By W. F. Kirby.
Story of the Sultan of Al-yaman and His Three Sons.
P. 9.--The hippopotamus has also been observed, at the Zoological Gardens, to scatter his dung in the manner described.
P. 13.--It is evident from the importance which the author attaches to good birth and heredity, that he would hardly approve of the Socialistic custom, so prevalent in the East, of raising men of low birth to important offices of State.
The Story of the Three Sharpers (pp. 17-35).
P. 19.--In quoting the titles of this and other tales of the Wortley Montague
MS., in which the word Ja'�d� frequently occurs, Scott often wrote "labourer"
or "artisan" instead of "sharper." The term "sharper" is hardly applicable
here, for the fellows appear really to have possessed the knowledge to which
they laid claim. The "sharpers" in this story differ much from such impostors
as the Illiterate Schoolmaster (No. 93, vol. v. pp. 119-121), who escapes from
his dilemma by his ready wit, or from European pretenders of the type of
Grimm's Dr. Knowall, who escapes from his difficulties by mere accident; or
again from our old friend Ma'aruf (No. 169), whose impudent pretensions and
impostures are aided by astounding good luck.
P. 23.--This test was similar to that given to Ma'aruf (vol. x. pp. 16,17),
but there is nothing in the latter passage to show whether Ma'aruf had any
real knowledge of gems, or not. In the present story, the incident of the worm
recalls the well-known incident of Solomon ordering worms to pierce gems for
Bilkees, the Queen of Sheba.
P. 23.--English schoolboys sometimes play the "trussing game." Two boys have
their wrists and ankles tied together, and their arms are passed over their
knees, and a stick thrust over the arms and under the knees, and they are then
placed opposite each other on the ground, and endeavour to turn each other
over with their toes.
P. 25 note.--Can the word Kashmar be a corruption of Kashmiri?
History of Mohammed, Sultan of Cairo (pp. 37-49).
P. 37.--A few years ago, a travelling menagerie exhibited a pair of dog-faced
baboons in Dublin as "two monstrous gorillas!"
P. 40.--Ma'aruf's jewel has been already referred to. The present incident
more resembles the demand made by the king and the wazir from Aladdin and his
mother, though that was far more extravagant.
Pp. 42, 43.--A more terrible form of these wedding disillusions, is when the
bridegroom is entrapped into marriage by an evil magician, and wakes in the
morning to find the phantom of a murdered body in the place of his phantom
bride, and to be immediately charged with the crime. Compare the story of
Naerdan and Guzulbec (Caylus' Oriental Tales; Weber, ii. pp. 632-637) and that
of Monia Emin (Gibb's Story of Jewad, pp. 36, 75). Compare my Appendix,
Nights, x. pp. 502, 508, 509.
Pp. 44, 45.--There is a Western story (one of the latest versions of which may be
found in Moore's Juvenile Poems under the title of "The Ring") in which a
bridegroom on his wedding-day places the ring by accident on the finger of a
statue of Venus; the finger closes on it, and Venus afterwards interposes
continually between him and his bride, claiming him as her husband on the
strength of the ring. The unfortunate husband applies to a magician, who sends
him by night to a meeting of cross-roads, where a procession similar to that
described in the text passes by. He presents the magician's letters to the
King (the devil in the medi�val versions of the story) who requires Venus to
surrender the ring, and with it her claim to the husband.
One of the most curious stories of these royal processions is perhaps the
Lithuanian (or rather Samoghitian) story of