daric or Persian Dinar, {Greek Letters}, from Dara= a King (whence Darius). The Dinar, sequin or ducat, contained at different times from 10 and 12 (Abu Hanifah's day) to 20 and even 25 dirhams or drachmas, and, as a weight, represented a drachma and a half. Its value greatly varied, but we may assume it here at nine shillings or ten francs to half a sovereign. For an elaborate article on the Dinar see Yule's "Cathay and the Way Thither" (ii., pp. 439-443).

[FN#53] The formula used in refusing alms to an "asker" or in rejecting an insufficient offer: "Allah will open to thee!" (some door of gain - not mine)! Another favourite ejaculation is "Allah Karim" (which Turks pronounce "Kyereem") = Allah is All-beneficent! meaning Ask Him, not me.

[FN#54] The public bath. London knows the word through "The Hummums."

[FN#55] Arab. "Dirham" (Plur. dirahim, also used in the sense of money, "siller"), the drachuma of Plautus (Trin. 2, 4, 23). The word occurs in the Panchatantra also showing the derivation; and in the Syriac Kalilah wa Dimnah it is "Zuz." This silver piece was = 6 obols (9 3/4d.) and as a weight = 66 1/2 grains. The Dirham of The Nights was worth six "Danik," each of these being a fraction over a penny. The modern Greek Drachma is=one franc.

[FN#56] In Arabic the speaker always puts himself first, even if he address the King, without intending incivility.

[FN#57] A she-Ifrit, not necessarily an evil spirit.

[FN#58] Arab. "Kullah" (in Egypt pron. "gulleh"), the wide mouthed jug, called in the Hijaz "baradlyah," "daurak" being the narrow. They are used either for water or sherbet and, being made of porous clay, "sweat," and keep the contents cool; hence all old Anglo Egyptians drink from them, not from bottles. Sometimes they are perfumed with smoke of incense, mastich or Kafal (Amyris Kafal). For their graceful shapes see Lane's "Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians" (chaps. v) I quote, here and elsewhere, from the fifth edition, London, Murray, 1860.

[FN#59] "And what is?" etc. A popular way of expressing great difference. So in India: - "Where is Rajah Bhoj (the great King) and where is Ganga the oilman?"

[FN#60] Here, as in other places, I have not preserved the monorhyme, but have ended like the English sonnet with a couplet; as a rule the last two lines contain a "Husn makta'" or climax.

[FN#61] Lit. "he began to say (or speak) poetry," such improvising being still common amongst the Badawin as I shall afterwards note. And although Mohammed severely censured profane poets, who "rove as bereft of their senses through every valley" and were directly inspired by devils (Koran xxvi.), it is not a little curious to note that he himself spoke in "Rajaz" (which see) and that the four first Caliphs all "spoke poetry." In early ages the verse would not be written, if written at all, till after the maker's death. I translate "inshad" by "versifying" or "repeating" or "reciting," leaving it doubtful if the composition be or be not original. In places, however, it is clearly improvised and then as a rule it is model doggrel.

[FN#62] Arab. "Allahumma"=Ya Allah (O Allah) but with emphasis the Fath being a substitute for the voc. part. Some connect it with the Heb. "Alihim," but that fancy is not Arab. In Al-Hariri and the rhetoricians it sometimes means to be sure; of course; unless indeed; unless possibly.

[FN#63] Probably in consequence of a vow. These superstitious practices, which have many a parallel amongst ourselves, are not confined to the lower orders in the East.

[FN#64] i.e., saying "Bismillah!" the pious ejaculation which should precede every act. In Boccaccio (viii., 9) it is "remembering Iddio e' Santi."

[FN#65] Arab. Nahas asfar = brass, opposed to "Nahas" and "Nahas ahmar," = copper.

[FN#66] This alludes to the legend of Sakhr al-Jinn), a famous fiend cast by Solomon David son into Lake Tiberias whose storms make it a suitable place. Hence the "Bottle imp," a world-wide fiction of folk-lore: we shall find it in the "Book of Sindibad," and I need hardly remind the reader of Le Sage's "Diable Boiteux," borrowed from "El Diablo Cojuelo," the Spanish novel by Luiz Velez de Guevara.

[FN#67] Marid (lit. "contumacious" from the Heb. root Marad to rebel, whence "Nimrod" in late Semitic) is one of the tribes of the Jinn, generally but not always hostile to man. His female is "Maridah."

[FN#68] As Solomon began to reign (according to vulgar chronometry) in B.C. 1015, the text would place the tale circ. A.D. 785, = A.H. 169. But we can lay no stress on this date which may be merely fanciful. Professor Tawney very justly compares this Moslem Solomon with the Hindu King, Vikramaditya, who ruled over the seven divisions of the world and who had as many devils to serve him as he wanted.

[FN#69] Arab. "Ya Ba'id:" a euphemism here adopted to prevent using grossly abusive language. Others will occur in the course of these pages.

[FN#70] i. e. about to fly out; "My heart is in my mouth." The Fisherman speaks with the dry humour of a Fellah.

[FN#71] "Sulayman," when going out to ease himself, entrusted his seal-ring upon which his kingdom depended to a concubine "Aminah" (the "Faithful"), when Sakhr, transformed to the King's likeness, came in and took it. The prophet was reduced to beggary, but after forty days the demon fled throwing into the sea the ring which was swallowed by a fish and eventually returned to Sulayman. This Talmudic fable is hinted at in the Koran (chaps. xxxviii.), and commentators have extensively embroidered it. Asaf, son of Barkhiya, was Wazir to Sulayman and is supposed to be the "one with whom was the knowledge of the Scriptures" (Koran, chaps. xxxvii.), i.e. who knew the Ineffable Name of Allah. See the manifest descendant of the Talmudic Koranic fiction in the "Tale of the Emperor Jovinian" (No. lix.) of the Gesta Romanorum, the most popular book of mediaeval Europe composed in England (or Germany) about the end of the thirteenth century.

[FN#72] Arab. "Kumkam," a gourd-shaped bottle of metal, china or glass, still used for sprinkling scents. Lane gives an illustration (chaps. viii., Mod. Egypt.).

[FN#73] Arab. meaning "the Mother of Amir," a nickname for the hyena, which bites the hand that feeds it.

[FN#74] The intellect of man is stronger than that of the Jinni; the Ifrit, however, enters the jar because he has been adjured by the Most Great Name and not from mere stupidity. The seal-ring of Solomon according to the Rabbis contained a chased stone which told him everything he wanted to know.

[FN#75] The Mesmerist will notice this shudder which is familiar to him as preceding the "magnetic" trance.

[FN#76] Arab. "Bahr" which means a sea, a large river, a sheet of water, etc., lit. water cut or trenched in the earth. Bahri in Egypt means Northern; so Yamm (Sea, Mediterranean) in Hebrew is West.

[FN#77] In the Bull Edit. "Ruyan," evidently a clerical error. The name is fanciful not significant.

[FN#78] The geography is ultra-Shakespearean. "Fars" (whence "Persia") is the central Province of the grand old Empire now a mere wreck, "Rum" (which I write Roum, in order to avoid Jamaica) is the neo-Roman or Byzantine Empire, while "Yunan" is the classical Arab term for Greece (Ionia) which unlearned Moslems believe to be now under water.

[FN#79] The Sun greets Mohammed every morning even as it dances on Easter Day for Christendom. Risum teneatis?

[FN#80] Arab. "Nadim," a term often occurring. It denotes one who was intimate enough to drink with the Caliph, a very high honour and a dangerous. The last who sat with "Nudama" was Al-Razi bi'llah A.H. 329 = 940. See Al-Siyuti's famous "History of the Caliphs" translated and admirably annotated by Major H. S. Jarrett, for the Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1880.

[FN#81]Arab. Maydan (from Persian); Lane generally translates it "horse course ' and Payne "tilting yard." It is both and something more; an open space, in or near the city, used for reviewing troops, races, playing the Jerid (cane-spear) and other sports and exercises: thus Al-Maydan=Gr. hippodrome. The game here alluded to is our -'polo," or hockey on horseback, a favourite with the Persian Kings, as all old illustrations of the Shahnamah show. Maydan is also a natural plain for which copious Arabic has many terms, Fayhah or Sath (a plain generally), Khabt (a low-lying plain), Bat'ha (a low sandy flat), Mahattah (a plain fit for halting) and so forth. (Pilgrimage iii., 11.)

[FN#82] For details concerning the "Ghusl" see Night xliv.

[FN#83] A popular idiom and highly expressive, contrasting the upright bearing of the self-satisfied man with the slouch of the miserable and the skirt-trailing of the woman in grief. I do not see the necessity of such Latinisms as "dilated" or "expanded."

[FN#84] All these highest signs of favour foreshow, in Eastern tales and in Eastern life, an approaching downfall of the heaviest; they are so great that they arouse general jealousy. Many of us have seen this at native courts.

[FN#85] This phrase is contained in the word "ihdak" =encompassing, as the conjunctive does the pupil.

[FN#86] I have noted this formula, which is used even in conversation when about to relate some great unfact.

[FN#87] We are obliged to English the word by "valley," which is about as correct as the "brook Kedron," applied to the grisliest of ravines. The Wady (in old Coptic wah, oah, whence "Oasis") is the bed of a watercourse which flows only after rains. I have rendered it by "Fiumara" (Pilgrimage i., 5, and ii., 196, etc.), an Italian or rather a Sicilian word which exactly describes the "wady."

[FN#88] I have described this scene which Mr. T. Wolf illustrated by an excellent lithograph in "Falconry, etc." (London, Van Voorst, MDCCCLII.)

[FN#89] Arab. "Kaylulah," mid-day sleep; called siesta from the sixth canonical hour.

[FN#90] This parrot-story is world-wide in folk-lore and the belief in metempsychosis, which prevails more or less over all the East, there lends it probability. The "Book of Sindibad" (see Night dlxxix. and "The Academy," Sept. 20, 1884, No. 646) converts it into the "Story of the Confectioner, his Wife and the Parrot," and it is the base of the Hindostani text- book, "Tota-Kahani" (Parrot-chat), an abridgement of the Tutinamah (Parrot-book) of Nakhshabi (circ. A.D. 1300), a congener of the Sanskrit "Suka Saptati," or Seventy Parrot-stories. The tale is not in the Bull. or Mac. Edits. but occurs in the Bresl. (i., pp. 90, 91) much mutilated; and better in the Calc. Edit I cannot here refrain from noticing how vilely the twelve vols. of the Breslau Edit have been edited; even a table of contents being absent from the first four volumes.

[FN#91] The young "Turk" is probably a late addition, as it does not appear in many of the MSS., e. g. the Bresl. Edit. The wife usually spreads a cloth over the cage; this in the Turkish translation becomes a piece of leather.

[FN#92] The Hebrew-Syrian month July used to express the height of summer. As Herodotus tells us (ii. 4) the Egyptians claimed to be the discoverers of the solar year and the portioners of its course into twelve parts.

[FN#93] This proceeding is thoroughly characteristic of the servile class; they conscientiously conceal everything from the master till he finds a clew; after which they tell him everything and something more.

[FN#94] Until late years, merchants and shopkeepers in the nearer East all carried and held it a disgrace to leave the house unarmed.

[FN#95] The Bresl. Edit. absurdly has Jazirah (an island).

[FN#96] The Ghulah (fem. of Ghul) is the Heb. Lilith or Lilis; the classical Lamia; the Hindu Yogini and Dakini, the Chaldean Utug and Gigim (desert-demons) as opposed to the Mas (hill-demon) and Telal (who steal into towns); the Ogress of our tales and the Bala yaga (Granny-witch) of Russian folk-lore. Etymologically "Ghul" is a calamity, a panic fear; and the monster is evidently the embodied horror of the grave and the graveyard.

[FN#97] Arab. "Shabb" (Lat. juvenis) between puberty and forty or according to some fifty; when the patient becomes a "Rajul ikhtiyar" (man of free will) politely termed, and then a Shaykh or Shaybah (gray-beard, oldster).

[FN#98] Some proverbial name now forgotten. Torrens (p. 48) translates it "the giglot" (Fortune?) but "cannot discover the drift."

[FN#99] Arab. "Ihtizaz," that natural and instinctive movement caused by good news suddenly given, etc.

[FN#100] Arab. "Kohl," in India, Surmah, not a "collyrium," but powdered antimony for the eyelids. That sold in the bazars is not the real grey ore of antimony but a galena or sulphuret of lead. Its use arose as follows. When Allah showed Himself to Moses on Sinai through an opening the size of a needle, the Prophet fainted and the Mount took fire: thereupon Allah said, "Henceforth shalt thou and thy seed grind the earth of this mountain and apply it to your eyes!" The powder is kept in an etui called Makhalah and applied with a thick blunt needle to the inside of the eyelid, drawing it along the rim; hence etui and probe denote the sexual rem in re and in cases of adultery the question will be asked, "Didst thou see the needle in the Kohl-pot ?" Women mostly use a preparation of soot or lamp-black (Hind. Kajala, Kajjal) whose colour is easily distinguished from that of Kohl. The latter word, with the article (Al-Kohl) is the origin of our "alcohol;" though even M. Littre fails to show how "fine powder" became "spirits of wine." I found this powder (wherewith Jezebel "painted" her eyes) a great preservative from ophthalmia in desert-travelling: the use in India was universal, but now European example is gradually abolishing it.

[FN#101] The tale of these two women is now forgotten.

[FN#102] Arab. "Atadakhkhal." When danger threatens it is customary to seize a man's skirt and cry "Dakhil-ak!" ( = under thy protection). Among noble tribes the Badawi thus invoked will defend the stranger with his life. Foreigners have brought themselves into contempt by thus applying to women or to mere youths.

[FN#103] The formula of quoting from the Koran.

[FN#104] Lit. "Allah not desolate me" (by thine absence). This is still a popular phrase - La tawahishna = Do not make me desolate, i.e. by staying away too long, and friends meeting after a term of days exclaim "Auhashtani!"=thou hast made me desolate, Je suis desole.

[FN#105] Charming simplicity of manners when the Prime Minister carries the fish (shade of Vattel!)!) to the cookmaid. The "Gesta Romanorum" is nowhere more naive.

[FN#106] Arab. "Kahilat al-taraf" = lit. eyelids lined with Kohl; and figuratively "with black lashes and languorous look." This is a phrase which frequently occurs in The Nights and which, as will appear, applies to the "lower animals" as well as to men. Moslems in Central Africa apply Kohl not to the thickness of the eyelid but upon both outer lids, fixing it with some greasy substance. The peculiar Egyptian (and Syrian) eye with its thick fringes of jet-black lashes, looking like lines of black drawn with soot, easily suggests the simile. In England I have seen the same appearance amongst miners fresh from the colliery.

[FN#107] Of course applying to her own case.

[FN#108] Prehistoric Arabs who measured from 60 to 100 cubits high: Koran, chaps. xxvi., etc. They will often be mentioned in The Nights.

[FN#109] I Arab. "Dastur" (from Persian) = leave, permission. The word has two meanings (see Burckhardt, Arab. Prov. No. 609) and is much used, ea. before walking up stairs or entering a room where strange women might be met. So "Tarik" = Clear the way (Pilgrimage, iii., 319). The old Persian occupation of Egypt, not to speak of the Persian speaking Circassians and other rulers has left many such traces in popular language. One of them is that horror of travelers - "Bakhshish" pron. bakh-sheesh and shortened to shish from the Pers. "bakhshish." Our "Christmas box" has been most unnecessarily derived from the same, despite our reading:—

Gladly the boy, with Christmas box in hand.

And, as will be seen, Persians have bequeathed to the outer world worse things than bad language, e.g. heresy and sodomy.

[FN#110] He speaks of his wife but euphemistically in the masculine.

[FN#111] A popular saying throughout Al-Islam.

[FN#112] Arab. "Fata": lit.=a youth; a generous man, one of noble mind (as youth-tide should be). It corresponds with the Lat. "vir," and has much the meaning of the Ital. "Giovane," the Germ. "Junker" and our "gentleman."

[FN#113] From the Bul.Edit.

[FN#114] The vagueness of his statement is euphemistic.

[FN#115] This readiness of shedding tears contrasts strongly with the external stoicism of modern civilization; but it is true to Arab character, and Easterns, like the heroes of Homer and Italians of Boccacio, are not ashamed of what we look upon as the result of feminine hysteria - "a good cry."

[FN#116] The formula (constantly used by Moslems) here denotes displeasure, doubt how to act and so forth. Pronounce, "La haula wa la kuwwata illa bi 'llahi 'I-Aliyyi 'I-Azim." As a rule mistakes are marvellous: Mandeville (chaps. xii.) for "La ilaha illa 'llahu wa Muhammadun Rasulu 'llah" writes "La ellec sila, Machomete rores alla." The former (la haula, etc.), on account of the four peculiar Arabic letters, is everywhere pronounced differently. and the exclamation is called "Haulak" or "Haukal."

[FN#117] An Arab holds that he has a right to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his father's brother, and if any win her from him a death and a blood-feud may result. It was the same in a modified form amongst the Jews and in both races the consanguineous marriage was not attended by the evil results (idiotcy, congenital deafness, etc.) observed in mixed races like the English and the Anglo-American. When a Badawi speaks of "the daughter of my uncle" he means wife; and the former is the dearer title, as a wife can be divorced, but blood is thicker than water.

[FN#118] Arab. "Kahbah;" the coarsest possible term. Hence the unhappy "Cave" of Don Roderick the Goth, which simply means The Whore.

[FN#119] The Arab "Banj" and Hindu "Bhang" (which I use as most familiar) both derive from the old Coptic "Nibanj" meaning a preparation of hemp (Cannabis sativa seu Indica); and here it is easy to recognise the Homeric "Nepenthe." Al- Kazwini explains the term by "garden hemp (Kinnab bostani or Shahdanaj). On the other hand not a few apply the word to the henbane (hyoscyamus niger) so much used in mediaeval Europe. The Kamus evidently means henbane distinguishing it from Hashish al harafish" = rascals' grass, i.e. the herb Pantagruelion. The "Alfaz Adwiya" (French translation) explains "Tabannuj" by "Endormir quelqu'un en lui faisant avaler de la jusquiame." In modern parlance Tabannuj is = our anaesthetic administered before an operation, a deadener of pain like myrrh and a number of other drugs. For this purpose hemp is always used (at least I never heard of henbane); and various preparations of the drug are sold at an especial bazar in Cairo. See the "powder of marvellous virtue" in Boccaccio, iii., 8; and iv., 10. Of these intoxicants, properly so termed, I shall have something to say in a future page.

The use of Bhang doubtless dates from the dawn of civilisation, whose earliest social pleasures would be inebriants. Herodotus (iv. c. 75) shows the Scythians burning the seeds (leaves and capsules) in worship and becoming drunken with the fumes, as do the S. African Bushmen of the present day. This would be the earliest form of smoking: it is still doubtful whether the pipe was used or not. Galen also mentions intoxication by hemp. Amongst Moslems, the Persians adopted the drink as an ecstatic, and about our thirteenth century Egypt, which began the practice, introduced a number of preparations to be noticed in the course of The Nights.

[FN#120] The rubbish heaps which outlie Eastern cities, some (near Cairo) are over a hundred feet high.

[FN#121] Arab. "Kurrat al-aye;" coolness of eyes as opposed to a hot eye ("sakhin") one red with tears. The term is true and picturesque so I translate it literally. All coolness is pleasant to dwellers in burning lands: thus in Al-Hariri Abu Z yd says of Bassorah, "I found there whatever could fill the eye with coolness." And a "cool booty" (or prize) is one which has been secured without plunging into the flames of war, or imply a pleasant prize.

[FN#122] Popularly rendered Caucasus (see Night cdxcvi): it corresponds so far with the Hindu "Udaya" that the sun rises behind it; and the "false dawn" is caused by a hole or gap. It is also the Persian Alborz, the Indian Meru (Sumeru), the Greek Olympus and the Rhiphaean Range (Veliki Camenypoys) or great starry girdle of the world, etc.

[FN#123] Arab. "Mizr" or "Mizar;" vulg. Buzah; hence the medical Lat. Buza, the Russian Buza (millet beer), our booze, the O. Dutch "buyzen" and the German "busen." This is the old of negro and negroid Africa, the beer of Osiris, of which dried remains have been found in jars amongst Egyptian tombs. In Equatorial Africa it known as Pombe; on the Upper Nile "Merissa" or "Mirisi" and amongst the Kafirs (Caffers) "Tshuala," "Oala" or "Boyala:" I have also heard of "Buswa"in Central Africa which may be the origin of "Buzah." In the West it became , (Romaic ), Xythum and cerevisia or cervisia, the humor ex hordeo, long before the days of King Gambrinus. Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment. In Egypt the drink is affected chiefly by Berbers, Nubians and slaves from the Upper Nile, but it is a superior article and more like that of Europe than the "Pombe." I have given an account of the manufacture in The Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. ii., p. 286. There are other preparations, Umm-bulbul (mother nightie gale), Dinzayah and Subiyah, for which I must refer to the Shaykh El-Tounsy.

[FN#124] There is a terrible truth in this satire, which reminds us of the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier laid, ord et infame of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.). We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting him but, when she does, adieu husband and children, honour and religion, life and "soul." Moreover Nature (human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair and foul, dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be like the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half truth when he backed himself, with an hour s start, against the handsomest man in England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the Italians say, un bel brutto) was the highest recommendation in the eyes of very beautiful women.

[FN#125] Every Moslem burial-ground has a place of the kind where honourable women may sit and weep unseen by the multitude. These visits are enjoined by the Apostle:—Frequent the cemetery, 'twill make you think of futurity! Also:—Whoever visiteth the graves of his parents (or one of them) every Friday, he shall be written a pious son, even though he might have been in the world, before that, a disobedient. (Pilgrimage, ii., 71.) The buildings resemble our European "mortuary chapels." Said, Pasha of Egypt, was kind enough to erect one on the island off Suez, for the "use of English ladies who would like shelter whilst weeping and wailing for their dead." But I never heard that any of the ladles went there.

[FN#126] Arab. "Ajal"=the period of life, the appointed time of death: the word is of constant recurrence and is also applied to sudden death. See Lane's Dictionary, s.v.

[FN#127] "The dying Badawi to his tribe" (and lover) appears to me highly pathetic. The wild people love to be buried upon hill slopes whence they can look down upon the camp; and they still call out the names of kinsmen and friends as they pass by the grave-yards. A similar piece occurs in Wetzstein (p. 27, "Reisebericht ueber Hauran," etc.):—

O bear with you my bones where the camel bears his load And bury me before you, if buried I must be; And let me not be burled 'neath the burden of the vine But high upon the hill whence your sight I ever see! As you pass along my grave cry aloud and name your names The crying of your names shall revive the bones of me: I have fasted through my life with my friends, and in my death, I will feast when we meet, on that day of joy and glee.

[FN#128] The Akasirah (plur. of Kasra=Chosroes) is here a title of the four great dynasties of Persian Kings. 1. The Peshdadian or Assyrian race, proto-historics for whom dates fail, 2. The Kayanian (Medes and Persians) who ended with the Alexandrian invasion in B. C. 331. 3. The Ashkanian (Parthenians or Arsacides) who ruled till A. D. 202; and 4. The Sassanides which have already been mentioned. But strictly speaking "Kisri" and "Kasra" are titles applied only to the latter dynasty and especially to the great King Anushirwan. They must not be confounded with "Khusrau" (P. N. Cyrus, Ahasuerus? Chosroes?), and yet the three seem to have combined in "Caesar," Kaysar and Czar. For details especially connected with Zoroaster see vol. I, p. 380 of the Dabistan or School of Manners, translated by David Shea and Anthony Troyer, Paris, 1843. The book is most valuable, but the proper names are so carelessly and incorrectly printed that the student is led into perpetual error.

[FN#129] The words are the very lowest and coarsest; but the scene is true to Arab life.

[FN#130] Arab."Hayhat:" the word, written in a variety of ways is onomatopoetic, like our "heigh-ho!" it sometimes means "far from me (or you) be it!" but in popular usage it is simply "Alas."

[FN#131] Lane (i., 134) finds a date for the book in this passage. The Soldan of Egypt, Mohammed ibn Kala'un, in the early eighth century (Hijrah = our fourteenth), issued a sumptuary law compelling Christians and Jews to wear indigo-blue and saffron-yellow turbans, the white being reserved for Moslems. But the custom was much older and Mandeville (chaps. ix.) describes it in A. D. 1322 when it had become the rule. And it still endures; although abolished in the cities it is the rule for Christians, at least in the country parts of Egypt and Syria. I may here remark that such detached passages as these are absolutely useless for chronology: they may be simply the additions of editors or mere copyists.

[FN#132] The ancient "Mustapha" = the Chosen (prophet, i. e. Mohammed), also titled Al-Mujtaba, the Accepted (Pilgrimage, ii., 309). "Murtaza"=the Elect, i.e. the Caliph Ali is the older "Mortada" or "Mortadi" of Ockley and his day, meaning "one pleasing to (or acceptable to) Allah." Still older writers corrupted it to "Mortis Ali" and readers supposed this to be the Caliph's name.

[FN#133] The gleam (zodiacal light) preceding the true dawn; the Persians call the former Subh-i-kazib (false or lying dawn) opposed to Subh-i-sadik (true dawn) and suppose that it is caused by the sun shining through a hole in the world- encircling Mount Kaf.

[FN#134] So the Heb. "Arun" = naked, means wearing the lower robe only; = our "in his shirt."

[FN#135] Here we have the vulgar Egyptian colloquialism "Aysh" (—Ayyu shayyin) for the classical "Ma" = what.

[FN#136] "In the name of Allah!" here said before taking action.

[FN#137] Arab. "Mamluk" (plur. Mamalik) lit. a chattel; and in The Nights a white slave trained to arms. The "Mameluke Beys" of Egypt were locally called the "Ghuzz," I use the convenient word in its old popular sense;

'Tis sung, there's a valiant Mameluke In foreign lands ycleped (Sir Luke)- HUDIBRAS.

And hence, probably, Moliere's "Mamamouchi"; and the modern French use "Mamalue." See Savary's Letters, No. xl.

[FN#138] The name of this celebrated succesor of Nineveh, where some suppose The Nights were written, is orig. (middle- gates) because it stood on the way where four great highways meet. The Arab. form "Mausil" (the vulgar "Mosul") is also significant, alluding to the "junction" of Assyria and Babylonis. Hence our "muslin."

[FN#139] This is Mr. Thackeray's "nose-bag." I translate by "walking-shoes" the Arab "Khuff" which are a manner of loose boot covering the ankle; they are not usually embroidered, the ornament being reserved for the inner shoe.

[FN#140] i.e. Syria (says Abulfeda) the "land on the left" (of one facing the east) as opposed to Al-Yaman the "land on the right." Osmani would mean Turkish, Ottoman. When Bernard the Wise (Bohn, p.24) speaks of "Bagada and Axiam" (Mabillon's text) or "Axinarri" (still worse), he means Baghdad and Ash-Sham (Syria, Damascus), the latter word puzzling his Editor. Richardson (Dissert, lxxii.) seems to support a hideous attempt to derive Sham from Shamat, a mole or wart, because the country is studded with hillocks! Al-Sham is often applied to Damascus-city whose proper name Dimishk belongs to books: this term is generally derived from Damashik b. Kali b. Malik b. Sham (Shem). Lee (Ibn Batutah, 29) denies that ha-Dimishki means "Eliezer of Damascus."

[FN#141] From Oman = Eastern Arabia.

[FN#142] Arab. "Tamar Hanna" lit. date of Henna, but applied to the flower of the eastern privet (Lawsonia inermis) which has the sweet scent of freshly mown hay. The use of Henna as a dye is known even in Enland. The "myrtle" alluded to may either have been for a perfume (as it is held an anti-intoxicant) or for eating, the bitter aromatic berries of the "As" being supposed to flavour wine and especially Raki (raw brandy).

[FN#143] Lane. (i. 211) pleasantly remarks, "A list of these sweets is given in my original, but I have thought it better to omit the names" (!) Dozy does not shirk his duty, but he is not much more satisfactory in explaining words interesting to students because they are unfound in dictionaries and forgotten by the people. "Akras (cakes) Laymuniyah (of limes) wa Maymuniyah" appears in the Bresl. Edit. as "Ma'amuniyah" which may mean "Ma'amun's cakes" or "delectable cakes." "Amshat" = (combs) perhaps refers to a fine kind of Kunafah (vermicelli) known in Egypt and Syria as "Ghazl al-banat" = girl's spinning.

[FN#144] The new moon carefully looked for by all Moslems because it begins the Ramazan-fast.

[FN#145] Solomon's signet ring has before been noticed.

[FN#146] The "high-bosomed" damsel, with breasts firm as a cube, is a favourite with Arab tale tellers. Fanno baruffa is the Italian term for hard breasts pointing outwards.

[FN#147] A large hollow navel is looked upon not only as a beauty, but in children it is held a promise of good growth.

[FN#148] Arab. "Ka'ah," a high hall opening upon the central court: we shall find the word used for a mansion, barrack, men's quarters, etc.

[FN#149] Babel = Gate of God (El), or Gate of Ilu (P. N. of God), which the Jews ironically interpreted "Confusion." The tradition of Babylonia being the very centre of witchcraft and enchantment by means of its Seven Deadly Spirits, has survived in Al-Islam; the two fallen angels (whose names will occur) being confined in a well; Nimrod attempting to reach Heaven from the Tower in a magical car drawn by monstrous birds and so forth. See p. 114, Francois Fenormant's "Chaldean Magic," London, Bagsters.

[FN#150] Arab. "Kamat Alfiyyah" = like the letter Alif, a straight perpendicular stroke. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the origin of every alphabet (not syllabarium) known to man, one form was a flag or leaf of water-plant standing upright. Hence probably the Arabic Alif-shape; while other nations preferred other modifications of the letter (ox's head, etc), which in Egyptian number some thirty-six varieties, simple and compound.

[FN#151] I have not attempted to order this marvellous confusion of metaphors so characteristic of The Nights and the exigencies of Al- Saj'a = rhymed prose.

[FN#152] Here and elsewhere I omit the "kala (dice Turpino)" of the original: Torrens preserves "Thus goes the tale" (which it only interrupts). This is simply letter-wise and sense-foolish.

[FN#153] Of this worthy more at a future time.

[FN#154] i.e., sealed with the Kazi or legal authority's seal of office.

[FN#155] "Nothing for nothing" is a fixed idea with the Eastern woman: not so much for greed as for a sexual point d' honneur when dealing with the adversary—man.

[FN#156] She drinks first, the custom of the universal East, to show that the wine she had bought was unpoisoned. Easterns, who utterly ignore the "social glass" of Western civilisation drink honestly to get drunk; and, when far gone are addicted to horse- play (in Pers. "Badmasti" = le vin mauvais) which leads to quarrels and bloodshed. Hence it is held highly irreverent to assert of patriarchs, prophets and saints that they "drank wine;" and Moslems agree with our "Teatotallers" in denying that, except in the case of Noah, inebriatives are anywhere mentioned in Holy Writ.

[FN#157] Arab. "Hur al-Ayn," lit. (maids) with eyes of lively white and black, applied to the virgins of Paradise who will wive with the happy Faithful. I retain our vulgar "Houri," warning the reader that it is a masc. for a fem. ("Huriyah") in Arab, although accepted in Persian, a genderless speach.

[FN#158] Arab. "Zambur," whose head is amputated in female circumcision. See Night cccclxxiv.

[FN#159] Ocymum basilicum noticed in Introduction, the bassilico of Boccaccio iv. 5. The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah represents it as "sprouting with something also whose smell is foul and disgusting and the sower at once sets to gather it and burn it with fire." (The Fables of Bidpai translated from the later Syriac version by I. G. N. Keith-Falconer, etc., etc., etc., Cambridge University Press, 1885). Here, however, Habk is a pennyroyal (mentha puligium), and probably alludes to the pecten.

[FN#160] i. e. common property for all to beat.

[FN#161] "A digit of the moon" is the Hindu equivalent.

[FN#162] Better known to us as Caravanserai, the "Travellers' Bungalow" of India: in the Khan, however, shelter is to be had, but neither bed nor board.

[FN#163] Arab. "Zubb." I would again note that this and its synonyms are the equivalents of the Arabic, which is of the lowest. The tale-teller's evident object is to accentuate the contrast with the tragical stories to follow.

[FN#164] "ln the name of Allah," is here a civil form of dismissal.

[FN#165] Lane (i. 124) is scandalised and naturally enough by this scene, which is the only blot in an admirable tale admirably told. Yet even here the grossness is but little more pronounced than what we find in our old drama (e. g., Shakespeare's King Henry V.) written for the stage, whereas tales like The Nights are not read or recited before both sexes. Lastly "nothing follows all this palming work:" in Europe the orgie would end very differently. These "nuns of Theleme" are physically pure: their debauchery is of the mind, not the body. Galland makes them five, including the two doggesses.

[FN#166] So Sir Francis Walsingham's "They which do that they should not, should hear that they would not."

[FN#167] The old "Calendar," pleasantly associated with that form of almanac. The Mac. Edit. has Karandaliyah," a vile corruption, like Ibn Batutah's "Karandar" and Torrens' "Kurundul:" so in English we have the accepted vulgarism of "Kernel" for Colonel. The Bull Edit. uses for synonym "Su'uluk"=an asker, a beggar. Of these mendicant monks, for such they are, much like the Sarabaites of mediaeval Europe, I have treated and of their institutions and its founder, Shaykh Sharif Bu Ali Kalandar (ob. A. H. 724 =1323-24), at some length in my "History of Sindh," chaps. viii. See also the Dabistan (i. 136) where the good Kalandar exclaims:—

If the thorn break in my body, how trifling the pain! But how sorely I feel for the poor broken thorn!

D'Herbelot is right when he says that the Kalandar is not generally approved by Moslems: he labours to win free from every form and observance and he approaches the Malamati who conceals all his good deeds and boasts of his evil doings—our "Devil's hypocrite."

[FN#168] The "Kalandar" disfigures himself in this manner to show "mortification."

[FN#169] Arab. "Gharib:" the porter is offended because the word implies "poor devil;" esp. one out of his own country.

[FN#170] A religious mendicant generally.

[FN#171] Very scandalous to Moslem "respectability" Mohammed said the house was accursed when the voices of women could be heard out of doors. Moreover the neighbours have a right to interfere and abate the scandal.

[FN#172] I need hardly say that these are both historical personages; they will often be mentioned, and Ja'afar will be noticed in the Terminal Essay.

[FN#173] Arab. "Same 'an wa ta'atan"; a popular phrase of assent generally translated "to hear is to obey;" but this formula may be and must be greatly varied. In places it means "Hearing (the word of Allah) and obeying" (His prophet, viceregent, etc.)

[FN#174] Arab. "Sawab"=reward in Heaven. This word for which we have no equivalent has been naturalized in all tongues (e. g. Hindostani) spoken by Moslems.

[FN#175] Wine-drinking, at all times forbidden to Moslems, vitiates the Pilgrimage rite: the Pilgrim is vowed to a strict observance of the ceremonial law and many men date their "reformation" from the "Hajj." Pilgrimage, iii., 126.

[FN#176] Here some change has been necessary; as the original text confuses the three "ladies."

[FN#177] In Arab. the plural masc. is used by way of modesty when a girl addresses her lover and for the same reason she speaks of herself as a man.

[FN#178] Arab. "Al-Na'im", in ful "Jannat-al-Na'im" = the Garden of Delights, i.e. the fifth Heaven made of white silver. The generic name of Heaven (the place of reward) is "Jannat," lit. a garden; "Firdaus" being evidently derived from the Persian through the Greek {Greek Letters}, and meaning a chase, a hunting park. Writers on this subject should bear in mind Mandeville's modesty, "Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there."

[FN#179] Arab. "Mikra'ah," the dried mid-rib of a date-frond used for many purposes, especially the bastinado.

[FN#180] According to Lane (i., 229) these and the immediately following verses are from an ode by Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili. They are in the Bull Edit. not the Mac. Edit.

[FN#181] The original is full of conceits and plays on words which are not easily rendered in English.

[FN#182] Arab. "Tarjuman," same root as Chald. Targum ( = a translation), the old "Truchman," and through the Ital. "tergomano" our "Dragoman," here a messenger.

[FN#183] Lit. the "person of the eyes," our "babe of the eyes," a favourite poetical conceit in all tongues; much used by the Elizabethans, but now neglected as a silly kind of conceit. See Night ccix.

[FN#184] Arab. "Sar" (Thar) the revenge-right recognised by law and custom (Pilgrimage, iii., 69).

[FN#185] That is "We all swim in the same boat."

[FN#186] Ja'afar ever acts, on such occasions, the part of a wise and sensible man compelled to join in a foolish frolic. He contrasts strongly with the Caliph, a headstrong despot who will not be gainsaid, whatever be the whim of the moment. But Easterns would look upon this as a proof of his "kingliness."

[FN#187] Arab. "Wa'l- Salam" (pronounced Was-Salam); meaning "and here ends the matter." In our slang we say "All right, and the child's name is Antony."

[FN#188] This is a favourite jingle, the play being upon "ibrat" (a needle-graver) and " 'ibrat" (an example, a warning).

[FN#189] That is "make his bow," as the English peasant pulls his forelock. Lane (i., 249) suggests, as an afterthought, that it means:—"Recover thy senses; in allusion to a person's drawing his hand over his head after sleep or a fit." But it occurs elsewhere in the sense of "cut thy stick."

[FN#190] This would be a separate building like our family tomb and probably domed, resembling that mentioned in "The King of the Black Islands." Europeans usually call it "a little Wali;" or, as they write it, "Wely," the contained for the container; the "Santon" for the "Santon's tomb." I have noticed this curious confusion (which begins with Robinson, i. 322) in "Unexplored Syria," i. 161.

[FN#191] Arab. "Wiswas," = diabolical temptation or suggestion. The "Wiswasi" is a man with scruples (scrupulus, a pebble in the shoe), e.g. one who fears that his ablutions were deficient, etc.

[FN#192] Arab. "Katf" = pinioning by tying the arms behind the back and shoulders (Kitf) a dire disgrace to free-born men.

[FN#193] Arab. "Nafs."=Hebr. Nephesh (Nafash) =soul, life as opposed to "Ruach"= spirit and breath. In these places it is equivalent to "I said to myself." Another form of the root is "Nafas," breath, with an idea of inspiration: so 'Sahib Nafas" (=master of breath) is a minor saint who heals by expiration, a matter familiar to mesmerists (Pilgrimage, i., 86).

[FN#194] Arab. "Kaus al-Banduk;" the "pellet bow" of modern India; with two strings joined by a bit of cloth which supports a ball of dry clay or stone. It is chiefly used for birding.

[FN#195] In the East blinding was a common practice, especially in the case of junior princes not required as heirs. A deep perpendicular incision was made down each corner of the eyes; the lids were lifted and the balls removed by cutting the optic nerve and the muscles. The later Caliphs blinded their victims by passing a red-hot sword blade close to the orbit or a needle over the eye-ball. About the same time in Europe the operation was performed with a heated metal basin—the well known bacinare (used by Ariosto), as happened to Pier delle Vigne (Petrus de Vinea), the "godfather of modern Italian."

[FN#196] Arab. "Khinzir" (by Europeans pronounced "Hanzir"), prop. a wild-boar, but popularly used like our "you pig!"

[FN#197] Striking with the shoe, the pipe-stick and similar articles is highly insulting, because they are not made, like whips and scourges, for such purpose. Here the East and the West differ diametrically. "Wounds which are given by instruments which are in one's hands by chance do not disgrace a man," says Cervantes (D. Q. i., chaps. 15), and goes on to prove that if a Zapatero (cobbler) cudgel another with his form or last, the latter must not consider himself cudgelled. The reverse in the East where a blow of a pipe stick cost Mahommed Ali Pasha's son his life: Ishmail Pasha was burned to death by Malik Nimr, chief of Shendy (Pilgrimage, i., 203). Moreover, the actual wound is less considered in Moslem law than the instrument which caused it: so sticks and stones are venial weapons, whilst sword and dagger, gun and pistol are felonious. See ibid. (i., 336) for a note upon the weapons with which nations are policed.

[FN#198] Incest is now abominable everywhere except amongst the overcrowded poor of great and civilised cities. Yet such unions were common and lawful amongst ancient and highly cultivated peoples, as the Egyptians (Isis and Osiris), Assyrians and ancient Persians. Physiologically they are injurious only when the parents have constitutional defects: if both are sound, the issue, as amongst the so-called "lower animals " is viable and healthy.

[FN#199] Dwellers in the Northern Temperates can hardly imagine what a dust-storm is in sun parched tropical lands. In Sind we were often obliged to use candles at mid-day, while above the dust was a sun that would roast an egg.

[FN#200] Arab. " 'Urban," now always used of the wild people, whom the French have taught us to call les Bedouins; "Badw" being a waste or desert, and Badawi (fem. Badawiyah, plur. Badawi and Bidwan), a man of the waste. Europeans have also learnt to miscall the Egyptians "Arabs": the difference is as great as between an Englishman and a Spaniard. Arabs proper divide their race into sundry successive families. "The Arab al-Araba" (or al- Aribah, or al-Urubiyat) are the autochthones, prehistoric, proto-historic and extinct tribes; for instance, a few of the Adites who being at Meccah escaped the destruction of their wicked nation, but mingled with other classes. The "Arab al-Muta'arribah," (Arabised Arabs) are the first advenae represented by such noble strains as the Koraysh (Koreish), some still surviving. The "Arab al-Musta'aribah" (insititious, naturalized or instituted Arabs, men who claim to be Arabs) are Arabs like the Sinaites, the Egyptians and the Maroccans descended by intermarriage with other races. Hence our "Mosarabians" and the "Marrabais" of Rabelais (not, "a word compounded of Maurus and Arabs"). Some genealogists, however, make the Muta'arribah descendants of Kahtan (possibly the Joktan of Genesis x., a comparatively modern document, B.C. 700?); and the Musta'aribah those descended from Adnan the origin of Arab genealogy. And, lastly, are the "Arab al-Musta'ajimah," barbarised Arabs, like the present population of Meccah and Al-Medinah. Besides these there are other tribes whose origin is still unknown, such as the Mahrah tribes of Hazramaut, the "Akhdam" (=serviles) of Oman (Maskat); and the "Ebna" of Al-Yaman: Ibn Ishak supposes the latter to be descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan who expelled the Abyssinian invader from Southern Arabia. (Pilgrimage, m., 31, etc.)

[FN#201] Arab. "Amir al-Muuminin." The title was assumed by the Caliph Omar to obviate the inconvenience of calling himself "Khalifah" (successor) of the Khalifah of the Apostle of Allah (i.e. Abu Bakr); which after a few generations would become impossible. It means "Emir (chief or prince) of the Muumins," men who hold to the (true Moslem) Faith, the "Iman" (theory, fundamental articles) as opposed to the "Din," ordinance or practice of the religion. It once became a Wazirial time conferred by Sultan Malikshah (King King- king) on his Nizam al-Murk. (Richardson's Dissert. [viii.)

[FN#202] This may also mean "according to the seven editions of the Koran " the old revisions and so forth (Sale, Sect. iii. and D'Herbelot "Alcoran.") The schools of the "Mukri," who teach the right pronunciation wherein a mistake might be sinful, are seven, Harnzah, Ibn Katir, Ya'akub, Ibn Amir, Kisai, Asim and Hafs, the latter being the favourite with the Hanafis and the only one now generally known in Al-Islam.

[FN#203] Arab. "Sadd"=wall, dyke, etc. the "bund" or "band" of Anglo-India. Hence the "Sadd" on the Nile, the banks of grass and floating islands which "wall" the stream. There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the "Zauba'ah" as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees, which are whirled like leaves and sticks in air and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not only the horizon but even the mid-day sun. These sand-spouts are the terror of travellers. In Sind and the Punjab we have the dust- storm which for darkness, I have said, beats the blackest London fog.

[FN#204] Arab. Sar = the vendetta, before mentioned, as dreaded in Arabia as in Corsica.

[FN#205] Arab. "Ghutah," usually a place where irrigation is abundant. It especially applies (in books) to the Damascus-plain because "it abounds with water and fruit trees." The Ghutah is one of the four earthly paradises, the others being Basrah (Bassorah), Shiraz and Samarcand. Its peculiarity is the likeness to a seaport the Desert which rolls up almost to its doors being the sea and its ships being the camels. The first Arab to whom we owe this admirable term for the "Companion of Job" is "Tarafah" one of the poets of the Suspended Poems: he likens (v. v. 3, 4) the camels which bore away his beloved to ships sailing from Aduli. But "ships of the desert" is doubtless a term of the highest antiquity.

[FN#206] The exigencies of the "Saj'a," or rhymed prose, disjoint this and many similar pas. sages.

[FN#207] The "Ebony" Islands; Scott's "Isle of Ebene," i., 217.

[FN#208] "Jarjaris" in the Bul. Edit.

[FN#209] Arab. "Takbis." Many Easterns can hardly sleep without this kneading of the muscles, this "rubbing" whose hygienic properties England is now learning.

[FN#210] The converse of the breast being broadened, the drooping, "draggle-tail" gait compared with the head held high and the chest inflated.

[FN#211] This penalty is mentioned in the Koran (chaps. v.) as fit for those who fight against Allah and his Apostle, but commentators are not agreed if the sinners are first to be put to death or to hang on the cross till they die. Pharaoh (chaps. xx.) threatens to crucify his magicians on palm-trees, and is held to be the first crucifier.

[FN#212] Arab. "'Ajami"=foreigner, esp. a Persian: the latter in The Nights is mostly a villain. I must here remark that the contemptible condition of Persians in Al-Hijaz (which I noted in 1852, Pilgrimage, i., 327) has completely changed. They are no longer, "The slippers of All and hounds of Omar:" they have learned the force of union and now, instead of being bullied, they bully.

[FN#213] The Calc. Edit. turns into Tailors (Khayyatin) and Torrens does not see the misprint.

[FN#214] i.e. Axe and sandals.

[FN#215] Lit. "Strike his neck."

[FN#216] A phrase which will frequently recur; meaning the situation suggested such words a these.

[FN#217] The smiter with the evil eye is called "A'in" and the person smitten "Ma'im" or "Ma'un."

[FN#218] Arab. "Sakiyah," the well-known Persian wheel with pots and buckets attached to the tire. It is of many kinds, the boxed, etc., etc., and it is possibly alluded to in the "pitcher broken at the fountain" (Eccleslastes xii. 6) an accident often occurring to the modern "Noria." Travellers mostly abuse its "dismal creaking" and "mournful monotony": I have defended the music of the water-wheel in Pilgrimage ii. 198.

[FN#219] Arab. "Zikr" lit. remembering, mentioning (i. c. the names of Allah), here refers to the meetings of religious for devotional exercises; the "Zikkirs," as they are called, mostly standing or sitting in a circle while they ejaculate the Holy Name. These "rogations" are much affected by Darwayshes, or begging friars, whom Europe politely divides Unto "dancing" and "howling"; and, on one occasion, greatly to the scandal of certain Englaenderinns to whom I was showing the Ezbekiyah I joined the ring of "howlers." Lane (Mod. Egypt, see index) is profuse upon the subject of "Zikrs" and Zikkits. It must not be supposed that they are uneducated men: the better class, however, prefers more privacy.

[FN#220] As they thought he had been there for prayer or penance.

[FN#221] Arab. "Ziyarat," a visit to a pious person or place.

[FN#222] This is a paternal salute in the East where they are particular about the part kissed. A witty and not unusually gross Persian book, called the "Al-Namah" because all questions begin with "Al" (the Arab article) contains one "Al-Wajib al-busidan?" (what best deserves bussing?) and the answer is "Kus-i-nau-pashm," (a bobadilla with a young bush).

[FN#223] A weight of 71-72 English grains in gold; here equivalent to the diner.

[FN#224] Compare the tale of The Three Crows in Gammer Grethel, Evening ix.

[FN#225] The comparison is peculiarly apposite; the earth seen from above appears hollow with a raised rim.

[FN#226] A hundred years old.

[FN#227] "Bahr" in Arab. means sea, river, piece of water; hence the adjective is needed.

[FN#228] The Captain or Master of the ship (not the owner). In Al-Yaman the word also means a "barber," in virtue of the root, Rass, a head.

[FN#229] The text has "in the character Ruka'i,"," or Rika'i,, the correspondence-hand.

[FN#230] A curved character supposed to be like the basil-leaf (rayhan). Richardson calls it "Rohani."

[FN#231] I need hardly say that Easterns use a reed, a Calamus (Kalam applied only to the cut reed) for our quills and steel pens.

[FN#232] Famous for being inscribed on the Kiswah (cover) of Mohammed's tomb; a large and more formal hand still used for engrossing and for mural inscriptions. Only seventy two varieties of it are known (Pilgrimage, ii., 82).