[FN#286] i.e. Kings might sigh for her in vain.

[FN#287] These lines are in vol. viii. 279. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#288] A most unsavoury comparison to a Persian who always connects camphor with the idea of a corpse.

[FN#289] Arab. "Il m sha' llh" i.e. as long as you like.

[FN#290] i.e. of gramarye.

[FN#291] Arab. "Ta'wz"=the Arab Tilasm, our Talisman, a charm, an amulet; and in India mostly a magic square. The subject is complicated and occupies in Herklots some sixty pages, 222-284.

[FN#292] The Bul. and Mac. Edits. give the Princess's malady, in error, as Da al-Sud' (megrims), instead of Da al-Sar' (epilepsy) as in the Bresl. Edit. The latter would mean that she is possessed by a demon, again the old Scriptural fancy (see vol. v. 28). The subject is highly fitted for romance but not for a "serious" book which ought to know better.

[FN#293] Arab. "Al-'riz"=the demon who possessed her.

[FN#294] i.e. He hath renounced his infamous traffic.

[FN#295] Alluding to the favourite Eastern saying, "The poor man hath no life."

[FN#296] In this and the following lines some change is necessary for the Bresl. and Mac. texts are very defective. The Arabic word here translated "recess" is "Aywn," prop. a hall, an open saloon.

[FN#297] i.e. by selling it for thirty thousand gold pieces, when he might have got a million for it.

[FN#298] The tale is not in the Bresl. Edit.

[FN#299] Al-Khasb (= the fruitful) was the son of 'Abd al-Hamd and intendant of the tribute of Egypt under Harun al-Rashid, but neither Lord nor Sultan. Lane (iii. 669) quotes three couplets in his honour by Abu Nows from p. 119 of "Elmacini (Al-Makn) Historia Saracenica."

If our camel visit not the land of Al-Khasib, what man after Al-Khasib shall they visit? For generosity is not his neighbour; nor hath it sojourned near him; but generosity goeth wherever he goeth: He is a man who purchaseth praise with his wealth, and who knoweth that the periods of Fortune revolve.

[FN#300] The old story "Al jdi-k"= upon thy generosity, which means at least ten times the price.

[FN#301]i.e. The distance is enormous.

[FN#302] A gazelle but here the slave-girl's name.

[FN#303] See vol. ii. 104. Herklots (Pl. vii. fig. 2) illustrates the cloth used in playing the Indian game, Pachs. The "board" is rather European than Oriental, but it has of late Years spread far and wide, especially the backgammon board.

[FN#304] i.e. "Father of the Lion."

[FN#305] Or as we should say, "Thy blood will be on thine own head."

[FN#306] Called after the famous town in Persian Mesopotamia which however is spelt with the lesser aspirate. See p. 144. The Geographical works of Sdik-i-Ispahni, London Oriental Transl. Fund, 1882. Hamdan (with the greater aspirate) and Hamdun mean only the member masculine, which may be a delicate piece of chaff for the gallery

[FN#307] Arab. "Hulwn al-mifth," for which see vol. vii. 212. Mr. Payne compares it with the French denier Dieu. given to the concierge on like occasions.

[FN#308] Arab. "'Udm," a relish, the Scotch "kitchen," Lat. Opsonium, Ital. Companatico and our "by-meat." See vol. iv. 128.

[FN#309] Arab. "Kabasa" = he shampoo'd. See vol. ii. 17.

[FN#310] Arab. "Nukl." See supra p. 177.

[FN#311] Arab. "Jannat al-Khuld" and "Firdaus," two of the Heavens repeatedly noticed.

[FN#312] The naivet is purely Horatian, that is South European versus North European.

[FN#313] i.e. "Have some regard for thy life."

[FN#314] Arab. "Awk" plur. of kiyyah a word known throughout the Moslem East. As an ounce it weighs differently in every country and in Barbary (Mauritania) which we call Morocco, it is a nominal coin containing twelve Fls (fuls) now about = a penny. It is a direct descendant from the "Uk" or "Wuk" (ounce) of the hieroglyphs (See Sharpe's Egypt or any other Manual) and first appeared in Europe as the Greek {Greek}.

[FN#315] Arab. "Krah" usually a large bag.

[FN#316] Arab. "Llah," which may mean the Union-pearl; but here used in the sense of wild cow, the bubalus antelope, alluding to the farouche nature of Miss Jamilah. We are also told infr that the park was full of "Wuhsh" = wild cattle

[FN#317] Arab. "Skiyah," the venerable old Persian wheel, for whos music see Pilgrimage ii. 198. But Sakiyah" is also applied, as here, to the water-channel which turns the wheel.

[FN#318] Arab. "Kawds," plur. of "Kds," the pots round the rim of the Persian wheel: usually they are of coarse pottery.

[FN#319] In the text "Skiyah" a manifest error for "Kubbah."

[FN#320] Easterns greatly respect a belle fourchette, especially when the eater is a lover.

[FN#321] Arab. "'Arshah," a word of many meanings, tent, nest, vine- trellis, etc.

[FN#322] To spit or blow the nose in good society is "vulgar." Sneezing (Al-'Atsah) is a complicated affair. For Talmudic traditions of death by sneezing see Lane (M. E. chaps. viii). Amongst Hindus sneezing and yawning are caused by evil spirits whom they drive away by snapping thumb and forefinger as loudly as possible. The pagan Arabs held sneezing a bad omen, which often stopped their journeys. Moslems believe that when Allah placed the Soul (life ?) in Adam, the dry clay became flesh and bone and the First Man, waking to life, sneezed and ejaculated "Alhamdolillah;" whereto Gabriel replied, "Allah have mercy upon thee, O Adam!" Mohammed, who liked sneezing because accompanied by lightness of body and openness of pores, said of it, "If a man sneeze or eructate and say 'Alhamdolillah' he averts seventy diseases of which the least is leprosy" (Juzm); also "If one of you sneeze, let him exclaim, 'Alhamdolillah,' and let those around salute him in return with, 'Allah have mercy upon thee!' and lastly let him say, 'Allah direct you and strengthen your condition."' Moderns prefer, "Allah avert what may joy thy foe !"= (our God bless you!) to which the answer is "Alhamdolillah!" Mohammed disliked yawning (Suab or Thuab), because not beneficial as a sneeze and said, "If one of you gape and over not his mouth, a devil leaps into it. " This is still a popular superstition from Baghdad to Morocco.

[FN#323] A duenna, nursery governess, etc. See vol. i. 231.

[FN#324] For this belief see the tale called "The Night of Power," vol. vi. 180.

[FN#325] The Anglo-lndian "Kincob" (Kimkh'b); brocade, silk flowered with gold or silver.

[FN#326] Lane finds a needless difficulty in this sentence, which is far-fetched only because Kuus (cups) requires Ruus (head-tops) byway of jingle. It means only "'Twas merry in hall when beards wag all."

[FN#327] The Mac. Edit. gives two couplets which have already occurred from the Bull Edit i. 540.

[FN#328] The lines are half of four couplets in vol. iv. 192; so I quote Lane.

[FN#329].i.e. none hath pleased me. I have quoted the popular saying, "The son of the quarter filleth not the eye." i.e. women prefer stranger faces.

[FN#330] Here after the favourite Oriental fashion, she tells the truth but so enigmatically that it is more deceptive than an untruth; a good Eastern quibble infinitely more dangerous than an honest downright lie. The consciousness that the falsehood is part fact applies a salve to conscience and supplies a force lacking in the mere fib. When an Egyptian lies to you look straight in his eyes and he will most often betray himself either by boggling or by a look of injured innocence.

[FN#331] Another true lie.

[FN#332] Arab. ''Yastaghbun," lit. = they deem my absence too long.

[FN#333] An euphemistic form of questioning after absence: "Is all right with thee?"

[FN#334] Arab. "Kallim al-Sultan!" the formula of summoning which has often occurred in The Nights.

[FN#335] Lane translates "Almost died," Payne "Well-nigh died;" but the text says "died." I would suggest to translators

"Be bould, be bould and every where be bould!"

[FN#336] He is the usual poltroon contrasted with the manly and masterful girl, a conjunction of the lioness and the lamb sometimes seen in real life.

[FN#337] That he might see Jamilah as Ibrahim had promised.

[FN#338] A popular saying, i.e., les absents ont tonjours tort.

[FN#339] Who had a prior right to marry her, but not against her consent after she was of age.

[FN#340] Arab "Sirwl." In Al-Hariri it is a singular form (see No. ii. of the twelve riddles in Ass. xxiv.), but Mohammed said to his followers "Tuakhkhiz" (adopt ye) "Sarwlt." The latter is regularly declinable but the broken form Sarwl is imperfectly declinable on account of its "heaviness," as are all plurals whose third letter is an Alif followed by i or in the next syllable.

[FN#341] Arab. "Matarik" from mitrak or mitrakah a small wooden shield coated with hide This even in the present day is the policeman's equipment in the outer parts of the East.

[FN#342] Arab. "Sabyah" for which I prefer Mr. Payne's "young lady" to Lane's "damsel" the latter should be confined to Jriyah as both bear the double sense of girl and slave (or servant) girl. "Bins" again is daughter, maid or simply girl.

[FN#343] The sense of them is found in vol. ii. 41.

[FN#344] Here the text is defective, but I hardly like to supply the omission. Mr. Payne introduces from below, "for that his charms were wasted and his favour changed by reason of the much terror and affliction he had suffered." The next lines also are very abrupt and unconnected.

[FN#345] Arab. "Y Maulya!" the term is still used throughout Moslem lands; but in Barbary where it is pronounced "Moolee" Europeans have converted it to "Muley" as if it had some connection with the mule. Even in Robinson Crusoe we find "muly" or "Moly Ismael" (chaps. ii.); and we hear the high-sounding name Maul-i-Idrs, the patron saint of the Sunset Land, debased to "Muley Drs."

[FN#346] Lane omits this tale because "it is very similar, but inferior in interest, to the Story told by the Sultan's Steward." See vol. i. 278.

[FN#347] Sixteenth Abbaside A.H. 279289 (=A.D. 891902). "He was comely, intrepid, of grave exterior, majestic in presence, of considerable intellectual power and the fiercest of the Caliphs of the House of Abbas. He once had the courage to attack a lion" (Al-Siyuti). I may add that he was a good soldier and an excellent administrator, who was called Saffh the Second because he refounded the House of Abbas. He was exceedingly fanatic and died of sensuality, having first kicked his doctor to death, and he spent his last moments in versifying.

[FN#348] Hamdn bin Ism'l, called the Ktib or Scribe, was the first of his family who followed the profession of a Nadm or Cup-companion. His son Ahmad (who is in the text) was an oral transmitter of poetry and history. Al-Siyti (p. 390) and De Slane I. Khall (ii. 304) notice him.

[FN#349] Probably the Caliph had attendants, but the text afterwards speaks of them as two. Mac. Edit. iv. p. 558, line 2; and a few lines below, "the Caliph and the man with him."

[FN#350] Arab. "Naysbr," the famous town in Khorasan where Omar-i-Khayym (whom our people will call Omar Khayym) was buried and where his tomb is still a place of pious visitation. A sketch of it has lately appeared in the illustrated papers. For an affecting tale concerning the astronomer-poet's tomb, borrowed from the Nigristn see the Preface by the late Mr. Fitzgerald whose admirable excerpts from the Rubaiyat (101 out of 820 quatrains) have made the poem popular among all the English-speaking races.

[FN#351] Arab. "A-Sharf anta?" (with the Hamzah-sign of interrogation)=Art thou a Sharf (or descendant of the Apostle)?

[FN#352] Tenth Abbaside (A.H. 234247=848861), grandson of Al-Rashid and born of a slave-concubine. He was famous for his hatred of the Alides (he destroyed the tomb of Al-Husayn) and claimed the pardon of Allah for having revised orthodox traditionary doctrines. He compelled the Christians to wear collars of wood or leather and was assassinated by five Turks.

[FN#353] His father was Al-Mu'tasim bi 'llah (A.H. 218227=833842) the son of Al-Rashid by Mridah a slave-concubine of foreign origin. He was brave and of high spirit, but destitute of education; and his personal strength was such that he could break a man's elbow between his fingers. He imitated the apparatus of Persian kings; and he was called the "Octonary" because he was the 8th Abbaside; the 8th in descent from Abbas; the 8th son of Al-Rashid; he began his reign in A.H. 218; lived 48 years; was born under Scorpio (8th Zodiacal sign); was victorious in 8 expeditions; slew 8 important foes and left 8 male and 8 female children. For his introducing Turks see vol. iii, 81.

[FN#354] i.e. as if it were given away in charity.

[FN#355] Arab. "Shukkah," a word much used in the Zanzibar trade where it means a piece of long-cloth one fathom long. See my "Lake Regions of Central Africa," vol. i. 147, etc.

[FN#356] He is afterwards called in two places "Khdim"=eunuch.

[FN#357] A courteous way of saying, "Never mind my name: I wish to keep it hidden." The formula is still popular.

[FN#358] Arab. "Bakhkharan" i.e. fumigated me with burning aloes-wood, Calumba or similar material.

[FN#359] In sign of honour. The threshold is important amongst Moslems: in one of the Mameluke Soldans' sepulchres near Cairo I found a granite slab bearing the "cartouche" (shield) of Khufu (Cheops) with the four hieroglyphs hardly effaced.

[FN#360] i.e. One of the concubines by whose door he had passed.

[FN#361] Epistasis without the prostasis, "An she ordered thee so to do:" the situation justifies the rhetorical figure.

[FN#362] Arab. "Sardb" see vol. i, 340.

[FN#363] Thirteenth Abbaside A.H. 252255 (=866869). His mother was a Greek slave called Kabhah (Al-Mas'udi and Al-Siyuti); for which "Banjah" is probably a clerical error. He was exceedingly beautiful and was the first to ride out with ornaments of gold. But he was impotent in the hands of the Turks who caused the mob to depose him and kill himhis death being related in various ways.

[FN#364] i.e. The reward from Allah for thy good deed.

[FN#365] Arab. "Nusk" abstinence from women, a part of the Zahid's asceticism.

[FN#366] Arab. "Munzirah" the verbal noun of which, "Munzarah," may also mean "dispute." The student will distinguish between "Munazarah" and Munafarah=a contention for precedence in presence of an umpire.

[FN#367] The Mac. Edit. gives by mistake "Ab Dd": the Bul. correctly "Ab Duwd," He was Kzi al-Kuzt (High Chancellor) under Al-Mu'tasim, Al-Wasik bi'llah (Vathek) and Al-Mutawakkil.

[FN#368] Arab. "Zaff"=they led the bride to the bridegroom's house; but here used in the sense of displaying her as both were in the palace.

[FN#369] i.e. renounce the craft which though not sinful (harm) is makrh or religiously unpraiseworthy; Mohammed having objected to music and indeed to the arts in general.

[FN#370] Arab. "L tankati';" do not be too often absent from us. I have noticed the whimsical resemblance of "Kat'" and our "cut"; and here the metaphorical sense is almost identical.

[FN#371] See Ibn Khallikan ii. 455.

[FN#372] The Turkish body-guard. See vol. iii. 81.

[FN#373] Twelfth Abbaside (A.H. 248-252=862-866) the son of a slave-concubine Mukhrik. He was virtuous and accomplished, comely, fair-skinned, pock-marked and famed for defective pronunciation; and he first set the fashion of shortening men's capes and widening the sleeves. After may troubles with the Turks, who were now the Prtorian guard of Baghdad, he was murdered at the instigation of Al-Mu' tazz, who succeeded him, by his Chamberlain Sa'id bin Salh.

[FN#374] Arab. "Usl," his forbears, his ancestors.

[FN#375] Lane rejects this tale because it is "extremely objectionable; far more so than the title might lead me to expect." But he quotes the following marginal note by his Shaykh: —"Many persons (women) reckon marrying a second time amongst the most disgraceful of actions. This opinion is commonest in the country-towns and villages; and my mother's relations are thus distinguished; so that a woman of them, when her husband dieth or divorceth her while she is young, passeth in widowhood her life, however long it may be, and disdaineth to marry a second time." I fear that this state of things belongs to the good old days now utterly gone by; and the loose rule of the stranger, especially the English, in Egypt will renew the scenes which characterised Sind when Sir Charles Napier hanged every husband who cut down an adulterous wife. I have elsewhere noticed the ignorant idea that Moslems deny to women souls and seats in Paradise, whilst Mohammed canonised two women in his own family. The theory arose with the "Fathers" of the Christian Church who simply exaggerated the misogyny of St. Paul. St. Ambrose commenting on Corinthians i. ii., boldly says:—"Feminas ad imaginem Dei factas non esse." St. Thomas Aquinas and his school adopted the Aristotelian view, "Mulier est erratum naturae, et mas occasionatus, et per accidens generatur; atque ideo est monstrum." For other instances see Bayle s. v. Gediacus (Revd. Simon of Brandebourg) who in 1695 published a "Defensio Sexus muliebris," a refutation of an anti-Socinian satire or squib, "Disputatio perjucunda, Mulieres homines non esse," Parisiis, 1693. But when Islam arose in the seventh century, the Christian learned cleverly affixed the stigma of their own misogyny upon the Moslems ad captandas foeminas and in Southern Europe the calumny still bears fruit. Mohammed (Koran, chapt. xxiv.) commands for the first time, in the sixth year of his mission, the veiling and, by inference, the seclusion of women, which was apparently unknown to the Badawin and, if practised in the cities was probably of the laxest. Nor can one but confess that such modified separation of the sexes, which it would be impossible to introduce into European manners, has great and notable advantages. It promotes the freest intercourse between man and man, and thus civilises what we call the "lower orders": in no Moslem land, from Morocco to China, do we find the brutals without manners or morals which are bred by European and especially by English civilisation. For the same reason it enables women to enjoy fullest intimacy and friendship with one another, and we know that the best of both sexes are those who prefer the society of their own as opposed to "quite the lady's man" and "quite the gentleman's woman." It also adds an important item to social decorum by abolishing e.g. such indecencies as the "ball-room flirtation"—a word which must be borrowed from us, not translated by foreigners. And especially it gives to religious meetings, a tone which the presence of women modifies and not for the better. Perhaps, the best form is that semiseclusion of the sex, which prevailed in the heroic ages of Greece, Rome, and India (before the Moslem invasion), and which is perpetuated in Christian Armenia and in modern Hellas. It is a something between the conventual strictness of Al-Islam and the liberty, or rather licence, of the "Anglo-Saxon" and the "Anglo-American." And when England shall have cast off that peculiar insularity which makes her differ from all civilised peoples, she will probably abolish three gross abuses, time-honoured scandals, which bear very heavily on women and children. The first is the Briton's right to will property away from his wife and offspring. The second is the action for "breach of promise," salving the broken heart with pounds, shillings, and pence: it should be treated simply as an exaggerated breach of contract. The third is the procedure popularly called "Crim. Con.," and this is the most scandalous of all: the offence is against the rights of property, like robbery or burglary, and it ought to be treated criminally with fine, imprisonment and in cases with corporal punishment after the sensible procedure of Moslem law.

[FN#376] "Moon of the age," a name which has before occurred.

[FN#377] The Malocchio or gettatura, so often noticed.

[FN#378] The crescent of the month Zu 'l-Ka'dah when the Ramazan-fast is broken. This allusion is common. Comp. vol. i. 84.

[FN#379] This line contains one of the Yes, Yes and No, No trifles alluded to in vol. ii, 60. Captain Lockett (M. A. 103) renders it "I saw a fawn upon a hillock whose beauty eclipsed the full moon. I said, What is thy name? she answered Deer. What my Dear said I, but she replied, no, no!" To preserve the sound I have sacrificed sense: Lulu is a pearl, Li? li? (= for me, for me?) and La! La! = no! no! See vol. i, 217. I should have explained a line which has puzzled some readers,

"A sun (face) on wand (neck) in knoll of sand (hips) she showed" etc,

[FN#380] Arab. "Al-huwayna," a rare term.

[FN#381] Bright in the eyes of the famishing who is allowed to break his fast.

[FN#382] Mr. Payne reads "Maghrabi" = a Mauritanian, Maroccan, the Moors (not the Moorish Jews or Arabs) being a race of Sodomites from highest to lowest. But the Mac. and Bul. Edit. have "Ajami."

[FN#383] For "Ishk uzri" = platonic love see vol. i. 232; ii. 104.

[FN#384] Zaynab (Zenobia) and Zayd are generic names for women and men.

[FN#385] i.e. He wrote "Kasidahs" (= odes, elegies) after the fashion of the "Suspended Poems" which mostly open with the lover gazing upon the traces of the camp where his beloved had dwelt. The exaggerated conventionalism of such exordium shows that these early poems had been preceded by a host of earlier pieces which had been adopted as canons of poetry.

[FN#386] The verses are very mal-a-propos, like many occurring in The Nights, for the maligned Shaykh is proof against all the seductions of the pretty boy and falls in love with a woman after the fashion of Don Quixote. Mr. Payne complains of the obscurity of the original owing to abuse of the figure enallage; but I find them explicit enough, referring to some debauched elder after the type of Abu Nowas.

[FN#387] Arab. "'Irk" = a root which must here mean a sprig, a twig. The basil grows to a comparatively large size in the East.

[FN#388] Arab. "Lait "= one connected with the tribe of Lot, see vol. v. 161.

[FN#389] For the play upon "Saki" (oblique case of sak, leg-calf) and Saki a cupbearer see vol. ii. 327.

[FN#390] "On a certain day the leg shall be bared and men shall be called upon to bow in adoration, but they shall not be able" (Koran, lxviii. 42). "Baring the leg" implies a grievous calamity, probably borrowed from the notion of tucking up the skirts and stripping for flight. On the dangerous San Francisco River one of the rapids is called "Tira-calcoens" = take off your trousers (Highlands of the Brazil, ii. 35). But here the allusion is simply ludicrous and to a Moslem blasphemous.

[FN#391] Arab. "Istahi," a word of every day use in reproof. So the Hindost. "Kuchh sharm nahin?" hast thou no shame? Shame is a passion with Orientals and very little known to the West.

[FN#392] i.e. Angels and men saying, "The Peace (of God) be on us and on all righteous servants of Allah!" This ends every prayer.

[FN#393] Arab. "Al-Niyah," the ceremonial purpose or intent to pray, without which prayer is null and void. See vol. v. 163. The words would be "I purpose to pray a two-bow prayer in this hour of deadly danger to my soul." Concerning such prayer see vol. i. 142.

[FN#394] Arab. "Sakin" = quiescent, Let a sleeping hound lie.

[FN#395] Arab. "Asar" lit. traces i.e. the works, the mighty signs and marvels.

[FN#396] The mention of coffee now frequently occurs in this tale and in that which follows: the familiar use of it showing a comparatively late date, and not suggesting the copyist's hand.

[FN#397] Arab. "Al-Kahwah," the place being called from its produce. See Pilgrimage i. 317-18.

[FN#398] Arab. "Al-Ghurbah Kurbah:" the translation in the text is taken from my late friend Edward Eastwick, translator of the Gulistan and author of a host of works which show him to have been a ripe Oriental scholar.

[FN#399] The fiction may have been suggested by the fact that in all Moslem cities from India to Barbary the inner and outer gates are carefully shut during the noontide devotions, not "because Friday is the day on which creation was finished and Mohammed entered Al-Medinah;" but because there is a popular idea that in times now approaching the Christians will rise up against the Moslems during prayers and will repeat the "Sicilian Vespers."

[FN#400] i.e. the syndic of the Guild of Jewellers.

[FN#401] This is an Arab Lady Godiva of the wrong sort.

[FN#402] This is explained in my Pilgrimage i. 99 et seq.

[FN#403] About three pennyweights. It varies, however, everywhere and in Morocco the "Mezkal" as they call it is an imaginary value, no such coin existing.

[FN#404] i.e. over and above the value of the gold, etc.

[FN#405] This was the custom of contemporary Europe and more than one master cutler has put to death an apprentice playing Peeping Tom to detect the secret of sword-making.

[FN#406] Among Moslems husbands are divided into three species; (1) of "Bahr" who is married for love; (2) of "Dahr," for defence against the world, and (3) of "Mahr" for marriage-settlements (money). Master Obayd was an unhappy compound of the two latter; but he did not cease to be a man of honour.

[FN#407]The Mac. Edit. here is a mass of blunders and misprints.

[FN#408] The Mac. Edit. everywhere calls her "Sabiyah" = the young lady and does not mention her name Halimah = the Mild, the Gentle till the cmlxxivth Night. I follow Mr. Payne's example by introducing it earlier into the story, as it avoids vagueness and repetition of the indefinite.

[FN#409] Arab "Adm al-Zauk,"=without savour. applied to an insipid mannerless man as "brid" (cold) is to a fool. "Ahl Zauk" is a man of pleasure, a voluptuary, a hedonist.

[FN#410] Arab. "Finjn" the egg-shell cups from which the Easterns still drink coffee.

[FN#411] Arab. "Awshik" a rare word, which Dozy translates "osselet" (or osselle) and Mr. Payne, "hucklebones," concerning which he has obliged me with this note. Chambaud renders osselet by "petit os avec lequel les enfants jouent." Hucklebone is the hip-bone but in the plural it applies to our cockals or cockles: Latham gives "hucklebone," (or cockal), one of the small vertebr of the coccygis, and Littleton translates "Talus," a hucklebone, a bone to play with like a dye, a play called cockal. (So also in Rider.) Hucklebones and knucklebones are syn.: but the latter is modern and liable to give a false idea, besides being tautological. It has nothing to do with the knuckles and derives from the German "Knochel" (dialectically Knochelein) a bonelet.

[FN#412] For ablution after sleep and before prayer. The address of the slave-girl is perfectly natural: in a Moslem house we should hear it this day, nor does it show the least sign of "frowardness. "

[FN#413] The perfect stupidity of the old wittol is told with the driest Arab humour.

[FN#414] This is a rechauff of the Language of Signs in "Azz and Azzah" vol. ii. 302.

[FN#415] In the Mac. Edit. "Y Fulnah"=O certain person.

[FN#416] Arab. "Laylat al-Kbilah," lit.=the coming night, our to-night; for which see vol. iii. 349.

[FN#417] Arab. "Ya Ahmak!" which in Marocco means a madman, a maniac, a Santon.

[FN#418] The whole passage has a grammatical double entendre whose application is palpable. Harf al-Jarr=a particle governing the noun in the genitive or a mode of thrusting and tumbling.

[FN#419] Arab. "Al-Silah" conjunctive (sentence), also coition; Al-Mausl the conjoined, a grammatical term for relative pronoun or particle.

[FN#420] Arab. "Tanwin al-Izafah ma'zul" = the nunnation in construction cast out. "Tanwin" (nunnation) is pronouncing the vowels of the case-endings of a noun with n un for u (nominative) in for i (genitive) and an for a (accusative). This nunnation expresses indefiniteness, e.g. "Malikun"=a king, any king. When the noun is made definite by the Ma'rifah or article (al), the Tanwin must be dropped, e.g. Al-Maliku = the King; Al- Malikun being a grammatical absurdity. In construction or regimen (izafah) the nunnation must also disappear, as Maliku 'I-Hind) = the King of Hind (a King of Hind would be Malikun min Muluki 'I-Hind) = a King from amongst the Kings of Hind). Thus whilst the wife and the lover were conjoined as much as might be, the hocussed and sleeping husband was dismissed (ma'zul=degraded) like a nunnation dropped in construction. I may add that the terminal syllables are invariably dropped in popular parlance and none but Mr. G. Palgrave (who afterwards ignored his own assertion) ever found an Arab tribe actually using them in conversation although they are always pronounced when reading the Koran and poetry.

[FN#421] This was a saying of Mohammed about overfrequency of visits, "Zur ghibban, tazid hubban"=call rarely that friendship last fairly. So the verse of Al-Mutanabbi,

"How oft familiarity breeds dislike."

Preston quotes Jesus ben Sirach, {Greek}. Also Al-Hariri (Ass. xv. of "The Legal"; De Sacy p. 478 1. 2.) "Visit not your friend more than one day in a month, nor stop longer than that with him!" Also Ass. xvi. 487, 8. "Multiply not visits to thy friend." "None so disliked as one visiting too often." (Preston p. 352). In the Cent nouvelles (52) Nouvelles (No. lii.) the dying father says to his son:—"Jamais ne vous hantez tent en l'ostel de votre voisin que lion vous y serve de pain bis." In these matters Moslems follow the preaching and practice of the Apostle, who was about as hearty and genial as the "Great Washington." But the Arab had a fund of dry humour which the Anglo-American lacked altogether.

[FN#422] Arab. "'Amal"—action, operation. In Hindostani it is used (often with an Alif for an Ayn) as intoxication e.g. Amal pn strong waters and applied to Sharb (wine), Bozah (Beer), Td (toddy or the fermented juice of the Td, Borassus flabelliformis), Naryli (juice of the cocoa-nut tree) Saynddi (of the wild date, Elate Sylvestris), Afyn (opium an its preparations as post=poppy seeds) and various forms of Cannabis Sativa, as Ganja, Charas, Madad, Sahzi etc. for which see Herklots' Glossary.

[FN#423] Arab "Sardb," mostly an underground room (vol. i. 340) but here a tunnel.

[FN#424] Arab. "Al-Lwandiyah": this and the frequent mention of coffee and presently of a watch (sa'ah) show that the tale in its present state, cannot be older than the end of the sixteenth century.

[FN#425] Arab. "Su'bn," vol. i. 172.

[FN#426] The lines have occurred in vol. i. 238, where I have noted the punning "Sabr"= patience or aloes. I quote Torrens: the Templar, however, utterly abolishes the pun in the last couplet:- -

"The case is not at my command, but in fair Patience hand I'm set by Him who order'th all and cloth such case command."

"Amr" here=case (circumstance) or command (order) with a suspicion of reference to Murr=myrrh, bitterness. The reader will note the resignation to Fate's decrees which here and in host of places elevates the tone of the book.

[FN#427] i.e. as one loathes that which is prohibited, and with a loathing which makes it unlawful for me to cohabit with thee.

[FN#428] This is quite natural to the sensitive Eastern.

[FN#429] Hence, according to Moslem and Eastern theory generally her lewd and treasonable conduct. But in Egypt not a few freeborn women and those too of the noblest, would beat her hollow at her own little game. See for instance the booklet attributed to Jall al-Siyt and entitled Kith al-zh (Book of Explanation) f Ilm al-Nikh (in the Science of Carnal Copulation). There is a copy of it in the British Museum; and a friend kindly suppl~ed me with a lithograph from Cairo; warning me that there are doubts about the authorship.

[FN#430] These lines have occurred in vol. iii. 214: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#431] This ejaculation, as the waw shows, is parenthetic; spoken either by Halimah, by Shahrazad or by the writer.

[FN#432] Arab. "Kasr" here meaning an upper room.

[FN#433] To avoid saying, I pardon thee.

[FN#434] A proverbial saying which here means I could only dream of such good luck.

[FN#435] A good old custom amongst Moslems who have had business transactions with each other: such acquittance of all possible claims will be quoted on "Judgment-Day," when debts will be severely enquired into.

[FN#436] Arab. "Kutr (tract or quarter) Misr," vulgarly pronounced "Masr." I may remind the reader that the Assyrians called the Nile-valley "Musur" whence probably the Heb. Misraim a dual form denoting Upper and Lower Egypt which are still distinguished by the Arabs into Sa'id and Misr. The hieroglyphic term is Ta-mera=Land of the Flood; and the Greek Aigyptos is probably derived from Kahi-Ptah (region of the great God Ptah) or Ma Ka Ptah (House of the soul of Ptah). The word "Cops" or "Kopt," in Egyptian "Kubti" and pronounced "Gubti," contains the same consonants

[FN#437] Now an unimportant frontier fort and village dividing Syria-Palestine from Egypt and famed for the French battle with the Mamelukes (Feb. 19, 1799) and the convention for evacuating Egypt. In the old times it was an important site built upon the "River of Egypt" now a dried up Wady; and it was the chief port of the then populous Najab or South Country. According to Abulfeda it derived its name (the "boothy," the nest) from a hut built there by the brothers of Joseph when stopped at the frontier by the guards of Pharaoh. But this is usual Jewish infection of history.

[FN#438] Arab. "Bb." which may also="Chapter" or category. See vol. i., 136 and elsewhere (index). In Egypt "Bb" sometimes means a sepulchral cave hewn in a rock (plur. Bbn) from the Coptic "Bb."

[FN#439] i.e. "The Holy," a town some three marches (60 miles) N. East of Cairo; thus showing the honour done to our unheroic hero. There is also a Slihlyah quarter or suburb of Damascus famous for its cemetery of holy men, but the facetious Cits change the name to Zlliniyah=causing to stray; in allusion to its Kurdish population. Baron von Hammer reads "le faubourg Adelieh" built by Al-Malik Al-Adil and founded a chronological argument on a clerical error.

[FN#440] Kamar al-Zaman; the normal pun on the name; a practice as popular in the East as in the West, and worthy only of a pickpocket in either place.

[FN#441] Arab. "Azrr" plur. of "Zirr" and lit. = 'buttons," i.e. of his robe collar from which his white neck and face appear shining as the sun.

[FN#442] Arab. "Dirah" the usual inclosure of Kants or tent-flaps pitched for privacy during the halt.

[FN#443] i.e. it was so richly ornamented that it resembled an enchanted hoard whose spells, hiding it from sight, had been broken by some happy treasure seeker.

[FN#444] The merchant who is a "stern parent" and exceedingly ticklish on the Pundonor saw at first sight her servile origin which had escaped the mother. Usually it is the other way.

[FN#445] Not the head of the Church, or Chief Pontiff, but the Chief of the Olema and Fukah (Fkihs or D.D.'s.) men learned in the Law (divinity). The order is peculiarly Moslem, in fact the succedaneum for the Christian "hierarchy " an institution never contemplated by the Founder of Christianity. This title shows the modern date of the tale.

[FN#446] Arab. "Maulid," prop. applied to the Birth-feast of Mohammed which begins on the 3rd day of Rab al-Awwal (third Moslem month) and lasts a week or ten days (according to local custom), usually ending on the 12th and celebrated with salutes of cannon, circumcision feasts. marriage banquets. Zikr-litanies, perfections of the Koran and all manner of solemn festivities including the "powder-play" (Lb al-Brt) in the wilder corners of Al-Islam. It is also applied to the birth-festivals of great Santons (as Ahmad al- Badawi) for which see Lane M. E. chaps. xxiv. In the text it is used like the Span. "Funcion" or the Hind "Tamsh," any great occasion of merry-making.

[FN#447] Arab. "Sanjik" Plur. of Sanjak (Turk.) = a banner, also applied to the bearer (ensign or cornet) and to a military rank mostly corresponding with Bey or Colonel.

[FN#448] I have followed Mr. Payne's ordering of the text which, both in the Mac. and Bull. Edits., is wholly inconsequent and has not the excuse of rhyme.

[FN#449] Arab. "Jilbb," a long coarse veil or gown which in Barbary becomes a "Jallbiyah," in a striped and hooded cloak of woollen stuff.

[FN#450] i.e. a broken down pilgrim left to die on the road.

[FN#451] These lines have occurred in vol. i. 272. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#452] Note the difference between "Zirt," the loud crepitus and "Faswah" the susurrus which Captain Grose in his quaint "Lexicum Balatronicum," calls a "fice" or a "foyse" (from the Arabic Fas, faswah ?).

[FN#453] These lines have occurred in Night dcxix, vol. vi. 246; where the pun on Khaliyah is explained. I quote Lane.

[FN#454] The usual pretext of "God bizness," as the Comoro men call it. For the title of the Ka'abah see my Pilgrimage vol. iii. 149.

[FN#455] This was in order to travel as a respectable man, he could also send the girl as a spy into the different Harims to learn news of the lady who had eloped.

[FN#456] A polite form of alluding to their cursing him.

[FN#457] i.e. on account of the King taking offence at his unceremonious departure.

[FN#458] i.e. It will be the worse for him.

[FN#459] I would here remind the reader that "'Arabiyyun" pl. 'Urb is a man of pure Arab race, whether of the Ahl al-Madar (=people of mortar, i.e. citizens) or Ahl al-Wabar (=tents of goat or camel's hair); whereas "A'rbiyyun" pl. A'rb is one who dwells in the Desert whether Arab or not. Hence the verse:—

"They name us Al-A'rb but Al-'Urb is our name."

[FN#460] I would remind the reader that the Dinr is the golden denarius (or solidus) of Eastern Rome while the Dirham is the silver denarius, whence denier, danaro, dnheiro, etc., etc. The oldest diners date from A.H. 91-92 (=714-15) and we find the following description of one struck in A.H. 96 by Al-Walid the VI. Ommiade:—

Obverse: Area. "There is no ilh but Allah: He is one: He hath no partner." Circle. "Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah who hath sent him with the true Guidance and Religion that he manifest it above all other Creeds."

Reverse: Area. "Allah is one: Allah is Eternal: He begetteth not, nor is He begot." Circle. "Bismillah: This Dinar was struck anno 96."

See "'Ilm-en-Nas" (warnings for Folk) a pleasant little volume by Mr. Godfrey Clarke (London, King and Co., 1873), mostly consisting of the minor tales from The Nights especially this group between Nights ccxlvii. and cdlxi.; but rendered valuable by the annotations of my old friend, the late Frederick Ayrton.

[FN#461] The reader will note the persistency with which the duty of universal benevolence is preached.

[FN#462] Arab. from Pers. "Shah-bander": see vol. iv. 29.

[FN#463] i.e. of thy coming, a popular compliment.

[FN#464] This is the doctrine of the universal East; and it is true concerning wives and widows, not girls when innocent or rather ignorant. According to Western ideas Kamar al-Zaman was a young scoundrel of the darkest dye whose only excuses were his age, his inexperience and his passions.

[FN#465] Arab. "Dayys" prop. = a man who pimps for his own wife and in this sense constantly occurring in conversation.

[FN#466] This is taking the law into one's own hands with a witness, yet amongst races who preserve the Pundonor in full and pristine force, e.g. the Afghans and the Persian Iliyat, the killing so far from being considered murder or even justifiable homicide would be highly commended by public opinion.

[FN#467] Arab. "Nkistu'aklin wa dn": the words are attributed to the Prophet whom we find saying, "Verily in your wives and children ye have an enemy, wherefore beware of them" (Koran lxiv. 14): compare 1 Cor. vii. 28, 32. But Matre Jehan de Meung went farther,

"Toutes tez, serez ou fses De faict ou de volont, putes."

[FN#468] Arab. "Habb wa tabb," the common jingle.

[FN#469] Iblis and his connection with Diabolos has been noticed in vol. i. 13. The word is foreign as well as a P.N. and therefore is imperfectly declined, although some authorities deduce it from "ablasa"=he despaired (of Allah's mercy). Others call him Al-Hris (the Lion) hence Eve's first-born was named in his honour Abd al-Harts. His angelic name was Azzl before he sinned by refusing to prostrate himself to Adam, as Allah had commanded the heavenly host for a trial of faith, not to worship the first man, but to make him a Keblah or direction of prayer addressed to the Almighty. Hence he was ejected from Heaven and became the arch enemy of mankind (Koran xviii. 48). He was an angel but related to the Jinn: Al-Bayzwi, however (on Koran ii. 82), opines that angelic by nature he became a Jinn by act. Ibn Abbas held that he belonged to an order of angels who are called Jinn and begot issue as do the nasns, the Ghl and the Kutrub which, however are male and female, like the pre-Adamite manwoman of Genesis, the "bi-une" of our modern days. For this subject see Terminal Essay.

[FN#470] As usual in the East and in the West the husband was the last to hear of his wife's ill conduct. But even Othello did not kill Emilia.

[FN#471] i.e. Star of the Morning: the first word occurs in Bar Cokba Barchocheba=Son of the Star, i.e., which was to come out of Jacob (Numbers xxiv. 17). The root, which does not occur in Heb., is Kaukab to thine. This Rabbi Akilah was also called Bar Cozla= Son of the Lie.

[FN#472] Here some excision has been judged advisable as the names of the bridegrooms and the brides recur with damnable iteration.

[FN#473] See the note by Lane's Shaykh at the beginning of the tale. The contrast between the vicious wife of servile origin and the virtuous wife of noble birth is fondly dwelt upon but not exaggerated.

[FN#474] i.e. those of his water skins for the journey, which as usual required patching and supplying with fresh handles after long lying dry.

[FN#475] A popular saying also applied to men. It is usually accompanied with showing the open hand and a reference to the size of the fingers. I find this story most interesting from an anthropological point of view; suggesting how differently various races regard the subject of adultery. In Northern Europe the burden is thrown most unjustly upon the man, the woman who tempts him being a secondary consideration; and in England he is absurdly termed "a seducer." In former times he was "paraded" or "called out," now he is called up for damages, a truly ignoble and shopkeeper-like mode of treating a high offence against private property and public morality. In Anglo-America, where English feeling is exaggerated, the lover is revolver'd and the woman is left unpunished. On the other hand, amongst Eastern and especially Moslem peoples, the woman is cut down and scant reckoning is taken from the man. This more sensible procedure has struck firm root amongst the nations of Southern Europe where the husband kills the lover only when he still loves his wife and lover like is furious at her affection being alienated.

Practically throughout the civilised world there are only two ways of treating women, Moslems keep them close, defend them from all kinds of temptations and if they go wrong kill them. Christians place them upon a pedestal, the observed of all observers, expose them to every danger and if they fall, accuse and abuse them instead of themselves. And England is so grandly logical that her law, under certain circumstances, holds that Mrs. A. has committed adultery with Mr. B. but Mr. B. has not committed adultery with Mrs. A. Can any absurdity be more absurd? Only "summum jus, summa injuria." See my Terminal Essay. I shall have more to say upon this curious subject, the treatment of women who can be thoroughly guarded only by two things, firstly their hearts and secondly by the "Spanish Padlock."

[FN#476] Lane owns that this is "one of the most entertaining tales in the work," but he omits it "because its chief and best portion is essentially the same as the story of the First of the Three Ladies of Baghdad." The truth is he was straitened for space by his publisher and thus compelled to cut out some of the best stories in The Nights.

[FN#477] i.e. Ibrahim of Mosul, the musician poet often mentioned in The Nights. I must again warn the reader that the name is pronounced Is-hk (like Isaac with a central aspirate) not Ishk. This is not unnecessary when we hear Tait-shill for Tait's hill and "Frederick-shall" for Friedrich, shall.

[FN#478] i.e. He was a proficient, an adept.

[FN#479] Arab. from Pers. Dlb=a waterwheel, a buttery, a cupboard.

[FN#480] Arab. "Futr," the chhot hzir of Anglo-India or breakfast proper, eaten by Moslems immediately after the dawn- prayer except in Ramzn. Amongst sensible people it is a substantial meal of bread and boiled beans, eggs, cheese, curded milk and the pastry called fatrah, followed by coffee and a pipe. See Lane M. E. chapt. v. and my Pilgrimage ii. 48.

[FN#481] This "off-with-his-head" style must not be understood literally. As I have noted, it is intended by the writer to show the Kingship and the majesty of the "Vicar of Allah."

[FN#482] Lit. "the calamity of man (insn) is from the tongue" (lisn).

[FN#483] For Khatt Sharf, lit.=a noble letter, see vol. ii. 39.

[FN#484] Arab. "Allah yastura-k"=protect thee by hiding what had better be hidden.

[FN#485] Arab. "Janzr"=chains, an Arabised plural of the Pers. Zanjr with the metathesis or transposition of letters peculiar to the vulgar; "Janzr" for "Zanjr."

[FN#486] Arab. "Safnah"=(Noah's) Ark, a myth derived from the Baris of Egypt with subsequent embellishments from the Babylonian deluge-legends: the latter may have been survivals of the days when the waters of the Persian Gulf extended to the mountains of Eastern Syria. Hence I would explain the existence of extinct volcanoes within sight of Damascus (see Unexplored Syria i. p. 159) visited, I believe, for the first time by my late friend Charles F. Tyrwhitt-Drake and myself in May, 1871.

[FN#487] Mansur and Nsir are passive and active participles from the same root, Nasr=victory; the former means triumphant and the latter triumphing.

[FN#488] The normal term of Moslem mourning, which Mohammed greatly reduced disliking the abuse of it by the Jews who even in the present day are the strictest in its observance.

[FN#489] An euphuistic and euphemistic style of saying, "No, we don't know."

[FN#490] Arab. "Rahan," an article placed with him in pawn.

[FN#491] A Moslem is bound, not only by honour but by religion, to discharge the debts of his dead father and mother and so save them from punishment on Judgment-day. Mohammed who enjoined mercy to debtors while in the flesh (chapt. ii. 280, etc.) said "Allah covereth all faults except debt; that is to say, there will be punishment therefor." Also "A martyr shall be pardoned every fault but debt." On one occasion he refused to pray for a Moslem who died insolvent. Such harshness is a curious contrast with the leniency which advised the creditor to remit debts by way of alms. And practically this mild view of indebtedness renders it highly unadvisable to oblige a Moslem friend with a loan.

[FN#492] i.e. he did not press them for payment; and, it must be remembered, he received no interest upon his monies, this being forbidden in the Koran.

[FN#493] Al-Mas'di (chap. xvii.) alludes to furs of Sable (Samr), hermelline (Al-Farwah) and Borts (Turkish) furs of black and red foxes. For Samr see vol. iv. 57. Sinjb is Persian for the skin of the grey squirrel (Mu. lemmus, the lemming), the meniver, erroneously miniver, (menu vair) as opposed to the ermine=(Mus Armenius, or mustela erminia.) I never visit England without being surprised at the vile furs worn by the rich, and the folly of the poor in not adopting the sheepskin with the wool inside and the leather well tanned which keeps the peasant warm and comfortable between Croatia and Afghanistan.

[FN#494] Arab. "Tjir Alf" which may mean a thousand dinars (500) or a thousand purses (=5,000). "Alf" is not an uncommon P.N., meaning that the bearer (Pasha or pauper) had been bought for a thousand left indefinite.

[FN#495] Tigris-Euphrates.

[FN#496] Possibly the quarter of Baghdad so called and mentioned in The Nights more than once.

[FN#497] For this fiery sea see Sind Revisited i. 19.

[FN#498] Arab. "Al-Ghayb" which may also mean "in the future" (unknown to man).

[FN#499] Arab. "Jabal"; here a mountainous island: see vol. i. 140.

[FN#500] i.e. ye shall be spared this day's miseries. See my Pilgrimage vol. i. 314, and the delight with which we glided into Mars Damghah.

[FN#501] Arab. "Swn"="Syenite" (-granite) also used for flint and other hard stones. See vol. i. 238.

[FN#502] Koran xxiv. Male children are to the Arab as much prized an object of possession as riches, since without them wealth is of no value to him. Mohammed, therefore, couples wealth with children as the two things wherewith one wards off the ills of this world, though they are powerless against those of the world to come.

[FN#503] An exclamation derived from the Surat Nasr (cx. 1) one of the most affecting in the Koran. It gave Mohammed warning of his death and caused Al-Abbs to shed tears; the Prophet sings a song of victory in the ixth year of the Hijrah (he died on the xth) and implores the pardon of his Lord.

[FN#504] Arab. "Dirah," a basin surrounded by hills. The words which follow may mean, "An hour's journey or more in breadth.

[FN#505] These petrified folk have occurred in the "Eldest Lady's Tale" (vol. i. 165), where they are of "black stone."

[FN#506] Arab. "Tj Kisrawi," such as was worn by the Chosroes Kings. See vol. i. 75.

[FN#507] The familiar and far-famed Napoleonic pose, with the arms crossed over the breast, is throughout the East the attitude assumed by slave and servant in presence of his master. Those who send statues to Anglo-India should remember this.

[FN#508] Arab. "T lk"=hanging lamps, often in lantern shape with coloured glass and profuse ornamentation; the Maroccan are now familiar to England.

[FN#509] Arab. "Kidrah," lit.=a pot, kettle; it can hardly mean "an interval."

[FN#510] The wicket or small doorway, especially by the side of a gate or portal, is called "the eye of the needle" and explains Matt. xix. 24, and Koran vii. 38. In the Rabbinic form of the proverb the camel becomes an elephant. Some have preferred to change the Koranic Jamal (camel) for Habl (cable) and much ingenuity has been wasted by Christian commentators on Mark x. 25, and Luke xviii. 25.

[FN#511] i.e. A "Kanz" (enchanted treasury) usually hidden underground but opened by a counter-spell and transferred to earth's face. The reader will note the gorgeousness of the picture.

[FN#512] Oriental writers, Indian and Persian, as well as Arab, lay great stress upon the extreme delicacy of the skin of the fair ones celebrated in their works, constantly attributing to their heroines bodies so sensitive as to brook with difficulty the contact of the finest shift. Several instances of this will be found in the present collection and we may fairly assume that the skin of an Eastern beauty, under the influence of constant seclusion and the unremitting use of cosmetics and the bath, would in time attain a pitch of delicacy and sensitiveness such as would in some measure justify the seemingly extravagant statements of their poetical admirers, of which the following anecdote (quoted by Ibn Khellikan from the historian Et Teberi) is a fair specimen. Ardeshir ibn Babek (Artaxerxes I.), the first Sassanian King of Persia (A.D. 226-242), having long unsuccessfully besieged El Hedr, a strong city of Mesopotamia belonging to the petty King Es Satiroun, at last obtained possession of it by the treachery of the owner's daughter Nezireh and married the latter, this having been the price stipulated by her for the betrayal to him of the place. "It happened afterwards that, one night, as she was unable to sleep and turned from side to side in the bed, Ardeshir asked her what prevented her from sleeping. She replied, 'I never yet slept on a rougher bed than this; I feel something irk me.' He ordered the bed to be changed, but she was still unable to sleep. Next morning, she complained of her side, and on examination, a myrtle-leaf was found adhering to a fold of the skin, from which it had drawn blood. Astonished at this circumstance, Ardeshir asked her if it was this that had kept her awake and she replied in the affirmative. 'How then,' asked he, 'did your father bring you up?' She answered, 'He spread me a bed of satin and clad me in silk and fed me with marrow and cream and the honey of virgin bees and gave me pure wine to drink.' Quoth Ardeshir, 'The same return which you made your father for his kindness would be made much more readily to me'; and bade bind her by the hair to the tail of a horse, which galloped off with her and killed her." It will be remembered that the true princess, in the well-known German popular tale, is discovered by a similar incident to that of the myrtle-leaf. I quote this excellent note from Mr. Payne (ix. 148), only regretting that annotation did not enter into his plan of producing The Nights. Amongst Hindu story-tellers a phenomenal softness of the skin is a lieu commun: see Vikram and the Vampire (p.285, "Of the marvellous delicacy of their Queens"); and the Tale of the Sybarite might be referred to in the lines given above.

[FN#513] "(55) Indeed joyous on that day are the people of Paradise in their employ; (56) In shades, on bridal couches reclining they and their wives: (57) Fruits have they therein and whatso they desire. (58) 'Peace!' shall be a word from a compassionating Lord." Koran xxxvi. 55-58, the famous Chapt. "Y Sn;" which most educated Moslems learn by heart. See vol. iii. 19. In addition to the proofs there offered that the Moslem Paradise is not wholly sensual I may quote, "No soul wotteth what coolth of the eyes is reserved (for the good) in recompense of their works" (Koran lxx. 17). The Paradise of eating, drinking, and copulating which Mr. Palgrave (Arabia, i. 368) calls "an everlasting brothel between forty celestial concubines" was preached solely to the baser sort of humanity which can understand and appreciate only the pleasures of the flesh. To talk of spiritual joys before the Badawin would have been a non-sens, even as it would be to the roughs of our great cities.

[FN#514] Arab. "Lajlaj" lit.=rolling anything round the mouth when eating; hence speaking inarticulately, being tongue-tied, stuttering, etc.

[FN#515] The classical "Phylarchs," who had charge of the Badawin.

[FN#516] "The Jabbirah" (giant-rulers of Syria) and the "Aksirah" (Chosros-Kings of Persia).

[FN#517] This shows (and we are presently told) that the intruder was Al-Khizr, the "Green Prophet," for whom see vol. iv. 175.

[FN#518] i.e. of salvation supposed to radiate from all Prophets, esp. from Mohammed.

[FN#519] This formula which has occurred from the beginning (vol.i.1) is essentially Koranic: See Chapt. li. 18-19 and passim.

[FN#520] This trick of the priest hidden within the image may date from the days of the vocal Memnon, and was a favourite in India, especially at the shrine of Somnauth (Soma-nth), the Moon-god, Atergatis Aphrodite, etc.

[FN#521] Arab. "Alms"=Gr. Adamas. In opposition to the learned ex-Professor Maskelyne I hold that the cutting of the diamond is of very ancient date. Mr. W. M. Flinders Patrie (The Pyramids and Temples of Gizah, London: Field and Tuer, 1884) whose studies have thoroughly demolished the freaks and unfacts, the fads and fancies of the "Pyramidists," and who may be said to have raised measurement to the rank of a fine art, believes that the Euritic statues of old Egypt such as that of Khufu (Cheops) in the Bulak Museum were drilled by means of diamonds. AthenFus tells us (lib. v.) that the Indians brought pearls and diamonds to the procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus; and this suggests cutting, as nothing can be less ornamental than the uncut stone.

[FN#522] i.e. as if they were holding a "Durbar"; the King's idol in the Sadr or place of honour and the others ranged about it in their several ranks.

[FN#523] These words are probably borrowed from the taunts of Elijah to the priests of Baal (1 Kings xviii. 27). Both Jews and Moslems wilfully ignored the proper use of the image or idol which was to serve as a Keblah or direction of prayer and an object upon which to concentrate thought and looked only to the abuse of the ignoble vulgus who believe in its intrinsic powers. Christendom has perpetuated the dispute: Romanism affects statues and pictures: Greek orthodoxy pictures and not statues and the so-called Protestantism ousts both.

[FN#524] Arab. "Sa'dah"=worldly prosperity and future happiness.

[FN#525] Arab. "Al-Ahd wa al-Msk" the troth pledged between the Murd or apprentice-Darwaysh and the Shaykh or Master-Darwaysh binding the former to implicit obedience etc.

[FN#526] Arab. "Taakhr" lit. postponement and meaning acting with deliberation as opposed to "Ajal" (haste), precipitate action condemned in the Koran lxv. 38.

[FN#527] i.e. I have been lucky enough to get this and we will share it amongst us.

[FN#528] i.e. of saving me from being ravished.

[FN#529] Sa'dah=the auspicious (fem.): Mubrakah,=the blessed; both names showing that the bearers were Moslemahs.

[FN#530] i.e. the base-born from whom base deeds may be expected.

[FN#531] Arab. "Badlat Kunzyah=such a dress as would be found in enchanted hoards (Kunz): .g. Prince Esterhazy's diamond jacket.

[FN#532] The lieu d'aisance in Eastern crafts is usually a wooden cage or framework fastened outside the gunwale very cleanly but in foul weather very uncomfortable and even dangerous.

[FN#533] Arab. "Ghull," a collar of iron or other metal, sometimes made to resemble the Chinese Kza or Cangue, a kind of ambulant pillory, serving like the old stocks which still show in England the veteris vestigia ruris. See Davis, "The Chinese," i. 241. According to Al-Siyti (p. 362) the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil ordered the Christians to wear these Ghulls round the neck, yellow head-gear and girdles, to use wooden stirrups and to place figures of devils before their houses. The writer of The Nights presently changes Ghull to "chains" and "fetters of iron."

[FN#534] Arab. "Y fuln," O certain person! See vol. iii. 191.

[FN#535] Father of Harun al-Rashid A.H. 158-169 (=775-785) third Abbaside who both in the Mac. and the Bul. Edits. is called "the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbas." He was a good poet and a man of letters, also a fierce persecutor of the "Zindiks" (Al-Siyuti 278), a term especially applied to those who read the Zend books and adhered to Zoroastrianism, although afterwards applied to any heretic or atheist. He made many changes at Meccah and was the first who had a train of camels laden with snow for his refreshment along a measured road of 700 miles (Gibbon, chapt. lii.). He died of an accident when hunting: others say he was poisoned after leaving his throne to his sons Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid. The name means "Heaven-directed" and must not be confounded with the title of the twelfth Shi'ah Imm Mohammed Abu al-Ksim born at Sarramanrai A.H. 255 whom Sale (sect. iv.) calls "Mahdi or Director" and whose expected return has caused and will cause so much trouble in Al-Islam.

[FN#536] This speciosum miraculum must not be held a proof that the tale was written many years after the days of Al-Rashid. Miracles grow apace in the East and a few years suffice to mature them. The invasion of Abraha the Abyssinia took place during the year of Mohammed's birth; and yet in an early chapter of the Koran (No. cv.) written perhaps forty-five years afterwards, the small-pox is turned into a puerile and extravagant miracle. I myself became the subject of a miracle in Sind which is duly chronicled in the family-annals of a certain Pir or religious teacher. See History of Sindh (p. 23O) and Sind Revisited (i. 156).

[FN#537] In the texts, "Sixth."

[FN#538] Arab. "Najis"=ceremonially impure especially the dog's month like the cow's month amongst the Hindus; and requiring after contact the Wuzu-ablution before the Moslem can pray.

[FN#539] Arab. "Akl al-hashamah" (hashamah=retinue; hishmah=reverence, bashfulness) which may also mean "decorously and respectfully," according to the vowel-points.

[FN#540] i.e. as the Vice-regent of Allah and Vicar of the Prophet.

[FN#541] For the superiority of mankind to the Jinn see vol. viii. 5;44.

[FN#542] According to Al-Siyuti, Harun al-Rashid prayed every day a hundred bows.

[FN#543] As the sad end of his betrothed was still to be accounted for.

[FN#544] For the martyrdom of the drowned see vol. i, 171, to quote no other places.

[FN#545] i.e. if he have the power to revenge himself. The sentiment is Christian rather than Moslem.

[FN#546] i.e. the power acquired (as we afterwards learn) by the regular praying of the dawn-prayer. It is not often that The Nights condescend to point a moral or inculcate a lesson as here; and we are truly thankful for the immunity.

[FN#547] Arab. "Musfahah" which, I have said, serves for our shaking hands: and extends over wide regions. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other without squeezing the fingers and then raise the latter to the forehead. Pilgrimage ii. 332, has also been quoted.

[FN#548] Equivalent to our saying about an ill wind, etc.

[FN#549] A proof of his extreme simplicity and bonhomie.

[FN#550] Arab. "Drfl"=the Gr. {Greek} later {Greek}, suggesting that the writer had read of Arion in Herodotus i. 23.

[FN#551] 'Aj; I can only suggest, with due diffidence, that this is intended for Kch the well-known Baloch city in Persian Carmania (Kirmn) and meant by Richardson's "Koch buloch." But as the writer borrows so much from Al-Mas'udi it may possibly be Ak in Sstn where stood the heretical city "Shdrak," chapt. cxxii.

[FN#552] i.e. The excellent (or surpassing) Religious. Shaykhah, the fem. of Shaykh, is a she-chief, even the head of the dancing- girls will be entitled "Shaykhah."

[FN#553] The curtain would screen her from the sight of men- invalids and probably hung across the single room of the "Zwiyah" or hermit's cell. The curtain is noticed in the tales of two other reverend women; vols. iv. 155 and v. 257.

[FN#554] Abdullah met his wife on Thursday, the night of which would amongst Moslems be Friday night.

[FN#555] i.e. with Sa'idah.

THE END