When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Sultan ordered Amjad to plunder Bahram's house and to hang its owner. So Amjad despatched thither for that purpose a company of men, who sacked the house and took Bahram and brought his daughter to the Wazir by whom she was received with all honour, for As'ad had told his brother the torments he had suffered and the kindness she had done him. Thereupon Amjad related in his turn to As'ad all that had passed between himself and the damsel; and how he had escaped hanging and had become Wazir; and they made moan, each to other, of the anguish they had suffered for separation. Then the Sultan summoned Bahram and bade strike off his head; but he said, "O most mighty King, art thou indeed resolved to put me to death?" Replied the King, "Yes, except thou save thyself by becoming a Moslem." Quoth Bahram, "O King, bear with me a little while!" Then he bowed his head groundwards and presently raising it again, made pro fession of The Faith and islamised at the hands of the Sultan. They all rejoiced at his conversion and Amjad and As'ad told him all that had befallen them, whereat he wondered and said, "O my lords, make ready for the journey and I will depart with you and carry you back to your father's court in a ship." At this they rejoiced and wept with sore weeping but he said, "O my lords, weep not for your departure, for it shall reunite you with those you love, even as were Ni'amah and Naomi." "And what befel Ni'amah and Naomi?" asked they. "They tell," replied Bahram, "(but Allah alone is All knowing) the following tale of



End of Vol. 3



Arabian Nights, Volume 3 Footnotes



[FN#1] This "horripilation," for which we have the poetical term "goose-flesh," is often mentioned in Hindu as in Arab literature.

[FN#2] How often we have heard this in England!

[FN#3] As a styptic. The scene in the text has often been enacted in Egypt where a favourite feminine mode of murdering men is by beating and bruising the testicles. The Fellahs are exceedingly clever in inventing methods of manslaughter. For some years bodies were found that bore no outer mark of violence, and only Frankish inquisitiveness discovered that the barrel of a pistol had been passed up the anus and the weapon discharged internally Murders of this description are known in English history; but never became popular practice.

[FN#4] Arab. "Zakar," that which betokens masculinity. At the end of the tale we learn that she also gelded him; thus he was a "Sandal)," a rase.

[FN#5] See vol. i. p. 104. {see Volume 1, Note 188}

[FN#6] The purity and intensity of her love had attained to a something of prophetic strain.

[FN#7] Lane corrupts this Persian name to Shah Zeman (i. 568).

[FN#8] i.e. the world, which includes the ideas of Fate, Time, Chance.

[FN#9] Arab. "Barid," silly, noyous, contemptible; as in the proverb

Two things than ice are colder cold:— An old man young, a young man old.

A "cold-of-countenance"=a fool: "May Allah make cold thy face!"=may it show want and misery. "By Allah, a cold speech!"=a silly or abusive tirade (Pilgrimage, ii. 22).

[FN#10] The popular form is, "often the ear loveth before the eye."

[FN#11] Not the first time that royalty has played this prank, nor the last, perhaps.

[FN#12] i.e. the Lady Dunya.

[FN#13] These magazines are small strongly-built rooms on the ground floor, where robbery is almost impossible.

[FN#14] Lit. "approbation," "benediction"; also the Angel who keeps the Gates of Paradise and who has allowed one of the Ghilman (or Wuldan) the boys of supernatural beauty that wait upon the Faithful, to wander forth into this wicked world.

[FN#15] In Europe this would be a plurale majestatis, used only by Royalty. In Arabic it has no such significance, and even the lower orders apply it to themselves; although it often has a soupon of "I and thou."

[FN#16] Man being an "extract of despicable water" (Koran xxxii. 7) ex spermate genital), which Mr. Rodwell renders "from germs of life," "from sorry water."

[FN#17] i.e. begotten by man's seed in the light of salvation (Nur al-huda).

[FN#18] The rolls of white (camphor-like) scarf-skin and sordes which come off under the bathman's glove become by miracle of Beauty, as brown musk. The Rubber or Shampooer is called in Egypt "Mukayyis" (vulgarly "Mukayyisati") or "bagman," from his "Kis," a bag-glove of coarse woollen stuff. To "Johnny Raws" he never fails to show the little rolls which come off the body and prove to them how unclean they are, but the material is mostly dead scarf-skin

[FN#19] The normal phrase on such occasions (there is always a "dovetail" de rigueur) "Allah give thee profit!"

[FN#20] i.e. We are forced to love him only, and ignore giving him a rival (referring to Koranic denunciations of "Shirk," or attributing a partner to Allah, the religion of plurality, syntheism not polytheism): see, he walks tottering under the weight of his back parts wriggling them whilst they are rounded like the revolving heavens.

[FN#21] Jannat al-Na'im (Garden of Delight); the fifth of the seven Paradises made of white diamond; the gardens and the plurality being borrowed from the Talmud. Mohammed's Paradise, by the by, is not a greater failure than Dante's. Only ignorance or pious fraud asserts it to be wholly sensual; and a single verse is sufficient refutation: "Their prayer therein shall be 'Praise unto thee, O. Allah!' and their salutation therein shall be 'Peace!' and the end of their prayer shall be, 'Praise unto God, the Lord of all creatures"' (Koran x. 10-11). See also lvi. 24- 26. It will also be an intellectual condition wherein knowledge will greatly be increased (lxxxviii viii. 17-20). Moreover the Moslems, far more logical than Christians, admit into Paradise the so-called "lower animals."

[FN#22] Sed vitam faciunt balnea, vine, Venus! The Hammam to Easterns is a luxury as well as a necessity; men sit there for hours talking chiefly of money and their prowess with the fair; and women pass half the day in it complaining of their husbands' over-amativeness and contrasting their own chaste and modest aversion to camel congress.

[FN#23] The frigidarium or cold room, coolness being delightful to the Arab.

[FN#24] The calidarium or hot room of the bath.

[FN#25] The Angel who acts door-keeper of Hell; others say he specially presides over the torments of the damned (Koran xliii. 78).

[FN#26] The Door-keeper of Heaven before mentioned who, like the Guebre Zamiyad has charge of the heavenly lads and lasses, and who is often charged by poets with letting them slip.

[FN#27] Lane (i. 616), says "of wine, milk, sherbet, or any other beverage." Here it is wine, a practice famed in Persian poetry, especially by Hafiz, but most distasteful to a European stomach. We find the Mu allakah of Imr al-Keys noticing "our morning draught." Nott (Hafiz) says a "cheerful cup of wine in the morning was a favourite indulgence with the more luxurious Persians. And it was not uncommon among the Easterns, to salute friend by saying."May your morning potation be agreeable to you!" In the present day this practice is confined to regular debauchees.

[FN#28] Koran xii. 31. The words spoken by Zulaykha's women friends and detractors whom she invited to see Beauty Joseph.

[FN#29] A formula for averting fascination. Koran, chaps. cxiii. 1. "Falak" means "cleaving" hence the breaking forth of light from darkness, a "wonderful instance of the Divine power."

[FN#30] The usual delicate chaff.

[FN#31] Such letters are generally written on a full-sized sheet of paper ("notes" are held slighting in the East) and folded till the breadth is reduced to about one inch. The edges are gummed, the ink, much like our Indian ink, is smeared with the finger upon the signet ring; the place where it is to be applied is slightly wetted with the tongue and the seal is stamped across the line of junction to secure privacy. I have given a specimen of an original love-letter of the kind in "Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," chaps. iv.

[FN#32] Arab. "Salb" which may also mean hanging, but the usual term for the latter in The Nights is "shanak." Crucifixion, abolished by the superstitious Constantine, was practised as a servile punishment as late as the days of Mohammed Ali Pasha the Great e malefactors were nailed and tied to the patibulum or cross-piece without any sup pedaneum or foot-rest and left to suffer tortures from flies and sun, thirst and hunger. They often lived three days and died of the wounds mortifying and the nervous exhaustion brought on by cramps and convulsions. In many cases the corpses were left to feed the kites and crows; and this added horror to the death. Moslems care little for mere hanging. Whenever a fanatical atrocity is to be punished, the malefactor should be hung in pig-skin, his body burnt and the ashes publicly thrown into a common cesspool.

[FN#33] Arab "Shaytan" the insolent or rebellious one is a common term of abuse. The word I. Koramc, and borrowed as usual from the Jews. "Satan" occurs four times in the O.T. of which two are in Job where, however, he is a subordinate angel.

[FN#34] Arab. "Alak" from the Koran xxii. 5. " O men...consider that we first created you of dust (Adam); afterwards of seed (Rodwell's "moist germs of life"); afterwards of a little coagulated (or clots of) blood." It refers to all mankind except Adam, Eve and Isa. Also chaps. xcvi. 2, which, as has been said was probably the first composed at Meccah. Mr. Rodwell (v. 10) translates by 'Servant of God" what should be "Slave of Allah," alluding to Mohammed's original name Abdullah. See my learned friend Aloys Sprenger, Leben, etc., i.155.

[FN#35] The Hindus similarly exaggerate: "He was ready to leap out of his skin in his delight" (Katha, etc., p. 443).

[FN#36] A star in the tail of the Great Bear, one of the "Banat al-Na'ash," or a star close to the second. Its principal use is to act foil to bright Sohayl (Canopus) as in the beginning of Jami's Layla-Majnun:—

To whom Thou'rt hid, day is darksome night: To whom shown, Soha as Sohayl is bright.

See also al-Hariri (xxxii. and xxxvi.). The saying, "I show her Soha and she shows me the moon" (A. P. i. 547) arose as follows. In the Ignorance a beautiful Amazon defied any man to take her maidenhead; and a certain Ibn al-Ghazz won the game by struggling with her till she was nearly senseless. He then asked her, "How is thine eye-sight: dost thou see Soha?" and she, in her confusion, pointed to the moon and said, "That is it!"

[FN#37] The moon being masculine (lupus) and the sun feminine.

[FN#38] The "five Shaykhs" must allude to that number of Saints whose names are doubtful; it would be vain to offer conjectures. Lane and his "Sheykh" (i. 617) have tried and failed.

[FN#39] The beauties of nature seem always to provoke hunger in Orientals, especially Turks, as good news in Englishmen.

[FN#40] Pers. "Lajuward": Arab. "Lazuward"; prob. the origin of our "azure," through the Romaic and the Ital. azzurro; and, more evidently still, of lapis lazuli, for which do not see the Dictionaries.

[FN#41] Arab. "Maurid." the desert-wells where caravans drink: also the way to water wells.

[FN#42] The famous Avicenna, whom the Hebrews called Aben Sina. The early European Arabists, who seem to have learned Arabic through Hebrew, borrowed their corruption, and it long kept its place in Southern Europe.

[FN#43] According to the Hindus there are ten stages of love- sickness: (1) Love of the eyes (2) Attraction of the Manas or mind; (3) Birth of desire; (4) Loss of sleep; (5) Loss of flesh; (6) Indifference to objects of sense; (7) Loss of shame, (8) Distraction of thought (9) Loss of consciousness; and (10) Death.

[FN#44] We should call this walk of "Arab ladies" a waddle: I have never seen it in Europe except amongst the trading classes of Trieste, who have a "wriggle" of their own.

[FN#45] In our idiom six doors.

[FN#46] They refrained from the highest enjoyment, intending to marry.

[FN#47] Arab. "Jihad," lit. fighting against something; Koranically, fighting against infidels non- believers in Al-lslam (chaps. Ix. 1). But the "Mujahidun" who wage such war are forbidden to act aggressively (ii. 186). Here it is a war to save a son.

[FN#48] The lady proposing extreme measures is characteristic: Egyptians hold, and justly enough, that their women are more amorous than men.

[FN#49] "O Camphor," an antiphrase before noticed. The vulgar also say "Ya Talji"=O snowy (our snowball), the polite "Ya Abu Sumrah !" =O father of brownness.

[FN#50] i.e. which fit into sockets in the threshold and lintel and act as hinges. These hinges have caused many disputes about how they were fixed, for instance in caverns without moveable lintel or threshold. But one may observe that the upper projections are longer than the lower and that the door never fits close above, so by lifting it up the inferior pins are taken out of the holes. It is the oldest form and the only form known to the Ancients. In Egyptian the hinge is called Akab=the heel, hence the proverb Wakaf' al-bab ala 'akabin; the door standeth on its heel; i.e. every thing in proper place.

[FN#51] Hence the addresses to the Deity: Ya Satir and Ya Sattar- -Thou who veilest the sins of Thy Servants! said e.g., when a woman is falling from her donkey, etc.

[FN#52] A necessary precaution, for the headsman who would certainly lose his own head by overhaste.

[FN#53] The passage has also been rendered, "and rejoiced him by what he said" (Lane i, 600).

[FN#54] Arab. "Hurr"=noble, independent (opp. to 'Abd=a servile) often used to express animae nobilitas as in Acts xvii. 11; where the Beroeans were "more noble" than the Thessalonians. The Princess means that the Prince would not lie with her before marriage.

[FN#55] The Persian word is now naturalized as Anglo-Egypeian.

[FN#56] Arab. "khassat hu" = removed his testicles, gelded him.

[FN#57] Here ends the compound tale of Taj al-Muluk cum Aziz plus Azizah, and we return to the history of King Omar's sons.

[FN#58] "Zibl" popularly pronounced Zabal, means "dung." Khan is "Chief," as has been noticed; "Zabbal," which Torrens renders literally "dung-drawer," is one who feeds the Hammam with bois- de-vache, etc.

[FN#59] i.e one who fights the Jihad or "Holy War": it is equivalent to our "good knight."

[FN#60] Arab. "Malik." Azud al Daulah, a Sultan or regent under the Abbaside Caliph Al-Ta'i li 'llah (regn. A.H. 363-381) was the first to take the title of "Malik." The latter in poetry is still written Malik.

[FN#61] A townlet on the Euphrates, in the "awwal Sham," or frontier of Syria.

[FN#62] i.e., the son would look to that.

[FN#63] A characteristic touch of Arab pathos, tender and true.

[FN#64] Arab. "Mawarid" from "ward" = resorting to pool or water- pit (like those of "Gakdul") for drinking, as opposed to "Sadr"=returning after having drunk at it. Hence the "Sadir" (part. act.) takes precedence of the "Warid" in Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawi).

[FN#65] One of the fountains of Paradise (Koran, chaps. Ixxvi.): the word lit. means "water flowing pleasantly down the throat." The same chapter mentions "Zanjabil," or the Ginger-fount, which to the Infidel mind unpleasantly suggests "ginger pop."

[FN#66] Arab. "Takhil" = adorning with Kohl.

[FN#67] The allusions are far-fetched and obscure as in Scandinavian poetry. Mr. Payne (ii. 314) translates "Naml" by "net." I understand the ant (swarm) creeping up the cheeks, a common simile for a young beard. The lovers are in the Laza (hell) of jealousy etc., yet feel in the Na'im (heaven) of love and robe in green, the hue of hope, each expecting to be the favoured one.

[FN#68] Arab. "Ukhuwan," the classical term. There are two chamomiles, the white (Babunaj) and the yellow (Kaysun), these however are Syrian names and plants are differently called in almost every Province of Arabia

[FN#69] In nomadic life the parting of lovers happens so frequently that it become. a stock topic in poetry and often, as here, the lover complains of parting when he is not parted. But the gravamen lies in the word "Wasl" which may mean union, meeting, reunion Or coition. As Ka'ab ibn Zuhayr began his famous poem with "Su'ad hath departed," 900 imitators (says Al-Siyuti) adopted the Nasib or address to the beloved and Su'ad came to signify a cruel, capricious mistress.

[FN#70] As might be expected from a nation of camel-breeders actual cautery which can cause only counter-irritation, is a favourite nostrum; and the Hadis or prophetic saying is "Akhir al-dawa (or al-tibb) al-Kayy" = cautery is the end of medicine- cure; and "Fire and sickness cannot cohabit." Most of the Badawi bear upon their bodies grisly marks Of this heroic treatment, whose abuse not unfrequently brings on gangrene. The Hadis (Burckhardt, Proverbs, No. 30) also means "if nothing else avail, take violent measures.

[FN#71] The Spaniards have the same expression: "Man is fire and woman is tinder."

[FN#72] Arab. "Bashik" from Persian "Bashah" (accipiter Nisus) a fierce little species of sparrow-hawk which I have described in "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus" (p. 14, etc.).

[FN#73] Lit. "Coals (fit) for frying pan."

[FN#74] Arab. "Libdah," the sign of a pauper or religious mendicant. He is addressed "Ya Abu libdah!" (O father of a felt calotte!)

[FN#75] In times of mourning Moslem women do not use perfumes or dyes, like the Henna here alluded to in the pink legs and feet of the dove.

[FN#76] Koran, chaps. ii. 23. The idea is repeated in some forty Koranic passages.

[FN#77] A woman's name, often occurring. The "daughters of Sa'ada" are zebras, so called because "they resemble women in beauty and graceful agility."

[FN#78] Arab. "Tiryak" from Gr. a drug against venomous bites. It was compounded mainly of treacle, and that of Baghdad and Irak was long held sovereign. The European equivalent, "Venice treacle," (Theriaca Andromachi) is an electuary containing many elements. Badawin eat for counter- poison three heads of garlic in clarified butter for forty days. (Pilgrimage iii 77 )

[FN#79] Could Cervantes have read this? In Algiers he might easily have heard it recited by the tale-tellers. Kanmakan is the typical Arab Knight, gentle and valiant as Don Quixote Sabbah is the Grazioso, a "Beduin" Sancho Panza. In the "Romance of Antar" we have a similar contrast with Ocab who says: "Indeed I am no fighter: the sword in my hand-palm chases only pelicans ;" and, "whenever you kill a satrap, I'll plunder him."

[FN#80] i.e. The Comely, son of the Spearman, son of the Lion, or Hero.

[FN#81] Arab. "Ushari." Old Purchas (vi., i. 9) says there are three kinds of camels (1 ) Huguin (=Hejin) of tall stature and able to carry 1,000 lbs. (2) Bechete (=Bukhti) the two-humped Bactrian before mentioned and, (3) the Raguahill (Rahil) small dromedaries unfit for burden but able to cover a hundred miles in a day. The "King of Timbukhtu" (not "Bukhtu's well" pop. Timbuctoo) had camels which reach Segelmesse (Sijalmas) or Darha, nine hundred miles in eight days at most. Lyon makes the Maherry (also called El-Heirie=Mahri) trot nine miles an hour for a long time. Other travellers in North Africa report the Sabayee (Saba'i=seven days weeder) as able to get over six hundred and thirty miles (or thirty-five caravan stages=each eighteen miles) in five to seven days. One of the dromedaries in the "hamlah" or caravan of Mr. Ensor (Journey through Nubia and Darfoor—a charming book) travelled one thousand one hundred and ten miles in twenty- seven days. He notes that his beasts were better with water every five to seven days, but in the cold season could do without drink for sixteen. I found in Al-Hijaz at the end of August that the camels suffered much after ninety hours without drink (Pilgrimage iii. 14). But these were "Judi" fine-haired animals as opposed to "Khawar" (the Khowas of Chesney, p. 333), coarse-haired, heavy, slow brutes which will not stand great heat.

[FN#82] i.e. Fortune so willed it (euphemistically).

[FN#83] The "minaret" being feminine is usually compared with a fair young girl. The oldest minaret proper is supposed to have been built in Damascus by the Ommiade Caliph (No. X.) Al-Walid A.H. 86-96 (=705-715). According to Ainsworth (ii. 113) the second was at Kuch Hisar in Chaldea.

[FN#84] None of the pure Badawi can swim for the best of reasons, want of waters.

[FN#85] The baser sort of Badawi is never to be trusted: he is a traitor born, and looks upon fair play as folly or cowardice. Neither oath nor kindness can bind him: he unites the cruelty of the cat with the wildness of the wolf. How many Englishmen have lost their lives by not knowing these elementary truths! The race has not changed from the days of Mandeville (A.D. 1322) whose "Arabians, who are called Bedouins and Ascopards (?), are right felonious and foul, and of a cursed nature." In his day they "carried but one shield and one spear, without other arm :" now, unhappily for travellers, they have matchlocks and most tribes can manufacture a something called by courtesy gunpowder.

[FN#86] Thus by Arab custom they become friends.

[FN#87] Our classical term for a noble Arab horse.

[FN#88] In Arab. "Khayl" is=horse; Husan, a stallion; Hudud, a brood stallion; Faras, a mare (but sometimes used as a horse and meaning "that tears over the ground"), Jiyad a steed (noble); Kadish, a nag (ignoble); Mohr a colt and Mohrah, a filly. There are dozens of other names but these suffice for conversation

[FN#89] Al-Katul, the slayer; Al-Majnun, the mad; both high compliments in the style inverted.

[FN#90] This was a highly honourable exploit, which would bring the doer fame as well as gain.

[FN#91] This is a true and life-like description of horse- stealing in the Desert: Antar and Burckhardt will confirm every word. A noble Arab stallion is supposed to fight for his rider and to wake him at night if he see any sign of danger. The owner generally sleeps under the belly of the beast which keeps eyes and ears alert till dawn.

[FN#92] Arab. "Yaum al tanadi," i.e. Resurrection-day.

[FN#93] Arab. "Bilad al-Sudan"=the Land of the Blacks, negro- land, whence the slaves came, a word now fatally familiar to English ears. There are, however, two regions of the same name, the Eastern upon the Upper Nile and the Western which contains the Niger Valley, and each considers itself the Sudan. And the reader must not confound the Berber of the Upper Nile, the Berderino who acts servant in Lower Egypt, with the Berber of Barbary: the former speaks an African language; the latter a "Semitic" (Arabic) tongue.

[FN#94] "Him" for "her."

[FN#95] Arab. "Saibah," a she-camel freed from labour under certain conditions amongst the pagan Arabs; for which see Sale (Prel. Disc. sect. v.).

[FN#96] Arab. "Marba'." In early spring the Badawi tribes leave the Rasm or wintering-place (the Turco-Persian "Kishlak") in the desert, where winter-rains supply them, and make for the Yaylak, or summer-quarters, where they find grass and water. Thus the great Ruwala tribe appears regularly every year on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Libanus (Unexplored Syria, i. 117), and hence the frequent "partings."

[FN#97] This "renowning it" and boasting of one's tribe (and oneself) before battle is as natural as the war-cry: both are intended to frighten the foe and have often succeeded. Every classical reader knows that the former practice dates from the earliest ages. It is still customary in Arabia during the furious tribal fights, the duello on a magnificent scale which often ends in half the combatants on either side being placed hors-de- combat. A fair specimen of "renowning it" is Amru's Suspended Poem with its extravagant panegyric of the Taghlab tribe (p. 64, "Arabian Poetry for English Readers," etc., by W. A. Clouston, Glasgow: privately printed MDCCCLXXXI.; and transcribed from Sir William Jones's translation).

[FN#98] The "Turk" appeared soon amongst the Abbaside Caliphs. Mohammed was made to prophecy of them under the title Banu Kanturah, the latter being a slave-girl of Abraham. The Imam Al- Shafi'i (A.H. 195=A.D. 810) is said to have foretold their rule in Egypt where an Ottoman defended him against a donkey-boy. (For details see Pilgrimage i. 216 ) The Caliph Al-Mu'atasim bi'llah (A.D. 833-842) had more than 10,000 Turkish slaves and was the first to entrust them with high office; so his Arab subjects wrote of him:—

A wretched Turk is thy heart's desire; And to them thou showest thee dam and sire.

His successor Al-Wasik (Vathek, of the terrible eyes) was the first to appoint a Turk his Sultan or regent. After his reign they became praetorians and led to the downfall of the Abbasides.

[FN#99] The Persian saying is "First at the feast and last at the fray."

[FN#100] i.e. a tempter, a seducer.

[FN#101] Arab. "Wayl-ak" here probably used in the sense of "Wayh-ak" an expression of affectionate concern.

[FN#102] Firdausi, the Homer of Persia, affects the same magnificent exaggeration. The trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one layer (of the seven) from earth and adds it to the (seven of the) Heavens. The "blaze" on the stallion's forehead (Arab. "Ghurrah") is the white gleam of the morning.

[FN#103] A noted sign of excitement in the Arab blood horse, when the tail looks like a panache covering the hind-quarter.

[FN#104] i.e. Prince Kanmakan.

[FN#105] The "quality of mercy" belongs to the noble Arab, whereas the ignoble and the Bada win are rancorous and revengeful as camels.

[FN#106] Arab. "Khanjar," the poison was let into the grooves and hollows of the poniard.

[FN#107] The Pers. "Bang", Indian "Bhang", Maroccan "Fasukh" and S. African "Dakha." (Pilgrimage i. 64.) I heard of a "Hashish- orgie" in London which ended in half the experimentalists being on their sofas for a week. The drug is useful for stokers, having the curious property of making men insensible to heat. Easterns also use it for "Imsak" prolonging coition of which I speak presently.

[FN#108] Arab. "Hashshashin;" whence De Sacy derived "Assassin." A notable effect of the Hashish preparation is wildly to excite the imagination, a kind of delirium imaginans sive phantasticum .

[FN#109] Meaning "Well done!" Mashallah (Ma shaa 'llah) is an exclamation of many uses, especially affected when praising man or beast for fear lest flattering words induce the evil eye.

[FN#110] Arab. "Kabkab" vulg. "Kubkab." They are between three and ten inches high, and those using them for the first time in the slippery Hammam must be careful.

[FN#111] Arab. "Majlis"=sitting. The postures of coition, ethnologically curious and interesting, are subjects so extensive that they require a volume rather than a note. Full information can be found in the Ananga-ranga, or Stage of the Bodiless One, a treatise in Sanskrit verse vulgarly known as Koka Pandit from the supposed author, a Wazir of the great Rajah Bhoj, or according to others, of the Maharajah of Kanoj. Under the title Lizzat al-Nisa (The Pleasures—or enjoying—of Women) it has been translated into all the languages of the Moslem East, from Hindustani to Arabic. It divides postures into five great divisions: (1) the woman lying supine, of which there are eleven subdivisions; (2) lying on her side, right or left, with three varieties; (3) sitting, which has ten, (4) standing, with three subdivisions, and (5) lying prone, with two. This total of twenty- nine, with three forms of "Purushayit," when the man lies supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two, approaching the French quarante faons. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both "sit at squat" somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern's limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga range appeared in 1873 under the name of Kama-Shastra; or the Hindoo Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica); but of this only six copies were printed. It was re-issued (printed but not published) in 1885. The curious in such matters will consult the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, privately printed, 1879) by Pisanus Fraxi (H. S. Ashbee).

[FN#112] i.e. Le Roi Crotte.

[FN#113] This seems to be a punning allusion to Baghdad, which in Persian would mean the Garden (bagh) of Justice (dad). See "Biographical Notices of Persian Poets" by Sir Gore Ouseley, London, Oriental Translation Fund, 1846

[FN#114] The Kardoukhoi (Carduchi) of Xenophon; also called (Strabo xv.) "Kardakis, from a Persian word signifying manliness," which would be "Kardak"=a doer (of derring do). They also named the Montes Gordaei the original Ararat of Xisisthrus- Noah's Ark. The Kurds are of Persian race, speaking an old and barbarous Iranian tongue and often of the Shi'ah sect. They are born bandits, highwaymen, cattle-lifters; yet they have spread extensively over Syria and Egypt and have produced some glorious men, witness Sultan Salah al-Din (Saladin) the Great. They claim affinity with the English in the East, because both races always inhabit the highest grounds they can find.

[FN#115] These irregular bands who belong to no tribe are the most dangerous bandits in Arabia, especially upon the northern frontier. Burckhardt, who suffered from them, gives a long account of their treachery and utter absence of that Arab "pundonor" which is supposed to characterise Arab thieves.

[FN#116] An euphemistic form to avoid mentioning the incestuous marriage.

[FN#117] The Arab form of our "Kinchin lay."

[FN#118] These are the signs of a Shaykh's tent.

[FN#119] These questions, indiscreet in Europe, are the rule throughout Arabia, as they were in the United States of the last generation.

[FN#120] Arab. "Khizab" a paste of quicklime and lamp-black kneaded with linseed oil which turns the Henna to a dark olive. It is hideously ugly to unaccustomed eyes and held to be remarkably beautiful in Egypt.

[FN#121] i.e. the God of the Empyrean.

[FN#122] A blow worthy of the Sa'alabah tribe to which he belonged.

[FN#123] i.e. "benefits"; also the name of Mohammed's Mu'ezzin, or crier to prayer, who is buried outside the Jabiah gate of Damascus. Hence amongst Moslems, Abyssinians were preferred as mosque-criers in the early ages of Al-Islam. Egypt chose blind men because they were abundant and cheap; moreover they cannot take note of what is doing on the adjoining roof terraces where women and children love to pass the cool hours that begin and end the day. Stories are told of men who counterfeited blindness for years in order to keep the employment. In Moslem cities the stranger required to be careful how he appeared at a window or on the gallery of a minaret: the people hate to be overlooked and the whizzing of a bullet was the warning to be off. (Pilgrimage iii. 185.)

[FN#124] His instinct probably told him that this opponent was a low fellow but such insults are common when "renowning it."

[FN#125] Arab. "Dare' " or "Dira'," a habergeon, a coat of ring- mail, sometimes worn in pairs. During the wretched "Sudan" campaigns much naive astonishment was expressed by the English Press to hear of warriors armed cap-a-pie in this armour like medieval knights. They did not know that every great tribe has preserved, possibly from Crusading times, a number of hauberks, even to hundreds. I have heard of only one English traveller who had a mail jacket made by Wilkinson of Pall Mall, imitating in this point Napoleon III. And (according to the Banker-poet, Rogers) the Duke of Wellington. That of Napoleon is said to have been made of platinum-wire, the work of a Pole who received his money and an order to quit Paris. The late Sir Robert Clifton (they say) tried its value with a Colt after placing it upon one of his coat-models or mannequins. It is easy to make these hauberks arrow-proof or sword-proof, even bullet-proof if Arab gunpowder be used: but against a modern rifle-cone they are worse than worthless as the fragments would be carried into the wound. The British serjeant was right in saying that he would prefer to enter battle in his shirt: and he might even doff that to advantage and return to the primitive custom of man—gymnomachy.

[FN#126] Arab. "Jamal" (by Badawin pronounced "Gamal" like the Hebrew) is the generic term for "Camel" through the Gr. : "Ibl" is also the camel-species but not so commonly used. "Hajin" is the dromedary (in Egypt, "Dalul" in Arabia), not the one- humped camel of the zoologist (C. dromedarius) as opposed to the two-humped (C. Bactrianus), but a running i.e. a riding camel. The feminine is Nakah for like mules females are preferred. "Bakr" (masc.) and "Bakrah" (fem.) are camel-colts. There are hosts of special names besides those which are general. Mr. Censor is singular when he states (p.40) "the male (of the camel) is much the safer animal to choose ;" and the custom of t e universal Ease disproves his assertion. Mr. McCoan ("Egypt as it is") tells his readers that the Egyptian camel has two humps, in fact, he describes the camel as it is not.

[FN#127] So, in the Romance of Dalhamah (Zat al-Himmah, the heroine the hero Al-Gundubah ("one locust-man") smites off the head of his mother's servile murderer and cries, I have taken my blood-revenge upon this traitor slave'" (Lane, M. E. chaps. xx iii.)

[FN#128] This gathering all the persons upon the stage before the curtain drops is highly artistic and improbable.

[FN#129] He ought to have said his dawn prayers.

[FN#130] Here begins what I hold to be the oldest subject matter in The Nights, the apologues or fables proper; but I reserve further remarks for the Terminal Essay. Lane has most objectionably thrown this and sundry of the following stories into a note (vol. ii., pp. 53-69).

[FN#131] In beast stories generally when man appears he shows to disadvantage.

[FN#132] Shakespeare's "stone bow" not Lane's "cross-bow" (ii. 53).

[FN#133] The goad still used by the rascally Egyptian donkey-boy is a sharp nail at the end of a stick; and claims the special attention of societies for the protection of animals.

[FN#134] "The most ungrateful of all voices surely is the voice of asses" (Koran xxxi. 18); and hence the "braying of hell" (Koran Ixvii.7). The vulgar still believe that the donkey brays when seeing the Devil. "The last animal which entered the Ark with Noah was the Ass to whose tail Iblis was clinging. At the threshold the ass seemed troubled and could enter no further when Noah said to him:—"Fie upon thee! come in." But as the ass was still troubled and did not advance Noah cried:—"Come in, though the Devil be with thee!", so the ass entered and with him Iblis. Thereupon Noah asked:—"O enemy of Allah who brought thee into the Ark ?", and Iblis answered:—"Thou art the man, for thou saidest to the ass, 'come in though the Devil be with thee!" (Kitab al-Unwan fi Makaid al-Niswan quoted by Lane ii. 54).

[FN#135] Arab. "Rihl," a wooden saddle stuffed with straw and matting. In Europe the ass might complain that his latter end is the sausage. In England they say no man sees a dead donkey: I have seen dozens and, unfortunately, my own.

[FN#136] The English reader will not forget Sterne's old mare. Even Al-Hariri, the prince of Arab rhetoricians, does not distain to use "pepedit," the effect being put for the cause—terror. But Mr. Preston (p. 285) and polite men translate by "fled in haste" the Arabic farted for fear."

[FN#137] This is one of the lucky signs and adds to the value of the beast. There are some fifty of these marks, some of them (like a spiral of hair in the breast which denotes that the rider is a cuckold) so ill-omened that the animal can be bought for almost nothing. Of course great attention is paid to colours, the best being the dark rich bay ("red" of Arabs) with black points, or the flea-bitten grey (termed Azrak=blue or Akhzar=green) which whitens with age. The worst are dun, cream coloured, piebald and black, which last are very rare. Yet according to the Mishkat al- Masabih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, 'The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. "Ghurrah") and upper lips; next, black with blaze and three white legs (bad, because white- hoofs are brittle):next, bay with white blaze and white fore and hind legs." He also said, "Prosperity is with sorrel horses;" and praised a sorrel with white forehead and legs; but he dispraised the "Shikal," which has white stockings (Arab. "Muhajjil") on alternate hoofs (e.g. right hind and left fore). The curious reader will consult Lady Anne Blunt's "Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, with some Account of the Arabs and their Horses" (1879); but he must remember that it treats of the frontier tribes. The late Major Upton also left a book "Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia" (1881); but it is a marvellous production deriving e.g. Khayl (a horse generically) from Kohl or antimony (p. 275). What the Editor was dreaming of I cannot imagine. I have given some details concerning the Arab horse especially in Al-Yaman, among the Zu Mohammed, the Zu Husayn and the Banu Yam in Pilgrimage iii. 270. As late as Marco Polo's day they supplied the Indian market via Aden; but the "Eye o Al-Yaman" has totally lost the habit of exporting horses.

[FN#138] The shovel-iron which is the only form of spur.

[FN#139] Used for the dromedary: the baggage-camel is haltered.

[FN#140] Arab. "Harwalah," the pas gymnastique affected when circumambulating the Ka'abah (Pilgrimage iii. 208).

[FN#141] "This night" would be our "last night": the Arabs, I repeat, say "night and day," not "day and night."

[FN#142] The vulgar belief is that man's fate is written upon his skull, the sutures being the writing.

[FN#143] Koran ii. 191.

[FN#144] Arab. "Tasbih"=saying, "Subhan' Allah." It also means a rosary (Egypt. Sebhah for Subhah) a string of 99 beads divided by a longer item into sets of three and much fingered by the would- appear pious. The professional devotee carries a string of wooden balls the size of pigeons' eggs.

[FN#145] The pigeon is usually made to say, ' "Wahhidu Rabba-kumu ''llazi khalaka-kum, yaghfiru lakum zamba-kum" = "Unify (Assert the Unity of) your Lord who created you; so shall He forgive your sin!" As might be expected this "language" is differently interpreted. Pigeon-superstitions are found in all religions and I have noted (Pilgrimage iii, 218) how the Hindu deity of Destruction- reproduction, the third Person of their Triad, Shiva and his Spouse (or active Energy), are supposed to have dwelt at Meccah under the titles of Kapoteshwara (Pigeon-god) and Kapoteshi (Pigeon-goddess).

[FN#146] I have seen this absolute horror of women amongst the Monks of the Coptic Convents.

[FN#147] After the Day of Doom, when men's actions are registered, that of mutual retaliation will follow and all creatures (brutes included) will take vengeance on one another.

[FN#148] The Comrades of the Cave, famous in the Middle Ages of Christianity (Gibbon chaps. xxxiii.), is an article of faith with Moslems, being part subject of chapter xviii., the Koranic Surah termed the Cave. These Rip Van Winkle-tales begin with Endymion so famous amongst the Classics and Epimenides of Crete who slept fifty-seven years; and they extend to modern days as La Belle au Bois dormant. The Seven Sleepers are as many youths of Ephesus (six royal councillors and a shepherd, whose names are given on the authority of Ali); and, accompanied by their dog, they fled the persecutions of Dakianus (the Emperor Decius) to a cave near Tarsus in Natolia where they slept for centuries. The Caliph Mu'awiyah when passing the cave sent into it some explorers who were all killed by a burning wind. The number of the sleepers remains uncertain, according to the Koran (ibid. v. 21) three, five or seven and their sleep lasted either three hundred or three hundred and nine years. The dog (ibid. v. 17) slept at the cave-entrance with paws outstretched and, according to the general, was called "Katmir" or "Kitmir;" but Al-Rakim (v. 8) is also applied to it by some. Others hold this to be the name of the valley or mountain and others of a stone or leaden tablet on which their names were engraved by their countrymen who built a chapel on the spot (v. 20). Others again make the Men of Al-Rakim distinct from the Cave-men, and believe (with Bayzawi) that they were three youths who were shut up in a grotto by a rock-slip. Each prayed for help through the merits of some good deed: when the first had adjured Allah the mountain cracked till light appeared; at the second petition it split so that they saw one another and after the third it opened. However that may be, Kitmir is one of the seven favoured animals: the others being the Hudhud (hoopoe) of Solomon (Koran xxii. 20); the she-camel of Salih (chaps. Ixxxvii.); the cow of Moses which named the Second Surah; the fish of Jonah; the serpent of Eve, and the peacock of Paradise. For Koranic revelations of the Cave see the late Thomas Chenery (p. 414 The Assemblies of Al-Hariri: Williams and Norgate, 1870) who borrows from the historian Tabari.

[FN#149] These lines have occurred in Night cxlvi.: I quote Mr. Payne by way of variety.

[FN#150] The wolf (truly enough to nature) is the wicked man without redeeming traits; the fox of Arab folk-lore is the cunning man who can do good on occasion. Here the latter is called "Sa'alab" which may, I have noted, mean the jackal; but further on "Father of a Fortlet" refers especially to the fox. Herodotus refers to the gregarious Canis Aureus when he describes Egyptian wolves as being "not much bigger than foxes" (ii. 67). Canon Rawlinson, in his unhappy version, does not perceive that the Halicarnassian means the jackal and blunders about the hyena.

[FN#151] The older "Leila" or "Leyla": it is a common name and is here applied to woman in general. The root is evidently "layl"=nox, with, probably, the idea, "She walks in beauty like the night."

[FN#152] Arab. Abu 'l-Hosayn; his hole being his fort (Unexplored Syria, ii. 18).

[FN#153] A Koranic phrase often occurring.

[FN#154] Koran v. 35.

[FN#155] Arab. "Bazi," Pers. "Baz" (here Richardson is wrong s.v.); a term to a certain extent generic, but specially used for the noble Peregrine (F. Peregrinator) whose tiercel is the Shahin (or "Royal Bird"). It is sometimes applied to the goshawk (Astur palumbarius) whose proper title, however, is Shah-baz (King-hawk). The Peregrine extends from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and the best come from the colder parts: in Iceland I found that the splendid white bird was sometimes trapped for sending to India. In Egypt "Bazi" is applied to the kite or buzzard and "Hidyah" (a kite) to the falcon (Burckhardt's Prov. 159, 581 and 602). Burckhardt translates "Hidayah," the Egyptian corruption, by "an ash-grey falcon of the smaller species common throughout Egypt and Syria."

[FN#156] Arab. "Hijl," the bird is not much prized in India because it feeds on the roads. For the Shinnar (caccabis) or magnificent partridge of Midian as large as a pheasant, see "Midian Revisted" ii. 18.

[FN#157] Arab. "Suf;" hence "Sufi,"=(etymologically) one who wears woollen garments, a devotee, a Santon; from =wise; from =pure, or from Safa=he was pure. This is not the place to enter upon such a subject as "Tasawwuf," or Sufyism; that singular reaction from arid Moslem realism and materialism, that immense development of gnostic and Neo-platonic transcendentalism which is found only germinating in the Jewish and Christian creeds. The poetry of Omar-i-Khayyam, now familiar to English readers, is a fair specimen; and the student will consult the last chapter of the Dabistan "On the religion of the Sufiahs." The first Moslem Sufi was Abu Hashim of Kufah, ob. A. H. 150=767, and the first Convent of Sufis called "Takiyah" (Pilgrimage i. 124) was founded in Egypt by Saladin the Great.

[FN#158] i.e. when she encamps with a favourite for the night.

[FN#159] The Persian proverb is "Marg-i-amboh jashni dared"—death in a crowd is as good as a feast.

[FN#160] Arab. "Kanat", the subterranean water-course called in Persia "Kyariz." Lane (ii. 66) translates it "brandish around the spear (Kanat is also a cane-lance) of artifice," thus making rank nonsense of the line. Al-Hariri uses the term in the Ass. of the Banu Haram where "Kanat" may be a pipe or bamboo laid underground.

[FN#161] From Al-Tughrai, the author of the Lamiyat al-Ajam, the "Lay of the Outlander;" a Kasidah (Ode) rhyming in Lam (the letter "l" being the rawi or binder). The student will find a new translation of it by Mr. J. W. Redhouse and Dr. Carlyle's old version (No. liii.) in Mr. Clouston's "Arabian Poetry." Muyid al-Din al-Hasan Abu Ismail nat. Ispahan ob. Baghdad A.H. 182) derived his surname from the Tughra, cypher or flourish (over the "Bismillah" in royal and official papers) containing the name of the prince. There is an older "Lamiyat al-Arab" a pre-Islamitic L-poem by the "brigand-poet" Shanfara, of whom Mr. W. G. Palgrave has given a most appreciative account in his "Essays on Eastern Questions," noting the indomitable self-reliance and the absolute individualism of a mind defying its age and all around it. Al-Hariri quotes from both.

[FN#162] The words of the unfortunate Azizah, vol. ii., p. 323.

[FN#163] Arab. "Hawi"=a juggler who plays tricks with snakes: he is mostly a Gypsy. The "recompense" the man expects is the golden treasure which the ensorcelled snake is supposed to guard. This idea is as old as the Dragon in the Garden of the Hesperides—and older.

[FN#164] The "Father of going out (to prey) by morning"; for dawn is called Zanab Sirhan the Persian Dum-i-gurg=wolf's tail, i.e. the first brush of light; the Zodiacal Light shown in morning. Sirhan is a nickname of the wolf—Gaunt Grim or Gaffer Grim, the German Isengrin or Eisengrinus (icy grim or iron grim) whose wife is Hersent, as Richent or Hermeline is Mrs. Fox. In French we have lopez, luppe, leu, e.g.

Venant a la queue, leu, leu,

i.e. going in Indian file. Hence the names D'Urfe and Saint-Loup. In Scandinavian, the elder sister of German, Ulf and in German (where the Jews were forced to adopt the name) Wolff whence "Guelph." He is also known to the Arabs as the "sire of a she-lamb," the figure metonymy called "Kunyat bi 'l-Zidd" (lucus a non lucendo), a patronymic or by-name given for opposition and another specimen of "inverted speech."

[FN#165] Arab. "Bint' Arus" = daughter of the bridegroom, the Hindustani Mungus (vulg. Mongoose); a well-known weasel-like rodent often kept tame in the house to clear it of vermin. It is supposed to know an antidote against snake-poison, as the weasel eats rue before battle (Pliny x. 84; xx. 13). In Modern Egypt this viverra is called "Kitt (or Katt) Far'aun" = Pharaoh's cat: so the Percnopter becomes Pharaoh's hen and the unfortunate (?) King has named a host of things, alive and dead. It was worshipped and mummified in parts of Ancient Egypt e.g. Heracleopolis, on account of its antipathy to serpents and because it was supposed to destroy the crocodile, a feat with AElian and others have overloaded with fable. It has also a distinct antipathy to cats. The ichneumon as a pet becomes too tame and will not leave its master: when enraged it emits an offensive stench. I brought home for the Zoological Gardens a Central African specimen prettily barred. Burckhardt (Prov. 455) quotes a line:—

Rakas' Ibn Irsin wa zamzama 'l-Nimsu, (Danceth Ibn Irs whileas Nims doth sing)

and explains Nims by ichneumon and Ibn Irs as a "species of small weasel or ferret, very common in Egypt: it comes into the house, feeds upon meat, is of gentle disposition although not domesticated and full of gambols and frolic."

[FN#166] Arab. "Sinnaur" (also meaning a prince). The common name is Kitt which is pronounced Katt or Gatt; and which Ibn Dorayd pronounces a foreign word (Syriac?). Hence, despite Freitag, Catus (which Isidore derives from catare, to look for) = gatto, chat, cat, an animal unknown to the Classics of Europe who used the mustela or putorius vulgaris and different species of viverrae. The Egyptians, who kept the cat to destroy vermin, especially snakes, called it Mau, Mai, Miao (onomatopoetic): this descendent of the Felis maniculata originated in Nubia; and we know from the mummy pits and Herodotus that it was the same species as ours. The first portraits of the cat are on the monuments of "Beni Hasan," B.C. 2500. I have ventured to derive the familiar "Puss" from the Arab. "Biss (fem. :Bissah"), which is a congener of Pasht (Diana), the cat-faced goddess of Bubastis (Pi-Pasht), now Zagazig. Lastly, "tabby (brindled)-cat" is derived from the Attabi (Prince Attab's) quarter at Baghdad where watered silks were made. It is usually attributed to the Tibbie, Tibalt, Tybalt, Thibert or Tybert (who is also executioner), various forms of Theobald in the old Beast Epic; as opposed to Gilbert the gib-cat, either a tom-cat or a gibbed (castrated) cat.

[FN#167] Arab. "Ikhwan al-Safa," a popular term for virtuous friends who perfectly love each other in all purity: it has also a mystic meaning. Some translate it "Brethren of Sincerity," and hold this brotherhood to be Moslem Freemasons, a mere fancy (see the Mesnevi of Mr. Redhouse, Trubner 1881). There is a well-known Hindustani book of this name printed by Prof. Forbes in Persian character and translated by Platts and Eastwick.

[FN#168] Among Eastern men there are especial forms for "making brotherhood." The "Munhbola-bhai" (mouth-named brother) of India is well-known. The intense "associativeness" of these races renders isolation terrible to them, and being defenceless in a wild state of society has special horrors. Hence the origin of Caste for which see Pilgrimage (i. 52). Moslems, however, cannot practise the African rite of drinking a few drops of each other's blood. This, by the by, was also affected in Europe, as we see in the Gesta Romanoru, Tale lxvii., of the wise and foolish knights who "drew blood (to drink) from the right arm."

[FN#169] The F. Sacer in India is called "Laghar" and tiercel "Jaghar." Mr. T.E. Jordan (catalogue of Indian Birds, 1839) says it is rare; but I found it the contrary. According to Mr. R. Thompson it is flown at kites and antelope: in Sind it is used upon night-heron (nyctardea nycticorax), floriken or Hobara (Otis aurita), quail, partridge, curlew and sometimes hare: it gives excellent sport with crows but requires to be defended. Indian sportsmen, like ourselves, divide hawks into two orders: the "Siyah-chasm," or black-eyed birds, long-winged and noble; the "Gulabi-chasm" or yellow-eyed (like the goshawk) round-winged and ignoble.

[FN#170] i.e. put themselves at thy mercy.

[FN#171] I have remarked (Pilgrimage iii.307) that all the popular ape-names in Arabic and Persian, Sa'adan, Maymun, Shadi, etc., express propitiousness—probably euphemistically applied to our "poor relation."

[FN#172] The serpent does not "sting" nor does it "bite;" it strikes with the poison-teeth like a downward stab with a dagger. These fangs are always drawn by the jugglers but they grow again and thus many lives are lost. The popular way of extracting the crochets is to grasp the snake firmly behind the neck with one hand and with the other to tantalise it by offering and withdrawing a red rag. At last the animal is allowed to strike it and a sharp jerk tears out both eye-teeth as rustics used to do by slamming a door. The head is then held downwards and the venom drains from its bag in the shape of a few drops of slightly yellowish fluid which, as conjurers know, may be drunk without danger. The patient looks faint and dazed, but recovers after a few hours and feels as if nothing had happened. In India I took lessons from a snake-charmer but soon gave up the practice as too dangerous.

[FN#173] Arab. "Akh al-Jahalah" = brother of ignorance, an Ignorantin; one "really and truly" ignorant; which is the value of "Ahk" in such phrases as a "brother of poverty," or, "of purity."

[FN#174] Lane (ii. 1) writes "Abu-l-Hasan;" Payne (iii. 49) "Aboulhusn" which would mean "Father of Beauty (Husn)" and is not a Moslem name. Hasan (beautiful) and its dimin. Husayn, names now so common, were (it is said), unknown to the Arabs, although Hassan was that of a Tobba King, before the days of Mohammed who so called his two only grandsons. In Anglo-India they have become "Hobson and Jobson." The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 305) entitles this story "Tale of Abu 'l Hasan the Attar (druggist and perfumer) with Ali ibn Bakkar and what befel them with the handmaid (=jariyah) Shams al-Nahar."

[FN#175] i.e. a descendant, not a Prince.

[FN#176] The Arab shop is a kind of hole in the wall and buyers sit upon its outer edge (Pilgrimage i. 99).

[FN#177] By a similar image the chamaeleon is called Abu Kurrat=Father of coolness; because it is said to have the "coldest" eye of all animals and insensible to heat and light, since it always looks at the sun.

[FN#178] This dividing the hemistich words is characteristic of certain tales; so I have retained it although inevitably suggesting:—

I left Matilda at the U- niversity of Gottingen.

[FN#179] These naive offers in Eastern tales mostly come from the true seducer—Eve. Europe and England especially, still talks endless absurdity upon the subject. A man of the world may "seduce" an utterly innocent (which means an ignorant) girl. But to "seduce" a married woman! What a farce!

[FN#180] Masculine again for feminine: the lines are as full of word-plays, vulgarly called puns, as Sanskrit verses.

[FN#181] The Eastern heroine always has a good appetite and eats well. The sensible Oriental would infinitely despise that maladive Parisienne in whom our neighbours delight, and whom I long to send to the Hospital.

[FN#182] i.e. her rivals have discovered the secret of her heart.

[FN#183] i.e. blood as red as wine.

[FN#184] The wine-cup (sun-like) shines in thy hand; thy teeth are bright as the Pleiads and thy face rises like a moon from the darkness of thy dress-collar.

[FN#185] The masculine of Marjanah (Morgiana) "the she coral-branch ;" and like this a name generally given to negroes. We have seen white applied to a blackamoor by way of metonomy and red is also connected with black skins by way of fun. A Persian verse says : "If a black wear red, e'en an ass would grin."

[FN#186] Suggesting that she had been sleeping.

[FN#187] Arab. "Raushan," a window projecting and latticed: the word is orig. Persian: so Raushana (splendour)=Roxana. It appears to me that this beautiful name gains beauty by being understood.

[FN#188] The word means any servant, but here becomes a proper name. "Wasifah" usually= a concubine.

[FN#189] i.e. eagerness, desire, love-longing.

[FN#190] Arab. "Rind," which may mean willow (oriental), bay or aloes wood: Al-Asma'i denies that it ever signifies myrtle.

[FN#191] These lines occur in Night cxiv.: by way of variety I give (with permission) Mr. Payne's version (iii. 59).

[FN#192] Referring to the proverb "Al-Khauf maksum"=fear (cowardice) is equally apportioned: i.e. If I fear you, you fear me.

[FN#193] The fingers of the right hand are struck upon the palm of the left.

[FN#194] There are intricate rules for "joining" the prayers; but this is hardly the place for a subject discussed in all religious treatises. (Pilgrimage iii. 239.)

[FN#195] The hands being stained with Henna and perhaps indigo in stripes are like the ring rows of chain armour. See Lane's illustration (Mod. Egypt, chaps. i.).

[FN#196] She made rose-water of her cheeks for my drink and she bit with teeth like grains of hail those lips like the lotus-fruit, or jujube: Arab. "Unnab" or "Nabk," the plum of the Sidr or Zizyphus lotus.

[FN#197] Meaning to let Patience run away like an untethered camel.

[FN#198] i.e. her fair face shining through the black hair. "Camphor" is a favourite with Arab poets: the Persians hate it because connected in their minds with death; being used for purifying the corpse. We read in Burckhardt (Prov. 464) "Singing without siller is like a corpse without Hanut"—this being a mixture of camphor and rose-water sprinkled over the face of the dead before shrouded. Similarly Persians avoid speaking of coffee, because they drink it at funerals and use tea at other times.

[FN#199] i.e. she is angry and bites her carnelion lips with pearly teeth.

[FN#200] Arab. "Wa ba'ad;" the formula which follows "Bismillah"—In the name of Allah. The French translate it or sus, etc. I have noticed the legend about its having been first used by the eloquent Koss, Bishop of Najran.

[FN#201] i.e. Her mind is so troubled she cannot answer for what she writes.

[FN#202] The Bul. Edit. (i. 329) and the Mac. Edit. (i. 780) give to Shams al-Nahar the greater part of Ali's answer, as is shown by the Calc. Edit. (230 et seq.) and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 366 et seq.) Lane mentions this (ii. 74) but in his usual perfunctory way gives no paginal references to the Calc. or Bresl.; so that those who would verify the text may have the displeasure of hunting for it.

[FN#203] Arab. "Bi'smi 'llahi' r-Rahmani'r-Rahim." This auspicatory formula was borrowed by Al-Islam not from the Jews but from the Guebre "Ba nam-i-Yezdan bakhshaishgar-i-dadar!" (in the name of Yezdan-God—All-generous, All-just!). The Jews have, "In the name of the Great God;" and the Christians, "In the name of the Father, etc." The so-called Sir John Mandeville begins his book, In the name of God, Glorious and Almighty. The sentence forms the first of the Koran and heads every chapter except only the ninth, an exception for which recondite reasons are adduced. Hence even in the present day it begins all books, letters and writings in general; and it would be a sign of Infidelity (i.e. non-Islamism) to omit it. The difference between "Rahman" and "Rahim" is that the former represents an accidental (compassionating), the latter a constant quality (compassionate). Sale therefore renders it very imperfectly by "In the name of the most merciful God;" the Latinists better, "In nomine Dei misericordis, clementissimi" (Gottwaldt in Hamza Ispahanensis); Mr. Badger much better, "In the name of God, the Pitiful, the Compassionate"—whose only fault is not preserving the assonance: and Maracci best, "In nomine Dei miseratoris misericordis."

[FN#204] Arab. Majnun (i.e. one possessed by a Jinni) the well-known model lover of Layla, a fictitious personage for whom see D'Herbelot (s. v. Megnoun). She was celebrated by Abu Mohammed Nizam al-Din of Ganjah (ob. A.H. 597=1200) pop. known as Nizami, the caustic and austere poet who wrote:—

The weals of this world are the ass's meed! Would Nizami were of the ass's breed.

The series in the East begins chronologically with Yusuf and Zulaykha (Potiphar's wife) sung by Jami (nat. A.H. 817=1414); the next in date is Khusraw and Shirin (also by Nizami); Farhad and Shirin; and Layla and Majnun (the Night-black maid and the Maniac-man) are the last. We are obliged to compare the lovers with "Romeo and Juliet," having no corresponding instances in modern days: the classics of Europe supply a host as Hero and Leander, Theagenes and Charicleia, etc. etc.

[FN#205] The jeweller of Eastern tales from Marocco to Calcutta, is almost invariably a rascal: here we have an exception.

[FN#206] This must not be understood of sealing-wax, which, however, is of ancient date. The Egyptians (Herod. ii. 38) used "sealing earth" ( ) probably clay, impressed with a signet ( ); the Greeks mud-clay ( ); and the Romans first cretula and then wax (Beckmann). Mediaeval Europe had bees-wax tempered with Venice turpentine and coloured with cinnabar or similar material. The modern sealing-wax, whose distinctive is shell-lac, was brought by the Dutch from India to Europe; and the earliest seals date from about A.D. 1560. They called it Ziegel-lak, whence the German Siegel-lack, the French preferring cire-a-cacheter, as distinguished from cire-a-sceller, the softer material. The use of sealing-wax in India dates from old times and the material, though coarse and unsightly, is still preferred by Anglo-Indians because it resists heat whereas the best English softens like pitch.

[FN#207] Evidently referring to the runaway Abu al-Hasan, not to the she-Mercury.

[FN#208] An unmarried man is not allowed to live in a respectable quarter of a Moslem city unless he takes such precaution. Lane (Mod. Egypt. passim) has much to say on this point; and my excellent friend the late Professor Spitta at Cairo found the native prejudice very troublesome.

[FN#209] Arab. "Ya fulan"=O certain person (fulano in Span. and Port.) a somewhat contemptuous address.

[FN#210] Mr. Payne remarks, "These verses apparently relate to Aboulhusn, but it is possible that they may be meant to refer to Shemsennehar." (iii. 80.)

[FN#211] Arab. and Pers "Bulur" (vulg. billaur) retaining the venerable tradition of the Belus- river. In Al-Hariri (Ass. of Halwan) it means crystal and there is no need of proposing to translate it by onyx or to identify it with the Greek , the beryl.

[FN#212] The door is usually shut with a wooden bolt.

[FN#213] Arab. "Ritanah," from "Ratan," speaking any tongue not Arabic, the allusion being to foreign mercenaries, probably Turks. In later days Turkish was called Muwalla', a pied horse, from its mixture of languages.

[FN#214] This is the rule; to guard against the guet-apens.

[FN#215] Arab. "Walidati," used when speaking to one not of the family in lieu of the familiar "Ummi"=my mother. So the father is Walid=the begetter.

[FN#216] This is one of the many euphemistic formulae for such occasions: they usually begin "May thy head live." etc.

[FN#217] Arab. "Kanun," an instrument not unlike the Austrian zither; it is illustrated in Lane (ii. 77).

[FN#218] This is often done, the merit of the act being transferred to the soul of the deceased.

[FN#219] The two amourists were martyrs; and their amours, which appear exaggerated to the Western mind, have many parallels in the East. The story is a hopeless affair of love; with only one moral (if any be wanted) viz., there may be too much of a good thing. It is given very concisely in the Bul. Edit. vol. i.; and more fully in the Mac. Edit. aided in places by the Bresl. (ii. 320) and the Calc. (ii. 230). # [FN#220] Lane is in error (vol. ii. 78) when he corrects this to "Shah Zeman"; the name is fanciful and intended to be old Persian, on the "weight" of Kahraman. The Bul. Edit. has by misprint "Shahraman."

[FN#221] The "topothesia" is worthy of Shakespeare's day. "Khalidan" is evidently a corruption of "Khalidatani" (for Khalidat), the Eternal, as Ibn Wardi calls the Fortunate Islands, or Canaries, which owe both their modern names to the classics of Europe. Their present history dates from A.D. 1385, unless we accept the Dieppe-Rouen legend of Labat which would place the discovery in A.D. 1326. I for one thoroughly believe in the priority on the West African Coast, of the gallant descendants of the Northmen.

[FN#222] Four wives are allowed by Moslem law and for this reason. If you marry one wife she holds herself your equal, answers you and "gives herself airs"; two are always quarrelling and making a hell of the house; three are "no company" and two of them always combine against the nicest to make her hours bitter. Four are company, they can quarrel and "make it up" amongst themselves, and the husband enjoys comparative peace. But the Moslem is bound by his law to deal equally with the four, each must have her dresses her establishment and her night, like her sister wives. The number is taken from the Jews (Arbah Turim Ev. Hazaer, i.) "the wise men have given good advice that a man should not marry more than four wives." Europeans, knowing that Moslem women are cloistered and appear veiled in public, begin with believing them to be mere articles of luxury, and only after long residence they find out that nowhere has the sex so much real liberty and power as in the Moslem East. They can possess property and will it away without the husband's leave: they can absent themselves from the house for a month without his having a right to complain; and they assist in all his counsels for the best of reasons: a man can rely only on his wives and children, being surrounded by rivals who hope to rise by his ruin. As regards political matters the Circassian women of Constantinople really rule the Sultanate and there soignez la femme! is the first lesson of getting on in the official world.

[FN#223] This two-bow prayer is common on the bride-night; and at all times when issue is desired.

[FN#224] The older Camaralzaman="Moon of the age." Kamar is the moon between her third and twenty-sixth day: Hilal during the rest of the month: Badr (plur. Budur whence the name of the Princess) is the full moon.

[FN#225] Arab "Ra'aya" plur. of 'Ra'iyat" our Anglo-Indian Ryot, lit. a liege, a subject; secondarily a peasant, a Fellah.

[FN#226] Another audacious parody of the Moslem "testification" to the one God, and to Mohammed the Apostle.

[FN#227] Showing how long ago forts were armed with metal plates which we have applied to war-ships only of late years.

[FN#228] The comparison is abominably true—in the East.

[FN#229] Two fallen angels who taught men the art of magic. They are mentioned in the Koran (chaps. ii.), and the commentators have extensively embroidered the simple text. Popularly they are supposed to be hanging by their feet in a well in the territory of Babel, hence the frequent allusions to "Babylonian sorcery" in Moslem writings; and those who would study the black art at head-quarters are supposed to go there. They are counterparts of the Egyptian Jamnes and Mambres, the Jannes and Jambres of St. Paul (2 Tim. iii. 8).

[FN#230] An idol or idols of the Arabs (Allat and Ozza) before Mohammed (Koran chaps. ii. 256). Etymologically the word means "error" and the termination is rather Hebraic than Arabic.

[FN#231] Arab. "Khayt hamayan" (wandering threads of vanity), or Mukhat al-Shaytan (Satan's snivel),our "gossamer"God's summer (Mutter Gottes Sommer) or God's cymar (?).

[FN#232] These lines occur in Night xvii.; so I borrow from Torrens (p. 163) by way of variety.

[FN#233] A posture of peculiar submission; contrasting strongly with the attitude afterwards assumed by Prince Charming.

[FN#234] A mere term of vulgar abuse not reflecting on either parent: I have heard a mother call her own son, "Child of adultery."

[FN#235] Arab. "Ghaza," the Artemisia (Euphorbia ?) before noticed. If the word be a misprint for Ghada it means a kind of Euphorbia which, with the Arak (wild caper-tree) and the Daum palm (Crucifera thebiaca), is one of the three normal growths of the Arabian desert (Pilgrimage iii. 22).

[FN#236] Arab. "Banat al-Na'ash," usually translated daughters of the bier, the three stars which represent the horses in either Bear, "Charles' Wain," or Ursa Minor, the waggon being supposed to be a bier. "Banat" may be also sons, plur. of Ibn, as the word points to irrational objects. So Job (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 32) refers to U. Major as "Ash" or "Aysh" in the words, "Canst thou guide the bier with its sons?" (erroneously rendered "Arcturus with his sons") In the text the lines are enigmatical, but apparently refer to a death parting.

[FN#237] The Chapters are: 2, 3, 36, 55, 67 and the two last ("Daybreak" cxiii. and "Men" cxiv.), which are called Al-Mu'izzatani (vulgar Al-Mu'izzatayn), the "Two Refuge-takings or Preventives," because they obviate enchantment. I have translated the two latter as follows:—

"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of the Day-break * from mischief of what He did make * from mischief of moon eclipse-showing * and from mischief of witches on cord-knots blowing * and from mischief of envier when envying."

"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of men * the sovran of men * the God of men * from the Tempter, the Demon * who tempteth in whisper the breasts of men * and from Jinnis and (evil) men."

[FN#238] The recitations were Nafilah, or superogatory, two short chapters only being required and the taking refuge was because he slept in a ruin, a noted place in the East for Ghuls as in the West for ghosts.

[FN#239] Lane (ii. 222) first read "Muroozee" and referred it to the Muruz tribe near Herat he afterwards (iii. 748) corrected it to "Marwazee," of the fabric of Marw (Margiana) the place now famed for "Mervousness." As a man of Rayy (Rhages) becomes Razi (e.g. Ibn Faris al-Razi), so a man of Marw is Marazi, not Muruzi nor Marwazi. The "Mikna' " was a veil forming a kind of "respirator," defending from flies by day and from mosquitos, dews and draughts by night. Easterns are too sensible to sleep with bodies kept warm by bedding, and heads bared to catch every blast. Our grandfathers and grandmothers did well to wear bonnets-de-nuit, however ridiculous they may have looked.

[FN#240] Iblis, meaning the Despairer, is called in the Koran (chaps. xviii. 48) "One of the genii (Jinnis) who departed from the command of his Lord." Mr. Rodwell (in loco) notes that the Satans and Jinnis represent in the Koran (ii. 32, etc.) the evil-principle and finds an admixture of the Semitic Satans and demons with the "Genii from the Persian (Babylonian ?) and Indian (Egyptian ?) mythologies."

[FN#241] Of course she could not see his eyes when they were shut; nor is this mere Eastern inconsequence. The writer means, "had she seen them, they would have showed," etc.

[FN#242] The eyes are supposed to grow darker under the influence of wine and sexual passion.

[FN#243] To keep off the evil eye.

[FN#244] Like Dahnash this is a fanciful P. N., fit only for a Jinni. As a rule the appellatives of Moslem "genii" end in us (oos), as Tarnus, Huliyanus, the Jewish in—nas, as Jattunas; those of the Tarsa (the "funkers" i.e. Christians) in—dus, as Sidus, and the Hindus in—tus, as Naktus (who entered the service of the Prophet Shays, or Seth, and was converted to the Faith). The King of the Genii is Malik Katshan who inhabits Mount Kaf; and to the west of him lives his son-in-law, Abd al-Rahman with 33,000 domestics: these names were given by the Apostle Mohammed. "Baktanus" is lord of three Moslem troops of the wandering Jinns, which number a total of twelve bands and extend from Sind to Europe. The Jinns, Divs, Peris ("fairies") and other pre-Adamitic creatures were governed by seventy-two Sultans all known as Sulayman and the last I have said was Jan bin Jan. The angel Haris was sent from Heaven to chastise him, but in the pride of victory he also revolted with his followers the Jinns whilst the Peris held aloof. When he refused to bow down before Adam he and his chiefs were eternally imprisoned but the other Jinns are allowed to range over earth as a security for man's obedience. The text gives the three orders. flyers. walkers and divers.

[FN#245] i.e. distracted (with love); the Lakab, or poetical name, of apparently a Spanish poet.

[FN#246] Nothing is more "anti-pathetic" to Easterns than lean hips and flat hinder-cheeks in women and they are right in insisting upon the characteristic difference of the male and female figure. Our modern sculptors and painters, whose study of the nude is usually most perfunctory, have often scandalised me by the lank and greyhound-like fining off of the frame, which thus becomes rather simian than human.

[FN#247] The small fine foot is a favourite with Easterns as well as Westerns. Ovid (A.A.) is not ashamed "ad teneros Oscula (not basia or suavia) ferre pedes." Ariosto ends the august person in

Il breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piece, (The short-sized, clean-cut, roundly-moulded foot).

And all the world over it is a sign of "blood," i.e. the fine nervous temperament.

[FN#248] i.e. "full moons": the French have corrupted it to "Badoure"; we to "Badoura." winch is worse.

[FN#249] As has been said a single drop of urine renders the clothes ceremoniously impure, hence a Stone or a handful of earth must be used after the manner of the torche-cul. Scrupulous Moslems, when squatting to make water, will prod the ground before them with the point o f stick or umbrella, so as to loosen it and prevent the spraying of the urine.

[FN#250] It is not generally known to Christians that Satan has a wife called Awwa ("Hawwa" being the Moslem Eve) and, as Adam had three sons, the Tempter has nine, viz., Zu 'l-baysun who rules in bazars. Wassin who prevails in times of trouble. Awan who counsels kings; Haffan patron of wine-bibbers; Marrah of musicians and dancers; Masbut of news-spreaders (and newspapers ?); Dulhan who frequents places of worship and interferes with devotion. Dasim, lord of mansions and dinner tables, who prevents the Faithful saying "Bismillah" and "Inshallah," as commanded in the Koran (xviii. 23), and Lakis, lord of Fire worshippers (Herklots, chap. xxix. sect. 4).

[FN#251] Strong perfumes, such as musk (which we Europeans dislike and suspect), are always insisted upon in Eastern poetry, and Mohammed's predilection for them is well known. Moreover the young and the beautiful are held (justly enough) to exhale a natural fragrance which is compared with that of the blessed in Paradise. Hence in the Mu'allakah of Imr al-Keys:—

Breathes the scent of musk when they rise to rove, * As the Zephyr's breath with the flavour o'clove.

It is made evident by dogs and other fine-nosed animals that every human being has his, or her, peculiar scent which varies according to age and health. Hence animals often detect the approach of death.

[FN#252] Arab. "Kahla." This has been explained. Mohammed is said to have been born with "Kohl'd eyes."

[FN#253] Hawa al-'uzri, before noticed (Night cxiv.).

[FN#254] These lines, with the Nazir (eye or steward), the Hajib (Groom of the Chambers or Chamberlain) and Joseph, are also repeated from Night cxiv. For the Nazir see Al-Hariri (Nos. xiii. and xxii.)

[FN#255] The usual allusion to the Hur (Houris) from "Hangar," the white and black of the eye shining in contrast. The Persian Magi also placed in their Heaven (Bihisht or Minu) "Huran," or black-eyed nymphs, under the charge of the angel Zamiyad.

[FN#256] In the first hemistich, "bi-shitt 'it wady" (by the wady-bank): in the second, "wa shatta 'l wady" ("and my slayer"— i.e. wady act. part. of wady, killing—"hath paced away").

[FN#257] The double entendre is from the proper names Budur and Su'ad (Beatrice) also meaning "auspicious (or blessed) full moons."

[FN#258] Arab. "Hazir" (also Ahl al-hazer, townsmen) and Badi, a Badawi, also called "Ahl al-Wabar," people of the camel's hair (tent) and A'arab (Nomadic) as opposed to Arab (Arab settled or not). They still boast with Ibn Abbas, cousin of Mohammed, that they have kerchiefs (not turbands) for crowns, tents for houses, loops for walls, swords for scarves and poems for registers or written laws.

[FN#259] This is a peculiarity of the Jinn tribe when wearing hideous forms. It is also found in the Hindu Rakshasa.

[FN#260] Which, by the by, are small and beautifully shaped. The animal is very handy with them, as I learnt by experience when trying to "Rareyfy" one at Bayrut.

[FN#261] She being daughter of Al-Dimiryat, King of the Jinns. Mr. W. F. Kirby has made him the subject of a pretty poem.

[FN#262] These lines have occurred in Night xxii. I give Torrens's version (p. 223) by way of variety.

[FN#263] Arab. "Kamat Alfiyyah," like an Alif, the first of the Arabic alphabet, the Heb. Aleph. The Arabs, I have said, took the flag or water leaf form and departed very far from the Egyptian original (we know from Plutarch that the hieroglyphic abecedarium began with "a"), which was chosen by other imitators, namely the bull's head, and which in the cursive form, especially the Phoenician, became a yoke. In numerals "Alif" denotes one or one thousand. It inherits the traditional honours of Alpha (as opposed to Omega) and in books, letters and writings generally it is placed as a monogram over the "Bismillah," an additional testimony to the Unity. (See vol. i. p. 1.) In mediaeval Christianity this place of honour was occupied by the cross: none save the wildest countries have preserved it, but our vocabulary still retains Criss' (Christ-)cross Row, for horn-book, on account of the old alphabet and nine digits disposed in the form of a Latin cross. Hence Tickell ("The Horn-book"):

——Mortals ne'er shall know More than contained of old the Chris'-cross Row.

[FN#264] The young man must have been a demon of chastity.

[FN#265] Arab. "Kirat" from i.e. bean, the seed of the Abrus precatorius, in weight=two to three (English) grains; and in length=one finger-breadth here; 24 being the total. The Moslem system is evidently borrowed from the Roman "as" and "uncia."

[FN#266] Names of women.

[FN#267] Arab. "Amsa" (lit. he passed the evening) like "asbaha" (he rose in the morning) "Azha" (he spent the forenoon) and "bata" (he spent the night), are idiomatically used for "to be in any state, to continue" without specification of time or season.

[FN#268] Lit. "my liver ;" which viscus, and not the heart, is held the seat of passion, a fancy dating from the oldest days. Theocritus says of Hercules, "In his liver Love had fixed a wound" (Idyl. xiii.). In the Anthologia "Cease, Love, to wound my liver and my heart" (lib. vii.). So Horace (Odes, i. 2); his Latin Jecur and the Persian "Jigar" being evident congeners. The idea was long prevalent and we find in Shakespeare:—

Alas, then Love may be called appetite, No motion of the liver but the palate.

[FN#269] A marvellous touch of nature, love ousting affection; the same trait will appear in the lover and both illustrate the deep Italian saying, "Amor discende, non ascende." The further it goes down the stronger it becomes as of grand-parent for grand-child and vice versa.

[FN#270] This tenet of the universal East is at once fact and unfact. As a generalism asserting that women's passion is ten times greater than man's (Pilgrimage, ii. 282), it is unfact. The world shows that while women have more philoprogenitiveness, men have more amativeness; otherwise the latter would not propose and would nurse the doll and baby. Pact, however, in low-lying lands, like Persian Mazanderan versus the Plateau; Indian Malabar compared with Maratha-land; California as opposed to Utah and especially Egypt contrasted with Arabia. In these hot damp climates the venereal requirements and reproductive powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male; and hence the dissoluteness of morals would be phenomenal, were it not obviated by seclusion, the sabre and the revolver. In cold-dry or hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either form, legal or illegal (i,e. prostitution) I have discussed this curious point of "geographical morality" (for all morality is, like conscience, both geographical and chronological), a subject so interesting to the lawgiver, the student of ethics and the anthropologist, in "The City of the Saints " But strange and unpleasant truths progress slowly, especially in England.

[FN#271] This morning evacuation is considered, in the East, a sine qua non of health; and old Anglo-Indians are unanimous in their opinion of the "bard fajar" (as they mispronounce the dawn-clearance). The natives of India, Hindus (pagans) and Hindis (Moslems), unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for:—

C'est la constipation qui rend l'homme rigoureux.

The English, since the first invasion of cholera, in October, 1831, are a different race from their costive grandparents who could not dine without a "dinner-pill." Curious to say the clyster is almost unknown to the people of Hindostan although the barbarous West Africans use it daily to "wash 'um belly," as the Bonney-men say. And, as Sonnini notes to propose the process in Egypt under the Beys might have cost a Frankish medico his life.

[FN#272] The Egyptian author cannot refrain from this characteristic polissonnerie; and reading it out is always followed by a roar of laughter. Even serious writers like Al- Hariri do not, as I have noted, despise the indecency.

[FN#273] "'Long beard and little wits," is a saying throughout the East where the Kausaj (= man with thin, short beard) is looked upon as cunning and tricksy. There is a venerable Joe Miller about a schoolmaster who, wishing to singe his long beard short, burnt it off and his face to boot:—which reminded him of the saying. A thick beard is defined as one which wholly conceals the skin; and in ceremonial ablution it must be combed out with the fingers till the water reach the roots. The Sunnat, or practice of the Prophet, was to wear the beard not longer than one hand and two fingers' breadth. In Persian "Kuseh" (thin beard) is an insulting term opposed to "Khush-rish," a well-bearded man. The Iranian growth is perhaps the finest in the world, often extending to the waist; but it gives infinite trouble, requiring, for instance, a bag when travelling. The Arab beard is often composed of two tufts on the chin-sides and straggling hairs upon the cheeks; and this is a severe mortification, especially to Shaykhs and elders, who not only look upon the beard as one of man's characteristics, but attach a religious importance to the appendage. Hence the enormity of Kamar al-Zaman's behaviour. The Persian festival of the vernal equinox was called Kusehnishin (Thin-beard sitting). An old man with one eye paraded the streets on an ass with a crow in one hand and a scourge and fan in the other, cooling himself, flogging the bystanders and crying heat! heat! (garma! garma!). For other particulars see Richardson (Dissertation, p. Iii.). This is the Italian Giorno delle Vecchie, Thursday in Mid Lent, March 12 (1885), celebrating the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.

[FN#274] I quote Torrens (p. 400) as these lines have occurred in Night xxxviii.

[FN#275] Moslems have only two names for week days, Friday, Al-Jum'ah or meeting-day, and Al-Sabt, Sabbath day, that is Saturday. The others are known by numbers after Quaker fashion with us, the usage of Portugal and Scandinavia.

[FN#276] Our last night.

[FN#277] Arab. "Tayf"=phantom, the nearest approach to our "ghost," that queer remnant of Fetishism imbedded in Christianity; the phantasma, the shade (not the soul) of tile dead. Hence the accurate Niebuhr declares, "apparitions (i.e., of the departed) are unknown in Arabia." Haunted houses are there tenanted by Ghuls, Jinns and a host of supernatural creatures; but not by ghosts proper; and a man may live years in Arabia before he ever hears of the "Tayf." With the Hindus it is otherwise (Pilgrimage iii. 144). Yet the ghost, the embodied fear of the dead and of death is common, in a greater or less degree, to all peoples; and, as modern Spiritualism proves, that ghost is not yet laid.

[FN#278] Mr. Payne (iii. 133) omits the lines which are apropos de rein and read much like "nonsense verses." I retain them simply because they are in the text.

[FN#279] The first two couplets are the quatrain (or octave) in Night xxxv.

[FN#280] Arab. "Ar'ar," the Heb. "Aroer," which Luther and the A. V. translate "heath." The modern Aramaic name is "Lizzab" (Unexplored Syria. i. 68).

[FN#281] In the old version and the Bresl. Edit. (iii. 220) the Princess beats the "Kahramanah," but does not kill her.

[FN#282] 'This is still the popular Eastern treatment of the insane.

[FN#283] Pers. "Marz-ban" = Warden of the Marches, Margrave. The foster-brother in the East is held dear as, and often dearer than, kith and kin.

[FN#284] The moderns believe most in the dawn-dream. —Quirinus

Post mediam noctem visus, quum somnia vera. (Horace Sat. i. 10, 33,)

[FN#285] The Bresl. Edit. (iii. 223) and Galland have "Torf:" Lane (ii. 115) "El-Tarf."

[FN#286] Arab. "Maghzal ;" a more favourite comparison is with a tooth pick. Both are used by Nizami and Al-Hariri, the most "elegant" of Arab writers.

[FN#287] These form a Kasidah, Ode or Elegy= rhymed couplets numbering more than thirteen: If shorter it is called a "Ghazal." I have not thought it necessary to preserve the monorhyme.

[FN#288] Sulayma dim. of Salma= any beautiful woman Rabab = the viol mostly single stringed: Tan'oum=she who is soft and gentle. These fictitious names are for his old flames.

[FN#289] i.e. wine. The distich is highly fanciful and the conceits would hardly occur to a

[FN#290] Arab. "Andam," a term applied to Brazil-wood (also called "Bakkam") and to "dragon's blood," but not, I think, to tragacanth, the "goat's thorn," which does not dye. Andam is often mentioned in The Nights.

[FN#291] The superior merit of the first (explorer, etc.) is a lieu commun with Arabs. So Al-Hariri in Preface quotes his predecessor:—

Justly of praise the price I pay; The praise is his who leads the way.

[FN#292] There were two Lukmans, of whom more in a future page.

[FN#293] This symbolic action is repeatedly mentioned in The Nights.

[FN#294] Arab. "Shakhs"=a person, primarily a dark spot. So "Sawad"=blackness, in Al-Hariri means a group of people who darken the ground by their shade.

[FN#295] The first bath after sickness, I have said, is called "Ghusl al-Sihhah,"—the Washing of Health.

[FN#296] The words "malady" and "disease" are mostly avoided during these dialogues as ill-omened words which may bring on a relapse.

[FN#297] Solomon's carpet of green silk which carried him and all his host through the air is a Talmudic legend generally accepted in Al-Islam though not countenanced by the Koran. chaps xxvii. When the "gnat's wing" is mentioned, the reference is to Nimrod who, for boasting that he was lord of all, was tortured during four hundred years by a gnat sent by Allah up his ear or nostril.

[FN#298] The absolute want of morality and filial affection in the chaste young man is supposed to be caused by the violence of his passion, and he would be pardoned because he "loved much."

[FN#299] I have noticed the geomantic process in my "History of Sindh" (chaps. vii.). It is called "Zarb al-Ram!" (strike the sand, the French say "frapper le sable") because the rudest form is to make on the ground dots at haphazard, usually in four lines one above the other: these are counted and, if even-numbered, two are taken ( ** ); if odd one ( * ); and thus the four lines will form a scheme say * * * * * * This is repeated three times, producing the same number of figures; and then the combination is sought in an explanatory table or, if the practitioner be expert, he pronounces off-hand. The Nights speak of a "Takht Raml" or a board, like a schoolboy's slate, upon which the dots are inked instead of points in sand. The moderns use a "Kura'h," or oblong die, upon whose sides the dots, odd and even, are marked; and these dice are hand-thrown to form the e figure. By way of complication Geomancy is mixed up with astrology and then it becomes a most complicated kind of ariolation and an endless study. "Napoleon's Book of Fate," a chap-book which appeared some years ago, was Geomancy in its simplest and most ignorant shape. For the rude African form see my Mission to Dahome, i. 332, and for that of Darfour, pp. 360-69 of Shaykh Mohammed's Voyage before quoted.

[FN#300] Translators understand this of writing marriage contracts; I take it in a more general sense.

[FN#301] These lines are repeated from Night Ixxv.: with Mr. Payne's permission I give his rendering (iii. 153) by way of variety.

[FN#302] The comparison is characteristically Arab.

[FN#303] Not her "face": the head, and especially the back of the head, must always be kept covered, even before the father.

[FN#304] Arab. "Siwak"=a tooth-stick; "Siwa-ka"=lit. other than thou.

[FN#305] Arab. "Arak"tooth stick of the wild caper-tree; "Ara-ka" lit.I see thee. The capparis spinosa is a common desert-growth and the sticks about a span long (usually called Miswak), are sold in quantities at Meccah after being dipped in Zemzem water. In India many other woods are used, date-tree, Salvadora, Achyrantes, phyllanthus, etc. Amongst Arabs peculiar efficacy accompanies the tooth-stick of olive, "the tree springing from Mount Sinai" (Koran xxiii. 20); and Mohammed would use no other, because it prevents decay and scents the mouth. Hence Koran, chaps. xcv. 1. The "Miswak" is held with the unused end between the ring-finger and minimus, the two others grasp the middle and the thumb is pressed against the back close to the lips. These articles have long been sold at the Medical Hall near the "Egyptian Hall," Piccadilly. They are better than our unclean tooth-brushes because each tooth gets its own especial rubbing' not a general sweep; at the same time the operation is longer and more troublesome. In parts of Africa as well as Asia many men walk about with the tooth-stick hanging by a string from the neck.

[FN#306] The "Mehari," of which the Algerine-French speak, are the dromedaries bred by the Mahrah tribe of Al-Yaman, the descendants of Mahrat ibn Haydan. They are covered by small wild camels (?) called Al-Hush, found between Oman and Al-Shihr: others explain the word to mean "stallions of the Jinns " and term those savage and supernatural animals, "Najaib al-Mahriyah" nobles of the Mahrah.

[FN#307] Arab. "Khaznah"=a thousand purses; now about 5000. It denotes a large sum of money, like the "Badrah," a purse containing 10,000 dirhams of silver (Al-Hariri), or 80,000 (Burckhardt Prov. 380); whereas the "Nisab" is a moderate sum of money, gen. 20 gold dinars=200 silver dirhams.

[FN#308] As The Nights show, Arabs admire slender forms; but the hips and hinder cheeks must be highly developed and the stomach fleshy rather than lean. The reasons are obvious. The Persians who exaggerate everything say e.g. (Husayn Vaiz in the Anvar-i-Suhayli):—

How paint her hips and waist ? Who saw A mountain (Koh) dangling to a straw (kah)?

In Antar his beloved Abla is a tamarisk (T. Orientalis). Others compare with the palm-tree (Solomon), the Cypress (Persian, esp. Hafiz and Firdausi) and the Arak or wild Capparis (Arab.).

[FN#309] Ubi aves ibi angel). All African travellers know that a few birds flying about the bush, and a few palm-trees waving in the wind, denote the neighbourhood of a village or a camp (where angels are scarce). The reason is not any friendship for man but because food, animal and vegetable, is more plentiful Hence Albatrosses, Mother Carey's (Mater Cara, the Virgin) chickens, and Cape pigeons follow ships.

[FN#310] The stanza is called Al-Mukhammas=cinquains; the quatrains and the "bob," or "burden" always preserve the same consonance. It ends with a Koranic lieu commun of Moslem morality.

[FN#311] Moslem port towns usually have (or had) only two gates. Such was the case with Bayrut, Tyre, Sidon and a host of others; the faubourg-growth of modern days has made these obsolete. The portals much resemble the entrances of old Norman castles—Arques for instance. (Pilgrimage i. 185.)

[FN#312] Arab. "Lisam"; before explained.

[FN#313] i.e. Life of Souls (persons, etc.).

[FN#314] Arab. "Insanu-ha"her (i.e. their) man: i.e. the babes of the eyes: the Assyrian Ishon, dim. of IshMan; which the Hebrews call "Babat" or "Bit" (the daughter) the Arabs "Bubu (or Hadakat) al-Aye"; the Persians "Mardumak-i-chashm" (mannikin of the eye); the Greeks and the Latins pupa, pupula, pupilla. I have noted this in the Lyricks of Camoens (p. 449).

[FN#315] Ma'an bin Za'idah, a soldier and statesman of the eighth century.

[FN#316] The mildness of the Caliph Mu'awiyah, the founder of the Ommiades, proverbial among the Arabs, much resembles the "meekness" of Moses the Law-giver, which commentators seem to think has been foisted into Numbers xii. 3.

[FN#317] Showing that there had been no consummation of the marriage which would have demanded "Ghusl," or total ablution, at home or in the Hammam.

[FN#318] I have noticed this notable desert-growth.

[FN#319] 'The "situation" is admirable, solution appearing so difficult and catastrophe imminent.

[FN#320] This quatrain occurs in Night ix.: I have borrowed from Torrens (p. 79) by way of variety.

[FN#321] The belief that young pigeon's blood resembles the virginal discharge is universal; but the blood most resembling man's is that of the pig which in other points is so very human. In our day Arabs and Hindus rarely submit to inspection the nuptial sheet as practiced by the Israelites and Persians. The bride takes to bed a white kerchief with which she staunches the blood and next morning the stains are displayed in the Harem. In Darfour this is done by the bridegroom. "Prima Venus debet esse cruenta," say the Easterns with much truth, and they have no faith in our complaisant creed which allows the hymen-membrane to disappear by any but one accident.

[FN#322] Not meaning the two central divisions commanded by the King and his Wazir.

[FN#323] Ironice.

[FN#324] Arab. "Rasy"=praising in a funeral sermon.

[FN#325] Arab. "Manaya," plur. of "Maniyat" = death. Mr. R. S. Poole (the Academy, April 26, 1879) reproaches Mr. Payne for confounding "Muniyat" (desire) with "Maniyat" (death) but both are written the same except when vowel-points are used.

[FN#326] Arab. "Iddat," alluding to the months of celibacy which, according to Moslem law, must be passed by a divorced woman before she can re-marry.

[FN#327] Arab. "Talak bi'l-Salasah"=a triple divorce which cannot be revoked; nor can the divorcer re-marry the same woman till after consummation with another husband. This subject will continually recur.

[FN#328] An allusion to a custom of the pagan Arabs in the days of ignorant Heathenism The blood or brain, soul or personality of the murdered man formed a bird called Sady or Hamah (not the Huma or Humai, usually translated "phoenix") which sprang from the head, where four of the five senses have their seat, and haunted his tomb, crying continually, "Uskuni!"=Give me drink (of the slayer's blood) ! and which disappeared only when the vendetta was accomplished. Mohammed forbade the belief. Amongst the Southern Slavs the cuckoo is supposed to be the sister of a murdered man ever calling or vengeance.

[FN#329] To obtain a blessing and show how he valued it.

[FN#330] Well-known tribes of proto-historic Arabs who flourished before the time of Abraham: see Koran (chaps. xxvi. et passim). They will be repeatedly mentioned in The Nights and notes.

[FN#331] Arab. "Amtar"; plur. of "Matr," a large vessel of leather or wood for water, etc.

[FN#332] Arab. "Asafiri," so called because they attract sparrows (asafir) a bird very fond of the ripe oily fruit. In the Romance of "Antar" Asafir camels are beasts that fly like birds in fleetness. The reader must not confound the olives of the text with the hard unripe berries ("little plums pickled in stale") which appear at English tables, nor wonder that bread and olives are the beef-steak and potatoes of many Mediterranean peoples It is an excellent diet, the highly oleaginous fruit supplying the necessary carbon,

[FN#333] Arab. "Tamer al-Hindi"=the "Indian-date," whence our word "Tamarind." A sherbet of the pods, being slightly laxative, is much drunk during the great heats; and the dried fruit, made into small round cakes, is sold in the bazars. The traveller is advised not to sleep under the tamarind's shade, which is infamous for causing ague and fever. In Sind I derided the "native nonsense," passed the night under an "Indian date-tree" and awoke with a fine specimen of ague which lasted me a week.

[FN#334] Moslems are not agreed upon the length of the Day of Doom when all created things, marshalled by the angels, await final judgment; the different periods named are 40 years, 70, 300 and 50,000. Yet the trial itself will last no longer than while one may milk an ewe, or than "the space between two milkings of a she-camel." This is bringing down Heaven to Earth with a witness; but, after all, the Heaven of all faiths, including "Spiritualism," the latest development, is only an earth more or less glorified even as the Deity is humanity more or less perfected.

[FN#335] Arab. "Al-Kamarani," lit. "the two moons." Arab rhetoric prefers it to "Shamsani," or {'two suns," because lighter (akhaff), to pronounce. So, albeit Omar was less worthy than Abu-Bakr the two are called "Al-Omarani," in vulgar parlance, Omarayn.

[FN#336] Alluding to the angels who appeared to the Sodomites in the shape of beautiful youths (Koran xi.).

[FN#337] Koran xxxiii. 38.

[FN#338] "Niktu-hu taklidan" i.e. not the real thing (with a woman). It may also mean "by his incitement of me." All this scene is written in the worst form of Persian-Egyptian blackguardism, and forms a curious anthropological study. The "black joke" of the true and modest wife is inimitable.