of the hearers “disapproved” of the murders which saved the speaker’s
life.
Footnote 52:
This tale is evidently taken from the escape of Aristomenes the
Messenian from the pit into which he had been thrown, a fox being his
guide. The Arabs in an early day were eager students of Greek
literature. Hole (p. 140) noted the coincidence.
Footnote 53:
Bresl. Edit. “Khwájah,” our “Howajee,” meaning a schoolmaster, a man
of letters, a gentleman.
Footnote 54:
And he does repeat at full length what the hearers must have known
right well. I abridge.
Footnote 55:
Island of the Bell (Arab. “Nákús” = a wooden gong used by Christians
but forbidden to Moslems). “Kala” is written “Kela,” “Kullah” and a
variety of ways. Baron Walckenaer places it at Keydah in the Malay
peninsula opposite Sumatra. Renaudot identifies it with Calabar,
“somewhere about the point of Malabar.”
Footnote 56:
Islands, because Arab cosmographers love to place their _speciosa
miracula_ in such places.
Footnote 57:
Like the companions of Ulysses who ate the sacred oxen (Od. xii.).
Footnote 58:
So the enormous kingfisher of Lucian’s True History (lib. ii.).
Footnote 59:
This tale is borrowed from Ibn Al-Wardi, who adds that the greybeards
awoke in the morning after eating the young Rukh with black hair which
never turned white. The same legend is recounted by Al-Dimiri (ob.
A.H. 808 = 1405–6) who was translated into Latin by Bochart
(Hierozoicon ii. p. 854) and quoted by Hole and Lane (iii. 103). An
excellent study of Marco Polo’s Rukh was made by my learned friend the
late Prof. G. G. Bianconi of Bologna, “Dell’Uccello Ruc,” Bologna,
Gamberini, 1868. Prof. Bianconi predicted that other giant birds would
be found in Madagascar on the East African Coast opposite; but he died
before hearing of Hildebrand’s discovery.
Footnote 60:
Arab. “Izár,” the earliest garb of Eastern man; and, as such preserved
in the Meccan pilgrimage. The “waist-cloth” is either tucked in or
kept in place by a girdle.
Footnote 61:
Arab. “Líf,” a succedaneum for the unclean sponge, not unknown in the
“Turkish Baths” of London.
Footnote 62:
The Persians have a Plinian monster called “Tasmeh-pá” = Strap-legs
without bones. The “Old Man” is not an ourang-outang nor an Ifrít as
in Sayf al-Mulúk, Night dcclxxi., but a jocose exaggeration of a
custom prevailing in parts of Asia and especially in the African
interior where the Tsetse-fly prevents the breeding of burden-beasts.
Ibn Batútah tells us that in Malabar everything was borne upon men’s
backs. In Central Africa the kinglet rides a slave, and on ceremonious
occasions mounts his Prime Minister. I have often been reduced to this
style of conveyance and found man the worst imaginable riding: there
is no hold and the sharpness of the shoulder-ridge soon makes the legs
ache intolerably. The classicists of course find the Shaykh of the Sea
in the Tritons and Nereus, and Bochart (Hiero. ii. 858, 880) notices
the homo aquaticus, Senex Judæus and Senex Marinus. Hole (p. 151)
suggests the inevitable ourang-outang (man o’ wood), one of “our
humiliating copyists,” and quotes “Destiny” in Scarron’s comical
romance (Part ii. chapt. 1) and “Jealousy” enfolding Rinaldo (O.F.
lib. 42).
Footnote 63:
More literally “The Chief of the Sea (-Coast),” Shaykh being here a
chief rather than an elder (eoldermann, alderman). So the “Old Man of
the Mountain,” famous in crusading days, was the Chief who lived on
the Nusayriyah or Ansári range, a northern prolongation of the
Libanus. Our “old man” of the text may have been suggested by the
Koranic commentators on chapt. vi. When an Infidel rises from the
grave, a hideous figure meets him and says, Why wonderest thou at my
loathsomeness? I am thine Evil Deeds: thou didst ride upon me in the
world and now I will ride upon thee (suiting the action to the words).
Footnote 64:
In parts of West Africa and especially in Gorilla-land there are many
stories of women and children being carried off by apes, and all
believe that the former bear issue to them. It is certain that the
anthropoid ape is lustfully excited by the presence of women and I
have related how at Cairo (1856) a huge cynocephalus would have raped
a girl had it not been bayonetted. Young ladies who visited the
Demidoff Gardens and menagerie at Florence were often scandalised by
the vicious exposure of the baboons’ parti-coloured persons. The
female monkey equally solicits the attentions of man and I heard in
India from my late friend, Mirza Ali Akbar of Bombay, that to his
knowledge connection had taken place. Whether there would be issue and
whether such issue would be viable are still disputed points: the
produce would add another difficulty to the pseudo-science called
psychology, as such mule would have only half a soul and issue by a
congener would have a quarter-soul. A traveller well known to me once
proposed to breed pithecoid men who might be useful as hewers of wood
and drawers of water: his idea was to put the highest races of apes to
the lowest of humanity. I never heard what became of his “breeding
stables.”
Footnote 65:
Arab. “Jauz al-Hindi”: our word cocoa is from the Port. “Coco,”
meaning a “bug” (bugbear) in allusion to its caricature of the human
face, hair, eyes and mouth. I may here note that a cocoa-tree is
easily climbed with a bit of rope or a handkerchief.
Footnote 66:
Tomb-pictures in Egypt show tame monkeys gathering fruits and Grossier
(Description of China, quoted by Hole and Lane) mentions a similar
mode of harvesting tea by irritating the monkeys of the Middle
Kingdom.
Footnote 67:
Bresl. Edit. Cloves and cinnamon in those days grew in widely distant
places.
Footnote 68:
In pepper-plantations it is usual to set bananas (_Musa Paradisiaca_)
for shading the young shrubs which bear bunches like ivy-fruit, not
pods.
Footnote 69:
The Bresl. Edit. has “Al-Ma’arat.” Langlès calls it the Island of
Al-Kamárí. See Lane, iii. 86.
Footnote 70:
Insula, pro peninsula. “Comorin” is a corrupt. of “Kanyá” (= Virgo,
the goddess Durgá) and “Kumári” (a maid, a princess); from a temple of
Shiva’s wife: hence Ptolemy’s Κῶρυ ἄκρον and near it to the N. East
Κομαρία ἄκρον καὶ πολις, “Promontorium Cori quod Comorini caput insulæ
vocant,” says Maffæus (Hist. Indic. i. p. 16). In the text “Al’úd”
refers to the eagle-wood (Aloekylon Agallochum) so called because
spotted like the bird’s plume. That of Champa (Cochin-China, mentioned
by Camoens, The Lus. x. 129) is still famous.
Footnote 71:
Arab. “Birkat” = tank, pool, reach, bight. Hence Birkat Far’aun in the
Suez Gulf (Pilgrimage i. 297).
Footnote 72:
Probably Cape Comorin, to judge from the river, but the text names
Sarandib (Ceylon Island) famous for gems. This was noticed by Marco
Polo, iii. cap. 19; and ancient authors relate the same of
“Taprobane.”
Footnote 73:
I need hardly trouble the reader with a note on pearl-fisheries: the
descriptions of travellers are continuous from the days of Pliny (ix.
35), Solinus (cap. 56) and Marco Polo (iii. 23). Maximilian of
Transylvania, in his narrative of Magellan’s voyage (Novus Orbis, p.
532) says that the Celebes produce pearls big as turtle-doves’ eggs;
and the King of Porne (Borneo) had two unions as great as goose’s
eggs. Pigafetta (in Purchas) reduces this to hen’s eggs and Sir Thomas
Herbert to dove’s eggs.
Footnote 74:
Arab. “Anbar” pronounced “Ambar;” wherein I would derive “Ambrosia.”
Ambergris was long supposed to be a fossil, a vegetable which grew
upon the sea-bottom or rose in springs; or a “substance produced in
the water like naphtha or bitumen”(!): now it is known to be the
egesta of a whale. It is found in lumps weighing several pounds upon
the Zanzibar Coast and is sold at a high price, being held a potent
aphrodisiac. A small hollow is drilled in the bottom of the cup and
the coffee is poured upon the bit of ambergris it contains; when the
oleaginous matter shows in dots amidst the “Kaymagh” (coffee-cream),
the bubbly froth which floats upon the surface and which an expert
“coffee servant” distributes equally among the guests. Argensola
mentions in Ceylon, “springs of liquid bitumen thicker than our oil
and some of pure balsam.”
Footnote 75:
The tale-teller forgets that Sindbad and his companions have just
ascended it; but this _inconséquence_ is a characteristic of the
Eastern Saga. I may note that the description of ambergris in the text
tells us admirably well what it is not.
Footnote 76:
This custom is alluded to by Lane (Mod. Egypt, ch. xv.): it is the
rule of pilgrims to Meccah when too ill to walk or ride (Pilgrimage i.
180). Hence all men carry their shrouds: mine, after being dipped in
the Holy Water of Zemzem, was stolen from me by the rascally Somal of
Berberah.
Footnote 77:
Arab. “Fulk;” some Edits. read “Kalak” and “Ramaz” (= a raft).
Footnote 78:
These lines occur in modified form in Night xi.
Footnote 79:
These underground rivers (which Dr. Livingstone derided) are familiar
to every geographer from Spenser’s “Mole” to the Poika of Adelberg and
the Timavo near Trieste. Hence “Peter Wilkins” borrowed his cavern
which led him to Grandevolet. I have some experience of Sindbad’s
sorrows, having once attempted to descend the Poika on foot. The
Classics had the Alpheus (Pliny v. 31; and Seneca, Nat. Quæ. vi.), and
the Tigris-Euphrates supposed to flow underground: and the Mediævals
knew the Abana of Damascus and the Zenderúd of Isfahan.
Footnote 80:
Abyssinians can hardly be called “blackamoors,” but the arrogance of
the white skin shows itself in Easterns (_e.g._ Turks and Brahmans) as
much as, if not more than, amongst Europeans. Southern India at the
time it was explored by Vasco da Gama was crowded with Abyssinian
slaves imported by the Arabs.
Footnote 81:
“Sarandib” and “Ceylon” (the Taprobane of Ptolemy and Diodorus
Siculus) derive from the Pali “Sihalam” (not the Sansk. “Sinhala”)
shortened to Silam and Ilam in old Tamul. Van der Tunk would find it
in the Malay “Pulo Selam” = Isle of Gems (the Ratna-dwípa or Jewel
Isle of the Hindus and the Jazirat al-Yakút or Ruby-Island of the
Arabs); and the learned Colonel Yule (Marco Polo ii. 296) remarks that
we have adopted many Malayan names, _e.g._ Pegu, China and Japan.
Sarandib is clearly “Selan-dwípa,” which Mandeville reduced to
“Silha.”
Footnote 82:
This is the well-known Adam’s Peak, the Jabal al-Ramun of the Arabs
where Adam fell when cast out of Eden in the lowest or lunar sphere.
Eve fell at Jeddah (a modern myth) and the unhappy pair met at Mount
Arafat (_i.e._ recognition) near Meccah. Thus their fall was a fall
indeed. (Pilgrimage iii. 259).
Footnote 83:
He is the Alcinous of our Arabian Odyssy.
Footnote 84:
This word is not in the dictionaries; Hole (p. 192) and Lane
understand it to mean the hog-deer; but why, one cannot imagine. The
animal is neither “beautiful” nor “uncommon” and most men of my day
have shot dozens in the Sind-Shikárgáhs.
Footnote 85:
M. Polo speaks of a ruby in Seilan (Ceylon) a palm long and three
fingers thick: William of Tyre mentions a ruby weighing twelve
Egyptian drams (Gibbon ii. 123), and Mandeville makes the King of
Mammera wear about his neck a “rubye orient” one foot long by five
fingers large.
Footnote 86:
The fable is from Al-Kazwini and Ibn Al-Wardi who place the serpent
(an animal sacred to Æsculapius, Pliny, xxix. 4) “in the sea of Zanj”
(_i.e._ Zanzibar). In the “garrow hills” of N. Eastern Bengal the skin
of the snake Burrawar(?) is held to cure pain (Asiat. Res. vol. iii.).
Footnote 87:
For “Emerald,” Hole (p. 177) would read emery or adamantine spar.
Footnote 88:
Evidently Maháráj = Great Rajah, Rajah in Chief, an Hindu title common
to the three potentates before alluded to, the Narsinga, Balhara or
Samiry.
Footnote 89:
This is probably classical. So the page said to Philip of Macedon
every morning, “Remember, Philip, thou art mortal”; also the slave in
the Roman Triumph,
Respice post te: hominem te esse memento!
And the dying Severus, “Urnlet, soon shalt thou enclose what hardly a
whole world could contain.” But the custom may also have been Indian:
the contrast of external pomp with the real vanity of human life
suggests itself to all.
Footnote 90:
Arab. “Hút”; a term applied to Jonah’s whale and to monsters of the
deep, “Samak” being the common fishes.
Footnote 91:
Usually a two-bow prayer.
Footnote 92:
This is the recognised formula of Moslem sales.
Footnote 93:
Arab. “Walímah”; like our wedding-breakfast but a much more
ceremonious and important affair.
Footnote 94:
_i.e._ his wife (euphemistically). I remember an Italian lady being
much hurt when a Maltese said to her “Mia moglie—con rispetto
parlando” (my wife, saving your presence.) “What,” she cried, “he
speaks of his wife as if he would of the sweepings!”
Footnote 95:
The serpent in Arabic is mostly feminine.
Footnote 96:
_i.e._ in envying his wealth, with the risk of the evil eye.
Footnote 97:
I subjoin a translation of the Seventh Voyage from the Calc. Edit. of
the two hundred Nights which differs in essential points from the
above. All respecting Sindbad the Seaman has an especial interest. In
one point this world-famous tale is badly ordered. The most exciting
adventures are the earliest and the falling off of the interest has a
somewhat depressing effect. The Rukh, the Ogre and the Old Man o’ the
Sea should come last.
Footnote 98:
Arab. Al-Suways: this successor of ancient Arsinoë was, according to
local tradition, founded by a Santon from Al-Sús in Marocco who called
it after his name “Little Sús” (the wormlet).
Footnote 99:
Arab. “Mann,” a weight varying from two to six pounds: even this
common term is not found in the tables of Lane’s Mod. Egyptians,
Appendix B. The “Maund” is a well-known Anglo-Indian weight.
Footnote 100:
This article is not mentioned elsewhere in The Nights.
Footnote 101:
Apparently a fancy title.
Footnote 102:
The island is evidently Ceylon long famed for elephants and the tree
is the well known “Banyan” (Ficus Indica). According to Linschoten and
Wolf, the elephants of all lands do reverence and honour to those of
Ceylon.
Footnote 103:
“Tusks” not “teeth” which are not valued. As Hole remarks, the
elephants of Pliny and Sindbad are equally conscious of the value of
ivory. Pliny (viii. 3) quotes Herodotus about the buying of ivories
and relates how elephants, when hunted, break their “cornua” (as Juba
called them) against a tree trunk by way of ransom. Ælian, Plutarch,
and Philostratus speak of the linguistic intelligence and religious
worship of the “half-reason with the hand,” which the Hindus term
“Háthí” = unimanus. Finally, Topsell’s Gesner (p. 152) makes elephants
bury their tusks, “which commonly drop out every tenth year.” In
Arabian literature the elephant is always connected with India.
THE CITY OF BRASS.[104]
It is related that there was, in tide of yore and in times and years
long gone before, at Damascus of Syria, a Caliph known as Abd al-Malik
bin Marwan, the fifth of the Ommiade house. As this Commander of the
Faithful was seated one day in his palace, conversing with his Sultans
and Kings and the Grandees of his empire, the talk turned upon the
legends of past peoples and the traditions of our Lord Solomon, David’s
son (on the twain be peace!), and on that which Allah Almighty had
bestowed on him of lordship and dominion over men and Jinn and birds and
beasts and reptiles and the wind and other created things; and quoth the
Caliph, “Of a truth we hear from those who forewent us that the Lord
(extolled and exalted be He!) vouchsafed unto none the like of that
which He vouchsafed unto our lord Solomon and that he attained unto that
whereto never attained other than he, in that he was wont to imprison
Jinns and Marids and Satans in cucurbites of copper and to stop them
with lead and seal[105] them with his ring.”——And Shahrazad perceived
the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Five Hundred and Sixty-seventh Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Caliph
Abd al-Malik bin Marwan sat conversing with his Grandees concerning our
lord Solomon, and these noted what Allah had bestowed upon him of
lordship and dominion, quoth the Commander of the Faithful, “Indeed he
attained unto that whereto never attained other than he, in that he was
wont to imprison Jinns and Marids and Satans in cucurbites of copper and
stop them with lead and seal them with his ring.” Then said Tálib bin
Sahl (who was a seeker after treasures and had books that discovered to
him hoards and wealth hidden under the earth), “O Commander of the
Faithful,—Allah make thy dominion to endure and exalt thy dignity here
and hereafter!—my father told me of my grandfather, that he once took
ship with a company, intending for the island of Sikiliyah or Sicily,
and sailed until there arose against them a contrary wind, which drove
them from their course and brought them, after a month, to a great
mountain in one of the lands of Allah the Most High, but where that land
was they wot not.” Quoth my grandfather:—This was in the darkness of the
night and as soon as it was day, there came forth to us, from the caves
of the mountain, folk black of colour and naked of body, as they were
wild beasts, understanding not one word of what was addressed to them;
nor was there any of them who knew Arabic, save their King who was of
their own kind. When he saw the ship, he came down to it with a company
of his followers and saluting us, bade us welcome and questioned us of
our case and our faith. We told him all concerning ourselves and he
said, Be of good cheer for no harm shall befal you. And when we, in
turn, asked them of their faith, we found that each was of one of the
many creeds prevailing before the preaching of Al-Islam and the mission
of Mohammed, whom may Allah bless and keep! So my shipmates remarked, We
wot not what thou sayest. Then quoth the King, No Adam-son hath ever
come to our land before you: but fear not, and rejoice in the assurance
of safety and of return to your own country. Then he entertained us
three days, feeding us on the flesh of birds and wild beasts and fishes,
than which they had no other meat; and, on the fourth day, he carried us
down to the beach, that we might divert ourselves by looking upon the
fisher-folk. There we saw a man casting his net to catch fish, and
presently he pulled them up and behold, in them was a cucurbite of
copper, stopped with lead and sealed with the signet of Solomon, son of
David, on whom be peace! He brought the vessel to land and broke it
open, when there came forth a smoke, which rose a-twisting blue to the
zenith, and we heard a horrible voice, saying, I repent! I repent!
Pardon, O Prophet of Allah! I will never return to that which I did
aforetime. Then the smoke became a terrible Giant frightful of form,
whose head was level with the mountain-tops, and he vanished from our
sight, whilst our hearts were well-nigh torn out for terror; but the
blacks thought nothing of it. Then we returned to the King and
questioned him of the matter; whereupon quoth he, Know that this was one
of the Jinns whom Solomon, son of David, being wroth with them, shut up
in these vessels and cast into the sea, after stopping the mouths with
melted lead. Our fishermen ofttimes, in casting their nets, bring up
such bottles, which being broken open, there come forth of them Jinnis
who, deeming that Solomon is still alive and can pardon them, make their
submission to him and say, “I repent, O Prophet of Allah!” The Caliph
marvelled at Talib’s story and said, “Glory be to God! Verily, to
Solomon was given a mighty dominion.” Now Al-Nábighah al-Zubyání[106]
was present, and he said, “Talib hath spoken soothly as is proven by the
saying of the All-wise, the Primæval One:—
And Solomon, when Allah to him said, ✿ ‘Rise, be thou Caliph, rule with
righteous sway:
Honour obedience for obeying thee; ✿ And who rebels imprison him for
aye.’
Wherefore he used to put them in copper-bottles and cast them into the
sea.” The poet’s words seemed good to the Caliph, and he said, “By
Allah, I long to look upon some of these Solomonic vessels, which must
be a warning to whoso will be warned.” “O Commander of the Faithful,”
replied Talib, “it is in thy power to do so, without stirring abroad.
Send to thy brother Abd al-Azíz bin Marwán, so he may write to Músá bin
Nusayr,[107] governor of the Maghrib or Morocco, bidding him take horse
thence to the mountains whereof I spoke and fetch thee therefrom as many
of such cucurbites as thou hast a mind to; for those mountains adjoin
the frontiers of his province.” The Caliph approved his counsel and said
“Thou hast spoken sooth, O Talib, and I desire that, touching this
matter, thou be my messenger to Musa bin Nusayr; wherefore thou shalt
have the White Flag[108] and all thou hast a mind to of monies and
honour and so forth; and I will care for thy family during thine
absence.” “With love and gladness, O Commander of the Faithful!”
answered Talib. “Go, with the blessing of Allah and His aid,” quoth the
Caliph, and bade write a letter to his brother, Abd al-Aziz, his viceroy
in Egypt, and another to Musa bin Nusayr, his viceroy in North-Western
Africa, bidding him go himself in quest of the Solomonic bottles,
leaving his son to govern in his stead. Moreover, he charged him to
engage guides and to spare neither men nor money, nor to be remiss in
the matter as he would take no excuse. Then he sealed the two letters
and committed them to Talib bin Sahl, bidding him advance the royal
ensigns before him and make his utmost speed, and he gave him treasure
and horsemen and footmen, to further him on his way, and made provision
for the wants of his household during his absence. So Talib set out and
arrived in due course at Cairo.[109]——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn
of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Five Hundred and Sixty-eighth Night,