to the Companions of Mohammed. Hence the Sunnis claim for them the
honour of "friendship" with the Apostle; but the Shia'hs reply that
the Arab says "Sahaba-hu'l-himár" (the Ass was his Sahib or
companion). In the text it is a Wazirial title, in modern India it
is=gentleman, _e.g._ "Sahib log" (the Sahib people) means their white
conquerors, who, by the by, mostly mispronounce the word "Sáb."
Footnote 462:
Arab. "Suwán," prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but applied to
flint and any hard stone.
Footnote 463:
It was famous in the middle ages, and even now it is, perhaps, the
most interesting to travellers after that "Sentina Gentium," the
"Bhendi Bazar" of unromantic Bombay.
Footnote 464:
"The Gate of the Gardens," in the northern wall, a Roman archway of
the usual solid construction shaming not only our modern shams, but
our finest masonry.
Footnote 465:
Arab. "Al-Asr," which may mean either the hour or the prayer. It is
also the moment at which the Guardian Angels relieve each other
(Sale's Koran, chapt. v.).
Footnote 466:
Arab. "Ya házá"=O this (one)! a somewhat slighting address equivalent
to "Heus tu! O thou, whoever thou art." Another form is "Yá hú"=O he!
Can this have originated Swift's "Yahoo?"
Footnote 467:
Alluding to the τήρατα ("minor miracles which cause surprise")
performed by Saints' tombs, the mildest form of thaumaturgy. One of
them gravely recorded in the Dabistan (ii. 226) is that of the holy
Jamen, who opened the Sámran or bead-bracelet from the arm of the
beautiful Chistápá with member erect, "thus evincing his manly
strength and his command over himself"(!)
Footnote 468:
The River of Paradise, a _lieu commun_ of poets (Koran, chapt.
cviii.): the water is whiter than milk or silver, sweeter than honey,
smoother than cream, more odorous than musk; its banks are of
chrysolite and it is drunk out of silver cups set around it thick as
stars. Two pipes conduct it to the Prophet's Pond which is an exact
square, one month's journey in compass. Kausar is spirituous like
wine; Salsabil sweet like clarified honey; the Fount of Mildness is
like milk and the Fount of Mercy like liquid crystal.
Footnote 469:
The Moslem does not use the European basin because water which has
touched an impure skin becomes impure. Hence it is poured out from a
ewer ("ibrík" Pers. Abríz) upon the hands and falls into a basin
("tisht") with an open-worked cover.
Footnote 470:
Arab. "Wahsh," a word of many meanings; nasty, insipid, savage, etc.
The offside of a horse is called Wahshi opposed to Insi, the near
side. The Amir Taymur ("Lord Iron") whom Europeans unwittingly call
after his Persian enemies' nickname, "Tamerlane," _i.e._
Taymur-i-lang, or limping Taymur, is still known as "Al-Wahsh" (the
wild beast) at Damascus, where his Tartars used to bury men up to
their necks and play at bowls with their heads for ninepins.
Footnote 471:
For "grandson" as being more affectionate. Easterns have not yet
learned that clever Western saying:—The enemies of our enemies are
our friends.
Footnote 472:
This was a simple bastinado on the back, not the more ceremonious
affair of beating the feet-soles. But it is surprising what the
Egyptians can bear; some of the rods used in the time of the Mameluke
Beys are nearly as thick as a man's wrist.
Footnote 473:
The woman-like spite of the eunuch intended to hurt the grandmother's
feelings.
Footnote 474:
The usual Cairene "chaff."
Footnote 475:
A necessary precaution against poison (Pilgrimage i. 84, and iii.
43).
Footnote 476:
The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 108) describes the scene at greater length.
Footnote 477:
The Bul. Edit. gives by mistake of diacritical points, "Zabdaniyah:"
Raydaniyah is or rather was a camping ground to the North of Cairo.
Footnote 478:
Arab. "La'abat"=a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane (i. 326)
conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a man
with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas of
mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in
everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and
ignominious punishment. (Koran, chapt. vii.)
Footnote 479:
Here good blood, driven to bay, speaks out boldly. But, as a rule the
humblest and mildest Eastern when in despair turns round upon his
oppressors like a wild cat. Some of the criminals whom Fath Ali Shah
of Persia put to death by chopping down the fork, beginning at the
scrotum, abused his mother till the knife reached their vitals and
they could no longer speak.
Footnote 480:
These repeated "laughs" prove the trouble of his spirit. Noble Arabs
"show their back-teeth" so rarely that their laughter is held worthy
of being recorded by their biographers.
Footnote 481:
A popular phrase, derived from the Koranic "Truth is come, and
falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance" (chapt.
xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41,
"Magna est veritas et prævalebit." But the great question still
remains, What is Truth?
Footnote 482:
In Night lxxv. these lines will occur with variants.
Footnote 483:
This is always mentioned: the nearer the seat the higher the honour.
Footnote 484:
Alluding to the phrase "Al-safar zafar"=voyaging is victory
(Pilgrimage i., 127).
Footnote 485:
Arab. "Habb;" alluding to the black drop in the human heart which the
Archangel Gabriel removed from Mohammed by opening his breast.
Footnote 486:
This phrase, I have said, often occurs: it alludes to the
horripilation (Arab. Kush'arírah), horror or gooseflesh which, in
Arab as in Hindu fables, is a symptom of great joy. So Boccaccio's
"pelo arriciato" v., 8: Germ. Gänsehaut.
Footnote 487:
Arab. "Hasanta ya Hasan"=Bene detto, Benedetto! the usual word-play
vulgarly called "pun:" Hasan (not Hassan, as we _will_ write it)
meaning "beautiful."
Footnote 488:
Arab. "Loghah" also=a vocabulary, a dictionary; the Arabs had them by
camel-loads.
Footnote 489:
The seventh of the sixteen "Bahr" (metres) in Arabic prosody; the
easiest because allowing the most licence and, consequently, a
favourite for didactic, homiletic and gnomic themes. It means
literally "agitated" and was originally applied to the rude song of
the Cameleer. De Sacy calls this doggrel "the poet's ass" (Torrens,
Notes xxvi.). It was the only metre in which Mohammed the Apostle
ever spoke: he was no poet (Koran xxxvi., 69) but he occasionally
recited a verse and recited it wrongly (Dabistan iii., 212). In
Persian prosody Rajaz is the seventh of nineteen and has six distinct
varieties (pp. 79-81, "Gladwin's Dissertations on Rhetoric," etc.
Calcutta, 1801). I shall have more to say about it in the terminal
Essay.
Footnote 490:
"Her stature tall—I hate a dumpy woman" (Don Juan).
Footnote 491:
A worthy who was Kazi of Kufah (Cufa) in the seventh century.
Al-Najaf, generally entitled "Najaf al-Ashraf" (the Venerand) is the
place where Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, lies or is supposed to
lie buried, and has ever been a holy place to the Shi'ahs. I am not
certain whether to translate "Sa'alab" by fox or jackal; the Arabs
make scant distinction between them. "Abu Hosayn" (Father of the
Fortlet) is certainly the fox, and as certainly "Sha'arhar" is the
jackal from the Pehlevi Shagál or Shaghál.
Footnote 492:
Usually by all manner of extortions and robbery, corruption and
bribery, the ruler's motto being
Fiat _in_justitia ruat Cœlum.
There is no more honest man than the Turkish peasant or the private
soldier; but the process of deterioration begins when he is made a
corporal and culminates in the Pasha. Moreover official dishonesty is
permitted by public opinion, because it belongs to the condition of
society. A man buys a place (as in England two centuries ago) and
retains it by presents to the heads of offices. Consequently he must
recoup himself in some way, and he mostly does so by grinding the
faces of the poor and by spoiling the widow and the orphan. The
radical cure is high pay; but that phase of society refuses to afford
it.
Footnote 493:
Arab. "Malik" (King) and "Malak" (angel) the words being written the
same when lacking vowels and justifying the jingle.
Footnote 494:
Arab. "Hurr"; the Latin "ingenuus," lit. freeborn; metaph. noble as
opp. to a slave who is not expected to do great or good deeds. In
pop. use it corresponds, like "Fatá," with our "gentleman."
Footnote 495:
This is one of the best tales for humour and movement, and Douce and
Madden show what a rich crop of fabliaux, whose leading incident was
the disposal of a dead body, it produced.
_THE HUNCHBACK'S TALE._
It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there dwelt during times of
yore, and years and ages long gone before, in a certain city of
China,[496] a Tailor who was an open-handed man that loved pleasuring
and merry making; and who was wont, he and his wife, to solace
themselves from time to time with public diversions and amusements. One
day they went out with the first of the light and were returning in the
evening when they fell in with a Hunchback, whose semblance would draw
a laugh from care and dispel the horrors of despair. So they went up to
enjoy looking at him and invited him to go home with them and converse
and carouse with them that night. He consented and accompanied them
afoot to their home; whereupon the Tailor fared forth to the bazar
(night having just set in) and bought a fried fish and bread and lemons
and dry sweetmeats for dessert; and set the victuals before the
Hunchback and they ate. Presently the Tailor's wife took a great fid of
fish and gave it in a gobbet to the Gobbo, stopping his mouth with her
hand and saying, "By Allah, thou must down with it at a single gulp;
and I will not give thee time to chew it." So he bolted it; but therein
was a stiff bone which stuck in his gullet and, his hour being come, he
died.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.
Now when it was the Twenty-Fifth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Tailor's
wife gave the Hunchback that mouthful of fish which ended his term of
days he died on the instant. Seeing this the Tailor cried aloud, "There
is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah! Alas, that this poor
wretch should have died in so foolish fashion at our hands!" and the
woman rejoined, "Why this idle talk? Hast thou not heard his saying who
said?—
Why then waste I my time in grief, until ✿ I find no friend to bear my
weight of woe?
How sleep upon a fire that flames unquenched? ✿ Upon the flames to rest
were hard enow!"
Asked her husband, "And what shall I do with him?"; and she answered,
"Rise and take him in thine arms and spread a silken kerchief over him;
then I will fare forth, with thee following me, this very night and if
thou meet any one say:—This is my son, and his mother and I are
carrying him to the doctor that he may look at him." So he rose and
taking the Hunchback in his arms bore him along the streets, preceded
by his wife who kept crying, "O my son, Allah keep thee! what part
paineth thee and where hath this small-pox[497] attacked thee?" So all
who saw them said "'Tis a child sick of small-pox."[498] They went
along asking for the physician's house till folk directed them to that
of a leach which was a Jew. They knocked at the door, and there came
down to them a black slave-girl who opened and, seeing a man bearing a
babe, and a woman with him, said to them, "What is the matter?" "We
have a little one with us," answered the Tailor's wife "and we wish to
show him to the physician: so take this quarter dinar and give it to
thy master and let him come down and see my son who is sore sick." The
girl went up to tell her master, whereupon the Tailor's wife walked
into the vestibule and said to her husband, "Leave the Hunchback here
and let us fly for our lives." So the Tailor carried the dead man to
the top of the stairs and propped him upright against the wall and ran
away, he and his wife. Meanwhile the girl went in to the Jew and said
to him, "At the door are a man and a woman with a sick child and they
have given me a quarter-dinar for thee, that thou mayest go down and
look at the little one and prescribe for it." As soon as the Jew saw
the quarter-dinar he rejoiced and rose quickly in his greed of gain and
went forth hurriedly in the dark; but hardly had he made a step when he
stumbled on the corpse and threw it over, when it rolled to the bottom
of the staircase. So he cried out to the girl to hurry up with the
light, and she brought it, whereupon he went down and examining the
Hunchback found that he was stone dead. So he cried out, "O for
Esdras![499] O for Moses! O for Aaron! O for Joshua, son of Nun! O the
Ten Commandments! I have stumbled against the sick one and he hath
fallen downstairs and he is dead! How shall I get this man I have
killed out of my house? O by the hoofs of the ass of Esdras!" Then he
took up the body and, carrying it into the house, told his wife what
had happened and she said to him, "Why dost thou sit still? If thou
keep him here till day-break we shall both lose our lives. Let us two
carry him to the terrace-roof and throw him over into the house of our
neighbour, the Moslem, for if he abide there a night the dogs will come
down on him from the adjoining terraces and eat him up." Now his
neighbour was a Reeve, the controller of the Sultan's kitchen, and was
wont to bring back great store of oil and fat and broken meats; but the
cats and rats used to eat it, or, if the dogs scented a fat sheep's
tail they would come down from the nearest roofs and tear at it; and on
this wise the beasts had already damaged much of what he brought home.
So the Jew and his wife carried the Hunchback up to the roof; and,
letting him down by his hands and feet through the wind-shaft[500] into
the Reeve's house, propped him up against the wall and went their ways.
Hardly had they done this when the Reeve, who had been passing an
evening with his friends hearing a recitation of the Koran, came home
and opened the door and, going up with a lighted candle, found a son of
Adam standing in the corner under the ventilator. When he saw this, he
said, "Wah! by Allah, very good forsooth! He who robbeth my stuff is
none other than a man." Then he turned to the Hunchback and said, "So
'tis thou that stealest the meat and the fat! I thought it was the cats
and dogs, and I kill the dogs and cats of the quarter and sin against
them by killing them. And all the while 'tis thou comest down from the
house terrace through the wind-shaft. But I will avenge myself upon
thee with my own hand!" So he snatched up a heavy hammer and set upon
him and smote him full on the breast and he fell down. Then he examined
him and, finding that he was dead, cried out in horror, thinking that
he had killed him, and said, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might
save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!" And he feared for his life,
and added, "Allah curse the oil and the meat and the grease and the
sheep's tails to boot! How hath fate given this man his quietus at my
hand!" Then he looked at the body and seeing it was that of a Gobbo,
said, "Was it not enough for thee to be a hunchback,[501] but thou must
likewise be a thief and prig flesh and fat! O thou Veiler,[502] deign
to veil me with Thy curtain of concealment!" So he took him up on his
shoulders and, going forth with him from his house about the latter end
of the night, carried him to the nearest end of the bazar, where he set
him up on his feet against the wall of a shop at the head of a dark
lane, and left him and went away. After a while up came a
Nazarene,[503] the Sultan's broker who, much bemused with liquor, was
purposing for the Hammam-bath as his drunkenness whispered in his ear,
"Verily the call to matins[504] is nigh." He came plodding along and
staggering about till he drew near the Hunchback and squatted down to
make water[505] over against him; when he happened to glance around and
saw a man standing against the wall. Now some person had snatched off
the Christian's turband[506] in the first of the night; so when he saw
the Hunchback hard by he fancied that he also meant to steal his
head-dress. Thereupon he clenched his fist and struck him on the neck,
felling him to the ground, and called aloud to the watchman of the
bazar, and came down on the body in his drunken fury and kept on
belabouring and throttling the corpse. Presently the Charley came up
and, finding a Nazarene kneeling on a Moslem and frapping him, asked,
"What harm hath this one done?"; and the Broker answered, "The fellow
meant to snatch off my turband." "Get up from him," quoth the watchman.
So he arose and the Charley went up to the Hunchback and finding him
dead, exclaimed, "By Allah, good indeed! A Christian killing a
Mahometan!" Then he seized the Broker and, tying his hands behind his
back, carried him to the Governor's house,[507] and all the while the
Nazarene kept saying to himself, "O Messiah! O Virgin! how came I to
kill this fellow? And in what a hurry he must have been to depart this
life when he died of a single blow!" Presently, as his drunkenness
fled, came dolour in its stead. So the broker and the body were kept in
the Governor's place till morning morrowed, when the Wali came out and
gave order to hang the supposed murderer and commanded the
executioner[508] make proclamation of the sentence. Forthwith they set
up a gallows under which they made the Nazarene stand and the
torch-bearer, who was hangman, threw the rope round his neck and passed
one end through the pulley, and was about to hoist him up[509] when lo!
the Reeve, who was passing by, saw the Broker about to be hanged; and,
making his way through the people, cried out to the executioner, "Hold!
Hold! I am he who killed the Hunchback!" Asked the Governor, "What made
thee kill him?"; and he answered, "I went home last night and there
found this man who had come down the ventilator to steal my property;
so I smote him with a hammer on the breast and he died forthright. Then
I took him up and carried him to the bazar and set him up against the
wall in such a place near such a lane;" adding, "Is it not enough for
me to have killed a Moslem without also killing a Christian? So hang
none other but me." When the Governor heard these words he released the
Broker and said to the torch-bearer, "Hang up this man on his own
confession." So he loosed the cord from the Nazarene's neck and threw
it round that of the Reeve and, making him stand under the
gallows-tree, was about to string him up when behold, the Jewish
physician pushed through the people and shouted to the executioner,
"Hold! Hold! It was I and none else killed the Hunchback! Last night I
was sitting at home when a man and a woman knocked at the door carrying
this Gobbo who was sick, and gave my handmaid a quarter-dinar, bidding
her hand me the fee and tell me to come down and see him. Whilst she
was gone the man and the woman brought him into the house and, setting
him on the stairs, went away; and presently I came down and not seeing
him, for I was in the dark, stumbled over him and he fell to the foot
of the staircase and died on the moment. Then we took him up, I and my
wife, and carried him on to the top terrace; and, the house of this
Reeve being next door to mine, we let the body down through the
ventilator. When he came home and found the Hunchback in his house, he
fancied he was a thief and struck him with a hammer, so that he fell to
the ground, and our neighbour made certain that he had slain him. Now
is it not enough for me to have killed one Moslem unwittingly, without
burdening myself with taking the life of another Moslem wittingly?"
When the Governor heard this he said to the hangman, "Set free the
Reeve, and hang the Jew."
Thereupon the torch-bearer took him and slung the cord round his neck
when behold, the Tailor pushed through the people, and shouted to the
executioner, "Hold! Hold! It was I and none else killed the Hunchback;
and this was the fashion thereof. I had been out a-pleasuring yesterday
and, coming back to supper, fell in with this Gobbo, who was drunk and
drumming away and singing lustily to his tambourine. So I accosted him
and carried him to my house and bought a fish, and we sat down to eat.
Presently my wife took a fid of fish and, making a gobbet of it,[510]
crammed it into his mouth; but some of it went down the wrong way or
stuck in his gullet and he died on the instant. So we lifted him up, I
and my wife, and carried him to the Jew's house where the slave-girl
came down and opened the door to us and I said to her:—Tell thy master
that there are a man and a woman and a sick person for thee to see! I
gave her a quarter-dinar and she went up to tell her master; and,
whilst she was gone, I carried the Hunchback to the head of the
staircase and propped him up against the wall, and went off with my
wife. When the Jew came down he stumbled over him and thought that he
had killed him." Then he asked the Jew, "Is this the truth?"; and the
Jew answered, "Yes." Thereupon the Tailor turned to the Governor, and
said, "Leave go the Jew and hang me." When the Governor heard the
Tailor's tale he marvelled at the matter of this Hunchback and
exclaimed, "Verily this is an adventure which should be recorded in
books!" Then he said to the hangman, "Let the Jew go and hang the
Tailor on his own confession." The executioner took the Tailor and put
the rope around his neck and said, "I am tired of such slow work: we
bring out this one and change him for that other, and no one is hanged
after all!" Now the Hunchback in question was, they relate, jester to
the Sultan of China who could not bear him out of his sight; so when
the fellow got drunk and did not make his appearance that night or the
next day till noon, the Sultan asked some of his courtiers about him
and they answered, "O our lord, the Governor hath come upon him dead
and hath ordered his murderer to be hanged; but, as the hangman was
about to hoist him up there came a second and a third and a fourth and
each one said:—It is I, and none else killed the Hunchback!; and each
gave a full and circumstantial account of the manner of the jester
being killed." When the King heard this he cried aloud to the
Chamberlain-in-waiting, "Go down to the Governor and bring me all four
of them." So the Chamberlain went down at once to the place of
execution, where he found the torch-bearer on the point of hanging the
Tailor and shouted to him, "Hold! Hold!" Then he gave the King's
command to the Governor who took the Tailor, the Jew, the Nazarene and
the Reeve (the Hunchback's body being borne on men's shoulders) and
went up with one and all of them to the King. When he came into the
presence, he kissed the ground and acquainted the ruler with the whole
story which it is needless to relate for, as they say:—There is no
avail in a thrice-told tale. The Sultan hearing it marvelled and was
moved to mirth and commanded the story to be written in letters of
liquid gold, saying to those present, "Did ye ever hear a more wondrous
tale than that of my Hunchback?" Thereupon the Nazarene broker came
forward and said, "O King of the age, with thy leave I will tell thee a
thing which happened to myself and which is still more wondrous and
marvellous and pleasurable and delectable than the tale of the
Hunchback." Quoth the King, "Tell us what thou hast to say!" So he
began in these words
_THE NAZARENE BROKER'S STORY._