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_ (Rahíl) 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 wonder) 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
"Júdi" fine-haired animals as opposed to "Khawár" (the Khowás of
Chesney, p. 333), coarse-haired, heavy, slow brutes which will not
stand great heat.
Footnote 82:
_i.e._ Fortune so willed it (euphemistically).
Footnote 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.
Footnote 84:
None of the pure Badawi can swim for the best of reasons, want of
waters.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 86:
Thus by Arab custom they become friends.
Footnote 87:
Our classical term for a noble Arab horse.
Footnote 88:
In Arab. "Khayl" is = horse; Husan, a stallion; Hudúd, a brood
stallion; Faras, a mare (but sometimes used as a horse and meaning
"that tears over the ground"); Jiyád a steed (noble); Kadísh, a nag
(ignoble); Mohr a colt and Mohrah, a filly. There are dozens of other
names but these suffice for conversation.
Footnote 89:
Al-Katúl, the slayer; Al-Majnún, the mad; both high compliments in the
style inverted.
Footnote 90:
This was a highly honourable exploit, which would bring the doer fame
as well as gain
Footnote 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.
Footnote 92:
Arab. "Yaum al-tanádí," _i.e._ Resurrection-day.
Footnote 93:
Arab. "Bilád al-Súdán" = 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 _Berberino_ who acts servant in Lower
Egypt, with the Berber of Barbary: the former speaks an African
language; the latter a "Semitic" (Arabic) tongue.
Footnote 94:
"Him" for "her."
Footnote 95:
Arab. "Sáibah," a she-camel freed from labour under certain conditions
amongst the pagan Arabs; for which see Sale (Prel. Disc. sect. v.).
Footnote 96:
Arab. "Marba'." In early spring the Badawi tribes leave the Rasm or
wintering-place (the Turco-Persian "Kishlák") in the desert, where
winter-rains supply them, and make for the Yaylák, 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."
Footnote 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 Amrú'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).
Footnote 98:
The "Turk" appeared soon amongst the Abbaside Caliphs. Mohammed was
made to prophecy of them under the title Banú Kantúrah, 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-Wásik (Vathek, of the terrible eyes) was the first to
appoint a Turk his Sultan or regent. After his reign they became
prætorians and led to the downfall of the Abbasides.
Footnote 99:
The Persian saying is "First at the feast and last at the fray."
Footnote 100:
_i.e._ a tempter, a seducer.
Footnote 101:
Arab. "Wayl-ak" here probably used in the sense of "Wayh-ak" an
expression of affectionate concern.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 103:
A noted sign of excitement in the Arab blood horse, when the tail
looks like a panache covering the hind-quarter.
Footnote 104:
_i.e._ Prince Kanmakan.
Footnote 105:
The "quality of mercy" belongs to the noble Arab, whereas the ignoble
and the Badawin are rancorous and revengeful as camels.
Footnote 106:
Arab. "Khanjar," the poison was let into the grooves and hollows of
the poniard.
Footnote 107:
The Pers. "Bang"; Indian "Bhang"; Maroccan "Fasúkh" and S. African
"Dakhá." (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 "Imsák"
prolonging coition, of which I speak presently.
Footnote 108:
Arab. "Hashsháshín;" 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.
Footnote 109:
Meaning "Well done!" Mashallah (Má sháa 'llah) is an exclamation of
many uses, especially affected when praising man or beast for fear
lest flattering words induce the evil eye.
Footnote 110:
Arab. "Kabkáb" vulg. "Kubkáb." They are between three and ten inches
high; and those using them for the first time in the slippery Hammam
must be careful.
Footnote 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-Nisá (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 "Purusháyit," when the man lies
supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two,
approaching the French _quarante façons_. 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-ranga appeared in 1873 under the name of Káma-Shástra; 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).
Footnote 112:
_i.e._ _Le Roi Crotte._
Footnote 113:
This seems to be a punning allusion to Baghdad, which in Persian would
mean the Garden (bágh) of Justice (dád). See "Biographical Notices of
Persian Poets" by Sir Gore Ouseley, London, Oriental Translation Fund,
1846.
Footnote 114:
The Kardoukhoi (Carduchi) of Xenophon; also called (Strabo xv.)
"Kárdakís, from a Persian word signifying manliness," which would be
"Kardak" = a doer (of derring-do). They also named the Montes Gordæi
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 Saláh 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 116:
An euphemistic form to avoid mentioning the incestuous marriage.
Footnote 117:
The Arab form of our "Kinchin lay."
Footnote 118:
These are the signs of a Shaykh's tent.
Footnote 119:
These questions, indiscreet in Europe, are the rule throughout Arabia,
as they were in the United States of the last generation.
Footnote 120:
Arab. "Khizáb" 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.
Footnote 121:
_i.e._ the God of the Empyrean.
Footnote 122:
A blow worthy of the Sa'alabah tribe to which he belonged.
Footnote 123:
_i.e._ "benefits"; also the name of Mohammed's Mu'ezzin, or crier to
prayer, who is buried outside the Jábiah 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.
Footnote 124:
His instinct probably told him that this opponent was a low fellow;
but such insults are common when "renowning it."
Footnote 125:
Arab. "Dara'" or "Dira'," a habergeon, a coat of ring-mail, sometimes
worn in pairs. During the wretched "Sudan" campaigns much naïve
astonishment was expressed by the English Press to hear of warriors
armed cap-à-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.
Footnote 126:
Arab. "Jamal" (by Badawin pronounced "Gamal" like the Hebrew) is the
generic term for "Camel" through the Gr.κάμηλος: "Ibl" is also the
camel-species but not so commonly used. "Hajín" is the dromedary (in
Egypt, "Dalúl" 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 Nákah, 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. Ensor is singular when he states (p. 40) "the male (of
the camel) is much the safer animal to choose;" and the custom of the
universal East 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.
Footnote 127:
So, in the Romance of Dalhamah (Zát 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. chapt. xxiii.).
Footnote 128:
This gathering all the persons upon the stage before the curtain drops
is highly artistic and improbable.
Footnote 129:
He ought to have said his dawn prayers.
Now when it was the Hundred and Forty-sixth Night,
Shahrazad began to relate, in these words,
THE TALE OF THE BIRDS AND BEASTS AND THE
CARPENTER.[130]
Quoth she, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that in times of yore
and in ages long gone before, a peacock abode with his wife on the
sea-shore. Now the place was infested with lions and all manner wild
beasts, withal it abounded in trees and streams. So cock and hen were
wont to roost by night upon one of the trees, being in fear of the
beasts, and went forth by day questing food. And they ceased not thus to
do till their fear increased on them and they searched for some place
wherein to dwell other than their old dwelling-place; and in the course
of their search behold, they happened on an island abounding in streams
and trees. So they alighted there and ate of its fruits and drank of its
waters. But whilst they were thus engaged, lo! up came to them a duck in
a state of extreme terror, and stayed not faring forwards till she
reached the tree whereon were perched the two peafowl, when she seemed
re-assured in mind. The peacock doubted not but that she had some rare
story; so he asked her of her case and the cause of her concern, whereto
she answered, "I am sick for sorrow, and my horror of the son of
Adam:[131] so beware, and again I say beware of the sons of Adam!"
Rejoined the peacock, "Fear not now that thou hast won our protection."
Cried the duck, "Alhamdolillah! glory to God, who hath done away my cark
and care by means of you being near! For indeed I come of friendship
fain with you twain." And when she had ended her speech the peacock's
wife came down to her and said, "Well come and welcome and fair cheer!
No harm shall hurt thee: how can son of Adam come to us and we in this
isle which lieth a-middlemost of the sea? From the land he cannot reach
us neither can he come against us from the water. So be of good cheer
and tell us what hath betided thee from the child of Adam." Answered the
duck, "Know, then, O thou peahen, that of a truth I have dwelt all my
life in this island safely and peacefully, nor have I seen any
disquieting thing, till one night, as I was asleep, I sighted in my
dream the semblance of a son of Adam, who talked with me and I with him.
Then I heard a voice say to me:—O thou duck, beware of the son of Adam
and be not imposed on by his words nor by that he may suggest to thee;
for he aboundeth in wiles and guiles; so beware with all wariness of his
perfidy, for again I say, he is crafty and right cunning even as singeth
of him the poet:—
He'll offer sweetmeats with his edgèd tongue, ✿ And fox thee with the
foxy guile of fox."
[Illustration]