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.”
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#67] Bresl. Edit. Cloves and cinnamon in those days grew in widely
distant places.
[FN#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.
[FN#69] The Bresl. Edit. has “Al-Ma’arat.” Langlčs calls it the
Island of Al-Kamárí. See Lane, iii. 86.
[FN#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 {Greek letters} and near it to
the N. East {Greek letters}, “Promontorium Cori quod Comorini caput
insulć vocant,” says Maffćus (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 in Camoens, The Lus. x. 129) is still famous.
[FN#71] Arab. “Birkat”=tank, pool, reach, bight. Hence Birkat
Far’aun in the Suez Gulf. (Pilgrimage i. 297.)
[FN#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.”
[FN#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.
[FN#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.”
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#77] Arab. “Fulk;” some Edits. read “Kalak” and “Ramaz” (=a raft).
[FN#78] These lines occur in modified form in Night xi.
[FN#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 let 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. Quae. vi.),
and the Tigris-Euphrates supposed to flow underground: and the
Medićvals knew the Abana of Damascus and the Zenderúd of Isfahan.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.”
[FN#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.)
[FN#83] He is the Alcinous of our Arabian Odyssey.
[FN#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-Shikárgahs.
[FN#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.
[FN#86] The fable is from Al-Kazwini and Ibn Al-Wardi who place the
serpent (an animal sacred to Ćsculapius, 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.)
[FN#87] For “Emerald,” Hole (p. 177) would read emery or adamantine
spar.
[FN#88] Evidently Maháráj=Great Rajah, Rajah in Chief, an Hindu title
common to the three potentates before alluded to, the Narsinga, Balhara
or Samiry.
[FN#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 poste 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.
[FN#90] Arab. “Hút”; a term applied to Jonah’s whale and to monsters of
the deep, “Samak” being the common fishes.
[FN#91] Usually a two-bow prayer.
[FN#92] This is the recognised formula of Moslem sales.
[FN#93] Arab. “Walímah”; like our wedding-breakfast but a much more
ceremonious and important affair.
[FN#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 he would of the sweepings!”
[FN#95] The serpent in Arabic is mostly feminine.
[FN#96] i.e. in envying his wealth, with the risk of the evil eye.
[FN#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.
[FN#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).
[FN#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.
[FN#100] This article is not mentioned elsewhere in The Nights.
[FN#101] Apparently a fancy title.
[FN#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.
[FN#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. Ćlian, 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.
[FN#104] This is a true “City of Brass.” (Nuhás asfar=yellow copper),
as we learn in Night dcclxxii. It is situated in the “Maghrib”
(Mauritania), the region of magic and mystery; and the idea was
probably suggested by the grand Roman ruins which rise abruptly from
what has become a sandy waste. Compare with this tale “The City of
Brass” (Night cclxxii.). In Egypt Nuhás is vulg. pronounced Nihás.
[FN#105] The Bresl. Edit. adds that the seal-ring was of stamped stone
and iron, copper and lead. I have borrowed copiously from its vol. vi.
pp. 343, et seq.
[FN#106] As this was a well-known pre-Islamitic bard, his appearance
here is decidedly anachronistic, probably by intention.
[FN#107] The first Moslem conqueror of Spain whose lieutenant,
Tárik, the gallant and unfortunate, named Gibraltar (Jabal
al-Tarik).
[FN#108] The colours of the Banú Umayyah (Ommiade) Caliphs were white,
of the Banú Abbás (Abbasides) black, and of the Fatimites green.
Carrying the royal flag denoted the generalissimo or plenipotentiary.
[FN#109] i.e. Old Cairo, or Fustat: the present Cairo was then a Coptic
village founded on an old Egyptian settlement called Lui-Tkeshroma, to
which belonged the tanks on the hill and the great well, Bir Yusuf,
absurdly attributed to Joseph the Patriarch. Lui is evidently the
origin of Levi and means a high priest (Brugsh ii. 130) and his son’s
name was Roma.
[FN#110] I cannot but suspect that this is a clerical error for
“Al-Samanhúdi,” a native of Samanhúd (Wilkinson’s “Semenood”) in the
Delta on the Damietta branch, the old Sebennytus (in Coptic
Jem-nuti=Jem the God), a town which has produced many distinguished men
in Moslem times. But there is also a Samhúd lying a few miles down
stream from Denderah and, as its mounds prove, it is an ancient site.
[FN#111] Egypt had not then been conquered from the Christians.
[FN#112] Arab. “Kízán fukká’a,” i.e. thin and slightly porous
earthenware jars used for Fukká’a, a fermented drink, made of barley or
raisins.
[FN#113] I retain this venerable blunder: the right form is
Samúm, from Samm, the poison-wind.
[FN#114] i.e. for worship and to prepare for futurity.
[FN#115] The camel carries the Badawi’s corpse to the cemetery which is
often distant: hence to dream of a camel is an omen of death.
[FN#116] Koran xxiv 39. The word “Saráb” (mirage) is found in Isaiah
(xxxv. 7) where the passage should be rendered “And the mirage (sharab)
shall become a lake” (not, “and the parched ground shall become a
pool”). The Hindus prettily call it “Mrigatrishná” = the thirst of the
deer.
[FN#117] A name of Allah.
[FN#118] Arab. “Kintár”=a hundredweight (i.e. 100 Ibs.), about 98¾
Ibs. avoir. Hence the French quintal and its congeners (Littré).
[FN#119] i.e. “from Shám (Syria) to (the land of) Adnan,” ancestor of
the Naturalized Arabs that is, to Arabia.
[FN#120] Koran lii. 21. “Every man is given in pledge for that which he
shall have wrought.”
[FN#121] There is a constant clerical confusion in the texts between
“Arar” (Juniperus Oxycedrus used by the Greeks for the images of their
gods) and “Marmar” marble or alabaster, in the Talmud “Marmora” =
marble. evidently from {Greek letters} = brilliant, the brilliant
stone.
[FN#122] These Ifritical names are chosen for their bizarrerie.
“Al-Dáhish” = the Amazed; and “Al-A’amash” = one with weak eyes always
watering.
[FN#123] The Arabs have no word for million; so Messer Marco Miglione
could not have learned it from them. On the other hand the Hindus have
more quadrillions than modern Europe.
[FN#124] This formula, according to Moslems, would begin with the
beginning “There is no iláh but Allah and Adam is the Apostle (rasúl =
one sent, a messenger, not nabí = prophet) of Allah.” And so on with
Noah, Moses, David (not Solomon as a rule) and Jesus, to Mohammed.
[FN#125] This son of Barachia has been noticed before. The text
embroiders the Koranic chapter No. xxvii.
[FN#126] The Bresl. Edit. (vi. 371) reads “Samm-hu”=his poison, prob. a
clerical error for “Sahmhu”=his shaft. It was a duel with the “Shiháb”
or falling stars, the meteors which are popularly supposed, I have
said, to be the arrows shot by the angels against devils and evil
spirits when they approach too near Heaven in order to overhear divine
secrets.
[FN#127] A fancy sea from the Lat. “Carcer” (?).
[FN#128] Andalusian = Spanish, the Vandal-land, a term accepted by the
Moslem invader.
[FN#129] This fine description will remind the traveller of the old
Haurani towns deserted since the sixth century, which a silly writer
miscalled the “Giant Cities of Bashan.” I have never seen anything
weirder than a moonlight night in one of these strong places whose
masonry is perfect as when first built, the snowy light pouring on the
jet-black basalt and the breeze sighing and the jackal wailing in the
desert around.
[FN#130] “Zanj,” I have said, is the Arab. form of the Persian
“Zang-bar” (=Black-land), our Zanzibar. Those who would know more of
the etymology will consult my “Zanzibar,” etc., chaps. i.
[FN#131] Arab. “Tanjah”=Strabo {Greek letters} (derivation uncertain),
Tingitania, Tangiers. But why the terminals?
[FN#132] Or Amidah, by the Turks called “Kara (black) Amid” from the
colour of the stones and the Arabs “Diyar-bakr” (Diarbekir), a name
which they also give to the whole province—Mesopotamia.
[FN#133] Mayyáfárikín, an episcopal city in Diyar-bakr: the natives are
called Fárikí; hence the abbreviation in the text.
[FN#134] Arab. “Ayát al-Naját,” certain Koranic verses which act as
talismans, such as, “And wherefore should we not put our trust in
Allah?” (xiv. 15); “Say thou, Naught shall befall us save what Allah
hath decreed for us,’” (ix. 51), and sundry others.
[FN#135] These were the “Brides of the Treasure,” alluded to in the
story of Hasan of Bassorah and elsewhere.
[FN#136] Arab. “Ishárah,” which may also mean beckoning. Easterns
reverse our process: we wave hand or finger towards ourselves; they
towards the object; and our fashion represents to them, Go away!
[FN#137] i.e. musing a long time and a longsome.
[FN#138] Arab. “Dihlíz” from the Persian. This is the long dark passage
which leads to the inner or main gate of an Eastern city, and which is
built up before a siege. It is usually furnished with Mastabah-benches
of wood and masonry, and forms a favourite lounge in hot weather. Hence
Lot and Moses sat and stood in the gate, and here man speaks with his
enemies.
[FN#139] The names of colours are as loosely used by the Arabs as by
the Classics of Europe; for instance, a light grey is called a “blue or
a green horse.” Much nonsense has been written upon the colours in
Homer by men who imagine that the semi-civilised determine tints as we
do. They see them but they do not name them, having no occasion for the
words. As I have noticed, however, the Arabs have a complete
terminology for the varieties of horse-hues. In our day we have
witnessed the birth of colours, named by the dozen, because required by
women’s dress.
[FN#140] For David’s miracles of metallurgy see vol. i. 286.
[FN#141] Arab. “Khwárazm,” the land of the Chorasmioi, who are
mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 93) and a host of classical geographers.
They place it in Sogdiana (hod. Sughd) and it corresponds with the
Khiva country.
[FN#142] Arab. “Burka’,” usually applied to a woman’s face-veil and
hence to the covering of the Ka’abah, which is the “Bride of Meccah.”
[FN#143] Alluding to the trick played upon Bilkís by Solomon who had
heard that her legs were hairy like those of an ass: he laid down a
pavement of glass over flowing water in which fish were swimming and
thus she raised her skirts as she approached him and he saw that the
report was true. Hence, as I have said, the depilatory.
[FN#144] I understand the curiously carved windows cut in
arabesque-work of marble. (India) or basalt (the Haurán) and provided
with small panes of glass set in emeralds where tin would be used by
the vulgar.
[FN#145] Arab. “Bulád” from the Pers. “Pulád.” Hence the name of the
famous Druze family “Jumblat,” a corruption of “Ján-pulád”=Life o’
Steel.
[FN#146] Pharaoh, so called in Koran (xxxviii. 11) because he tortured
men by fastening them to four stakes driven into the ground. Sale
translates “the contriver of the stakes” and adds, “Some understand the
word figuratively, of the firm establishment of Pharaoh’s kingdom,
because the Arabs fix their tents with stakes; but they may possibly
intend that prince’s obstinacy and hardness of heart.” I may note that
in “Tasawwuf,” or Moslem Gnosticism, Pharaoh represents, like
Prometheus and Job, the typical creature who upholds his own dignity
and rights in presence and despight of the Creator. Sáhib the Súfí
declares that the secret of man’s soul (i.e. its emanation) was first
revealed when Pharaoh declared himself god; and Al-Ghazálí sees in his
claim the most noble aspiration to the divine, innate in the human
spirit. (Dabistan, vol. iii.)
[FN#147] In the Calc. Edit. “Tarmuz, son of the daughter,” etc.
According to the Arabs Tadmur (Palmyra) was built by Queen
Tadmurah, daughter of Hassán bin Uzaynah.
[FN#148] It is only by some such drought that I can account for the
survival of those marvellous Haurani cities in the great valley S. E.
of Damascus.
[FN#149] So Moses described his own death and burial.
[FN#150] A man’s “aurat” (shame) extends from the navel (included) to
his knees, a woman’s from the top of the head to the tips of her toes.
I have before noticed the Hindostaní application of the word.
[FN#151] Arab. “Jum’ah” ( = the assembly) so called because the General
Resurrection will take place on that day and it witnessed the creation
of Adam. Both these reasons are evidently after-thoughts; as the Jews
received a divine order to keep Saturday, and the Christians, at their
own sweet will, transferred the weekly rest-day to Sunday, wherefore
the Moslem preferred Friday. Sabbatarianism, however, is unknown to
Al-Islam and business is interrupted, by Koranic order ([xii. 9–10]),
only during congregational prayers in the Mosque. The most a Mohammedan
does is not to work or travel till after public service. But the Moslem
hardly wants a “day of rest;” whereas a Christian, especially in the
desperately dull routine of daily life and toil, without a gleam of
light to break the darkness of his civilised and most unhappy
existence, distinctly requires it.
[FN#152] Mankind, which sees itself everywhere and in everything, must
create its own analogues in all the elements, air (Sylphs), fire
(Jinns), water (Mermen and Mermaids) and earth (Kobolds), These
merwomen were of course seals or manatees, as the wild women of Hanno
were gorillas.
[FN#153] Here begins the Sindibad-namah, the origin of Dolopathos
(thirteenth century by the Trouvčre Harbers); of the “Seven Sages”
(John Holland in 1575); the “Seven Wise Masters” and a host of minor
romances. The Persian Sindibád-Námah assumed its present shape in A.D.
1375: Professor Falconer printed an abstract of it in the Orient.
Journ. (xxxv. and xxxvi. 1841), and Mr. W. A. Clouston reissued the
“Book of Sindibad,” with useful notes in 1884. An abstract of the
Persian work is found in all edits. of The Nights; but they differ
greatly, especially that in the Bresl. Edit. xii. pp. 237–377, from
which I borrow the introduction. According to Hamzah Isfahání (ch.
xli.) the Reguli who succeeded to Alexander the Great and preceded
Sapor caused some seventy books to be composed, amongst which were the
Liber Maruc, Liber Barsínas, Liber Sindibad, Liber Shimás, etc., etc.
[FN#154] Eusebius De Praep. Evang. iii. 4, quotes Prophesy concerning
the Egyptian belief in the Lords of the Ascendant whose names are given
{Greek letters}: in these “Almenichiaka” we have the first almanac, as
the first newspaper in the Roman “Acta Diurna.”
[FN#155] “Al-Mas’údi,” the “Herodotus of the Arabs,” thus notices
Sindibad the Sage (in his Murúj, etc., written about A.D. 934). “During
the reign of Kurúsh (Cyrus) lived Al-Sindibad who wrote the Seven
Wazirs, etc.” Al-Ya’akúbi had also named him, circ. A.D. 880. For notes
on the name Sindibad, see Sindbad the Seaman, Night dxxxvi. I need not
enter into the history of the “Seven Sages,” a book evidently older
than The Nights in present form; but refer the reader to Mr. Clouston,
of whom more in a future page.
[FN#156] Evidently borrowed from the Christians, although the latter
borrowed from writers of the most remote antiquity. Yet the saying is
the basis of all morality and in few words contains the highest human
wisdom.
[FN#157] It is curious to compare the dry and business-like tone of the
Arab style with the rhetorical luxuriance of the Persian: p.10 of Mr.
Clouston’s “Book of Sindibad.”
[FN#158] In the text “Isfídáj,” the Pers. Isped (or Saféd) áb,
lit. = white water, ceruse used for women’s faces suggesting our
“Age of Bismuth,” Blanc Rosati, Cręme de l’Impératrice, Perline,
Opaline, Milk of Beauty, etc., etc.
[FN#159] Commentators compare this incident with the biblical story of
Joseph and Potiphar’s wife and with the old Egyptian romance and fairy
tale of the brothers Anapon and Saton dating from the fourteenth
century, the days of Pharaoh Ramses Miamun (who built Pi-tum and
Ramses) at whose court Moses or Osarsiph is supposed to have been
reared (Cambridge Essays 1858). The incident would often occur, e.g.
Phćdra-cum-Hippolytus; Fausta-cum-Crispus and Lucinian; Asoka’s wife
and Kunála, etc., etc. Such things happen in every-day life, and the
situation has recommended itself to the folk lore of all peoples.
[FN#160] Another version of this tale is given in the Bresl. Edit.
(vol. viii. pp. 273–8: Night 675–6). It is the “Story of the King and
the Virtuous Wife” in the Book of Sindibad. In the versions Arabic and
Greek (Syntipas) the King forgets his ring; in the Hebrew Mishlé
Sandabar, his staff, and his sandals in the old Spanish Libro de los
Engannos et los Asayamientos de las Mugeres.
[FN#161] One might fancy that this is Biblical, Bathsheba and Uriah.
But such “villanies” must often have occurred in the East, at different
times and places, without requiring direct derivation. The learned
Prof. H. H. Wilson was mistaken in supposing that these fictions
“originate in the feeling which has always pervaded the East
unfavourable to the dignity of women.” They belong to a certain stage
of civilisation when the sexes are at war with each other; and they
characterise chivalrous Europe as well as misogynous Asia; witness
Jankins, clerk of Oxenforde; while Ćsop’s fable of the Lion and the Man
also explains their frequency.
[FN#162] The European form of the tale is “Toujours perdrix,” a
sentence often quoted but seldom understood. It is the reproach of M.
l’Abbé when the Count (proprietor of the pretty Countess) made him eat
partridge every day for a month; on which the Abbé says, “Alway
partridge is too much of a good thing!” Upon this text the Count
speaks. A correspondent mentions that it was told by Horace Walpole
concerning the Confessor of a French King who reproved him for conjugal
infidelities. The degraded French (for “toujours de la perdrix” or “des
perdrix”) suggests a foreign origin. Another friend refers me to No. x.
of the “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles” (compiled in A.D. 1432 for the
amusement of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI.) whose chief personage
“un grand seigneur du Royaulme d’Angleterre,” is lectured upon fidelity
by the lord’s mignon, a “jeune et gracieux gentil homme de son hostel.”
Here the partridge became pastés d’anguille. Possibly Scott refers to
it in Redgauntlet (chapt. iv.); “One must be very fond of partridge to
accept it when thrown in one’s face.” Did not Voltaire complain at
Potsdam of “toujours perdrix” and make it one of his grievances? A
similar story is that of the chaplain who, weary of the same diet,
uttered “grace” as follows:—
Rabbits hot, rabbits cold,
Rabbits tender, and rabbits tough,
Rabbits young, and rabbits old
I thank the Lord I’ve had enough.
And I as cordially thank my kind correspondents.
[FN#163] The great legal authority of the realm.
[FN#164] In all editions the Wazir here tells the Tale of the
Merchant’s Wife and the Parrot which, following Lane, I have
transferred to vol. i. p. 52. But not to break the tradition I here
introduce the Persian version of the story from the “Book of Sindibad.”
In addition to the details given in the note to vol. i., 52;
I may quote the two talking-birds left to watch over his young
wife by Rajah Rasálú (son of Shaliváhana the great Indian monarch circ.
A.D. 81), who is to the Punjab what Rustam is to Persia and Antar to
Arabia. In the “Seven Wise Masters” the parrot becomes a magpie and Mr.
Clouston, in some clever papers on “Popular Tales and Fictions”
contributed to the Glasgow Evening Times (1884), compares it with the
history, in the Gesta Romanorum, of the Adulteress, the Abigail, and
the Three Cocks, two of which crowed during the congress of the lady
and her lover. All these evidently belong to the Sindibad cycle.
[FN#165] In the days of the Caliph Al-Mustakfí bi llah (A.H. 333=944)
the youth of Baghdad studied swimming and it is said that they could
swim holding chafing-dishes upon which were cooking-pots and keep
afloat till the meat was dressed. The story is that of “The Washerman
and his Son who were drowned in the Nile,” of the Book of Sindibad.
[FN#166] Her going to the bath suggested that she was fresh from
coition.
[FN#167] Taken from the life of the Egyptian Mameluke Sultan (No. viii,
regn. A.H., 825= A.D. 1421) who would not suffer his subjects to
prostrate themselves or kiss the ground before him. See D’Herbelot for
details.
[FN#168] This nauseous Joe Miller has often been told in the hospitals
of London and Paris. It is as old as the Hitopadesa.
[FN#169] Koran iv. 81, “All is from Allah;” but the evil which befals
mankind, though ordered by Allah, is yet the consequence of their own
wickedness (I add, which wickedness was created by Allah).
[FN#170] The Bresl. Edit. (xii. 266) says “bathing.”
[FN#171] This tale is much like that told in the Fifth Night (vol. i.
54). It is the story of the Prince and the Lamia in the Book of
Sindibad wherein it is given with Persian rhetoric and diffuseness.
[FN#172] Arab. “Wa’ar”= rocky, hilly, tree-less ground unfit for
riding. I have noted that the three Heb. words “Year” (e.g.
Kiryath-Yearin=City of forest), “Choresh” (now Hirsh, a scrub), and
“Pardes” ({Greek letters} a chase, a hunting-park opposed to {Greek
letters}, an orchard) are preserved in Arabic and are intelligible in
Palestine. (Unexplored Syria, i. 207.)
[FN#173] The privy and the bath are favourite haunts of the
Jinns.
[FN#174] Arab history is full of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt
the clans Sa’ad and Harám and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain
to the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale
bears some likeness to the accumulative nursery rhymes in “The House
that Jack Built,” and “The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;” which
find their indirect original in an allegorical Talmudic hymn.
[FN#175] This is “The Story of the Old Man who sent his Young Wife to
the Market to buy Rice,” told with Persian reflections in the “Book of
Sindibad.”
[FN#176] Koran xii. 28. The words were spoken by Potiphar to
Joseph.
[FN#177] Koran iv. 78. A mis-quotation, the words are, “Fight therefore
against the friends of Satan, for the craft of Satan shall be weak.”
[FN#178] i.e. Koranic versets.
[FN#179] In the Book of Sindibad this is the “Story of the Prince who
went out to hunt and the stratagem which the Wazir practised on him.”
[FN#180] I have noted that it is a dire affront to an Arab if his first
cousin marry any save himself without his formal leave.
[FN#181] i.e. the flowery, the splendid; an epithet of Fatimah, the
daughter of the Apostle “the bright blooming.” Fátimah is an old Arab
name of good omen, “the weaner:” in Egypt it becomes Fattúmah (an
incrementative= “great weaner”); and so Amínah, Khadíjah and Nafísah on
the banks of the Nile are barbarised to Ammúnah, Khaddúgah and
Naffúsah.
[FN#182] i.e. his coming misfortune, the phrase being euphemistic.
[FN#183] Arab. “Ráy:” in theology it means “private judgment” and
“Ráyí” (act. partic.) is a Rationalist. The Hanafí School is called
“Asháb al-Ráy” because it allows more liberty of thought than the other
three orthodox.
[FN#184] The angels in Al-Islam ride piebalds.
[FN#185] In the Bresl. Edit. “Zájir” (xii. 286).
[FN#186] This is the “King’s Son and the Merchant’s Wife” of the
Hitopadesa (chapt. i.) transferred to all the Prakrit versions of
India. It is the Story of the Bath-keeper who conducted his Wife
to the Son of the King of Kanuj in the Book of Sindibad.
[FN#187] The pious Caliph Al-Muktadi bi Amri llah (A.H. 467=A.D. 1075)
was obliged to forbid men entering the baths of Baghdad without
drawers.
[FN#188] This peculiarity is not uncommon amongst the so-called Aryan
and Semitic races, while to the African it is all but unknown. Women
highly prize a conformation which (as the prostitute described it) is
always “either in his belly or in mine.”
[FN#189] Easterns, I have said, are perfectly aware of the fact that
women corrupt women much more than men do. The tale is the “Story of
the Libertine Husband” in the Book of Sindibad; blended with the “Story
of the Go-between and the Bitch” in the Book of Sindibad. It is related
in the “Disciplina Clericalis” of Alphonsus (A.D. 1106); the fabliau of
La vieille qui seduisit la jeune fille; the Gesta Romanorum (thirteenth
century) and the “Cunning Siddhikari” in the Kathá-Sarit-Ságara.
[FN#190] The Kashmir people, men and women, have a very bad name in
Eastern tales, the former for treachery and the latter for unchastity.
A Persian distich says:
If folk be scarce as food in dearth ne’er let three lots come
near ye:
First Sindi, second Jat, and third a rascally Kashmeeree.
The women have fair skins and handsome features but, like all living in
that zone, Persians, Sindis, Afghans, etc., their bosoms fall after the
first child and become like udders. This is not the case with Hindú
women, Rajpúts, Maráthís, etc.
[FN#191] By these words she appealed to his honour.
[FN#192] These vehicles suggest derivation from European witchery. In
the Bresl. Edit. (xii. 304) one of the women rides a “Miknasah” or
broom.
[FN#193] i.e. a recluse who avoids society.
[FN#194] “Consecrated ground” is happily unknown to Moslems.
[FN#195] This incident occurs in the “Third Kalandar’s Tale.” See vol.
i. 157 {Vol 1, FN#290}; and note to p. 145. {Vol 1, FN#264}
[FN#196] The Mac. Edit. has “Nahr”= river.
[FN#197] i.e. marked with the Wasm or tribal sign to show their blood.
The subject of Wasm is extensive and highly interesting, for many of
these brands date doubtless from prehistoric ages. For instance, some
of the great Anazah nation (not tribe) use a circlet, the initial of
their name (an Ayn-letter), which thus shows the eye from which it was
formed. I have given some specimens of Wasm in The Land of Midian (i.
320) where, as amongst the “Sinaitic” Badawin, various kinds of crosses
are preserved long after the death and burial of Christianity.
[FN#198] i.e. from the heights. The “Sayl” is a dangerous feature in
Arabia as in Southern India, where many officers have lost their lives
by trying to swim it.
[FN#199] Arab. “’Ujb” I use arrogance in the Spanish sense of
“arrogante,” gay and gallant.
[FN#200] In this rechauffé Paul Pry escapes without losing an eye.
[FN#201] Eastern tale-tellers always harp upon this theme, the cunning
precautions taken by mankind and their utter confusion by “Fate and
Fortune.” In such matters the West remarks, “Ce que femme veut, Dieu
veut.”
[FN#202] As favourite an occupation in Oriental lands as in Southern
Europe and the Brazil, where the Quinta or country villa must be built
by the road-side to please the mistress.
[FN#203] The ink-case would contain the pens; hence called in India
Kalamdán=reed (pen) box. I have advised travellers to prefer the strong
Egyptian article of brass to the Persian, which is of wood or
papier-mâché, prettily varnished, but not to wear it in the waist-belt,
as this is a sign of being a scribe. (Pilgrimage i. 353.)
[FN#204] The vulgar Eastern idea is that women are quite knowing enough
without learning to read and write; and at all events they should not
be taught anything beyond reading the Koran, or some clearly-written
book. The contrast with modern Europe is great; greater still in
Anglo-America of our day, and greatest with the new sects which propose
“biunes” and “bisexuals” and “women robed with the sun.”
[FN#205] In the Bresl. Edit. the Prince ties a key to a second arrow
and shoots it into the pavilion.
[FN#206] The “box-trick” has often been played with success, by Lord
Byron amongst a host of others. The readiness with which the Wazir
enters into the scheme is characteristic of oriental servility: an
honest Moslem should at least put in a remonstrance.
[FN#207] This story appears familiar, but I have not found it easy to
trace. In “The Book of Sindibad” (p. 83) it is apparently represented
by a lacuna. In the Squire’s Tale of Chaucer Canace’s ring enables the
wearer to understand bird-language, not merely to pretend as does the
slave-boy in the text.
[FN#208] The crow is an ill-omened bird in Al-lslam and in Eastern
Christendom. “The crow of cursed life and foul odour,” says the Book of
Kalilah and Dimna (p. 44). The Hindus are its only protectors, and in
this matter they follow suit with the Guebres. I may note that the word
belongs to the days before “Aryan” and “Semitic” speech had parted; we
find it in Heb. Oreb; Arab. Ghurab; Lat. Corvus; Engl. Crow, etc.
[FN#209] Again in the Hibernian sense of being “kilt.”
[FN#210] Quoted in Night dlxxxii.; said by Kitfír or Itfír (Potiphar)
when his wife (Ráil or Zulaykha) charged Joseph with attempting her
chastity and he saw that the youth’s garment was whole in front and
rent in rear. (Koran, chapt. xii.)
[FN#211] This witty tale, ending somewhat grossly here, has
over-wandered the world. First we find it in the Kathá (S. S.) where
Upakoshá, the merry wife of Vararuchi, disrobes her suitors, a family
priest, a commander of the guard and the prince’s tutor, under plea of
the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff’s
“buck-basket.” In Miss Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales” the fair wife of an
absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the
Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal
Rámákistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a
lady saves his life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H.
Damant (pp. 357–360 of the “Indian Antiquary” of 1873) relates the
“Tale of the Touchstone,” a legend of Dinahpur, wherein a woman “sells”
her four admirers. In the Persian Tales ascribed to the Dervish
“Mokles” (Mukhlis) of Isfahan, the lady Aruyá tricks and exposes a
Kazi, a doctor and a governor. Boccaccio (viii. 1) has the story of a
lady who shut up her gallant in a chest with her husband’s sanction;
and a similar tale (ix. 1) of Rinuccio and Alexander with the corpse of
Scannadeo (Throkh-god). Hence a Lydgate (circ. A.D. 1430) derived the
plot of his metrical tale of “The Lady Prioress and her Three Sisters”;
which was modified in the Netherlandish version by the introduction of
the Long Wapper, a Flemish Robin Goodfellow. Followed in English the
metrical tale of “The Wright’s Chaste Wife,” by Adam of Cobham (edited
by Mr. Furnivall from a MS. of circ. A.D. 1460) where the victims are a
lord, a steward and a proctor. See also “The Master-Maid” in Dr. (now
Sir George) Dasent’s “Popular Tales from the Norse,” Mr. Clouston, who
gives these details more fully, mentions a similar Scottish story
concerning a lascivious monk and the chaste wife of a miller.
[FN#212]When Easterns sit down to a drinking bout, which means to get
drunk as speedily and pleasantly as possible, they put off dresses of
dull colours and robe themselves in clothes supplied by the host, of
the brightest he may have, especially yellow, green and red of
different shades. So the lady’s proceeding was not likely to breed
suspicion: al-though her tastes were somewhat fantastic and like Miss
Julia’s—peculiar.
[FN#213] Arab. “Najásah,” meaning anything unclean which requires
ablution before prayer. Unfortunately mucus is not of the number, so
the common Moslem is very offensive in the matter of nose.
[FN#214] Here the word “la’an” is used which most Moslems express by
some euphemism. The vulgar Egyptian says “Na’al” (Sapré and Sapristi
for Sacré and Sacristie), the Hindostani express it “I send him the
three letters”—lám, ayn and nún.
[FN#215] The Mac. Edit. is here very concise; better the Bresl. Edit.
(xii. 326). Here we have the Eastern form of the Three Wishes which
dates from the earliest ages and which amongst us has been degraded to
a matter of “black pudding.” It is the grossest and most brutal satire
on the sex, suggesting that a woman would prefer an additional inch of
penis to anything this world or the next can offer her. In the Book of
Sindibad it is the story of the Peri and Religious Man; his learning
the Great Name; and his consulting with his wife. See also La
Fontaine’s “Trois Souhaits,” Prior’s “Ladle,” and “Les quatre Souhaits
de Saint-Martin.”
[FN#216] Arab. “Laylat al-Kadr”= Night of Power or of Divine Decrees.
It is “better than a thousand months” (Koran xcvii. 3), but unhappily
the exact time is not known although all agree that it is one of the
last ten in Ramazan. The latter when named by Kiláb ibn Murrah,
ancestor of Mohammed, about two centuries before Al-lslam, corresponded
with July-August and took its name from “Ramzá” or intense heat. But
the Prophet, in the tenth Hijrah year, most unwisely forbade “Nasy”=
triennial intercalation (Koran ix. 36) and thus the lunar month went
round all the seasons. On the Night of Power the Koran was sent down
from the Preserved Tablet by Allah’s throne, to the first or lunar
Heaven whence Gabriel brought it for opportunest revelation to the
Apostle (Koran xcvii.). Also during this night all Divine Decrees for
the ensuing year are taken from the Tablet and are given to the angels
for execution whilst, the gates of Heaven being open, prayer (as in the
text) is sure of success. This mass of absurdity has engendered a host
of superstitions everywhere varying. Lane (Mod. Egypt, chapt. xxv.)
describes how some of the Faithful keep tasting a cup of salt water
which should become sweet in the Night of Nights. In (Moslem) India not
only the sea becomes sweet, but all the vegetable creation bows down
before Allah. The exact time is known only to Prophets; but the pious
sit through the Night of Ramazan 27th (our 26th) praying and burning
incense-pastilles. In Stambul this is officially held to be the Night
of Power. So in medićval Europe on Christmas Eve the cattle worshipped
God in their stalls and I have met peasants in France and Italy who
firmly believed that brute beasts on that night not only speak but
predict the events of the coming year.
[FN#217] Hence the misfortune befel her; the pious especially avoid
temporal palaces.
[FN#218] This is our tale of “The Maid and the Magpie;” the Mac. Edit.
does not specify the “Tayr” (any bird) but the Bresl. Edit. has Ak’ak,
a pie. The true Magpie (C. Pica) called Buzarái (?) and Zaghzaghán Abú
Mássah (=the Sweeper, from its tail) is found on the Libanus and
Anti-Libanus (Unexplored Syria ii. 77–143), but I never saw it in other
parts of Syria or in Arabia. It is completely ignored by the Reverend
Mr. Tristram in his painfully superficial book “The Natural History of
the Bible,” published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
(or rather Ignorance), London, 1873.
[FN#219] This is “The Story of the Two Partridges,” told at great
length in the Book of Sindibad. See De Sacy’s text in the Kalilah wa
Damnah, quoted in the “Book of Kalilah and Damnah” (p. 306).
[FN#220] This extremely wilful young person had rendered rape
excusable. The same treat-ment is much called for by certain heroines
of modern fiction—let me mention Princess Napraxine.
[FN#221] The Story of the Hidden Robe, in the Book of Sindibad; where
it is told with all manner of Persian embellishments.
[FN#222] Now turned into Government offices for local administration; a
“Tribunal of Commerce,” etc.
[FN#223] Arab. “Bawwáb,” a personage as important as the old French
concierge and a man of trust who has charge of the keys and with
letting vacant rooms. In Egypt the Berber from the Upper Nile is the
favourite suisse; being held more honest or rather less rascally than
the usual Egyptian. These Berbers, however, are true barbarians,
overfond of Búzah (the beer of Osiris) and not unfrequently dangerous.
They are supposed by Moslems to descend from the old Syrians expelled
by Joshua. For the favourite chaff against them, eating the dog (not
the puppy-pie), see Pilgrimage i. 93. They are the “paddies’, of Egypt
to whom all kinds of bulls and blunders are attributed.
[FN#224] Arab. “Juma’ah,” which means either Friday or a week. In
pre-Moslem times it was called Al-Arúbah (the other week-days being
Shiyár or Saturday, Bawal, Bahan Jabar, Dabar and Fámunís or Thursday).
Juma’ah, literally = “Meeting” or Congregation (-day), was made to
represent the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday because on that
day Allah ended the work of creation; it was also the date of
Mohammed’s entering Al-Medinah. According to Al-Bayzáwí, it was called
Assembly day because Ka’ab ibn Lowa, one of the Prophet’s ancestors,
used to gather the people before him on Fridays. Moslems are not
forbidden to do secular work after the congregational prayers at the
hour when they must “hasten to the commemoration of Allah and leave
merchandising.” (Koran, chaps. Ixii. 9.)
[FN#225] This is done only by the very pious: if they see a bit of
bread they kiss it, place it upon their heads and deposit it upon a
wall or some place where it will not be trodden on. She also removed
the stones lest haply they prove stumbling-blocks to some Moslem foot.
[FN#226] Arab. “Ashjár,” which may mean either the door-posts or the
wooden bolts. Lane (iii. 174) translates it “among the trees” in a
room!
[FN#227] Koran (ix. 51), when Mohammed reproaches the unbelievers for
not accompanying him to victory or martyrdom.
[FN#228] Arab. “Kiná,” a true veil, not the “Burká” or “nose bag” with
the peep-holes. It is opposed to the “Tarkah” or “head veil.” Europeans
inveigh against the veil which represents the loup of Louis Quatorze’s
day: it is on the contrary the most coquettish of contrivances, hiding
coarse skins, fleshy noses, wide mouths and vanishing chins, and
showing only lustrous and liquid black eyes. Moreover a pretty woman,
when she wishes, will always let you see something under the veil.
(Pilgrimage i. 337.)
[FN#229] A yellow-flowered artemisia or absinthe whose wood burns like
holm-oak. (Unexplored Syria ii. 43.) See vol. ii. 24 for further
details.
[FN#230] The Farz or obligatory prayers, I have noted, must be recited
(if necessary) in the most impure place; not so the other orisons.
Hence the use of the “Sajjádah” or prayer-rug an article too well known
to require description.
[FN#231] Anglicč a stomach-ache, a colic.
[FN#232] Arab. “Al-Háfizah” which has two meanings. Properly it
signifies the third order of Traditionists out of a total of five or
those who know 300,000 traditions and their ascriptions. Popularly “one
who can recite the Koran by rote.” There are six great Traditionists
whose words are held to be prime authorities; (1) Al-Bokhári, (2)
Muslim, and these are entitled Al-Sahíhayn, The (two true) authorities.
After them (3) Al-Tirmidi; and (4) Abu Daúd: these four being the
authors of the “Four Sunan,” the others are (5) Al-Nasái and (6) Ibn
Májah (see Jarrett’s Al-Siyuti pp. 2, 6; and, for modern Arab studies,
Pilgrimage i. 154 et seq.).
[FN#233] Lane (iii. 176) marries the amorous couple, thus making the
story highly proper and robbing it of all its point.
[FN#234] Arab. “Sabbahat,” i.e. Sabbah-ak’ Allah bi’l khayr =
Allah give thee good morning: still the popular phrase.
[FN#235] Arab. “Ta’rísak,” with the implied hint of her being a
“Mu’arrisah” or she pander. The Bresl. Edit. (xii. 356) bluntly says
“Kivádatak” thy pimping.
[FN#236] Arab. “Rafw”: the “Rafu-gar” or fine-drawer in India, who does
this artistic style of darning, is famed for skill.
[FN#237] The question sounds strange to Europeans, but in the Moslem
East a man knows nothing, except by hearsay, of the women who visit his
wife.
[FN#238] Arab. “Ahl al-bayt,” so as not rudely to say “wife.”
[FN#239] This is a mere abstract of the tale told in the Introduction
(vol. i. 10–12). Here however, the rings are about eighty; there the
number varies from ninety to five hundred and seventy.
[FN#240] The father suspected the son of intriguing with one of his own
women.
[FN#241] Arab. and Heb. “Laban” (opp. to “laban-halíb,” or simply
“halíb” = fresh milk), milk artificially soured, the Dahin of India,
the Kisainá of the Slavs and our Corstophine cream. But in The Nights,
contrary to modern popular usage, “Laban” is also applied to Fresh
milk. The soured form is universally in the East eaten with rice and
enters into the Salátah or cucumber-salad. I have noted elsewhere that
all the Galactophagi, the nomades who live on milk, use it in the
soured never in the fresh form. The Badawi have curious prejudices
about it: it is a disgrace to sell it (though not to exchange it), and
“Labbán,” or “milk-vendor,” is an insult. The Bráhni and Beloch pomades
have the same pundonor possibly learnt from the Arabs (Pilgrimage i.
363). For Igt (Akit), Mahir, Saribah, Jamídah and other lacteal
preparations, see ibid. i. 362.
[FN#242] I need hardly say that the poison would have been utterly
harmless, unless there had been an abrasion of the skin. The
slave-girl is blamed for carrying the jar uncovered because thus it would
attract the evil eye. In the Book of Sindibad the tale appears as the
Story of the Poisoned Guest; and the bird is a stork.
[FN#243] The Prince expresses the pure and still popular Moslem
feeling; and yet the learned and experienced Mr. Redhouse would confuse
this absolute Predestination with Providence. A friend tells me that
the idea of absolute Fate in The Nights makes her feel as if the world
were a jail.
[FN#244] In the Book of Sindibad this is the Story of the
Sandal-wood Merchant and the Advice of the Blind Old Man. Mr.
Clouston (p. 163) quotes a Talmudic joke which is akin to the
Shaykh’s advice and a reply of Tyl Eulenspiegel, the arch-rogue,
which has also a family resemblance.
[FN#245] Arab. “Sá’a,” a measure of corn, etc., to be given in alms.
The Kamus makes it = four mudds (each being ⅓ lbs.); the people
understand by it four times the measure of a man’s two open hands.
[FN#246] i.e. till thou restore my eye to me. This style of prothesis
without apodosis is very common in Arabic and should be preserved in
translation, as it adds a naďveté to the style. We find it in Genesis
iii. 2, “And now lest he put forth his hand,” etc.
[FN#247] They were playing at Muráhanah, like children amongst us. It
is also called “Hukm wa Rizá” = order and consent. The penalty is
usually something ridiculous, but here it was villainous.
[FN#248] Every Moslem capital has a “Shaykh of the thieves” who holds a
regular levées and who will return stolen articles for consideration;
and this has lasted since the days of Diodorus Siculus (Pilgrimage i.
91).
[FN#249] This was not the condition; but I have left the text as it is
characteristic of the writer’s inconsequence.
[FN#250] The idea would readily occur in Egypt where the pulex is still
a plague although the Sultan is said to hold his court at Tiberias.
“Male and female” says the rouge, otherwise it would be easy to fill a
bushel with fleas. The insect was unknown to older India according to
some and was introduced by strangers. This immigration is quite
possible. In 1863 the jigger (P. penetrans) was not found in Western
Africa; when I returned there in 1882 it had passed over from the
Brazil and had become naturalised on the equatorial African seaboard.
the Arabs call shrimps and prawns “sea-fleas” (bargúth al-bahr) showing
an inland race. (See Pilgrimage i. 322.)
[FN#251] Submission to the Sultan and the tidings of his well-being
should content every Eastern subject. But, as Oriental history shows,
the form of government is a Despotism tempered by assassination. And
under no rule is man socially freer and his condition contrasts
strangely with the grinding social tyranny which characterises every
mode of democracy or constitutionalism, i.e. political equality.
[FN#252] Here the text has “Markúb” = a shoe; elsewhere “Na’al” = a
sandal, especially with wooden sole. In classical Arabia, however,
“Na’al” may be a shoe, a horse-shoe (iron-plate, not rim like ours).
The Bresl. Edit. has “Watá,” any foot-gear.
[FN#253] Water-melons (batáyikh) says the Mac. Edit. a misprint for
Aruz or rice. Water-melons are served up raw cut into square mouthfuls,
to be eaten with rice and meat. They serve excellently well to keep the
palate clean and cool.
[FN#254] The text recounts the whole story over again—more than
European patience can bear.
[FN#255] The usual formula when telling an improbable tale. But here it
is hardly called for: the same story is told (on weak authority) of the
Alewife, the Three Graziers and Attorney-General Nay (temp. James II.
1577–1634) when five years old (Journ. Asiat. Soc. N.S. xxx. 280). The
same feat had been credited to Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor in A.D.
1540–1617 (Chalmers, Biographical Dictionary xxiii. 267–68). But the
story had already found its way into the popular jest-books such as
“Tales and Quick Answers, very Mery and Pleasant to Rede” (1530);
“Jacke of Dover’s Quest of Inquirie for the Foole of all Fooles” (1604)
under the title “The Foole of Westchester”, and in “Witty and
Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, commonly called the King’s
Fool.” The banker-bard Rogers (in Italy) was told a similar story
concerning a widow of the Lambertini house (xivth century). Thomas
Wright (Introduction to the Seven Sages) says he had met the tale in
Latin( xiiith-xivth centuries) and a variant in the “Nouveaux Contes à
rire” (Amsterdam 1737), under the title “Jugement Subtil du Duc d’Ossone
contre Deux Marchands.” Its origin is evidently the old Sindibád-namah
translated from Syriac into Greek (“Syntipas,” xith century); into
Hebrew (Mishlé Sandabar, xiith century) and from the Arabian version
into old Castilian, “Libro de los Engannos et los Asayamientos de las
Mugeres” (A.D. 1255), whereof a translation is appended to Professor
Comparetti’s Society. The Persian metrical form (an elaboration of one
much older) dates from 1375; and gave rise to a host of imitations such
as the Turkish Tales of the Forty Wazirs and the Canarese “Kathá
Manjari,” where four persons contend about a purse. See also Gladwin’s
“Persian Moonshee,” No. vi. of “Pleasing Stories;” and Mr. Clouston’s
paper, “The Lost Purse,” in the Glasgow Evening Times. All are the
Eastern form of Gavarni’s “Enfants Terribles,” showing the portentous
precocity for which some children (infant phenomena, calculating boys,
etc. etc.) have been famous.
[FN#256] From the Bresl. Edit. xii. 381. The Sa’lab or Abu Hosayn
(Father of the Fortlet) is the fox, in Marocco Akkáb: Talib Yusuf and
Wa’wi are the jackal. Arabas have not preserved “Jakal” from the Heb.
Shu’al and Persian Shaghal and Persian Shaghál (not Shagul) as the Rev.
Mr. Tristram misinforms his readers. (Nat. Hist. p. 85)
[FN#257] The name is old and classical Arabic: in Antar the young
Amazon Jaydá was called Judar in public (Story of Jaydá and Khálid). It
is also, as will be seen, the name of a quarter in Cairo, and men are
often called after such places, e.g. Al-Jubní from the Súk al Jubn in
Damascus. The story is exceedingly Egyptian and the style abounds in
Cairene vulgarisms, especially in the Bresl. Edit. ix. 311.
[FN#258] Had the merchant left his property to be divided after his
death and not made a will he widow would have had only one-eighth
instead of a fourth.
[FN#259] Lit. “from tyrant to tyrant,” i.e. from official to official,
Al-Zalamah, the “tyranny” of popular parlance.
[FN#260] The coin is omitted in the text but it is evidently the “Nusf”
or half-dirham. Lane (iii.235), noting that the dinar is worth 170
“nusfs” in this tale, thinks that it was written (or copied?) after the
Osmanh Conquest of Egypt. Unfortunately he cannot tell the precise
period when the value of the small change fell so low.
[FN#261] Arab “Yaum mubárak!” still a popular exclamation.
[FN#262] i.e. of the door of daily bread.
[FN#263] Arab. “Sírah,” a small fish differently described (De
Sacy, “Relation de l’Egypte par Abd allatif,” pp. 278–288: Lane,
Nights iii. 234). It is not found in Sonnini’s list.
[FN#264] A tank or lakelet in the southern parts of Cairo, long ago
filled up; Von Hammer believes it inherited the name of the old
Charon’s Lake of Memphis, over which corpses were ferried.
[FN#265] Thus making the agreement a kind of religious covenant, as
Catholics would recite a Pater or an Ave Maria.
[FN#266] Arab. “Yá miskím”=O poor devil; mesquin, meschino, words
evidently derived from the East.
[FN#267] Plur. of Maghribí a Western man, a Moor. I have already
derived the word through the Lat. “Maurus” from Maghribiyún. Europeans
being unable to pronounce the Ghayn (or gh like the modern Cairenes)
would turn it into “Ma’ariyún.” They are mostly of the Maliki school
(for which see Sale) and are famous as magicians and treasure-finders.
Amongst the suite of the late Amir Abd al-Kadir, who lived many years
and died in Damascus, I found several men profoundly versed in Eastern
spiritualism and occultism.
[FN#268] The names are respectively, Slave of the Salvation, of the One
(God), of the Eternal; of the Compassionate; and of the Loving.
[FN#269] i.e. “the most profound”; the root is that of “Bátiní,” a
gnostic, a reprobate.
[FN#270] i.e. the Tall One.
[FN#271] The loud pealing or (ear-) breaking Thunder.
[FN#272] Arab. “Fás and Miknás” which the writer evidently regards as
one city. “Fás” means a hatchet, from the tradition of one having been
found, says Ibn Sa’íd, when digging the base under the founder Idrís
bin Idrís (A.D. 808). His sword was placed on the pinnacle of the
minaret built by the Imám Abu Ahmad bin Abi Bakr enclosed in a golden
étui studded with pearls and precious stones. From the local
pronunciation “Fes” is derived the red cap of the nearer Moslem East
(see Ibn Batutah p. 230).
[FN#273] Arab. “Al-Khurj,” whence the Span. Las Alforjas.
[FN#274] Arab. “Kebáb,” mutton or lamb cut into small squares and
grilled upon skewers: it is the roast meat of the nearer East where, as
in the West, men have not learned to cook meat so as to preserve all
its flavour. This is found in the “Asa’o” of the Argentine Gaucho who
broils the flesh while still quivering and before the fibre has time to
set. Hence it is perfectly tender, if the animal be young, and has a
“meaty” taste half lost by keeping
[FN#275] Equivalent to our puritanical “Mercy.”
[FN#276] Arab. “Bukjah,” from the Persian Bukcheh: a favourite way of
keeping fine clothes in the East is to lay them folded in a piece of
rough long-cloth with pepper and spices to drive away moths.
[FN#277] This is always specified, for respectable men go out of town
on horse-back, never on “foot-back,” as our friends the Boers say. I
have seen a Syrian put to sore shame when compelled by politeness to
walk with me, and every acquaintance he met addressed him “Anta
Zalamah!” What! afoot?
[FN#278] This tale, including the Enchanted Sword which slays whole
armies, was adopted in Europe as we see in Straparola (iv. 3), and the
“Water of Life” which the Grimms found in Hesse, etc., “Gammer
Grethel’s German Popular Stories,” Edgar Taylor, Bells, 1878; and now
published in fuller form as “Grimm’s Household Tales,” by Mrs. Hunt,
with Introduction by A. Lang, 2 vols. 8vo, 1884. It is curious that so
biting and carping a critic, who will condescend to notice a misprint
in another’s book, should lay himself open to general animadversion by
such a rambling farrago of half-digested knowledge as that which
composes Mr. Andrew Lang’s Introduction.
[FN#279] These retorts of Judar are exactly what a sharp Egyptian
Fellah would say on such occasions.
[FN#280] Arab. “Salámát,” plur. of Salam, a favourite Egyptian welcome.
[FN#281] This sentence expresses a Moslem idea which greatly puzzles
strangers. Arabic has no equivalent of our “Thank you” (Kassara ’llah
Khayr-ak being a mere blessing Allah increase thy weal!), nor can
Al-lslam express gratitude save by a periphrase. The Moslem
acknowledges a favour by blessing the donor and by wishing him increase
of prosperity. “May thy shadow never be less!” means, Mayest thou
always extend to me thy shelter and protection. I have noticed this
before but it merits repetition. Strangers, and especially Englishmen,
are very positive and very much mistaken upon a point, which all who
have to do with Egyptians and Arabs ought thoroughly to understand. Old
dwellers in the East know that the theory of ingratitude in no way
interferes with the sense of gratitude innate in man (and beast) and
that the “lively sense of favours to come,” is as quick in Orient land
as in Europe.
[FN#282] Outside this noble gate, the Bab al-Nay, there is a great
cemetery wherein, by the by, lies Burckhardt, my predecessor as a Hájj
to Meccah and Al-Medinah. Hence many beggars are always found squatting
in its neighbourhood.
[FN#283] Friends sometimes walk alongside the rider holding the stirrup
in sign of affection and respect, especially to the returning pilgrim.
[FN#284] Equivalent to our Alas! It is woman’s word never used by men;
and foreigners must be most careful of this distinction under pain of
incurring something worse than ridicule. I remember an officer in the
Bombay Army who, having learned Hindostani from women, always spoke of
himself in the feminine and hugely scandalised the Sepoys.
[FN#285] i.e. a neighbour. The “quarters” of a town in the East are
often on the worst of terms. See Pilgrimage.
[FN#286] In the patriarchal stage of society the mother waits upon her
adult sons. Even in Dalmatia I found, in many old-fashioned houses, the
ladies of the family waiting upon the guests. Very pleasant, but
somewhat startling at first.
[FN#287] Here the apodosis would be “We can all sup together.”
[FN#288] Arab. “Záwiyah” (=oratory), which is to a Masjid what a chapel
is to a church.
[FN#289] Arab. “Kasr,” prop. a palace: so the Tuscan peasant speaks of
his “palazzo.”
[FN#290] This sale of a free-born Moslem was mere felony. But many
centuries later Englishmen used to be sold and sent to the plantations
in America.
[FN#291] Arab. “Kawwás,” lit. an archer, suggesting les archers de la
Sainte Hermandade. In former days it denoted a sergeant, an apparitor,
an officer who executed magisterial orders. In modern Egypt he became a
policeman (Pilgrimage i. 29). As “Cavass” he appears in gorgeous
uniform and sword, an orderly attached to public offices and
Consulates.
[FN#292] A purely imaginary King.
[FN#293] The Bresl. Edit. (ix. 370) here and elsewhere uses the word
“Nútiyá”=Nauta, for the common Bahríyah or Malláh.
[FN#294] Arab. “Tawaf,” the name given to the sets (Ashwat) of seven
circuits with the left shoulder presented to the Holy House, that is
walking “widdershins” or “against the sun” (“with the sun” being like
the movement of a watch). For the requisites of this rite see
Pilgrimage iii. 234.
[FN#295] Arab. “Akh”; brother has a wide signification amongst
Moslems and may be used to and of any of the Saving Faith.
[FN#296] Said by the master when dismissing a servant and meaning, “I
have not failed in my duty to thee!” The answer is, “Allah acquit thee
thereof!”
[FN#297] A Moslem prison is like those of Europe a century ago; to
think of it gives gooseflesh. Easterns laugh at our idea of
penitentiary and the Arabs of Bombay call it “Al-Bistán” (the Garden)
because the court contains a few trees and shrubs. And with them a
garden always suggests an idea of Paradise. There are indeed only two
efficacious forms of punishment all the world over, corporal for the
poor and fines for the rich, the latter being the severer form.
[FN#298] i.e. he shall answer for this.
[FN#299] A pun upon “Khalíyah” (bee hive) and “Khaliyah” (empty).
Khalíyah is properly a hive of bees with a honey-comb in the hollow of
a tree-trunk, opposed to Kawwárah, hive made of clay or earth
(Al-Hariri; Ass. of Tiflis). There are many other terms, for Arabs are
curious about honey. Pilgrimage iii. 110.
[FN#300] Lane (iii. 237) supposes by this title that the author
referred his tale to the days of the Caliphate. “Commander of the
Faithful” was, I have said, the style adopted by Omar in order to avoid
the clumsiness of “Caliph” (successor) of the Caliph (Abu Bakr) of the
Apostle of Allah.
[FN#301] eastern thieves count four modes of housebreaking, (1)picking
out burnt bricks; (2) cutting through unbaked bricks; (3) wetting a mud
wall and (4) boring through a wooden wall (Vikram and the Vampire p.
172).
[FN#302] Arab. “Zabbat,” lit. a lizard (fem.) also a wooden lock, the
only one used throughout Egypt. An illustration of its curious
mechanism is given in Lane (M. E. Introduction)
[FN#303] Arab. “Dabbús.” The Eastern mace is well known to English
collectors, it is always of metal, and mostly of steel, with a short
handle like our facetiously called “life-preterver” The head is in
various forms, the simplest a ball, smooth and round, or broken into
sundry high and angular ridges like a melon, and in select weapons
shaped like the head of some animal. bull, etc. See Night dcxlvi.
[FN#304] The red habit is a sign of wrath and vengeance and the Persian
Kings like Fath Al Shah, used to wear it when about to order some
horrid punishment, such as the “Shakk”; in this a man was hung up by
his heels and cut in two from the fork downwards to the neck, when a
turn of the chopper left that untouched. White robes denoted peace and
mercy as well as joy. The “white” hand and “black” hand have been
explained. A “white death” is quiet and natural, with forgiveness of
sins. A “black death” is violent and dreadful, as by strangulation; a
“green death” is robing in rags and patches like a dervish, and a “red
death” is by war or bloodshed (A. P. ii. 670). Among the mystics it is
the resistance of man to his passions.
[FN#305] This in the East is the way “pour se faire valoir”; whilst
Europeans would hold it a mere “bit of impudence.” aping dignity.
[FN#306] The Chief Mufti or Doctor of the Law, an appointment first
made by the Osmanli Mohammed II., when he captured Constantinople in
A.D. 1453. Before that time the functions were discharged by the Kázi
al-Kuzat (Kazi-in-Chief), the Chancellor.
[FN#307] So called because here lived the makers of crossbows (Arab.
Bunduk now meaning a fire piece, musket, etc.). It is the modern
district about the well-known Khan al-Hamzawi.
[FN#308] Pronounced “Goodareeyyah,” and so called after one of the
troops of the Fatimite Caliphs. The name “Yamániyah” is probably due to
the story-teller’s inventiveness.
[FN#309] I have noted that as a rule in The Nights poetical justice is
administered with much rigour and exactitude. Here, however, the
tale-teller allows the good brother to be slain by the two wicked
brothers as he permitted the adulterous queens to escape the sword of
Kamar al-Zaman. Dr. Steingass brings to my notice that I have failed to
do justice to the story of Sharrkán (vol. ii., p. 172), where I note
that the interest is injured by the gratuitous incest But this has a
deeper meaning and a grander artistic effect. Sharrkán begins with most
unbrotherly feelings towards his father’s children by a second wife.
But Allah’s decree forces him to love his half-sister despite himself,
and awe and repentance convert the savage, who joys at the news of his
brother’s reported death, to a loyal and devoted subject of the same
brother. But Judar with all his goodness proved himself an arrant softy
and was no match for two atrocious villains. And there may be overmuch
of forgiveness as of every other good thing.
[FN#310] In such case the “’iddah” would be four months and ten days.
[FN#311] Not quite true. Weil’s German version, from a MS. in the Ducal
Library of Gotha gives the “Story of Judar of Cairo and Mahmud of
Tunis” in a very different form. It has been pleasantly “translated
(from the German) and edited” by Mr. W. F. Kirby, of the British
Museum, under the title of “The New Arabian Nights” (London: W. Swan
Sonnenschein & Co.), and the author kindly sent me a copy. “New Arabian
Nights” seems now to have become a fashionable title applied without
any signification: such at least is the pleasant collection of
Nineteenth Century Novelettes, published under that designation by Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, 1884.
[FN#312] Von Hammer holds this story to be a satire on Arab
superstition and the compulsory propagation, the compelle intrare, of
Al-Islam. Lane (iii. 235) omits it altogether for reasons of his own. I
differ with great diffidence from the learned Baron whose Oriental
reading was extensive; but the tale does not seem to justify his
explanations. It appears to me simply one of the wilder romances, full
of purposeful anachronisms (e.g. dated between Abraham and Moses, yet
quoting the Koran) and written by someone familiar with the history of
Oman. The style too is peculiar, in many places so abrupt that much
manipulation is required to make it presentable: it suits, however, the
rollicking, violent brigand-like life which it depicts. There is only
one incident about the end which justifies Von Hammer’s suspicion.
[FN#313] The Persian hero of romance who converses with the
Simurgh or Griffin.
[FN#314] The word is as much used in Egypt as wunderbar in
Germany. As an exclamation is equivalent to “mighty fine!”
[FN#315] In modern days used in a bad sense, as a freethinker, etc. So
Dalilah the Wily is noted to be a philosopheress.
[FN#316] The game is much mixed up after Arab fashion. The
“Tufat” is the Siyáhgosh= Black-ears, of India (Felis caracal),
the Persian lynx, which gives very good sport with Dachshunds.
Lynxes still abound in the thickets near Cairo
[FN#317] The “Sons of Kahtán,” especially the Ya’arubah tribe, made
much history in Oman. Ya’arub (the eponymus) is written Ya’arab and
Ya’arib; but Ya’arub (from Ya’arubu Aorist of ’Aruba) is best, because
according to all authorities he was the first to cultivate primitive
Arabian speech and Arabic poetry. (Caussin de Perceval’s Hist. des
Arabes i. 50, etc.)
[FN#318] He who shooteth an arrow by night. See the death of Antar shot
down in the dark by the archer Jazár, son of Jábír, who had been
blinded by a red hot sabre passed before his eyes. I may note that it
is a mere fiction of Al-Asma’i, as the real ’Antar (or ’Antarah) lived
to a good old age, and probably died the “straw death.”
[FN#319] See vol. ii., p. 77, for a reminiscence of masterful
King Kulayb and his Himá or domain. Here the phrase would mean,
“None could approach them when they were wroth; none were safe
from their rage.”
[FN#320] The sons of Nabhán (whom Mr. Badger calls Nebhán) supplied the
old Maliks or Kings of Oman. (History of the Imams and Sayyids of Oman,
etc., London, Hakluyt Soc. 1871.)
[FN#321] This is a sore insult in Arabia, where they have not dreamt of
a “Jawab-club,” like that of Calcutta in the old days, to which only
men who had been half a dozen times “jawab’d” (= refused in
Anglo-lndian jargon) could belong. “I am not a stallion to be struck on
the nose,” say the Arabs.
[FN#322] Again “inverted speech”: it is as if we said, “Now, you’re a
damned fine fellow, so,” etc. “Allah curse thee! Thou hast guarded thy
women alive and dead;” said the man of Sulaym in admiration after
thrusting his spear into the eye of dead Rabi’ah.
[FN#323] The Badawi use javelins or throw-spears of many kinds,
especially the prettily worked Mizrák (Pilgrimage i. 349); spears for
footmen (Shalfah, a bamboo or palm-stick with a head about a hand
broad), and the knightly lance, a male bamboo some 12 feet long with
iron heel and a long tapering point often of open work or damascened
steel, under which are tufts of black ostrich feathers, one or two. I
never saw a crescent-shaped head as the text suggests. It is a
“Pundonor” not to sell these weapons: you say, “Give me that article
and I will satisfy thee!” After which the Sons of the Sand will haggle
over each copper as if you were cheapening a sheep. (Ibid. iii. 73.)
[FN#324] The shame was that Gharib had seen the girl and had fallen in
love with her beauty instead of applying for her hand in recognised
form. These punctilios of the Desert are peculiarly nice and tetchy;
nor do strangers readily realise them.
[FN#325] The Arabs derive these Noachidć from Imlik, great-grandson of
Shem, who after the confusion of tongues settled at Sana’a, then moved
North to Meccah and built the fifth Ka’abah. The dynastic name was
Arkam, M. C. de Perceval’s “Arcam,” which he would identify with Rekem
(Numbers xxxi. 8). The last Arkam fell before an army sent by Moses to
purge the Holy Land (Al-Hijaz) of idolatry. Commentators on the Koran
(chaps. vii.) call the Pharaoh of Moses Al-Walid and derive him from
the Amalekites: we have lately ascertained that this Mene-Ptah was of
the Shepherd-Kings and thus, according to the older Moslems, the Hyksos
were of the seed of Imlik. (Pilgrimage ii. 116, and iii. 190.) In Syria
they fought with Joshua son of Nun. The tribe or rather nationality was
famous and powerful: we know little about it and I may safely predict
that when the Amalekite country shall have been well explored, it will
produce monuments second in importance only to the Hittites. “A nomadic
tribe which occupied the Peninsula of Sinai” (Smith’s Dict. of the
Bible) is peculiarly superficial, even for that most superficial of
books.
[FN#326] The Amalekites were giants and lived 500 years.
(Pilgrimage, loc. cit.)
[FN#327] His men being ninety against five hundred.
[FN#328] Arab. “Kaum” (pron. Gúm) here=a razzia, afterwards=a tribe.
Relations between Badawi tribes are of three kinds; (1) Asháb, allies
offensive and defensive, friends who intermarry; (2) Kímán (plur. of
Kaum) when the blood-feud exists, and (3) Akhwan= brothers. The last is
a complicated affair, “Akháwat” or brotherhood, denotes the tie between
patron and client (a noble and an ignoble tribe) or between the
stranger and the tribe which claims an immemorial and unalienable right
to its own lands. Hence a small fee (Al-Rifkah) must be paid and the
traveller and his beast become “dakhíl,” or entitled to brother-help.
The guardian is known in the West as Rafík; Rabí’a in Eastern Arabia;
Ghafír in “Sinai;” amongst the Somal, Abbán and the Gallas Mogásá.
Further details are given in Pilgrimage iii. 85–87.
[FN#329] Arab. “Mál,” here=Badawi money, flocks and herds, our “fee”
from feoh, vieh, cattle; as pecunia from pecus, etc., etc.
[FN#330] The litholatry of the old Arabs is undisputed: Manát the
goddess-idol was a large rude stone and when the Meccans sent out
colonies these carried with them stones of the Holy Land to be set up
and worshipped like the Ka’abah. I have suggested (Pilgrimage iii. 159)
that the famous Black Stone of Meccah, which appears to me a large
aerolite, is a remnant of this worship and that the tomb of Eve near
Jeddah was the old “Sakhrah tawílah” or Long Stone (ibid. iii. 388).
Jeddah is now translated the grandmother, alluding to Eve, a myth of
late growth: it is properly Juddah=a plain lacking water.
[FN#331] The First Adites, I have said, did not all perish: a few
believers retired with the prophet Hud (Heber?) to Hazramaut. The
Second Adites, who had Márib of the Dam for capital and Lukman for
king, were dispersed by the Flood of Al-Yaman. Their dynasty lasted a
thousand years, the exodus taking place according to De Sacy in A.D.
150–170 or shortly after A.D. 100 (C. de Perceval), and was overthrown
by Ya’arub bin Kahtán, the first Arabist; see Night dcxxv.
[FN#332] This title has been noticed: it suggests the “Saint Abraham”
of our medaeval travellers. Every great prophet has his agnomen: Adam
the Pure (or Elect) of Allah, Noah the Nájiy (or saved) of Allah; Moses
(Kalím) the Speaker with Allah; Jesus the Rúh (Spirit breath) or Kalám
(the word) of Allah. For Mohammed’s see Al-Busiri’s Mantle-poem vv.
31–58.
[FN#333] Koran (chaps. iii. 17), “Verily the true religion in the
sight of Allah is Islam” i.e. resigning or devoting myself to the
Lord, with a suspicion of “Salvation” conveyed by the root
Salima, he was safe.
[FN#334] Arab. “Sá’ikah,” which is supposed to be a stone. The allusion
is to Antar’s sword, “Dhámi,” made of a stone, black, brilliant and
hard as a rock (an aerolite), which had struck a camel on the right
side and had come out by the left. The blacksmith made it into a blade
three feet long by two spans broad, a kind of falchion or chopper,
cased it with gold and called it Dhámi (the “Trenchant”) from its
sharpness. But he said to the owner:—
The sword is trenchant, O son of the Ghalib clan,
Trenchant in sooth, but where is the sworder-man?
Whereupon the owner struck off the maker’s head, a most satisfactory
answer to all but one.
[FN#335] Arab. “Kutá’ah”: lit. a bit cut off, fragment, nail-paring,
and here un diminutif. I have described this scene in Pilgrimage iii.
68. Latro often says, “Thy gear is wanted by the daughter of my
paternal uncle” (wife), and thus parades his politeness by asking in a
lady’s name.
[FN#336] As will appear the two brothers were joined by a party of
horsemen.
[FN#337] “Four” says the Mac. Edit. forgetting Falhun with
characteristic inconsequence.
[FN#338] Muhammad (the deserving great praise) is the name used by men;
Ahmad (more laudable) by angels, and Mahmúd (praised) by devils. For a
similar play upon the name, “Allah Allah Muhammad ast” (God is God the
praiseworthy) see Dabistan ii. 416.
[FN#339] The Mac. Edit. here gives “Sás,” but elsewhere “Sásá,” which
is the correct form
[FN#340] Sapor the Second (A.D. 310–330) was compelled to attack the
powerful Arab hordes of Oman, most of whom, like the Tayy, Aus and
Khazraj, the Banu Nabhán and the Hináwi left Al-Yaman A.D. 100–170, and
settled in the north and northeast of Al-Najd This great exodus and
dispersion of the tribes was caused, as has been said, by the bursting
of the Dam of Márib originally built by Abd al-Shams Sabá, father of
Himyar. These Yamanian races were plunged into poverty and roamed
northwards, planting themselves amongst the Arabs of Ma’add son of
Adnán. Hence the kingdom of Ghassan in Syria whose phylarchs under the
Romans (i.e. Greek Emperors of Constantinople) controlled Palestine
Tertia, the Arabs of Syria and Palestine, and the kingdom of Hárah,
whose Lakhmite Princes, dependent upon Persia, managed the Arabs of the
Euphrates, Oman and Al-Bahrayn. The Ma’addites still continued to
occupy the central plateau of Arabia, a feature analogous with India
“above the Ghauts.”
[FN#341] I have described (Pilgrimage i. 370) the grisly spot which a
Badawi will dignify by the name of Wady al-Ward=Vale of Roses.
[FN#342] Koran xiii. 3, “Of every fruit two different kinds” i.e.
large and small, black and white, sweet and sour.
[FN#343] A graft upon an almond tree, which makes its kernel sweet
and gives it an especial delicacy of favour. See Russell’s (excellent)
Natural History of Aleppo, p. 21.
[FN#344] So called from the flavour of the kernel it is well-known at
Damascus where a favourite fruit is the dried apricot with an almond by
way of kernel. There are many preparations of apricots, especially the
“Mare’s skin” (Jild al-fares or Kamar al-din) a paste folded into
sheets and exactly resembling the article from which it takes a name.
When wanted it is dissolved in water and eaten as a relish with bread
or biscuit (Pilgrimage i. 289).
[FN#345] “Ante Kamá takúl”=the vulgarest Cairene.
[FN#346] This may be Ctesiphon, the ancient capital of the
Chosroës, on the Tigris below Baghdad; and spoken of elsewhere in
The Nights; especially as, in Night dclxvii., it is called
Isbanir Al-Madáin; Madáin Kisrá (the cities of Chosroës) being
the Arabic name of the old dual city.
[FN#347] Koran vi. 103. The translation is Sale’s which I have
generally preferred, despite many imperfections: Lane renders this
sentence, “The eyes see not Him, but He seeth the eyes;” and Mr.
Rodwell, “No vision taketh in Him (?), but He taketh in all vision,”
and (better) “No eyesight reacheth to Him.”
[FN#348] Sale (sect. 1.) tells us all that was then known of these
three which with Yá’úk and Nasr and the three “daughters of God,”
Goddesses or Energies (the Hindu Saktis) Allát Al-Uzzá and Manát
mentioned in the Koran were the chiefs of the pre-lslamitic Pantheon. I
cannot but suspect that all will be connected with old Babylonian
worship. Al-Baydáwi (in Kor. Ixxi. 22) says of Wadd, Suwá’a, Yaghus,
Ya’úk and Nasr that they were names of pious men between Adam and Noah,
afterwards deified: Yaghús was the giant idol of the Mazhaj tribe at
Akamah of Al-Yaman and afterwards at Najrán Al-Uzzá was widely
worshipped: her idol (of the tree Semurat) belonging to Ghatafán was
destroyed after the Prophet’s order by Khálid bin Walíd. Allát or
Al-Lát is written by Pocock (spec. 110) “Ilahat” i.e. deities in
general. But Herodotus evidently refers to one god when he makes the
Arabs worship Dionysus as {Greek letters} and Urania as {Greek letters}
and the “tashdid” in Allát would, to a Greek ear, introduce another
syllable (Alilat). This was the goddess of the Kuraysh and Thakíf whose
temple at Taíf was circuited like the Ka’abah before Mohammed destroyed
it.
[FN#349] Shays (Shayth) is Ab Seth (Father Seth,) of the Hebrews, a
name containing the initial and terminal letters of the
Egypto-Phoenico-Hebrew Alphabet and the “Abjad” of the Arabs. Those curious
about its connection with the name of Allah (El), the Zodiacal signs
and with the constellations, visions but not wholly uninteresting, will
consult “Unexplored Syria” (vol. i. 33).
[FN#350] The exclamation of an honest Fellah.
[FN#351] This is Antar with the Chosroë who “kissed the Absian hero
between the eyes and bade him adieu, giving him as a last token a rich
robe.” The coarser hand of the story-teller exaggerates everything till
he makes it ridiculous.
[FN#352] The context suggests thee this is a royal form of “throwing
the handkerchief;” but it does not occur elsewhere. In face, the
European idea seems to have arisen from the oriental practice of
sending presents in napkins or kerchiefs.
[FN#353] i.e. if the disappointed suitor attack me.
[FN#354] i.e. if ever I be tempted to deny it.
[FN#355] Arab. “Musáfahah,” the Arab fashion of shaking hands. The
right palms are applied flat to each other; then the fingers are
squeezed and the hand is raised to the forehead (Pilgrimage ii. 332).
[FN#356] A city and province of Khuzistán the old Susiana. Dasht may be
either the town in Khorasan or the “forests” (dasht) belonging to Ahwáz
(Ahuaz in D’Herbelot).
[FN#357] This is the contest between “Antar and the Satrap Khosrewan at
the Court of Monzer.” but without its tragical finish.
[FN#358] Elliptical “he rode out in great state, that is to say if
greatness can truly be attributed to man,” for, etc.
[FN#359] According to D’Herbelot (s.v. Rostac) it is a name given to
the villages of Khorasan as “Souad” (Sawád) to those of Irak and
Makhlaf to those of Al-Yaman: there is, how ever, a well-known
Al-Rustak (which like Al-Bahrayn always takes the article) in the
Province of Oman West of Maskat, and as it rhymes with “Irak” it does
well enough. Mr. Badger calls this ancient capital of the Ya’arubah
Imams “er-Rasták” (Imams of Oman).
[FN#360] i.e. a furious knight.
[FN#361] In the Mac. Edit. “Hassán,” which may rhyme with Nabhán, but
it is a mere blunder.
[FN#362] In Classical Arabic Irak (like Yaman, Bahrayn and
Rusták) always takes the article.
[FN#363] The story-teller goes back from Kufah founded in Omar’s day to
the times of Abraham.
[FN#364] This manuvre has often been practiced; especially by the first
Crusaders under Bohemond (Gibbon) and in late years by the Arab slavers
in Eastern Intertropical Africa. After their skirmishes with the
natives they quartered and “bristled” the dead like game, roasted and
boiled the choice pieces and pretended to eat the flesh. The enemy, who
was not afraid of death, was struck with terror by the idea of being
devoured, and this seems instinctive to the undeveloped mind.