Good is good and he’s best whoso worketh it first; ✿ And ill is for me
of provisions the worst.
The provision is = viaticum, provaunt for the way.
[The MS. has “akram” and “azlam” = “the more generous,” “the more
iniquitous,” meaning that while good should be requited by good, and
evil provokes further evil in retaliation, the beginner in either case
deserves the greater praise or blame.—ST.]
Footnote 365:
I have noted (vols. iii. 75, and viii. 266) that there are two
“Soudans” as we write the word, one Eastern upon the Upper Nile Valley
and the other Western and drained by the Niger water-shed. The former
is here meant. It is or should be a word of shame to English ears
after the ungodly murder and massacre of the gallant “Soudanese”
negroids who had ever been most friendly to us and whom with scant
reason to boast we attacked and destroyed because they aspired to
become free from Turkish task-masters and Egyptian tax-gatherers. That
such horrors were perpetrated by order of one of the most humane
amongst our statesmen proves and decidedly proves one thing, an
intense ignorance of geography and ethnology.
Footnote 366:
[In the MS. “lawá ’a-hu” for which Sir Richard conjectures the reading
“lawwaha-hu” taking the pronoun to refer to the sword. I believe,
however, the word to be a clerical error for our old acquaintance
“láwa’a-hu” (see supra p. 266) and, referring the pronoun in the three
verbs to the Lion, would translate: “and he worried him,” etc.—ST.]
Footnote 367:
Arab. “Al-bashárah,” see vol. i. 30: Scott has (vi. 204) “Good tidings
to our sovereign.”
Footnote 368:
[The MS. is here rather indistinct; still, as far as I can make out,
it runs: “wa Hakki man aulàní házá ’l-Mulk” = and by the right of
(_i.e._ my duty towards) Him who made me ruler over this kingdom.—ST.]
Footnote 369:
[The word in the MS. is difficult to decipher. In a later passage we
find corresponding with it the expression “yumázasa-hu fí ’l-Kalám,”
which is evidently a clerical error for “yumárasa-hu” = he tested or
tried him in his speech. Accordingly I would read here: “yakhburu
ma’ahu fí ’l-Kalám,” lit. = he experimented with him, _i.e._ put him
to his test. The idea seems to be, that he first cross-examined him
and then tried to intimidate him. With this explanation “yusáhí-hu”
and later on “yulhí-hu” would tally, which both have about the same
meaning: to divert the attention, to make forget one thing over
another, hence to confuse and lead one to contradict himself.—ST.]
Footnote 370:
Here we find the old superstitious idea that no census or “numbering
of the people” should take place save by direct command of the
Creator. Compare the pestilence which arose in the latter days of
David when Joab by command of the King undertook the work (2 Sam.
xxiv. 1–9, etc.)
Footnote 371:
The text has “Salásín” = thirty, evidently a clerical error.
Footnote 372:
[In Ar. “yanjaaru,” vii. form of “jaara” (med. Hamzah), in which the
idea of “raising,” “lifting up,” seems to prevail, for it is used for
raising the voice in prayer to God, and for the growing high of
plants.—ST.]
Footnote 373:
The text, which is wholly unedited, reads “He found the beasts and
their loads (? the camels) and the learned men,” &c. A new form of
“bos atque sacerdos” and of _place pour les ânes et les savans_, as
the French soldiers cried in Egypt when the scientists were admitted
into the squares of infantry formed against the doughty Mameluke
Cavalry.
Footnote 374:
[In the MS. “wáraytaní ilà l-turáb” = thou hast given me over to the
ground for concealment, iii. form of “warà,” which takes the meaning
of “hiding,” “keeping secret.”—ST.]
Footnote 375:
[The MS. has “wa dazz-há,” which is an evident corruption. The
translator, placing the diacritical point over the first radical
instead of the second, reads “wa zarr-há,” and renders accordingly.
But if in the MS. the dot is misplaced, the Tashdíd over it would
probably also belong to the Dál, resp. Zal, and as it is very feasible
that a careless writer should have dropped one Wáw before another, I
am inclined to read “wa wazzar-há” = “and he left her,” “let her go,”
“set her free.” In classical Arabic only the imperative “Zar,” and the
aorist “yazaru” of the verb “wazara” occur in this sense, while the
preterite is replaced by “taraka,” or some other synonym. But the
language of the common people would not hesitate to use a form scorned
by the grammarians, and even to improve upon it by deriving from it
one of their favourite intensives.—ST.]
Footnote 376:
Both are civil forms of refusal: for the first see vols. i. 32; vi.
216; and for the second ix. 309.
Footnote 377:
Everything being fair in love and war and dealing with a “Káfir,”
_i.e._ a non-Moslem.
Footnote 378:
In text “Labbayka” = here am I: see vol. i. 226.
Footnote 379:
In text “’Úd Khayzarán” = wood of the rattan, which is orig. “Rota,”
from the Malay “Rotan.” Vol. ii. 66, &c.
Footnote 380:
[In the MS. “al-Zamán.” The translation here adopted is plausible
enough. Still I think it probable that the careless scribe has omitted
the words “yá al-Malik” before it, and meant to write “O king of the
age!” as in so many preceding places.—ST.]
Footnote 381:
Arab. “Al-Kuhná,” plur. of “Káhin’t” = diviner, priest
(non-Levitical): see “Cohen,” ii. 221. [The form is rather curious.
The Dictionaries quote “Kuhná” as a Syriac singular, but here it seems
to be taken as a plural of the measure “fu’alá” (Kuhaná), like Umará
of Amír or Shu’ará of Shá’ir. The usual plurals of Káhin are Kahanah
and Kuhhán.—ST.]
Footnote 382:
This is the celebrated incident in “Alaeddin,” “New lamps for old:”
See Suppl., vol. iii. 160.
Footnote 383:
In text “Jazdán” = a pencase (Pers.) more pop. called “Kalamdán” =
reed-box vol. iv. 167: Scott (p. 212) has a “writing-stand.” It
appears a queer place wherein to keep a ring, but Easterns often store
in these highly ornamented boxes signets and other small matters.
Footnote 384:
Arab. “Bahr al-Muhít” = Circumambient Ocean; see vol. i. 133.
Footnote 385:
Arab. “Fár” (plur. “Fírán”) = mouse rather than rat.
Footnote 386:
Sleep at this time is considered very unwholesome by Easterns. See
under “Kaylúlah” = siesta, vols. i. 51, ii. 178, and viii. 191.
Footnote 387:
Modern science which, out of the depths of its self-consciousness, has
settled so many disputed questions, speaking by the organs of
Messieurs Woodman and Tidy (“Medical Jurisprudence”) has decided that
none of the lower animals can bear issue to man. But the voice of the
world is against them and as Voltaire says one cannot be cleverer than
everybody. To begin with there is the will: the she-quadruman shows a
distinct lust for man by fondling him and displaying her parts as if
to entice him. That carnal connexion has actually taken place cannot
be doubted: my late friend Mirza Ali Akbar, of Bombay, the famous
Munshi to Sir Charles Napier during the conquest of Sind, a man
perfectly veracious and trustworthy, assured me that in the Gujarát
province he had witnessed a case with his own eyes. He had gone out
“to the jungle,” as the phrase is, with another Moslem who, after
keeping him waiting for an unconscionable time, was found carnally
united to a she-monkey. My friend, indignant as a good Moslem should
be, reproved him for his bestiality and then asked him how it had come
to pass: the man answered that the she-monkey came regularly to look
at him on certain occasions, that he was in the habit of throwing her
something to eat and that her gratitude displayed such sexuality that
he was tempted and “fell.” That the male monkey shows an equal desire
for the woman is known to every frequenter of the “Zoo.” I once led a
party of English girls to see a collection of mandrils and other
anthropoid apes in the Ménagerie of a well-known Russian millionnaire
near Florence, when the Priapism displayed, was such that the girls
turned back and fled in fright. In the motherlands of these
anthropoids (the Gaboon, Malacca, etc.,) the belief is universal and
women have the liveliest fear of them. In 1853 when the Crimean war
was brewing a dog-faced baboon in Cairo broke away from his
“Kuraydati” (ape-leader), threw a girl in the street and was about to
ravish her when a sentinel drew his bayonet and killed the beast. The
event was looked upon as an evil omen by the older men, who shook
their heads and declared that these were bad times when apes attempted
to ravish the daughters of Moslems. But some will say that the grand
test, the existence of the mule between man and monkey, though
generally believed in, is characteristically absent, absent as the
“missing link” which goes so far as to invalidate Darwinism in one and
perhaps the most important part of its contention. Of course the
offspring of such union would be destroyed, yet the fact of our never
having found a trace of it except in legend and idle story seems to
militate against its existence. When, however, man shall become “Homo
Sapiens” he will cast off the prejudices of the cradle and the nursery
and will ascertain by actual experiment if human being and monkey can
breed together. The lowest order of bimana, and the highest order of
quadrumana may, under most favourable circumstances, bear issue and
the “Mule,” who would own half a soul, might prove most serviceable as
a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in fact as an agricultural
labourer. All we can say is that such “miscegenation” stands in the
category of things not proven and we must object to science declaring
them non-existing. A correspondent favours me with the following note
upon the subject:—Castanheda (Annals of Portugal), relates that a
woman was transported to an island inhabited by monkeys and took up
her abode in a cavern where she was visited by a huge baboon. He
brought her apples and fruit and at last had connection with her, the
result being two children in two to three years; but when she was
being carried off by a ship the parent monkey kissed his progeny. The
woman was taken to Lisbon and imprisoned for life by the King.
Langius, Virgilius Polydorus and others quote many instances of
monstruous births in Rome resulting from the connection of women with
dogs and bears, and cows with horses, &c. The following relative
conditions are deduced on the authority of MM. Jean Polfya and
Mauriceau:—1. If the sexual organism of man or woman be more powerful
than that of the monkey, dog, etc., the result will be a monster in
the semblance of man. 2. If _vice-versâ_ the appearance will be that
of a beast. 3. If both are equal the result will be a distinct
sub-species as of the horse with the ass.
Footnote 388:
Arab. “Tamím” (plur. of Tamímat) = spells, charms, amulets, as those
hung to a horse’s neck, the African Greegree and the Heb. Thummim. As
was the case with most of these earliest superstitions, the Serpent,
the Ark, the Cherubim, the Golden Calf (Apis) and the Levitical
Institution, the Children of Israel derived the now mysterious term
“Urím” (lights) and “Thummim” (amulets) from Egypt and the Semitic
word (Tamímah) still remains to explain the Hebrew. “Thummim,” I may
add, is by “general consensus” derived from “Tôm” = completeness and
is englished “Perfection,” but we can find a better origin near at
hand in spoken Arabic.
Footnote 389:
These verses have already occurred, see my vol. i. p. 275. I have
therefore quoted Payne, i. p. 246.
Footnote 390:
Arab. “Wakíl” who, in the case of a grown-up girl, declares her
consent to the marriage in the presence of two witnesses and after
part payment of the dowry.
Footnote 391:
Such is the meaning of the Arab. “Thayyib.”
Footnote 392:
This appears to be the popular belief in Egypt. See vol. iv. 297,
which assures us that “no thing poketh and stroketh more strenuously
than the Gird” (or hideous Abyssinian cynocephalus.) But it must be
based upon popular ignorance: the private parts of the monkey although
they erect stiffly, like the priapus of Osiris when swearing upon his
Phallus, are not of the girth sufficient to produce that friction
which is essential to a woman’s pleasure. I may here allude to the
general disappointment in England and America caused by the exhibition
of my friend Paul de Chaillu’s Gorillas: he had modestly removed penis
and testicles, the latter being somewhat like a bull’s, and his
squeamishness caused not a little grumbling and sense of
grievance—especially amongst the curious sex.
Footnote 393:
[In the MS. “fahakat,” _lit._ she flowed over like a brimful
vessel.—ST.]
Footnote 394:
In 1821, Scott (p. 214) following Gilchrist’s method of
transliterating eastern tongues wrote “Abou Neeut” and “Neeuteen” (the
latter a bad blunder making a masc. plural of a fem. dual). In 1822
Edouard Gauttier (vi. 320) gallicised the names to “Abou-Nyout” and
“Abou-Nyoutyn” with the same mistake and one superadded; there is no
such Arabic word as “Niyút.” Mr. Kirby in 1822, “The New Arabian
Nights” (p. 366) reduced the words to “Abu Neut” and “Abu Neuteen,”
which is still less intelligible than Scott’s; and, lastly, the
well-known Turkish scholar Dr. Redhouse converted the tortured names
to “Abú Niyyet” and “Abú Niyyeteyn,” thus rightly giving a “tashdíd”
(reduplication sign) to the Yá (see Appendix p. 646 to Suppl. v. No.
iii and Turk. Dict. sub voce “Niyyat”). The Arab. is “Niyyah” = will,
purpose, intent; “Abú Niyyah” (Grammat. “Abú Niyyatin”) Father of one
Intent = single-minded and “Abú Niyyatayn” = Father of two Intents or
double-minded; and Richardson is deficient when he writes only “Niyat”
for “Niyyat.” I had some hesitation about translating this tale which
begins with the “Envier and the Envied” (vol. i. 123) and ends with
the “Sisters who envied their Cadette” (Suppl. vol. iii. 492). But the
extant versions of it are so imperfect in English and French that I
made up my mind to include it in this collection.—[Richardson’s
“Niyat” is rather another, although rarer form of the same word.—ST.]
Footnote 395:
[I read: “wa tukarribu ’l-’abda ilayya,” referring the verb to
“al-Sadakah” (the alms) and translating: “and it bringeth the servant
near to me,” the speaker, in Coranic fashion supposed to be
Allah.—ST.]
Footnote 396:
The text prefers the Egyptian form “Sherífí” pl. “Sherífíyah,” which
was adopted by the Portuguese.
Footnote 397:
The grace after meat, “Bismillah” being that which precedes it. Abu
Niyyah was more grateful than a youth of my acquaintance who
absolutely declined asking the Lord to “make him truly thankful” after
a dinner of cold mutton.
Footnote 398:
[The root “Kart” is given in the dictionaries merely to introduce the
word “karít” = complete, speaking of a year, &c., and “Takrít,” the
name of a town in Mesopotamia, celebrated for its velvets and as the
birth-place of Saladin. According to the first mentioned word I would
take the signification of “Kart” to be “complement” which here may
fitly be rendered by “remainder,” for that which with regard to the
full contents of the dinner tray is their complement would of course
be their remainder with regard to the viands that have been
eaten.—ST.]
Footnote 399:
For the “Zakát” = legal alms, which must not be less than
two-and-a-half per cent., see vol. i. 339.
Footnote 400:
In text “Kazdír,” for which see vols. iv. 274 and vi. 39. Here it may
allude to the canisters which make great show in the general store of
a petty shopkeeper.
Footnote 401:
[The MS. reads “murafraf” (passive), from “Rafraf” = a shelf, arch,
anything overhanging something else, therefore here applying either to
the eye-brows as overhanging the eyes, or to the sockets, as forming a
vault or cave for them. Perhaps it should be “murafrif” (active part),
used of a bird, who spreads his wings and circles round his prey,
ready to pounce upon it; hence with prying, hungry, greedy eyes.—ST.]
Footnote 402:
Arab. “Niyyah” with the normal pun upon the name.
Footnote 403:
Arab. “’Ámil Rasad,” lit. acting as an observatory: but the style is
broken as usual, and to judge from the third line below the sentence
may signify “And I am acting as Talisman (to the Hoard).”
Footnote 404:
In the text “Ishári,” which may have many meanings: I take “a shot” at
the most likely. In “The Tale of the Envier and the Envied” the
counter-spell in a fumigation by means of some white hair plucked from
a white spot, the size of a dirham, at the tail-end of a black tom-cat
(vol. i. 124). According to the Welsh legend, “the Devil hates
cocks”—I suppose since that fowl warned Peter of his fall.
Footnote 405:
In text “Yaum al-Ahad,” which begins the Moslem week: see vols. iii.
249 and vi. 190.
Footnote 406:
[In Ar. “Harj wa Laght.” The former is generally joined with “Marj”
(Harj wa Marj) to express utter confusion, chaos, anarchy. “Laght”
(also pronounced Laghat and written with the palatal “t”) has been
mentioned supra p. 20 as a synonym of “Jalabah” = clamour, tumult,
etc.—ST.]
Footnote 407:
[In Ar. “yahjubu,” aor. of “hajaba” = he veiled, put out of sight,
excluded, warded off. Amongst other significations the word is
technically used of a nearer degree of relationship excluding entirely
or partially a more distant one from inheritance.—ST.]
Footnote 408:
Arab. “Yaum al-Jum’ah” = Assembly-day, Friday: see vol. vi. 120.
Footnote 409:
A regular Badawi remedy. This Artemisia (Arab. Shayh), which the
Dicts. translate “wormwood of Pontus,” is the sweetest herb of the
Desert, and much relished by the wild men: see my “Pilgrimage,” vol.
i. 228. The Finnish Arabist Wallin, who died Professor of Arabic at
Helsingfors, speaks of a “Faráshat al-Shayh” = a carpet of wormwood.
Footnote 410:
“Sáhibi-h,” the masculine; because, as the old grammar tells us, that
gender is more worthy than the feminine.
Footnote 411:
_i.e._ his strength was in the gold: see vol. i. 340.
Footnote 412:
Arab. “Haysumah” = smooth stones (water-rounded?).
Footnote 413:
For “his flesh was crushed upon his bones,” a fair specimen of Arab.
metonomy-cum-hyperbole. In the days when Mr. John Bull boasted of his
realism _versus_ Gallic idealism, he “got wet to the skin” when M.
Jean Crapaud was _mouillé jusqu’aux os_.
For the Angels supposed to haunt a pure and holy well, and the trick
played by Ibn Túmart, see Ibn Khaldun’s Hist. of the Berbers, vol. ii.
575.
Footnote 414:
Here begins the second tale which is a weak replica of Galland’s “Two
Sisters,” &c.
Footnote 415:
This is the usual term amongst savages and barbarians, and during that
period the father has no connection with the mother. Civilisation has
abolished this natural practice which is observed by all the lower
animals and has not improved human matters. For an excellent
dissertation on the subject see the letter on Polygamy by Mrs. Belinda
M. Pratt, in “The City of the Saints,” p. 525.
Footnote 416:
In text “Kuwayyis,” dim. of “Kayyis,” and much used in Egypt as an
adj. = “pretty,” “nice” and an adv. “well,” “nicely.” See s. v. Spitta
Bey’s Glossary to _Contes Arabes Modernes_. The word is familiar to
the travellers in the Nile-valley.
Footnote 417:
In Arab. a “Kanát;” see vol. iii. 141. The first occupation came from
nature; the second from seeing the work of the adopted father.
Footnote 418:
Abu Niyyah, like most house masters in the East, not to speak of
Kings, was the last to be told a truth familiar to everyone but
himself and his wife.
Footnote 419:
The MS. breaks off abruptly at this sentence and evidently lacks
finish. Scott (vi. 228) adds, “The young princes were acknowledged and
the good Abou Neeut had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up to
follow his example.”
In the MS. this tale is followed by a “Story of his own Adventures
related by a connection to an Emir of Egypt.” I have omitted it
because it is a somewhat fade replica of “The Lovers of the Banú
Ozrah” (vol. vii. 117; Lane iii. 247).
Footnote 420:
Mr. Chandler remarks, (p. 25, “On Lending Bodleian Books, &c.”):—“It
is said that the Curators can refuse any application if they choose;
of course they can, but as a matter of fact no application has ever
been refused, and every name added will make it more and more
difficult, more and more invidious to refuse anyone.” I have,
therefore, the singular honour of being the first chosen for
rejection.
Footnote 421:
Mr. Chandler’s motion (see p. 28, “Book-lending, &c.”) was defeated by
an amendment prepared by Professor Jowett and the former fought, with
mixed success, the report of the Committee of Loans; the document
being so hacked as to become useless, and, in this mangled condition,
it was referred back to the Committee with a recommendation to
consider the best way of carrying out the present statute. The manly
and straightforward course of at once proposing a new statute was not
adopted, nor was it even formally proposed. Lastly, the applications
for loans, which numbered sixteen, were submitted to the magnates and
were all refused! whilst the application of an Indian subject that
MSS. be sent to the India Office for his private use was at once
granted. In my case Professors B. Price and Max Müller, who had often
voted for loans, and were willing enough to lend anything to anybody,
declined to vote.
Footnote 422:
According to the statutes, “The Chancellor must be acquainted with the
Business (of altering laws concerning the Library), and he must
approve, and refer it to the Head of Houses, else no Dispensation can
be proposed.”
Footnote 423:
The following telegram from the Vienna correspondent of “The Times”
(November 16, 1886), is worth quotation:—
“The Committee of the Vienna Congress (of Orientalists) is now
preparing a memorial, which will be signed by Archduke Renier, and
will be forwarded in a few days to the trustees of the British Museum
and to the Secretary of State, praying that a Bill may be introduced
into Parliament empowering the British Museum to lend out its Oriental
MSS. to foreign savants under proper guarantees. A resolution pledging
the members of the Oriental Congress to this course was passed at the
Congress of Leyden, in 1883, on the motion of Professor D. H. Müller,
of Vienna; but it has not yet been acted upon so thoroughly as will be
the case now.
“The British Museum is the only great library in Europe which does not
lend out its MSS. to foreigners. The university and court libraries of
Vienna, the royal and state libraries of Berlin and Munich, those of
Copenhagen and Leyden, and Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris all are
very liberal in their loans to well-recommended foreigners. In Paris a
diplomatic introduction is required. In Munich the library does not
lend directly to the foreign borrower; but sends to the library of the
capital whence the borrower may have made his application, and leaves
all responsibility to that library. In the other libraries the
discretion is left to the librarian, who generally lends without any
formalities beyond ascertaining the _bona fides_ and trustworthiness
of the applicant. In Vienna, however, there has occasionally been some
little excess of formality, so a petition is about to be presented to
the Emperor by the University professors, begging that the privilege
of borrowing may be considered as general, and not as depending on the
favour of an official.
“As regards Oriental MSS., it is remarked that the guarantees need not
be so minute as in the case of old European MSS., which are often
unique copies. According to the learned Professor of Sanskrit in this
city, Herr George Bühler, there are very few unique Oriental MSS. in
existence of Sanskrit—perhaps not a dozen.”
Footnote 424:
(1) “On Lending Bodleian Books and Manuscripts” (not published). June
10, 1866; (2) Appendix. Barlow’s Argument. June, 1866; (3) On
Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian Library. July 27, 1886:
Baxter, Printer, Oxford. The three papers abound in earnestness and
energy; but they have the “defects of their qualities,” as the phrase
is; and the subject often runs away with the writer. A single instance
will suffice. No. i. p. 23 says, “In a library like the Bodleian,
where the practice of lending prevails as it now does, a man may put
himself to great inconvenience in order to visit it; he may even
travel from Berlin, and when he arrives he may find that all his
trouble has been in vain, the very book he wants is out.” This must
have been written during the infancy of Sir Rowland Hill, and when
telegrams were unknown to mankind; all that the Herr has to do in our
times is to ask per wire if the volume be at home or not.
Footnote 425:
Chandler, “On Lending Bodleian Books,” etc., p. 18.
Footnote 426:
Koran, xxiii. 14.
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