chapter iii of _Zadig, ou la Destinée_, (the substance of which he is

said to have derived from Geuelette’s _Soirées Bretonnes_), gives a version in which a lost palfrey and a she-dog are accurately described by the “sage” from the traces they had left on the path over which they passed.

The oldest known written form of the story of the Lost Camel is in the great work of Mas’udí, the celebrated Arabian historian, ‘Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems,’ which has not yet been completely translated into English.—In an Arabic MS. text of the _Alf Layla wa Layla_ (Thousand and one Nights), brought from the East by Wortley Montague, and now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it forms an incident in the tale of the Sultan of Yaman’s Three Sons: After their father’s death the three royal youths quarrel over the succession to the throne, and at length agree to submit their respective claims to one of their father’s tributary princes. On the road one of them remarks: “A camel has lately passed this way, loaded with grain on one side and with sweetmeats on the other.” The second observes: “And the camel is blind of one eye.” The third adds: “And it has lost its tail.” The owner comes up to them, and on hearing their description of his beast forces them to go with him before the king of the country, to whom they explain how they discovered the defects of the camel and its lading. In this form it also occurs in the Turkish collection translated under the title of _Turkish_ Evening Entertainments—see _ante_, p. 472—with the addition of a woman riding on the back of the camel, she having got off the animal during a temporary halt, and left her small footprints in the sand.

In a Siberian version three youths are met by a man, who asks them if they have seen his camel, to which they reply by describing the colour and peculiarities of the animal so exactly that he accuses them to the prince of the country of having stolen it. “I have lost a camel, my lord,” says he; “and when I met these three young men we saluted, and I told them of my loss. One of these youths asked me: ‘Was thy camel of a light colour?’ The second: ‘Was thy camel lame?’ And the third: ‘Was thy camel not blind of an eye?’ I answered ‘Yes’ to their questions. Now decide, my lord. It is evident that these young men have stolen my camel.” Then the prince asked the eldest: “How did you know that the camel was of a light colour?” He answered: “By some hairs which had fallen on the ground when it rubbed itself against the trees.” The two others gave answers similar to those in our version. Then said the prince to the man: “Thy camel is lost; go and look for it.” So the stranger mounted his horse and departed.[281]

* * * * *

Captain (now Sir) Richard F. Burton, in his _Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley_, vol. i, p. 142, thus describes how a _paggi_, or tracker, sets about discovering a strayed camel: “He ties on his slippers with packthread, winds his sheet tight round his waist, and squatting upon the ground scrutinises the footprint before he starts, with all the air of a connoisseur, making meanwhile his remarks aloud: ‘He is a little, little camel—his feet are scarcely three parts grown—he treads lightly with the off foreleg, and turns this toe in—his sole is scarred—he is not laden—there he goes—there—there, he is off to the jungles of Shaykh Radhan’.”

_The Hunter and his Dog_—p. 206.

A variant of this story is cited from a Cawnpore newspaper in the _Asiatic Journal_, vol. xv (new series), Part II, October, 1834, p. 78, which is to the following effect: A man named Dabí had a dog called Bhyro, the faithful companion of his travels, who guarded his goods from robbers while he slept. He wished to go to a distant part of the country on a speculation in grain, but had not sufficient funds for this purpose. After much cogitation he at length resolved to pledge his dog for 1000 rupís, and when he applied to several persons was laughed at for his folly; but a wealthy merchant named Dyarám gave the money, on condition that it should be paid back within twelve months, taking the dog Bhyro in pledge. When eleven months had passed the merchant began to bewail the stupidity which had induced him to lend so large a sum on so precarious a security. His relentings were, however, premature. One dark and dreary night he was aroused from his slumbers by a great noise, occasioned by the clashing of swords and the barking of Bhyro. A band of armed men had entered the house with intent to plunder, but before they could effect their purpose they had been observed by the faithful Bhyro, who commenced an attack upon them. Before Dyarám could render any assistance Bhyro had laid two of the robbers dead at his feet; a third, on the approach of Dyarám, aimed a blow at his head, which was prevented from taking effect by Bhyro seizing the ruffian by the throat and laying him prostrate on the ground. After peace was restored Dyarám congratulated himself on having received Bhyro in pledge for Dabí, by which act he not only escaped being plundered, but in all probability murdered. Next morning Dyarám called Bhyro, and, after caressing him, said: “The service you rendered me last night is more than an equivalent for the 1000 rupís I lent your master; go, faithful creature, I give you a free discharge from your obligation as security for him.” Bhyro shook his head in token that it was impossible for him to go until his master returned; but Dyarám, comprehending his meaning, soon arranged matters, by writing a statement of the circumstances, and giving a voucher for the 1000 rupís. This document he tied round Bhyro’s neck, which done, Bhyro expressed his delight by leaping about in every direction, and, after licking the hands of Dyarám, darted out of the house and set off in quest of his master. While these scenes were transpiring in Dyarám’s house, Dabí was not unmindful of the pledge he had left behind him, and, having succeeded in his speculation, was returning with all haste to redeem it. At his last stage homewards he was surprised to see Bhyro approaching him with every demonstration of joy, but at sight of him Dabí’s rage was kindled, and repulsing Bhyro as he fawned upon him he thus addressed him: “O ungrateful wretch! is this the return you have made for my kindness to you? and is this the manner in which you have established my character for veracity? You remained faithful to your trust during eleven months—could you not have held out for thirty short days? You have, by your desertion from your post, entailed dishonour upon me, and for this you shall die.” And, so saying, he drew his sword and slew him. After having committed this deed, he observed a paper tied round Bhyro’s neck, and having read it, his grief was indescribable. To atone in some measure for his rash act, he caused poor Bhyro to be buried on the spot where he fell, and a superb monument to be erected over his remains. To the grave of Bhyro, even at the present day, resort natives who have been bitten by dogs, they believing that the dust collected there, when applied to the wounds, is an antidote for hydrophobia.

It will be observed, on comparison, that the chief difference between this version and the Kashmírí story, cited in p. 509, is that in the latter the dog does not venture to attack the robbers, but follows them to the place where they conceal their plunder and next day leads his temporary master to the spot, while in the foregoing the dog Bhyro boldly flies at the rascals, and slays or disables three of them, thus preserving the house from being robbed. The Tamil version has the dog’s killing the paramour of the merchant’s wife in place of the robbery, and the tragical catastrophe of the suicides of all the characters.

A version given from Oudh, by Mr. G. H. Roberts, of Sítápúr, in _Indian Notes and Queries_, 1887, p. 150, agrees exactly with the Kashmírí story.

_The Bráhman’s Wife and the Mungús_—p. 211.

This story is of world-wide popularity, and the preceding tale of the Hunter and his Faithful Dog must be considered as an off-shoot from it. In this country the form in which it is generally known is the legend of Llewellyn and his hound Gellert, which has been so finely versified by Spencer. I have adduced many variants of the story in the Appendix to my _Book of Sindibád_, and have treated it still more fully in my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii. pp. 166-186, where, besides versions found in the _Sindibád_ cycle (including, of course, the European _Seven Wise Masters_),[282] are given several Indian forms of the story, and lastly the oldest known version, from the _Vinaya Pitaka_ of the Chinese collection of Buddhist books, which, according to Dr. S. Beal—one of the greatest living authorities on Chinese Buddhist literature—probably dates from the time of Asoka’s Council, B.C. 230. But indeed the story may be many thousands of years old, for there is no reason to suppose it to be of Buddhist invention; and we need not be surprised should it be discovered some day in an Egyptian papyrus.

This Tamil version is one of three known to me in which it is the mother, not the father, who kills the faithful animal, the others being one current in Ceylon, and one from the North-West Provinces, cited in a very entertaining work entitled _Past Days in India_, and also in the small collection of Indian tales appended by Vermieux to his _Hermit of Mottee Jhurna_, second edition, p. 101; it is, moreover, singular in representing the woman as destroying herself and her husband then killing his little son and afterwards himself—tragic incidents added by the author probably to enable the supposed narrator to more forcibly impress on the king’s mind the terrible consequences of acting in affairs of moment with inconsiderateness and precipitation.

Among the Malays the story is told in this manner: A man left a tame bear in charge of his house and of his sleeping child while he was absent from home. On his return he missed the child and found the house in great disorder, as if some desperate struggle had taken place, and the floor was smeared with blood. Hastily concluding that the bear had killed his child, the enraged father slew the animal with his spear, but almost immediately afterwards found the carcase of a tiger, which the faithful bear had defeated and killed, and the child emerged unharmed from the jangal, where it had taken refuge.

_The Faithless Wife and the Ungrateful Blind Man_—p. 215.

Two very bad characters, and the less my readers have to do with such, the better for their own peace of mind, I trow!—There is a tale in the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_ of a woman who cruelly abandoned her helpless husband in the _jangal_, and went off with a lusty young fellow, but I am unable to say in which chapter of that most valuable and entertaining collection it occurs, though I made a special search for it.

As a set-off to the faithless wife of the blind man—who afterwards proves to be himself an arrant scoundrel—read the touching address of Damayanti to her husband the ruined Rájá Nala, when he proposes in the _jangal_ that she should return to her parents and leave him to his fate: “O king, thinking of thy purpose, my heart trembleth, and all my limbs become faint. How can I go, leaving thee in the lone woods, despoiled of thy kingdom and deprived of thy wealth, thyself without a garment on, and worn with hunger and toil? When, in the deep woods, fatigued and afflicted with hunger, thou thinkest of thy former bliss, I will, O great monarch, soothe thy weariness. In every sorrow, there is no medicine equal unto the wife, say the physicians. It is the truth, O Nala, that I speak unto thee!”[283]

* * * * *

A story somewhat resembling the incident of the blind man and the honest Setti will be found in the notes on the ROSE OF BAKÁWALÍ, under the heading of ‘The Bráhman and the Lion.’

_The Wonderful Mango Fruit_—p. 220.

Analogues of this story are found in a Canarese collection entitled _Kathá Manjarí_, with a magpie in place of a parrot as the bearer of the youth-renewing fruit, and in the _Tútí Náma_ (or Parrot-Book) of Nakhshabí, a work written A.D. 1329, which has not yet been completely translated into English, and is now generally known from Káderi’s abridgment.

Fruits having the property of restoring the youth and vigour of those who ate of them figure in many Asiatic stories—there is a notable instance in the opening of the Indian collection entitled _Sinhasana Dwatrinsati_, or Thirty-two (Tales) of a Throne. And from the East the notion was introduced into the European mediæval romances; for example, in the _Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux_, “at the bidding of an angel,” I quote from Mr. Sydney L. Lee’s notes to his edition of the work printed for the Early English Text Society, “Huon gathers three of the Apples of Youth, each of which when eaten by a man of eighty or a hundred years old transforms him to a young man of thirty. Huon bestows one of the apples on the admiral of Tauris and his white hair and beard grow yellow as he eats it, and he suddenly becomes a youth of strength and beauty. The second is eaten by the abbot of Cluny, who is 114 years old, with similar results. The third rejuvenates Thierry, emperor of Germany.”

_The Poisoned Food_—p. 226.

This is the third instance in the romance of food being poisoned by serpents, and it is of very common occurrence in Eastern fictions. The oldest known form of the story is found in a Sanskrit collection entitled _Vetálapanchavinsati_, or Twenty-five (Tales) of a Vetála, or Vampyre, which is given fully in the Appendix to my _Book of Sindibád_, and the story occurs in all the Eastern texts of the Sindibád cycle. This Tamil version is peculiar in representing an old man as falling a victim to the poison dropped from a snake’s mouth into food given him by a young pilgrim, and the imprisoning of the latter in the village temple of Kálí and so forth. In all other versions known to me, the poison is dropped into an open dish of milk carried by a slave-girl on her head, and her master’s guests, partaking of the milk, all perish.

_The Rescued Snake_—p. 231.

With an important difference, this tale resembles that of the Bráhman and the Lion, p. 254, which is a variant of the world-wide fable of the Hunter and the Serpent—the difference being that in this case the snake ultimately rewards its rescuer. In the story of Nala and Damayanti, the rájá rescues a snake from a _jangal_ fire and carries it some distance and is about to set it down when the snake says: “Carry me ten steps farther, and count them as you go.” So Nala proceeds, counting the steps—one, two, three; and when he says “ten” (Sansk. _dasa_, which means “bite” as well as “ten”) the snake takes him at his word and bites the rájá on the forehead, upon which he becomes black. But this the snake does for Nala’s own benefit, that he should not be recognised in his degradation.

THE ROSE OF BAKÁWALÍ.

In the Introduction to the present collection will be found the few particulars which are known regarding this romance and its original Persian author. There is, I think, strong evidence of its being of Hindú extraction. In the absence of any similar work in Sanskrit or one of the vernacular languages of India, we can only suppose that the author of the _Gul-i Bakáwalí_ drew his materials from various and more or less distinct, or separate, fictions; and this supposition seems fully borne out by the somewhat loose arrangement of the later incidents. The narrative down to the end of the sixth chapter (p. 315), as I have divided it, is complete in itself: the Prince wins at backgammon the immense wealth of Dilbar, and her own person besides; he is married to the beauteous damsel Mahmúda; he procures the magical Rose; he has a splendid palace erected for him by the fairies, becomes reconciled to his father, and puts his false brothers to shame; and after a number of wondrous adventures is united to the fairy Bakáwalí, and “passed his time with these rosy-lipped beauties, immersed in a sea of bliss.” Surely this is the usual conclusion of a romance, and all that follows was an afterthought. It is, of course, quite in keeping with “the fitness of things” romantic that the hero should have to undergo some tribulation before becoming possessed of Bakáwalí; but that fairy’s subsequent punishment by the deity Indra; the hero’s marriage with the princess Chitrawat; the re-birth of Bakáwalí—which, as I have already remarked, is quite out of place in a Muslim work, though very proper in a Hindú story; and the love-affair of Bahrám are evidently incidents which have been taken out of different tales, albeit we should be sorry to have them omitted, for they are all very entertaining.

THE MAGICAL FLOWER—p. 242.

The quest of a wonderful flower, or other object, having the virtue of restoring sight to the blind, or of bestowing perennial youth, or of bringing back the dying to life and health, is the theme of many folk-tales. Besides the magical Rose from the garden of the fairy Bakáwalí, which cured the king’s blindness (p. 271), we have another instance in the romantic adventures of Hatim Taï (_ante_, p. 467), in the case of the blind man confined in a cage; and in the same work—but not mentioned in my epitome of it—we are told that in the course of Hatim’s Second Adventure he came to the capital of Mahparí, the king of the fairies, and learned that his son had become blind. Hatim tries the effect of his talisman on the eyes of the young prince, and it removes the pain, but not the blindness. He is then informed that there is a tree that grows amidst the shades of Zulmát [or region of darkness, where is also the Water of Life], which is named Nandar; and from this tree distils a liquid of such rare virtue that if even a drop of it could be procured it would be the means of restoring the prince’s sight. A fairy in love with Hatim gives him a guard of seven thousand troops, and he at once sets out on his dangerous journey. Having arrived in the region of darkness, Hatim takes some of the wondrous liquid, and returning in safety applies a few drops to the prince’s eyes, when his sight is immediately restored.

The myth of the Water of Life is of ancient date, and it was probably introduced into Europe from the East during the Crusades. In Rabbinical lore it is said that Solomon sent one of his officers for the Water of Immortality, but when he returned successful the sage monarch would have none of it, because he did not wish to survive all his female favourites! According to the Muslim legend, Alexander despatched the mythical prophet Al-Khizar on a similar errand, but no sooner had he drank of the water than it disappeared, and this is how Al-Khizar possesses everlasting youth.

A Fountain of Youth figures prominently in the _fabliau_ which chants the delights of the Land of Cockaigne; and in Conrad of Wartzburg’s _Trojan War_ (of the 13th century) Medea obtains water from Paradise to renew the youth of Jason’s father. In the romance of _Huon of Bordeaux_, the doughty hero finds the Fount of Youth on Alexander’s Rock, and bathing in it is at once restored to vigorous health.

The quest of the Rose in the garden of Bakáwalí, to cure the king’s blindness, finds an analogue in the German tale of the Water of Life, in the collection of the Brothers Grimm—indeed, they are very closely allied: A king is sick unto death. The first and the second of his sons set out in succession to procure for him the Water of Life, but they behave rudely to a dwarf on the road and he enchants them. The third son next undertakes the adventure, and meeting the dwarf is civil and courteous towards him, and in reward the dwarf directs the youth on his way. Following all the instructions of the dwarf, he comes to a castle, which he enters, unhurt by the two lions at the gate. In one room he finds a number of knights in a trance, and taking the rings off their fingers he puts them on his own. Going into another room he sees on a table a sword and a loaf, which he also takes. In a third room he discovers a beautiful damsel on a couch, who welcomes him joyfully, and says that he should have the kingdom if he would free her from the spell by which she is bound, and come back in a year and marry her. Returning homeward, the dwarf tells him that the sword would at a single blow slay a whole army, and the bread would never fail him. But the brave youth will not go home without his brothers, and so the dwarf sets them free. While the three brothers are sailing in a ship, the two elder substitute for the Water of Life a bottle of sea water, which makes the king worse when he drinks some of it. Then the two elder brothers give him the real water and he is cured. But in the end, as in our Tale, the hero turns the tables on his brethren and marries the princess.

Readers of the _Arabian Nights_ will recollect that Prince Ahmed is required by his father, at the suggestion of an envious vazír, to get him some water from the Lion’s Spring, and his bride, the Parí Bánú, directs him how to win past the lions, and so forth. There can be little doubt that both the German and the Arabian stories have a common origin. Again, in the tale of the Envious Sisters, with which our ordinary English version of the _Arabian Nights_ concludes, the Fountain of Golden Water has the property of disenchanting all the princes and nobles who had been turned to stone.—But it were tedious to farther multiply examples.

THE PRINCE AND DILBAR PLAYING BACKGAMMON—p. 250.

From the most remote times of which any records have been preserved, wine, music, dancing, and _dice_ seem to have gone together in the East. The ancient Arabs were passionately addicted to gaming, till Muhammed strictly forbade all games of chance; a prohibition which—like that against wine-bibbing—has not been so strictly observed by all his followers, though Muslims are not, perhaps, so much given to gambling as most other Asiatic peoples. They are excessively fond of chess, which, however, cannot be included amongst games of pure chance. Of all races, the Chinese are probably the most inveterate gamblers: they will play at hazard till they have lost all their possessions, wives, and children, and finally their own freedom. In our own country the mania for dice-play was fatally common among the upper and middle classes until within comparatively recent years, and if all stories be true, gaming with cards or dice, though forbidden by law, is still only too prevalent, to the speedy ruin of the deluded votaries of the Goddess of Chance. For it would appear that, though some gamesters may win and others of course lose, yet nobody is ever a gainer in the end, and hence we must conclude that _all_ the winnings go to—the Devil!

The Hindús have always been infatuated gamesters, and of this we have ample evidence in the noble Indian epic, the _Mahábhárata_, out of which one or two notable examples may suffice. In the Second Book (_Sabha Parva_—Effort Chapter), sections lix-lxvi, Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, plays at dice with Shakuni, who by foul means[284] wins all his wealth, then his kingdom, then his brothers one by one, then Yudhisthira himself, and finally his spouse Draupadi. In the Third Book (_Vana Parva_—Forest Chapter), sections lix-lxi, Rájá Nala, infatuated by Kálí, who had possessed him, plays at dice with his brother Pushkara and loses his wealth and his kingdom, but refusing to stake his sweet queen Damayanti he goes accompanied by her into exile. Ultimately, having exchanged with Vahuka his skill in dice-play for his own wonderful knowledge of horses, Nala plays again with his brother and wins back his kingdom.[285]

European fiction furnishes analogous incidents to those above cited. For example, in the mediæval romance of _Guerni de Monglave_, the hero loses his kingdom at a game of chess. In W. Harrison Ainsworth’s novel (or “romance”) of _Old Saint Paul’s_, in the chapter entitled “The Bully and the Gamester” the latter, after losing all his money, is induced to stake his wife on a “cast of the ivories”—and his opponent wins. In Prior’s _Danish Ballads_, ‘Sir Thor and the Maiden Silvermor,’ vol. iii, p. 151 ff., a damsel stakes her own person on a single throw of dice, and loses.—Other instances occur in the early European romances.

* * * * *

In the latter portion of “All for a Pansa,” in the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles’ _Folk-Tales of Kashmír_, we have a pretty close parallel to the incident of the Prince and Dilbar at the game of nard, or backgammon, but a very ancient version is found in the following Panjábí legend,[286] which recounts

How Rájá Rasálú Played at Chess With Rájá Sirikap For Their Heads.

News was once brought to King Rasálú that at Kot Bhitaur on the Indus lived a certain Rájá, Sirikap by name, who was notorious for his ferocity, and renowned for his skill in chess-playing. King Sirikap only played with those who would accept his conditions, which were: In the first game the stakes were to be horse, clothes, and lands. In the second game the stake was to be the loser’s head. King Rasálú, who could not bear the thought of a rival in anything, resolved to visit him. So he called his captains together and said: “I am going to try my luck against King Sirikap. But if I lose the game and forfeit my head, say, what will you, my followers, do?” One of the officers answered: “You may lose the game, and you may lose your head, O king, but one thing is very certain—if you lose your head, the head of Rájá Sirikap will be forfeited too. Of this he shall be certified.”

Then the king mounted his horse and rode to Kot Bhitaur, the castle of the “handsome” Sirikap the Beheader. King Sirikap welcomed his brother king with every demonstration of affection, and conducted him into his palace. “O youth,” said he, “you must have come from a long distance. What is the purpose of your visit?” “My kingdom is Siálkot,” answered Rasálú. “Your fame as a chess-player kindled my ambition, and I have come to play with you; only, as I am now fatigued, let us play, if it please you, to night.” To this Sirikap agreed, and King Rasálú, having refreshed himself, descended from the mountain rock on which the castle stood, and walked to the bank of the river. There he saw struggling in the water some small clusters of ants which were being washed away, and stooping down he saved them. Then he saw a drowning hedgehog, and, being a humane man, he saved it also, and one of the attendants begged for it to amuse the servants in the castle above. Going a few steps farther, he came to a breakwater, which was close to the castle-rock, and there he heard a voice proceeding from the cliff: “O sir, you have come to Kot Bhitaur to play at chess with Rájá Sirikap. But I warn you that he is a magician.” The astonished attendants looked about them and cried: “What voice is this?” but they perceived no one. Then they saw on the sand a representation of the game, well figured, and they said to the king: “O king—see, here is the game. It is an omen of good fortune. This is your conquering day.” At this moment the mysterious voice again issued from the rock: “O prince—for such I perceive you to be—I have been witness of your humanity. To you I may confide my life, being satisfied that you will not betray me. Rájá Sirikap is a man of blood—deep, sudden, and treacherous; but observe what I say, and your life will be saved.” “Speak on, O hidden one,” answered King Rasálú. “First of all,” continued the voice, “do you walk along the bank until you see a rat with a black head. Catch him and bring him here.” The king obeyed, and returning to the crag he said: “The rat, O friend, I have found, as you said, but now I would find you.” Climbing up the ledges of the steep rocks, he came to a roughly-fashioned cell in the face of the cliff, in which he discovered a lady of noble birth, chained by her feet to the floor. “Who are you?” said he; “and whence came you here?” She answered him: “I am one of the five daughters of King Sirikap. My fault was one which I will not reveal to you now, but my punishment is imprisonment in this rocky cell. Yet I knew, by my power of divination, that a prince would come from a distant kingdom, strong and young, and that, having cut off my father’s head, he would release me. In you I behold the prince of my prophetic dreams.” “And I will release you,” cried the king; “but first inform me how I am to be conqueror at the chess-board.”

The princess then gave him full instructions how he should proceed in the trial of skill which awaited him. “First of all,” said she, “play with the king only on a Tuesday, as to-day; and, secondly, play only once, and let the stake be the head of him who loses. You will proceed thus: Tie the rat with a string, and keep him near you, as you both sit on the floor, but keep him so that he may be visible. That King Sirikap may not suspect your design, lean your cheek upon your hand, and call out now and then: ‘O Rájá Núl! O Rájá Núl!’ for he was the inventor of the game of Chaupúr,[287] in which you will be engaged. There are two sets of men of eight pieces each, and they are of two different colours. Now at the critical point of the game Rájá Sirikap will give a certain signal, and straightway from his capacious sleeve will issue his magic cat. On her head she bears a light which renders her invisible, and which is also invisible to all but the king himself. The effect of the mysterious light is to throw a glamour over the king’s adversary and to dazzle his eyes, so that he is unable to see, and during this interval the cat dexterously disposes the pieces in such a way that at the next move King Sirikap wins the game, and his adversary forfeits his wager. But do you, O Prince, in order to guard against surprise, keep the rat secure, and now and then put your disengaged hand upon it, and now and then take it off, patting it playfully. The moment the cat comes forth she will make a dash at the rat, and, coming in contact with your hand, the light will fall to the ground. Then keep her at bay, and the game will be yours for the cowardly heart of King Sirikap will begin to quake, and his disordered mind will ensure his discomfiture.”

Having received his instructions, King Rasálú returned to the palace, and that night, being the eve of Tuesday, the two kings sat down to play. The issue of the game for some time was doubtful; but at last it was evident that a few more moves would decide the result in favour of Rájá Rasálú; when his rival made a secret signal, and the magic cat, unseen by any but himself, stole from his sleeve. The moment she did so she caught sight of the black-headed rat, and, forgetting her duty to her master, she instantly sprang towards it, but the hand of Rájá Rasálú, chanced to smite the light from her head and to keep her occupied until he had won the game.

Then sprang the mighty king to his feet and cried to his trembling rival: “The game is won and your head is my prize”; and drawing his long sword he was about to strike off his head, when Sirikap, lifting up his hands, implored a short respite, that he might enter his inner apartments and bid farewell to his family. That moment a messenger brought news to him that his queen had been delivered of a daughter. But he heeded it not. His perturbed soul was full of schemes as to how he might escape his impending fate. As he walked sadly from room to room, he said to himself: “If I hide in my own chambers I shall be discovered.” So this idea he dismissed from his mind. But in an unfrequented corner his anxious eye caught sight of a large disused drum, and, disregarding his kingly dignity, he crept under that, and began to feel himself a little secure.

Rájá Rasálú was meanwhile pacing the hall with impatient strides, waiting for the return of his adversary. At last he could tarry no longer, so, calling his captains, he summoned King Sirikap to appear. But no answer was made to his call. He then began a careful search of the whole of the castle, feeling satisfied that the king could not have passed his guards who were on the watch at every post. When he came to the drum, the quick eye of Rasálú detected that it had been recently moved. “Aha!” cried he, “the caitiff must be skulking here,” and in another moment he dragged the dishonoured monarch forth by the heels. Then he handed him over to his officers. “As he was a king,” said he, “lodge him in his own palace, but guard him well, for at sunset he must die.” Then turning to Sirikap, he spurned him, saying: “O villain! hundreds of heads you have smitten off in your time with your own hand, and all for pastime, yet you never grieved or shed a tear. And now, when the same fate is to be your own, you sneak away and hide yourself in a drum.”

Some time after this there entered the royal soothsayers, and they, addressing their fallen master, said: “Sir, we have sought for the interpretation of this mystery, why ruin should have visited your house, and we conclude that all this calamity is on account of your daughter, whose baneful star has crossed your own. She has come in an evil hour. Let her now be slain, and let her head be thrown into the Indus, and your life will be saved.” Sirikap answered: “If my life depends on her, bring me her head, and mine may yet be saved.” So a slave-girl was despatched to bring the infant to its father. And as she carried it along from the apartments of the queen she said: “O what a pretty child! I should like to save it.” Rájá Rasálú, overhearing her, said: “Whither are you taking that child?” The slave-girl answered: “This is Rájá Sirikap’s child, born only this very night. The Bráhman soothsayers have told my master that his child is the cause of all his misfortunes, and that her head is to be taken off to save his own.” When Rájá Rasálú looked at the child he loved it, and became very sorrowful, knowing the power of divination. So he returned and said: “O Rájá Sirikap, your head shall be spared on certain conditions: First, you must surrender this infant princess in betrothal to me. Secondly, you must become my vassal and pay me an annual tribute. Thirdly, you must consent to have your forehead branded with a red hot iron, in token of your vassalage. And fourthly, you must discontinue your bloody games at chess.” To all these conditions King Sirikap was only too glad to agree. So a treaty was drawn up between the two kings, and it was confirmed and ratified in the presence of their principal officers.

After this Rájá Rasálú mounted his horse and was riding away when he thought of the princess in her lonely cell. Turning his horse’s head, he sought the foot of the cliff and ascended to the cavern. “Of course,” cried she, when she saw him, “you have won the game? But tell me, have you cut off my father’s head?” “No,” said he, “I have not.” “What!” replied she, “have you beaten your antagonist in the game of death, yet not exacted the penalty of his failure? What luckless man are you?” Then King Rasálú explained to the princess all the circumstances of his adventure. “But,” concluded he, “one thing I omitted, namely, to stipulate for your deliverance from captivity.”

The princess, who expected no less than to be espoused to this handsome stranger, was overcome with distress. Seeing this, the king, who pitied her misfortunes, took up a piece of rock and broke her chain, and then, lifting her over his shoulder, he descended with her from the cavern, and carried her up to the palace of Rájá Sirikap, her father, who, seeing company returning and fearing some new calamity, once more endeavoured to conceal himself. But King Rasálú reassured him, and brought him forth, and said to him: “Behold, here is your daughter;—now say for what crime was she imprisoned?” “A certain prince,” answered Sirikap, “came to play with me, and my rebellious daughter gave him, to sit upon, my fortunate carpet of state. ‘Aha,’ said I to myself, ‘so, my lady, there’s treason afloat?’ upon which I ordered her to be perpetually chained and imprisoned.” “One more condition,” said Rájá Rasálú, with a stern air, “must be added to the others; it is, that you forgive her, and that you let me know within three months that you have made a suitable match for her.” Nor could Rájá Sirikap dare to dispute his new lord’s will, but he received his daughter and provided suitably for her in accordance with his pledged word.

Once more King Rasálú mounted his charger, and at the head of his brave companions, whose lance-heads glittered in the sunlight, and whose accoutrements clashed merrily, he rode proudly away to his own capital. With him, in a magnificent litter, travelled the infant daughter of Sirikap, whose name was Kokilan.[288] She it was, who, in after years, when she grew to woman’s estate, became his beautiful but ill-fated consort.[289]

* * * * *

It is not likely that our author adapted his story of the Prince and Dilbar the courtesan from the foregoing legend of Rájá Rasálú: the fact that a similar tale is current in Kashmír, as already mentioned, would seem to indicate that, in more or less different forms, it is known in various countries of Hindústán. But the Prince’s game with Dilbar, mainly to rescue his brothers who had fallen into her toils, finds a curious analogue in the mediæval European romance which recounts the adventures of four brothers, Agravain, Gueret, Galheret, and Gauvain, all of whom set out, in different directions, in quest of Lancelot du Lac, according to the analysis given by Dunlop, in his _History of Fiction_: Agravain, as a _coup d’essai_, kills Druas, a formidable giant, but is in turn vanquished by Sorneham, the brother of Druas. His life is spared at the request of the conqueror's niece, and he is confined in a dungeon, where his preserver secretly brings him refreshments. Gueret also concludes a variety of adventures by engaging Sorneham, and being overcome is shut up in the same dungeon with his brother. Galheret, the third of the fraternity, comes to a castle where he is invited to play with the lady at chess, on the condition that if he wins he is to possess her person and castle, but losing, should become her slave. The chessmen are ranged in compartments on the floor of a fine hall, are as large as life, and glitter with gold and diamonds. Each of them is a fairy and moves on being touched with a talisman. Galheret loses the game, and is confined with a number of other checkmated wights. Gauvain, however, soon after arrives, and vanquishes the lady at her own arms; but only asks the freedom of the prisoners, among whom he finds his brother. Having learned from an elfish attendant of the lady the fate of his two other brothers, he equips himself in the array of the chess-king. In this garb he engages Sorneham, who, being dazzled with the brightness of his attire, is easily conquered, by which means Agravain and Gueret are delivered from confinement.

_The Bráhman and the Lion_—p. 254.

There are few fables more widely spread than this, certainly in various forms, but always with the same result. In another work I have adduced a number of versions European and Asiatic,[290] and shall content myself with citing in this place a rather unique version from Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali’s _Observations on the Mussulmans of India_, vol. ii, p. 330ff.:

A certain man is travelling on horseback through an immense forest, and observes fire consuming some bushes, in the centre of which is a great snake, who implores the traveller to save him. The traveller throws down his horse-bag and the snake creeps into it, and when the horseman takes it up and releases the snake the latter is about to bite him, and so forth. Having appealed to the _pípal_-tree and received the same answer as that of the banyan in our version, the two meet a camel-driver, who says the snake is right—it is “the way of the world” to return evil for good, and tells his own story: “I was,” says he, “sole proprietor of a very fine strong camel, by whose labour I earned a handsome livelihood, in conveying goods, and sometimes travellers, from place to place, as fortune served me. One day, returning home through an intricate wood, I approached a poor blind man, who was seated on the ground lamenting his hard fate. Hearing my camel’s feet advance he redoubled his cries of distress, calling loud for help. He told me that he had been attacked by robbers, and that his boy-guide had been forced from him and taken as a slave. I seated him on my beast and proceeded with him to the city where he said he resided. Arriving there, I offered to assist the poor man to alight, but to my astonishment he began abusing me for my barefaced wickedness, collected a crowd about us by his cries for help from his persecutor, declared himself the master of the camel, and accused me of attempting to rob him now, as I had done his brother before. Hearing this plausible speech, the people dragged me before the judge, who sentenced me to be thrust out of the city with threat of greater punishment should I ever return. Therefore I say, the reward of good is evil.” The fox is then appealed to with the usual result of leaving the ungrateful snake in the flames, there “to fry in his own fat.”—This story of the camel-driver is somewhat analogous to that of the Setti and the Blind Man—_ante_, p. 215ff.

_The Princess and the Dív who exchanged Sexes_—p. 279.

This droll story is of Hindú extraction, and in much the same form is still current in Southern India. In the “Exposition” prefixed to the Abbé Dubois’ French translation of the Tamil version of the _Panchatantra_, p. 15, it is given with a few unimportant variations: The name of the king is Nihla-Kéton,[291] his country is called Anga-Dessa, and his capital, Barty-Poura. His wife was long sterile, and after many vows and prayers she at length gave birth to daughters only. Enraged at this, the king tells his prime minister, Vahaca, that he purposes divorcing his wife and taking another, and Vahaca tries to dissuade him from such a course. When the queen is again pregnant the minister offers to take her to his own house and treat her with every care, to which the king consents. The queen once more gives birth to a girl, and the prime minister announces it as a boy, greatly to the king’s delight. He fixes the twelfth day for the _nama-carna_ (name-giving) and intimates his intention of being present at the ceremony. But the minister bribes the _púhorita_, or royal astrologer, to tell the king that in consequence of the unfavourable aspect of his horoscope he must not see this child or allow it to be produced in public until it is grown up and married, otherwise dire calamities threaten both king and country. During 16 years the king must have his child educated at a distance from the palace, and this is undertaken by the prime minister. When the child is 15 the minister tells the king that a wife must be sought out for “him,” and, taking the girl with him, he leads an army against the city of Pattaly-Poura, and there demands the king’s daughter as wife to the “son” of King Nihla-Kéton, the marriage to take place in five days. These terms are accepted.—Meanwhile a giant-Bráhman (_un géant Brahme_), whose abode is in a large tree in the vicinity of the invading army, falls in love with the young princess, and demands her of the prime minister, but Vahaca explains that she is already betrothed, and therefore cannot be given to him. He then tells the giant the whole story of the girl’s birth, the concealment of her sex, and so forth, imploring his aid, and suggesting that he should give the girl his sex and take hers for five or six nights, till the wedding and its festivities be over. The good-natured giant consents and exchanges sexes with the princess. The marriage is duly celebrated, soon after which the minister, the metamorphosed prince, and the real princess set out to return home. On the way they visit the giant, and the minister asks him to resume his proper sex. But he replies that “a neighbouring genie” had fallen in love with him, as a woman—and so on, as in our story.

Here, it will be seen on comparing the two versions, the chief differences are: the minister takes the place of the mother in deceiving the king as to the sex of the child; the foreign king is compelled to give his daughter in fear of an invading army; the minister prevails with the “giant” to exchange sexes with the princess, who does not, as in our story, go into the forest with the intention of destroying herself from shame. But in respect of this last incident, we shall find that our tale adheres more closely to the original than the Tamil version. The story occurs in the “Udyoga Parva” (Effort Book—the fifth) of the _Mahábhárata_, sections cxc-cxciii:

SANSKRIT ORIGINAL.

The first and best beloved wife of King Drupada had never borne him a child, and the king paid his adorations to Siva for years, in order to obtain the boon of a son. He practised the most austere penances, saying: “Let a son, and not a daughter, be born unto me, O Mahádeva! I desire a son, that I may revenge myself on Bhishma.” At length the great deity said to him: “Thou shalt have a child who shall be female and male. Desist, O king! It will not be otherwise.” Returning to his wife, he informed her of this decision of the great Siva—that his child should be first female and afterwards become male. In due time the wife of Drupada gave birth to a daughter, in accordance with the decree of Destiny, and she gave out that the child was a son. Then Drupada caused all the rites for a male child to be performed in respect of that concealed daughter as if she were really a son, and the child was named Sikhandin. And no man in all Kámpilya, save Drupada himself, knew the real sex of the child. Drupada bestowed great pains on the education of his child, teaching her writing, and painting, and the like arts. And in arrows and weapons the child became a disciple of Drona.

Then that royal couple fixed upon the daughter of Hiranyavarman, the king of the Dasárnas for wife to Sikhandin. And he gave his daughter to Sikhandin, who, after the marriage, returned to Kámpilya. The daughter of Hiranyavarman soon came to know that Sikhandin was a woman like herself, and bashfully informed her nurses and companions of the fact. Then the nurses sent to the king and represented to him everything about the imposture, upon which the king was filled with wrath. He was a powerful monarch, with a great army, not easily to be overcome. And he despatched a messenger to Drupada, who, taking the king aside, said to him: “The king of the Dasárnas, O monarch, deceived by thee and wroth at the insult that thou hast offered him, hath said these words unto thee: ‘Thou hast humiliated me! Without doubt, it was not wisely done by thee. Thou didst, from folly, solicit my daughter for thy daughter! O wicked one, reap now the consequence of that act of deception! I will now slay thee, with all thy relatives and advisers!’” Thus addressed, Drupada, like a thief caught in a net, could not at first speak. At length he sent a sweet speech, saying: “This is not so,” in order to pacify the king of the Dasárnas. But he was not thus to be pacified; and, after consulting with his ministers, he again sent an envoy to Drupada, saying: “I will slay thee!” Now King Drupada was not naturally courageous, and the consciousness of his offence filled him with fear. He took counsel with his wife as to how they might best escape the wrath of the king of the Dasárnas, for he was already on the march against him with a large army.

Meanwhile Sikhandin, filled with grief, and saying to herself that it was solely on her account that her parents were now in such tribulation, resolved on putting an end to her own life. Having formed this determination, she left home, full of heavy sorrow, and went into a dense and solitary forest which was the haunt of a very powerful Yaksha, called Sthunákarna. From fear of that Yaksha,[292] man never went into that forest. And within it stood a mansion with high walls and a gateway, plastered over with powdered earth, and rich with smoke bearing the fragrance of fried paddy.[293] Entering that mansion, Sikhandin, the daughter of Drupada, began to reduce herself by foregoing all food for many days. Thereupon the Yaksha, who was endued with kindness, showed himself unto her. And he enquired of her, saying: “For what object is this endeavour of thine? I will accomplish it—tell me without delay.” Thus asked, the maiden answered him, repeatedly saying: “Thou art unable to accomplish it.” The Yaksha, however, rejoined: “I am a follower of the Lord of Treasures [i.e. Kuvera]. I can grant boons, O princess! I will grant thee even that which cannot be given! Tell me what thou hast to say.” Thus assured, Sikhandin represented, in detail, everything that had happened, unto that chief of Yakshas called Sthunákarna. And she answered: “My father, O Yaksha, will soon meet with destruction. The ruler of the Dasárnas marcheth against him in rage. That king cased in golden mail is endued with great might and great courage. Therefore, O Yaksha, save me, my mother, and my father! Indeed, thou hast already pledged thyself to relieve my distress. Through thy grace, O Yaksha, I would become a perfect man! As long as that king may not depart from my city, so long, O great Yaksha, show me grace!” Hearing these words of Sikhandin, that Yaksha, afflicted by Destiny, said, after reflection: “Blessed lady, I will certainly do what thou wishest. Listen, however, to the condition I make: For a certain period I will give thee my manhood. Thou must, however, come back to me in due time. Pledge thyself to do so. Possessed of immense power, I am a ranger of the skies, wandering at pleasure, and capable of accomplishing whatever I wish. Through my grace, save thy city and thy kinsmen wholly! I will bear thy womanhood, O princess! Pledge thy troth to me, and I will do what is agreeable to thee.” Sikhandin answered: “O holy one of excellent vows! I will give thee back thy manhood. O wanderer of the night! bear thou my womanhood for a short time. After the ruler of the Dasárnas has departed from my city, I will once more become a maiden and thou wilt become a man.” Then they both made a covenant, and imparted into each other’s body their sexes. And the Yaksha became a female, while Sikhandin obtained the blazing form of the Yaksha.

Then Sikhandin, having obtained manhood, entered his city in great joy and approached his father, to whom he represented everything that had happened; and Drupada became exceedingly glad, and, along with his wife, recollected the words of the great Siva. And he forthwith sent a messenger to the ruler of the Dasárnas, saying: “This my child _is_ a male. Let it be believed by thee.” Meanwhile the ruler of the Dasárnas had arrived at Kámpilya, and Drupada sent a messenger who was well versed in the Vedas. But Hiranyavarman addressed the envoy in these words: “Say unto that worst of kings: ‘O thou wicked of understanding! having selected my daughter for the wife of thy daughter, thou shall to-day, without doubt, behold the fruit of that deception.’” When the envoy returned and delivered this message to Drupada, he despatched another Bráhman learned in the Vedas to the ruler of the Dasárnas, who said to him: “Hear, O king, the words of the ruler of the Pánchálas: ‘This my child is really a male. Let it be made clear by means of witnesses.’” Then the king of the Dasárnas sent a number of young ladies of great beauty to ascertain whether Sikhandin was really a male or a female. And those ladies, having ascertained the truth, joyfully told the king of the Dasárnas that Sikhandin was a powerful person of the masculine sex. Hearing this testimony, Hiranyavarman was filled with joy, and going to his brother Drupada passed a few days with him in gladness. And the king, rejoiced as he was, gave Sikhandin much wealth, many elephants, steeds, and kine. And, worshipped by Drupada as long as he stayed, the Dasárna king then departed, having rebuked his daughter. And after Hiranyavarman had departed in joy and with his anger quelled, Sikhandin began to rejoice exceedingly.

Meanwhile [some time after the exchange of sexes had taken place] Kuvera, the protector of all the treasures, in the course of a journey came to the house of Sthuna, the Yaksha, and admiring the garlands of flowers with which it was bedecked, he asked his followers why it was that Sthuna did not come out to greet him. And they told him how Sthuna had given his own manhood to the daughter of Drupada, taking her womanhood in exchange, and therefore he was ashamed to approach him. Hearing this, Kuvera caused Sthuna to be brought before him; and Sthuna, wearing a feminine form, came thither, and stood before him in shame. And Kuvera said: “Since, humiliating all the Yakshas, thou hast, O thou of sinful deeds, given away thy own sex to Sikhandin and taken from her, O thou wicked of understanding, her womanhood—since, O wicked wretch, thou hast done what hath never been done before by anybody;—therefore, from this day, thou shalt remain a woman and she shall remain a man!” At these words all the Yakshas attempted to mollify Kuvera for the sake of Sthuna, saying: “Set a limit to thy curse!” Then the lord of the Yakshas said: “After Sikhandin’s death, Sthuna will regain his own form. Therefore let this high-souled Yaksha be freed from his anxiety.” Having said this, Kuvera departed with his followers.

And Sthuna, with that curse denounced on him, continued to live there; and when the time arrived, Sikhandin, without losing a moment, came to that wanderer of the night. And approaching his presence he said: “I have come to thee, O holy one!” Sthuna then repeatedly said unto him: “I am pleased with thee!” Indeed, beholding that prince return to him without guile, Sthuna told Sikhandin everything that had happened, adding: “O son of a king, for thee have I been cursed by Kuvera. Go now, and live happily amongst men, as thou choosest. Thy coming hither and the arrival of Pulastya’s son [_i.e._ Kuvera] were, I think, both ordained from beforehand. And this was incapable of being prevented.” Sikhandin then returned to his city filled with joy.[294]

* * * * *

It is evident that the Persian and the Tamil versions were not derived directly from the story in the _Mahábhárata_, but from some modern adaptation, since in both the good-natured dív has a very different reason from that of the Yaksha Sthuna for retaining his adopted sex. The chief features of the Sanskrit original are, however, reproduced in the two variants, if we except the actual marriage of the princess, the discovery of her sex, and her father’s cognisance of the whole affair from the first, which do not appear in them.—The story is so singular that I think it must be orally current in different countries of India, as well as exist in collections in many of the vernacular languages; and it would be interesting to see what farther modifications it has undergone, especially in passing by word of mouth to successive generations and from place to place.

* * * * *

In M. Dozon’s _Contes Albanais_ No. 14 presents some analogy to the story of the Exchange of Sexes. Here a man with three daughters and no sons is called to the wars; he is old, and has no one to take his place. The first and second daughters express their wish to be married—probably, though it is not expressly stated, in order that one of their husbands should go as the substitute for their aged father. But the youngest assumes a man’s dress and goes to the wars in place of him, and slays a lamia that had long made a feast on the people once every year, for which she receives in reward a wonderful talking horse, through whose cleverness she accomplishes a feat by which she wins a king’s daughter in marriage. The princess, as in the Sanskrit story and in the well-known Arabian tale, complains to her parents of the coldness of her “husband,” and the king lays various snares in hopes of causing the destruction of the disguised heroine, but her horse saves her from all of them. At last the king sends her to “the church (_sic_) full of serpents,” to demand payment of their arrears of tribute, hoping they would kill the objectionable spouse of his daughter. The money is paid, however, but the serpents, enraged at having to part with so much treasure, cry out: “If thou art a girl, become a boy; if thou art a boy, become a girl,” and there and then the heroine found herself actually changed into a man; so the serpents thus did her a good turn, instead of the evil one they intended.—M. Dozon, in his _rapprochements_, cites No. 58 of Hahn’s collection of Greek popular tales, in which a man is first changed to a girl, and afterwards, by a giant, back to a man again.

THE PRINCE OBTAINS A SNAKE-GEM—pp. 296, 297.

Precisely the same incident occurs in the Comte de Caylus’ interesting collection of _Contes Orientaux_, with, strange to say, instead of a snake, a black bull (“un taureau noir”), and the hero, “having been brought up in the midst of jewels,” knew that the stone was a real carbuncle, and it was of a size he had never before seen.[295]

I have already offered some remarks on the common belief in the East from the most ancient times that serpents have precious stones in their heads and are the guardians of treasures concealed in the earth (pp. 232 and 297), but the subject is so interesting as being a survival, or rather relic, of serpent-worship, that I think the following observations by Mr. M. J. Walhouse, the veteran scholar, in the _Indian Antiquary_ for 1875, pp. 45, 46, may be reproduced here:

“In the Life of Apollonius Tyanæus [B.C. 3-A.D. 98] are some marvellous stories of large Indian serpents, which the Indians are said to destroy as follows: ‘They spread a silken robe, inwoven with golden letters, before the entrance of the serpent’s cave, and those letters, being magical, bring on sleep, so that the eyes of the serpent are overcome. Then with powerful incantations they so allure it as to be able to cast over it the magical robe, which induces sound sleep. Rushing in, the Indians cut off its head with an iron axe and take out certain stones found therein; for the heads of most serpents are said to contain small stones, very beautiful and endowed with a peculiar lustre and wonderful virtues. Such a stone was in the ring that Gyges is said to have possessed.’ This is probably an exaggerated version of the Indian snake-charming, and one of the earliest notices of it.… The American Indian tribes believe that in the mountains is a secret valley, inhabited by chiefs of the rattlesnake species, which grow to the size of large trees and bear in their foreheads brilliant gems. In Peru is an animal called carbunculo, which appears only at night. When pursued a valve opens in its forehead, and a brilliant object becomes visible, dispelling the darkness and dazzling the pursuers.”

THE PRINCE CONCEALS THE SNAKE-GEM IN HIS THIGH—p. 299.

This singular mode of concealing jewels—into which Asiatics still very commonly convert their wealth—is said to have been formerly, and perhaps is yet occasionally, adopted by travellers. We have another instance in the story of the Young Man who fell in love with a Picture, which occurs only in the Breslau printed Arabic text of the “Thousand and One Nights,” where the hero has luckily some jewels in the flesh of his forearm.—And in the _Toldoth Jeshu_ (already cited in connection with the conflict between the white and black serpents—p. 475) is the following most veracious narrative:

“Now at this time the unutterable Name[296] of God was engraved in the temple on the corner-stone. For when King David dug the foundations he found there a stone on which the Name of God was engraved, and he took it and placed it in the Holy of Holies. But as the wise men feared lest some ignorant youth should learn the Name and be able to destroy the world—which God avert!—they made by magic two brazen lions, which they set before the entrance of the Holy of Holies, one on the right, the other on the left. Now if any one were to go within and learn the holy Name, then the lions would begin to roar as he came out, so that from alarm and bewilderment he would lose his presence of mind and forget the Name.

“And Jeshu left Upper Galilee and came secretly to Jerusalem, and he went into the Temple and learned there the holy writing; and after he had written the incommunicable Name on parchment he uttered it, with intent that he might feel no pain, and then he cut into his flesh and hid the parchment with its inscription therein. Then he uttered the Name once more, and made so that his flesh healed up again. And when he went out at the door the lions roared and he forgot the Name. Therefore he hasted outside the town, cut into his flesh, took the writing out, and when he had sufficiently studied the signs he retained the Name in his memory.”[297]

If there ever was a deliberately trumped-up story, this assuredly is one—it is altogether absurd and inconsistent. When, I wonder, did King David dig the foundation of the Temple? Moreover, the temple referred to by this miserable, malignant scribbler was not that built by the son of David, but the gorgeous pile erected by King Herod. But indeed nothing more is needed to show that this idle tale was written for one sole purpose than the words “lest some ignorant _youth_ should learn the Name.” Why “some _youth_” only? Was there not any danger of ignorant, or curious, or evil-minded grown men attempting to acquire this knowledge?—Then we have the magic lions of brass that were placed on either side of the entrance of the Holy of Holies! The only “graven images” we read of as being in the Temple are the cherubim, whose wings canopied the Ark. It is very evident that this most wretched tract—of which it is said the Jews themselves are now ashamed—was written during the later Middle Ages, when belief was so rife in magic images of metal as guardians of treasure or of some other magical contrivance.

* * * * *

The classical story is well known of Zeus, dreading the wrath of Hera when Semele gave premature birth to Dionysus (Bacchus), sewing up the infant in his thigh, where he came to maturity. And we have an interesting example of the prevalence in India—_mutatis mutandis_—of Greek and Roman legends, known to every schoolboy, in a folk-tale contributed to the _Indian Antiquary_ for 1886, p. 367, by (Miss?) Putlabi D. H. Wadia, in which seven brothers go on a trading voyage, leaving their little sister, Sunábaí Jái, with their wives, who in their absence ill-treat her shamefully and appoint her tasks very similar to those which Venus gave Psyche to do, the last being to bring them some sea-foam. The poor little maid goes to the shore, and observes her brothers’ ship coming in, and runs to meet them. One of the brothers, when she has told her story, cuts open his thigh and having placed her inside the opening sews it up. When they reach home they ask for their sister and the wives give an evasive reply, upon which they are threatened with dire punishment should any accident have happened to the little one, and the women having confessed their wickedness, the brother draws Sunábaí Jái out of his thigh.

In the Tamil romance entitled _Madnakámarájankadai_, which has been translated by my friend Pandit Natésa Sástrí, of Madras, under the title of _Dravidian Nights Entertainments_, a prince one day sees the daughter of Indra bathing in a tank, and having purloined her garment takes it home, cuts open his thigh and puts the celestial robe inside, and then sews the flesh together. The nymph, like others of the Bird-Maiden class, had no resource but to follow the hero and become his wife.

From the East, doubtless, the idea was brought to Europe and utilised in the romance of _Huon of Bordeaux_, where we read that the beard and molars of the Saracen amír—the procuring of which was the condition of the hero’s pardon by Charlemagne—were sewed up by Oberon, King of the Fairies, in the side of Gerames, the uncle of Duke Huon.[298]

BAKÁWALÍ AT INDRA’S COURT—p. 317.

In the Kashmírí tale of Gullala Sháh (Mr. Knowles’ collection), a fair princess, Panj Phúl, falls in love with the hero, and her father, when he comes to know of this, transforms her to wood and causes her to be placed in a public garden, as a warning to other fairy damsels not to bestow their affections on human beings. Gullala Sháh, instructed by the vazír, whose daughter he had already married, burns the wood, and pouring water on the ashes, Panj Phúl, as in Bakáwalí’s case, is restored to life.

BAHRÁM TRANSFORMED INTO A BIRD—p. 346.

In No. 16 of the Burmese collection of tales entitled _Decisions of the Princess Thoodhamma Tsari_—which has been translated into English by Capt. T. P. Sparks (Maulmain, 1851), and again by Chr. J. Bandow (Rangoon, 1881)—a youth is changed into a small parrot by a magic thread being tied round his neck, and in that form is captured by some bird-catchers in the king’s garden, and presented as a pet to the princess, who discovers and removes the thread, when he becomes once more a handsome young man. Early every morning the princess replaces the thread and he is again changed to a parrot; at night she takes off the thread; and thus she continues to amuse herself until the consequences could not be any longer concealed, but in the sequel the youth is publicly acknowledged as her husband.

* * * * *

Sometimes the hero of a popular fiction has the power of transforming himself into a bird or of quitting his own body and animating that of any dead animal, as in Mr. Natésa Sástrí’s _Dravidian Nights Entertainments_, pp. 8-18, and the idea is also known to European ballads and romances. For instance, in Prior’s _Danish Ballads_, iii, 206, we are told how a knight, to gain access to a lady’s bower, becomes a bird and flies in. In his notes, Prior refers to the ballad of ‘The Earl of Mar’s Daughter’ (Buchan, i, 49):

“I am a doo the live-lang day, A sprightly youth at night; This aye gars me appear mair fair In a fair maiden’s sight.”

He also refers to the Netherlandish ballad, ‘Vogelritter,’ where a knight goes to Cyprus and wins the king’s daughter, whom he had previously visited in the form of a bird, having in his possession a stone which effects transformations; and to the ‘Lai d’Iwenec’, by Marie de France.

THE THREE DECEITFUL WOMEN—p. 355.

_Page 357_—The crafty mother of the bathman is said to have “practised for years under the sorceress Shamsah”; probably the witch of the same name who figures in the story of Táhir, an extract of which will be found in pp. 494, 495.

* * * * *

_Page 370_—The story of ‘The Sun and the Moon’ (_Mihr ú Máh_), which the carpenter brags that he knows, is probably the Persian romance of Mihr, the son of Káhvar Sháh, described in Dr. Rieu’s _Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum_, vol. ii, p. 765 (Add. 15,099), which also occurs in Hubbí’s collection, entitled _Hikáyát-i’Ajíb ú Gharíb_, (already cited on p. 474), of which Dr. Rieu, in the same Catalogue (ii, 759, Or. 237), gives the titles of the first nineteen stories, No. 3 being _Mihr ú Máh_. Dr. Rieu has kindly furnished me with the first part of this tale:

In the kingdom of the East was a mighty king named Khávar Sháh, who had no son. He is told by his astrologers that he is predestined to have a son, provided the mother be a parí (or fairy). On the advice of his vazír, Rushan Ráï, he asks the help of a devotee called Faylasúf, who tells him that he should obtain possession of the book of magic which is kept by the witch Naskas in her castle. All three set out with this intent, and by means of the Most Great Name (see _ante_, note on p. 163) obtain entrance into the castle, and on their way release a dove from its cage. Deceived by the wiles of the witch, they are transformed: the king, into a lion, the vazír, into a lynx, and the devotee, into a fox; but plunging into the waters of the Spring of Job, they are restored to their natural shape, seek refuge in a hollow tree, and are taken out of it by the bird Rukh (or roc) and carried to the top of a mountain. In the meanwhile the released dove, who was no other than Rúz-afrúz, daughter of Farrukhfál, king of the parís, returns to her parents and tells them of her rescue. Then she goes in search of her deliverers; finds them asleep, and has them conveyed to her father’s court. Farrukhfál waives his objection to a marriage which he deemed a _mésalliance_, and the result in due time is the birth of a prince, called Mihr. The astrologers prophesy that at the age of eighteen grief will come to him through a piece of paper. And, in fact, the young man, while out hunting, meets a youth called Mukhtarí, a rich merchant from Maghrab, who has suffered shipwreck and has saved nothing but the portrait of Máh, the fair daughter of Hilál, king of the West. The remainder of the tale deals with the adventures of the love-struck prince in search of the fair one, ending, of course, with their happy union.[299]

* * * * *

The tale of ‘Sayf ul-Mulúk and Bady’á ul-Jumál,’ which the carpenter says he had also heard, occurs in the _Arabian Nights_; the Turkish story-book _Al-Faraj ba’d al-Shiddah_, or Joy after Distress; the Persian Tales translated into French by Petis de la Croix, under the title of _Les Mille et un Jours_; and it also exists as a separate story in MSS. preserved in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It recounts how a young prince discovers in his father’s treasury the portrait of a very beautiful damsel and sets out in quest of her. After many perilous adventures he finally learns from a jinni that the fair original of the portrait was one of the concubines of King Solomon and had, of course, been dead for many ages.

* * * * *

Whether the ‘Road to the Mosque’, which the carpenter says he has “seen,” be the title of a story, or (as is more likely) that of a devotional work, I am unable to say, never having seen it alluded to elsewhere.

_The Trick of the Kází’s Wife_

is a variant of a story found in the Beslau printed Arabic text of the ‘Thousand and One Nights,’ of the Fuller, his Wife, and the Trooper. It also occurs in the _Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ_, the European adaptation of the Book of Sindibád, where a crafty Knight of Hungary plays the part of the carpenter of our story, and a jealous old baron that of the Kází. The plot of the _Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus, which is very similar to the tale of the crafty Knight, in all likelihood suggested to Boiardo the amusing episode, in his _Orlando Innamorato_, of Folderico and Ordauro, which, in its turn, was perhaps adapted in the _Seven Wise Masters_. In my _Book of Sindibád_, p. 343 ff., and in my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii, pp. 214-228, are most of the other known versions and variants of this story.

_The Trick of the Bazár-Master’s Wife_

has many parallels in Eastern story-books, and the tale seems to have been, time out of mind, a favourite with Asiatics. In one version there is no game of _yad est_ between husband and wife. The lady has her lover concealed in an adjoining apartment, for her husband has come home quite unexpectedly. But she tells him plainly of the fact, upon which he demands the key and approaches to open the door of the room, when the lady bursts into laughter. He pauses in astonishment, and asks the cause of her merriment, to which she replies: “I cannot help laughing at your simplicity, in believing that I should have a lover in the next room, and tell you of it.” The husband returns the key and goes away well pleased.

_The Trick of the Kutwál’s Wife_

resembles the latter part of the Arabian tale of the Fuller, his Wife, and the Trooper, where the poor husband is also drugged, his hair is cropped, he is dressed as a soldier, and provided with a letter recommending him to be enrolled by the governor of Isfahán. In this case, however, the poor husband is not reclaimed by his artful wife.

* * * * *

Whatever may be the source of this diverting story, it was known in France as early at least as the 13th century, in the form of _fabliau_ by Haisiau the Trouvère, under the title “Des Trois Dames qui trouverent un Anel” (Méon’s edition of Barbazan, 1808, tome iii, p. 220ff., and Le Grand, 1781, tome iv, pp. 163-166), of which the following is the outline:

Three ladies found a ring, and “they swore by Jesu that she should have it who should best beguile her husband to do a good turn to her lover.”

The _First Lady_, having made her husband drunk, when he is asleep, causes his head to be shaved, dresses him in the habit of a monk, and carries him, assisted by her lover, to the entrance of a convent. When he awakes and finds himself thus transformed he imagines that God, by a miraculous exercise of his grace, had called him to the monastic life. So he presents himself before the abbot and requests to be received among the brethren. The lady hastens to the convent in well-feigned despair, and is exhorted to be resigned and to congratulate her husband on the saintly vow he has taken. “Many a good man,” says the poet, “has been betrayed by woman and her harlotry. This one became a monk in the abbey, where he remained a very long time. Wherefore, I counsel all people who hear this story told, that they ought not to trust in their wives, or in their households, if they have not first proved that they are full of virtues. Many a man has been deceived by women and their treachery. This one became a monk against right, who would never have been such in his life, if his wife had not deceived him.”

The _Second Lady_ had some salted and smoked eels which her husband bade her cook for dinner on a Friday, but there was no fire in the house. Under the pretext of going to have them cooked on a neighbour’s fire, she goes out and finds her lover, at whose house she remains a whole week. On the following Friday, about the hour of dinner, she enters a neighbour’s house and asks leave to cook her eels, saying that her husband is angry with her for having no fire, and that she could not dare to go back lest he should cut off her head. As soon as the eels are cooked she carries them home, “piping hot.” The husband asks her where she has been for the last week, and commences to beat her. She cries for help and the neighbours come in, and amongst them the one at whose fire the eels had been cooked, who swears that the wife had only just left her house, and ridicules the man for his assertion that she had been away a whole week. The poor husband gets into a great rage and is locked up for a madman.[300]

The _Third Lady_ proposes to her lover to marry him, and he thinks that she is merely jesting, seeing she is already married, but she assures him that she is quite in earnest, and even undertakes that her husband will give his consent. The lover is to come for her husband and take him to the house of Dan Eustace, where he has a fair niece, whom the lover is to pretend he wishes to espouse, if he will give her to him. The lady will go thither, and she will have made her arrangements with Dan Eustace before they arrive. Her husband cannot but believe that he has left her at home, and she will be so apparelled that he cannot recognise her. This plan is accordingly carried out. The lover asks the lady’s husband for the hand of his niece in marriage, to which he very willingly consents, and thus without knowing it makes him a present of his own wife. “All his life long the lover possessed her, because the husband gave and did not lend her; nor could he ever get her back.”[301]

“Now tell me true,” adds the poet, “without any lie, and if you would judge rightly and truly, which one of these three best deserved to have the ring?”

* * * * *

Le Grand, at the end of his modern French prose abridgment of this _fabliau_, says that it is told at great length in the tales of the Sieur d’Ouville, tome iv, p. 255. In the _Facetiæ Bebelianæ_, p. 86, three women make a wager as to which of them will play the best trick on her husband. One causes her poor spouse to believe he is a monk, and he goes and sings mass; the second husband believes that he is dead and allows himself to be carried on a bier to that mass; and the third sings in it stark naked, believing he is clothed. It is also found in the _Convivales Sermones_, t. i, p. 200; in the _Délices de Verboquet_, p. 166; and in the Facetiæ of Lod. Doménichi, p. 172. In the _Contes pour Rire_, p. 197, three women find a diamond, and the arbiter whom they select promises it to her who concocts the best device for deceiving her husband, but the _ruses_, according to Le Grand, are different from those in the _fabliau_. Possibly from this last mentioned version (if not from some old Morisco-Spanish tale, for the idea of the story is certainly of Eastern origin) Isidro de Robles, a Spanish novelist, who wrote about the year 1666, adapted his tale of ‘The Diamond Ring,’ of which a translation is given by Roscoe in his _Spanish Novelists_, 1832, vol. iii, pp. 163-214, and the outline of which is as follows:

In the fair city of Madrid there lived three ladies who were very intimate friends. One was the wife of Luca Morena, cashier to a wealthy Genoese merchant; the second was the wife of Diego de Morales, a painter, employed in decorating one of the monasteries; the third was the wife of Señor Geloso, an elderly ill-tempered curmudgeon. It happened one day, when the three ladies were standing near a fountain to see a grand public procession, that they simultaneously discovered a diamond ring which glittered under the water, and when one of them took it up, all three laid claim to it, on various grounds, and they squabbled for its possession till one of them proposed they should submit the matter to a count of their acquaintance whom they saw approaching, to which the others agreed. The count takes charge of the ring and says that it should be the prize of “whichever of you shall, within the space of the next six weeks, succeed in playing off upon her husband the most clever and ingenious trick—always having due regard to his honour.”

The _Cashier’s Wife_ employs an astrologer to waylay her husband on his road home and tell him that he looks seriously ill; then to feel his pulse and declare that he will be a dead man within 24 hours, so he had better put his affairs in order. Somewhat alarmed, he reaches home, takes little supper and goes to bed, but only to toss restlessly about all the night. He is off to business earlier than usual next day, and coming home in the evening meets the vicar of the parish and some friends, who are also in the plot. They pretend not to see him, but talk to each other aloud of Luca Moreno’s sudden death, and express very uncomplimentary opinions as to his state in the other world. In great perplexity, he continues his way and meets the astrologer and the painter (the latter is the husband of the second lady, and, strange as it may seem, is also a party in the plot), talking likewise of his death. He can endure this no longer, and accosts them, saying that he is not dead, but they affect to take him for his own ghost and run away. Now he thinks he must be really dead, though when and how he died he cannot recollect. Arriving at his house, he finds it shut up, and knocks long and loudly at the door before the maidservant appears, who asks: “Who is it? You can’t come in, for master is dead.” “Why,” exclaims the poor cashier, “it is I myself, your master.” “Who calls at this hour? This is the house of mourning, for we are all in grief for the loss of our master.” “Hold your tongue, you jade, and let me in, for I am your master.” She replies that _he_, poor man, is now engaged counting money in another and a worse world. In his rage he bursts open the door and walks in. His wife on seeing him pretends to swoon, but leaving her in the care of the maidservant he goes down to the pantry to stay his ravenous appetite, and there indulges in a hearty supper, washed down with copious draughts of wine, and then goes to bed. In the morning his wife, in gala dress, awakes him, and he thinks that she is dead also, and asks her when he himself died and was buried. She says all that she knows is that he buried last night some of the best wine and dainties provided for the carnival—he must be still drunk to talk such nonsense. The astrologer and the painter come, and when they hear his story declare they had not seen him or been from home last night, and, the vicar and his friends making a similar statement, he is persuaded the whole affair was a dream, and promises to defray the cost of a feast on Shrove Tuesday.

It is now the turn of the _Second Lady_ to play a trick upon her husband, the painter. “For this purpose she concerted a plan with a brother of hers, who possessed a fine genius for amusing himself at other people’s expense. In the first place they contrived to have a false door made at the entrance of the house, on such a plan (then frequently adopted) that it might be easily substituted for the real door at short notice. It was brought thither secretly one night, and concealed in a cellar, while the brother and two friends lay ready to carry on the intended plot in an upper chamber of the house.” The painter returns home as usual, and having supped retires to rest. About midnight he is roused from a deep sleep by the cries of his wife, who pretends to be dying, and implores him to go for her confessor, and her old nurse, who knew her constitution. He very reluctantly rises and dresses himself, and then sets out in quest of the nurse, who lived at the other end of the town. Meanwhile the old door is removed and the false one substituted, and above it a sign is placed bearing the words, “House of Public Entertainment.” Then, according to arrangement, friends of the lady and a party of musicians with their instruments arrive, in order to “make a night of it.” The poor painter, after plodding his weary way in quest of the old nurse, through wind and rain, and knocking at the wrong doors, at last returns home, drenched to the skin. But what must have been his amazement to find his house metamorphosed into a tavern and to hear sounds from within of mirth and revelry! He knocks at the door, however, and a head is thrust out of an upper window and a voice orders him to be off, for the house is full. When he says that the house is his own, he is told it has been a tavern for the last 15 years and is finally made to beat a retreat by two dogs being let loose on him. Betaking himself to his friend Señor Geloso (whose turn is yet to come), he relates to him all his strange adventures. His friend thinks he is drunk and accommodates him for the night in his house. Next morning they go to the painter’s house, which has been restored to its former appearance, and when he tells them of what had happened to him the previous night, his wife and her friends assure him that the affair must have been the effect of sorcery, at the same time his loving spouse reads him a severe lecture on his debauched way of life, staying out o’ nights and so forth. It is finally agreed to say no more about the matter.

The trick played on the jealous, ill-tempered husband of the _Third Lady_ bears a striking resemblance to that of the Kutwál’s wife—_mutatis mutandis_. Having plied him with wine till he is “dead drunk,” she sends for her brother, prior of the convent of Capuchins, who comes (as arranged) with the lay brethren, and, after his head has been shaved and he has been dressed in the monastic garb, they carry him off to the convent and place him in a cell. When he awakes he is perplexed at the change that has taken place in his person and place of abode. In brief, he is flogged next day for contumacy and sentenced to eight days’ imprisonment, with bread and water. This term expired, he is sent out with one of the monks to beg alms, and in the course of their rounds they come to his own house, where seeing his wife at a window he rushes in and embraces her. The lady, of course, raises a great outcry, and the servants and neighbours hasten to her assistance. The monk explains that he is a crazy brother who fancies every pretty woman he sees is his wife, and leads him back to the convent, where he is again soundly flogged and put upon a new course of bread and water, so long that his hair and beard were grown again. One night he is treated to a fine supper and a bottle of wine containing an opiate, and, when he is asleep, is carried back to his house, and on awaking next morning and telling his wife of all that he had undergone as a monk, she persuades him that it was but a distempered dream, and he, glad to find himself in his own house, promises to treat her in future with all respect and full confidence in her virtue.

The three ladies proceed next day to the dwelling of the count and relate the tricks they had played their husbands. He says that he cannot possibly give the preference to any one of them—they are all equally clever—but as the ring is really one he had himself lost the very day when they found it, he must ask them to accept and divide amongst themselves a purse containing three hundred pistoles, and so the ladies take their leave of the count, in every way satisfied.

THE KÁZI AND THE MERCHANT’S WIFE—p. 414.

The latter part of this story will at once remind the reader of the tale of Alí Khoja and the Merchant of Baghdád in our common English version of the _Arabian Nights_,[302] in which Alí Khoja, before setting out on the pilgrimage to Makka, places a thousand gold pieces in a jar and fills it up with olives, and gives it into the custody of a merchant with whom he was intimate, as a jar of olives merely; and the merchant after the Khoja had prolonged his absence far beyond the usual time opened the jar to take out of it some olives for his wife, who had wished for that fruit, and finding the gold underneath abstracted it, and substituted fresh olives. The story is too well known to require the repetition of the subsequent details—how judgment was at first given in favour of the merchant, but was afterwards reversed, as in our story of the Kází, by the acuteness of a boy.

It seems to have been a favourite pastime from ancient times for Asiatic youngsters to play at “the King and his Ministers.” In the apocryphal Arabic gospel of the Saviour’s Infancy we read: “In the month of Adar, Jesus, after the manner of a king, assembled the boys together. They spread their clothes on the ground and he sat down on them. Then they put on his head a crown made of flowers, and like chamber-servants stood in his presence, on the right and on the left, as if he was a king, and whoever passed that way was forcibly dragged by the boys, saying: ‘Come hither and adore the king; and then go away.’” This passage finds a very remarkable parallel in the Mongolian tales of Ardshi Bordshi—the second part of Miss Busk’s _Sagas from the Far East_, derived from Jülg’s _Mongolische Märchen_, as follows: “In the neighbourhood of his [_i.e._ Ardshi Bordshi’s] residence was a hill where the boys who were tending the calves were wont to pass the time by running up and down. But they had also another custom, and it was that whichever of them won the race was king for the day—an ordinary game enough, only that when it was played in this place the boy-king thus constituted was at once endowed with such extraordinary importance and majesty that every one was constrained to treat him as a real king. He had not only ministers and dignitaries among his play-fellows, who prostrated themselves before him, and fulfilled all his behests, but whoever passed that way could not choose but pay him homage also.”

The Rev. J. Hinton Knowles, in a note to his _Folk-Tales of Kashmír_, thus describes the game of “Vazír Pádisháh,” also called “Suhul,” as it is played by the boys in Kashmír:

“It is generally played by four youngsters. Four little sticks are provided, of which the bark on one side is peeled off. Any of the four children throws first. If one should throw three sticks so that they all fall on the bark side, then he is appointed _pádisháh_, or king; but if not, they all try and throw till some one succeeds. The next thing is to find out the _vazír_. He who throws the sticks so that one of them falls with the bark side up, but the other three with the peeled sides up, is appointed to this office. Then an _asúr_, or thief, has to be fixed upon. He who throws so that two of his sticks fall with the bark side upwards is proclaimed the thief. Lastly a _sayd_, or honest man, has to be found. This part he has to play who throws the sticks so that three of them fall with the bark side upwards. If it should happen that all four of them fall with the bark sides up, that thrower has to try again.[303]

“Pádisháh, vazír, asúr, and sayd being known, the real play begins. The asúr, or thief, is brought before the king by the vazír, who says: ‘O king, peace and health to you; here is a thief.’ The king replies: ‘Whence has he come?’ Then the vazír tells him the whole case, and punishment has to be inflicted on the criminal. This is the most amusing part of the whole play. ‘Give him Bangálí cannon,’ says the king, and the vazír kicks the prisoner’s buttocks; or the king says: ‘Bring a dog in his place from the Ladák,’ when the vazír takes the prisoner a short distance, and then holding him by the ear pulls him back, while the prisoner barks like a dog; or the king says: ‘Take out the spindle,’ when the vazír draws a line with his thumb-nail on the inside of the arm from the elbow-joint to the wrist, and then hits the arm over the line as hard as he can with the first and second fingers of his right hand. There are many other words of punishment too numerous to mention here.”

Not a few Eastern stories turn upon the wonderful acuteness of boys in solving difficult questions which have perplexed the profound minds of their “grave and reverend” seniors. The reader will find a number of examples cited in my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii, pp. 10, 12-14, one of which, a Mongolian tale, is analogous to that of the Arabian story of Alí Khoja’s “pot of olives.”

THE HIDDEN TREASURE—p. 442.

The indirect source of this story is probably the following tale, from the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, vol. i, p. 298, of Prof. C. H. Tawney’s translation, published at Calcutta a few years ago:

There is a city named Srávastí, and in it there lived in old time a king of the name of Prasenajit, and one day a strange Bráhman arrived in that city. A merchant, thinking he was virtuous because he lived on rice in the husk, provided him a lodging there in the house of a Bráhman. There he was loaded by him every day with presents of unhusked rice and other gifts, and gradually by other great merchants also, who came to hear his story. In this way the miserly fellow gradually accumulated a thousand dínars, and going to the forest he dug a hole and buried it in the ground, and he went every day and examined the spot. Now one day he saw that the hole in which he had hidden his gold had been re-opened, and that all the gold was gone. When he saw that hole empty, his soul was smitten, and not only was there a void in his heart, but the whole universe seemed to be a void also. And then he came crying to the Bráhman in whose house he lived, and when questioned he told him his whole story; and he made up his mind to go to a holy bathing-place and starve himself to death. Then the merchant who supplied him with food, hearing of it, came there with others, and said to him: “Bráhman, why do you long to die for the loss of your wealth? Wealth, like an unseasonable cloud, suddenly comes and goes.” Though plied by him with these and similar arguments, he would not abandon his fixed determination to commit suicide, for wealth is dearer to the miser than life itself. But when the Bráhman was going to the holy place to commit suicide, the king Prasenajit himself, having heard of it, came and asked him: “Bráhman, do you know of any mark by which you can recognise the place where you buried your dínars?” When the Bráhman heard that, he said: “There is a small tree in the wood there; I buried that wealth at its foot.” When the king heard that he said: “I will find the wealth and give it back to you, or I will give it you from my own treasury; do not commit suicide, Bráhman.” After saying that, and so diverting the Bráhman from his intention of committing suicide, the king entrusted him to the care of the merchant, and retired to his palace. There he pretended to have a headache, and sending out the doorkeeper he summoned all the physicians in the city by proclamation with beat of drum. And he took aside every single one of them and questioned him privately in the following words: “What patients have you here, and how many, and what medicines have you prescribed for each?” And they thereupon, one by one, answered all the king’s questions. Then one among the physicians, when his turn came to be questioned, said this: “The merchant Mátridatta has been out of sorts, O king, and this is the second day that I have prescribed for him _nágabalá_” [the plant _Uraria Lagopodioides_]. When the king heard that he sent for the merchant and said to him: “Tell me who fetched you the _nágabalá_?” The merchant said: “My servant, your highness.” When the king got this answer from the merchant he quickly summoned the servant and said to him: “Give up that treasure belonging to a Bráhman, consisting of a store of dínars, which you found when you were digging at the foot of a tree for _nágabalá_.” When the king said this to him the servant was frightened, and confessed immediately; and bringing those dínars, left them there. So the king for his part summoned the Bráhman, and gave him, who had been fasting in the meanwhile, his dínars, lost and found again, like a second soul external to his body. Thus the king by his wisdom recovered to the Bráhman his wealth, which had been taken away from the tree, knowing that that simple grew in such spots.

* * * * *

Many stories of hidden treasure being stolen and recovered by a clever device are current in Europe as well as in the East. For example, in No. 74 of the _Cento Novette Antiche_, the oldest Italian collection of tales, a blind beggar conceals 100 florins under the floor of a church, and is observed by a sharper who next day takes the money away. When the blind man finds his treasure gone, he stands at the church-door at the time of service and bids his boy watch all who enter the church and let him know if any one should regard him (the beggar) as if with peculiar interest. The sharp-witted boy observes a man looking at his father and smiling, and when the beggar learns the name of the man, he scrapes acquaintance with him, tells him that he has 100 florins concealed under the floor of the church, and expects to receive 100 more in the course of a day or two, which he had lent out; and begs his new friend to meet him on such a day when they would lift the stone and deposit the additional money. The sharper, thinking to get this other sum as well, went privily and replaced the 100 florins he had stolen, and the blind man, anticipating he would do so, returned at night and took away his money, resolving to part with it no more.—The same story is found in the Breslau printed Arabic text of the ‘Thousand and one Nights’, and is translated by Mr. John Payne in his _Tales from the Arabic_, and also by Sir Richard F. Burton in the first volume of his _Supplemental Nights_, under the title of “The Melancholist and the Sharper.” A short version is given in Gladwin’s _Persian Moonshee_; and another analogous story of buried treasure will be found in Roscoe’s _Spanish Novelists_, ed. 1832, vol. iii, p. 215-234, entitled “A Prodigious Adventure,” by Isidro de Robles.

THE DEAF MAN AND HIS SICK FRIEND—p. 446.

Readers who are not familiar with the Kurán may like to see in English the Muslim “Lord’s Prayer,” called _Al-Fátihá_, which the Deaf Man recited in presence of his sick friend, so this is it, from Rodwell’s translation, p. 11:

“IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL! Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! King on the day of reckoning! Thee [only] do we worship, and to thee do we cry for help. Guide thou us on the straight path! The path of those to whom thou hast been gracious; with whom thou art not angry, and who go not astray.”

This _sura_ is esteemed as the quintessence of the Kurán, and is recited several times in the course of each of the five daily prayers, and on many other occasions.

* * * * *

It is well known that men afflicted with partial deafness are generally unwilling to acknowledge their infirmity, and even resent being talked to in a loud tone of voice; though they often betray themselves by the answers they give to questions asked of them, much to the amusement of their questioners.—A story is told of a deaf Persian who was taking home a quantity of wheat, and, coming to a river which he must cross, he saw a horseman approach; so he said to himself: “When that horseman comes up he will first salute me, saying, ‘Peace be with thee!’ Next he will ask, ‘What is the depth of this river?’ and then he will ask, how many _máns_ of wheat I have with me.” But the deaf man’s surmises were sadly amiss, for when the horseman came up he cried: “Ho! my man, what is the depth of this river?” The deaf one replied: “Peace be with thee, and the mercy of Allah and his blessing!” At this the horseman laughed and said: “May they cut off thy beard!” to which the deaf one rejoined: “Up to my neck.” The horseman then said: “Dust be on thy mouth!” The deaf one placidly replied: “Eighty máns of it.”

Here we have a very close parallel to the story of the Deaf Man and his Sick Friend, and there is a curious Norwegian variant in Sir George W. Dasent’s _Tales from the Fjeld_, under the title of “Goodman Axeshaft,” which is to this purpose:

The wife and daughter of an old ferryman, who was extremely deaf, by their extravagance plunge him into an ocean of debt and run away from home. The sheriff is to come and seize, and the old man wonders what he’ll say to him. “Ah, I’ll begin to cut an axeshaft, and the sheriff will ask me how long it is to be. I’ll answer, ‘Up as far as that twig sticks out.’ Then he’ll ask, ‘What’s become of the ferry boat?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m going to tar her, and yonder she lies on the strand, split at both ends.’ Then he’ll ask, ‘Where’s your gray mare?’ and I’ll say, ‘She’s standing in the stable, big with foal.’ And then he’ll ask, ‘Whereabouts is your sheepcote?’ and I’ll answer, ‘Not far off; when you get a bit up the hill you’ll soon see it.’” But when the sheriff comes up he says “Good day” to the old man, who answers: “Axeshaft.” Then he asks: “How far off to the river?” to which the ferryman replies: “Up to this twig,” pointing a little way up the piece of timber. The sheriff stares and shakes his head. “Where’s your wife?” “I’m just going to tar her,” and so forth. “Where’s your daughter?” “In the stable,” and so on. “To the deuce with you!” exclaims the sheriff, in a rage. “Very good,” says the old man; “not far off—when you get a bit up the hill you’ll soon see it.” Upon this the sheriff goes off, in sheer despair.

THE GARDENER AND THE LITTLE BIRD—p. 448.

In mediæval times the ancient fable of the Fowler and the Little Bird was appropriated by several monkish compilers of _exempla_, designed for the use of preachers; but this version is unique, so far as my knowledge of other forms of the fable extends. It has, exclusively, the scene between the lapwing and the nightingale; the references to the Muslim legend of Solomon’s receiving from a lapwing, or hoopoe, intelligence of the city of Sabá (or Sheba) and Queen Bilkís; and the allegation of the nightingale to the gardener that the fruit the bird had destroyed was poisonous. The fable is found in the spiritual romance of Barlaam and Joasaph (not Josaphat, as the name is commonly written), which is said to have been composed in the first half of the 7th century, by a Greek monk named John, of the convent of St. Sabá, at Jerusalem, and—according to M. Hermann Zotenberg—redacted by Johannes Damascenus, a Greek Father, of the 8th century, and included in his works. It is now certain that the substance of this work was derived from Indian sources: the incidents in the youth of Joasaph correspond with those in the early years of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism; while some of the parables contained in the romance are found in the _Játakas_, or Buddhist Birth-stories and others in Hindú books. This is how the fable is told in _Barlaam and Joasaph_:

They who worship idols are like the bird-catcher who caught one of the smallest birds, which they call the nightingale. As he was about to kill and eat it, articulate speech was given to the bird, and it said: “What will the killing of me profit thee, man? Thou canst not fill thy belly with me. But if thou set me free, I will give thee three injunctions, which, if thou observe, will benefit thee all thy life.” He was amazed to hear the bird speak, and promised. Then said the nightingale: “Never try to reach the unattainable. Rue not a thing that is past. Never believe a thing that is beyond belief.” Away flies the bird; but, to test the man’s common sense, it cries to him: “How thoughtless thou art! Inside of my body is a pearl larger than the egg of an ostrich, and thou hast not obtained it!” Then he repented having let the bird go free, and tried to coax it back by fair offers. But the bird rebuked his folly in so soon forgetting all the three injunctions it had given him.

* * * * *

In this form the fable also occurs in the _Disciplina Clericalis_ of Petrus Alphonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was converted to Christianity in 1106, and who avowedly derived the materials for his work from the Arabian fabulists, and from this collection it was taken into the _Gesta Romanorum_ (see Swan’s translation, ed. 1824, vol. ii, p. 87). John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, of the 15th century, turned the fable into English verse, under the title of “The Chorle and the Bird, from a pamflete in Frenche,” which is conjectured to have been the _fabliau_ “Le Lai de l’Oiselet,” but this I think is rather doubtful. According to Lydgate’s poem, a little bird takes up its abode in a laurel-tree in a churl’s garden, and sings merrily all the livelong day. The churl sets a trap (_pantere_) to catch the bird.

It was a verray hevenly melodye, Evyne and morowe to here the bryddis songe, And the soote sugred armonye Of uncouthe varblys and tunys drawen on longe, That al the gardeyne of the noysè rong, Til on a morwe, whan Tytan shone ful clere, The birdd was trapped and kaute with a pantere.

The churl puts the little bird into a fine cage and orders it to sing, but says the bird:

“Song and prison have noon accordaunce, Trowest thou I wolle syng in prisoun? Song procedethe of joy and of plesaunce, And prison causethe dethe and destruccioun; Rynging of fetires makethe ne mery sounde, Or how shuld he be gladde or jocounde Agayne his wylle, that ligthe in chaynès bounde?”

“But let me out,” the bird goes on to say, “so that I may perch again on the laurel-tree, and then I will sing to thee, and moreover,

“I shal the yeve a notable gret gwerdoun, Thre grete wysdoms according to resoun, More of walewe, take hede what I do profre, Thane al the golde that is shet in thi cofre.”

The three “great wisdoms” are the same as those in other versions, and then the little bird says that the churl by setting him free has missed gaining a rare treasure, for in his inside is a stone, fully an ounce in weight, which has many wonderful properties: making its possessor victorious in battle; he should suffer no poverty or indigence but have abundance of wealth; all should do him reverence; it would reconcile foes, comfort the sorrowful, and make heavy hearts light.[304] The churl is beside himself with vexation, and the bird calls him a fool for believing such a rank impossibility.[305]

Husain Vá’iz has re-told the apologue in his _Anvár-i Suhaylí_, or Lights of Canopus, a Persian rendering, in prose and verse, of the celebrated Fables of Bidpaï with additions, of which this is one. Here, however, the nightingale—having been entrapped by the gardener, because it destroyed his roses—does not, when liberated, give the gardener three maxims, but tells him that beneath such a tree is a vessel full of gold. The villager digs and finds the treasure, and then asks the bird how it was that he could see a vessel full of gold under the earth, yet not discover the snare above ground; to which the nightingale replies, like a good Muslim: “Hast thou not heard that ‘when Fate descends caution is in vain’?”[306]

* * * * *

The _fabliau_ version, “Le Lai de l’Oiselet,” as found in Méon’s edition of Barbazan’s collection, Paris, 1808, t. iii, 114, and (in modern French prose) in Le Grand, ed. 1784, t. iii, 430, can hardly have been the original of Lydgate’s poem, as may be seen from the following free rendering of Le Grand’s abridgment (in which, however, he omits the bird’s statement about the wonderful stone in its body), including a few lines from Way’s agreeable English metrical translation:

Once on a time there was a noble castle surrounded by a wide domain of field and forest, which was first owned by a worthy knight. His son and successor wasted his patrimony in riotous living—“ye know well,” quoth our poet, “that it needs but one spendthrift heir to bring great wealth to nought”; and now the fair castle and domain had become the property of a rich but sordid churl. This lofty and strong castle had been reared by magic art. A pebble-paved stream flowed round a beauteous orchard, where grew tall and shapely trees, flowers of every hue, and odorous plants; and such was the fragrance of the air that it might have arrested a man’s parting breath. In the midst of this fair scene a gushing fountain sparkled in the sunlight, while near it a lofty pine tree’s deathless verdure afforded grateful shade at noontide.

A marvellous bird had fixed his abode in this tufted pine, and ever he sat and sang his lay of love in such sweet and moving strains that, matched against his magic melody, the music of viol and full-toned harp were as nought. Such was the power of this wondrous feathered minstrel that his strains could create unutterable joy in the heart of the despairing lover; and should they cease, and the songster take his flight from this enchanted ground, then would all the goodly scene—castle, trees, flowers, forest—fade away and forever disappear.

“Listen, listen, to my lay (Thus the merry note did chime), All who mighty Love obey, Sadly wasting in your prime, Clerk and laic, grave and gay; Yet do ye, before the rest, Gentle maidens, mark me tell! Store my lesson in your breast, Trust me it shall profit well: Hear and heed me, and be blest!”[307]

The little warbler had no sooner ended his lay of love when he discovered the churl, upon which the bird ordered the river to retire to its source, the flowers to fade, the fruit to wither, and the castle to sink into the earth; for a vile churl should not be suffered to dwell where the beautiful and the brave had once held sweet communion. The churl, having heard the melodious strains of the little bird, resolved to capture him and sell him for a large sum. Accordingly he set his snare and caught the feathered songster. “What injury have I done thee?” cried the little bird. “And why dost thou doom me to death?” “Fear not,” said the churl; “I only desire to hear thy song, and will get thee a fine cage and plenty of seeds and kernels to eat. But sing thou must, else I’ll wring thy neck and pick thy bones.” “Alas,” sighed the pretty captive, “who can sing in prison? And even were I cooked, I could scarce furnish thee with one mouthful.” Finding that all entreaties failed to move the hard-hearted churl, the bird then promised that, if set free, he would tell him three rare and precious secrets. This offer the churl could not resist, so he freed the little bird, who straightway flew to the summit of the pine tree, and then proceeded to disclose the three precious secrets. “First then,” said the bird: “_Yield not a ready faith to every tale._” “Is this all your secret?” quoth the fellow, in rising wrath. “I need it not.” “Yet,” said the bird, “you seemed but lately to have forgot it—but now you may hold it fast. My second secret is: _What is lost, ’tis wise to bear with patience._” At this the churl chafed more and more. “My third secret,” continued the bird, “is by far the best: _What good thou hast, do not cast lightly away._” So saying, the little bird fluttered his wings a moment, and then flew away; and immediately the castle sank into the ground; and the fountain flowed back to its source; and the fruits dropped withered from the trees; and the flowers faded—and all the beauteous scene was melted into thin air.

_ADDITIONAL NOTES._

_Page 206—Five hundred pons._—It is possible that _pon_, like hun, is another name of a pagoda, a gold coin of the value of 3½ rupís, which has not been coined in the mints of India since the early part of this century.

_Page 212—The Want of Children._—In the note on this subject I omitted to include Hannah, mother of Samuel, the illustrious Hebrew seer (First Book of Samuel, ch. i, v, 9-11, and 20).—Asiatics consider a son as the “light,” or the “lamp,” of the household; and so it is said of a king, in the opening of the Persian romance entitled _Bahár-i Dánish_, or Garden and Spring, by ’Ináyatu-’lláh: “In the house of his prosperity the light [_i.e._ a son], which is the hope of descending life, beamed not, as the blossoms of his house [_i.e._ his women] produced not the fruit of his wishes; for which he made grief his companion, and sat lonely, like a point in the centre of the circle of sorrow”—poor fellow!

_Page 391—The Story of the Envious Vazír._—I cannot call to mind any close parallel to this, but the incident upon which it turns, that of the old hag’s artifice in procuring the lady’s dress, recalls the story of “The Burnt Veil” in the Book of Sindibád, where a youth, desperately in love with the virtuous wife of a merchant, employs a crone—who, like too many of her sex in Muslim countries, went about evil-doing, in the guise of a devotee—to cause the lady’s husband to put her away on suspicion of her being unfaithful. But this slight resemblance is doubtless merely fortuitous. The tale of the Envious Vazír exhibits more art than is usually found in Eastern fictions, especially the _dénouement_, where the Khoja’s wife cleverly causes the malignant Vazír to convict himself of gross falsehood.

_Page 430_—The sentiment expressed to Sultan Mahmúd by the Independent Man has its analogue in one of the countless traditions of Hatim Taï, which goes thus: They asked Hatim: “Hast thou ever seen in the world any one more noble-minded than thyself?” He replied: “One day I had offered a sacrifice of 40 camels, and had gone out with some other chiefs to a corner of the desert. I saw a thorn-cutter, who had gathered together a bundle of thorns. I said to him: ‘Why goest thou not to share the hospitality of Hatim Taï, when a crowd has assembled at his feast?’ He replied: ‘Whoever can eat of the bread of his own labour will not put himself under an obligation to Hatim Taï.’ This man, in mind and magnanimity, I consider greater than myself.”

_Page 483_—For the original of the story of the Two Merchants see Méon’s edition of Barbazan’s collection of _Fabliaux_, Paris, 1808, tome i, 52, “Des Deux Bons Amis Loiax,” and for the modern French prose version see Le Grand’s _Fabliaux_, edition 1781, iii, 262.

_Page 499_—Mr. James Moir, Rector, Grammar School, Aberdeen, is the authority (after his mother) for a story in the _Folk-Lore Journal_, 1884, vol. ii, pp. 68-71, which presents an interesting parallel to the tale from Salsette, with a clever girl in place of Little John: Three young girls are abandoned in a wood by their poverty-stricken parents, because they have too many mouths to feed. The little maidens arrive at a giant’s house and are granted shelter for the night. The giant resolves to kill them and have them cooked for his breakfast in the morning. In order to distinguish in the dark his own three daughters from the stranger girls, he places “strae rapes” round the necks of the latter and gold chains round his daughters’ necks, with the result that he puts his own offspring to death. Mally Whuppie, the heroine, wakes her sisters softly and they all escape. They next come to a king’s house, and Mally and her sisters are to be married to the three sons of the king, provided he should obtain possession of three wonderful things from the giant: (1) his sword from the back of his bed; (2) his purse from beneath his pillow; and (3) the ring from off the giant’s finger. Mally is successful in her two first adventures, and though she is caught by the giant when drawing off his ring, she ultimately escapes by a clever _ruse_.

_Page 510_—The story of the King and his Falcon occurs in many collections, and perhaps one of the oldest versions of it is found in Capt. R. C. Temple’s _Legends of the Panjáb_, vol. i, p. 467, in the story of “Princess Niwal Dai,” where a snake is seen by the falcon to drop poison into the cup.

_Page 519—The Rose of Bakáwalí._—I find my conjectures regarding the construction of this romance are borne out by Garcin de Tassy (_Histoire de la Littèrature Hindouie_, second edition, Paris, 1870, tome i, p. 606), in his account of a version in the Hindústání Selections by the Sayyíd Husain, compiled by order of the Military Examiners’ Committee, and published at Madras in the year 1849, in 2 vols. He says: “Le second volume offre la reproduction, en 64 p., des deux tiers du _Gul-i Bakâwalî_ d’après la rédaction de Nihâl Chand, dont j’ai donné la traduction en français. Huçain s’arrête au mariage de Tâj ulmulûk et de Bakâwalî, où devrait en effet finir de récit, le reste étant un hors-d’œuvre tout à fait hindou.”

He describes a similar romance (tome ii, pp. 531, 532) by Rayhán ed-Dín, of Bengal, written in rhymed couplets (_masnaví_) and entitled _Khiyabán-i Rayhán_, or Parterres of the Divine Grace, A.H. 1212 (A.D. 1797-1798): “Cet ouvrage,” he says, “roule sur le même sujet que le _Gul-i Bakâwalî_; mais, outre qu’il est tout en vers, il est beaucoup plus long. Il se divise en quarante chapitres, intitulés chacun _Gul-gaschnî_ (Abondance de roses).… Au surplus, il est bon de rappeler ici ce que j’ai dit ailleurs, que le _Gul-i Bakâwalî_ est une légende indienne qui est reproduite dans plusieurs rédactions différentes et même dans le dialecte des Laskars du Bengale.”

Another tale, in Persian, entitled _Kissa-i Fírúz Sháh_, if not identical with our romance, seems to be on the same plan, judging from the all-too brief account given of it by Dr. H. H. Wilson in his _Descriptive Catalogue of the Mackenzie Collection of Oriental MSS._, vol. ii, p. 137: “The story of Firoz Shah, son of the king of Badakshán, who sought a marvellous flower to cure his father.”

_Page 520_—In the so-called _Suite des Mille et Une Nuits_, by Chavis and Cazotte (Story of Habíb, the Arabian Knight), the Amír Salamis weeps himself blind on hearing a false report of his son Habíb’s death. The hero, when he comes to know of this sore affliction, is told that the only remedy is to be found among the treasures of Solomon, preserved in a cavern, and going there he finds two flat opals fixed as eyes into a visor, which he takes away, and with them restores his father’s sight. And the Rabbins say that Jacob wept himself totally blind from grief at the reported death of his son Joseph, and he recovered his sight many years afterwards by applying to his eyes the garment of Joseph, which his brethren brought from Egypt.

_Page 529_—There can be no doubt that the Panjábí legend of Rasálú’s game with Sirikap and the story of the Prince and Dilbar are cousins, so to say, not far removed. In the former Rasálú makes it one of the conditions of sparing the life of the vanquished Sirikap that he must consent to have his forehead branded with a red-hot iron, “in token of his vassalage,” and another condition is that he forgive his daughter whom he had imprisoned. In the latter the hero compels Dilbar to liberate his four brethren, but she insists on first branding them on their backs, “in token of the state of slavery to which they had been reduced.”—It seems to me that in the earlier part of the Panjábí legend something must have dropped out in connection with Rasálú’s rescuing the ants and the hedgehog from the river (p. 525), since it is usual in folk-tales for “thankful animals” to requite their benefactor by rendering him signal services.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Story-telling has been quite an art in the East time out of mind. Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali, in her _Observations on the Mussulmans of India_, vol. ii, pp. 81, 82, says: “Many of the ladies entertain women companions, whose chief business is to tell stories and fables to their employer when she is composing herself to sleep. When the lady is fairly asleep the story is stayed, and the companion resumes her employment when the next nap is sought by her mistress. Among the higher classes the males also indulge in the same practice of being talked to sleep by their men slaves, and it is a certain introduction, with either sex, to the favour of their employer when one of these dependants has acquired the happy art of ‘telling the khánie’ (fable) with an agreeable voice and manner. The more they embellish a tale by flights of their versatile imaginations, so much the greater the merit of the rehearser in the opinion of the listeners.”—In the Book of Esther, ch. vi, 1, we read that on a certain night “could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king.” Well was it for the Hebrew bondsmen that Ahasuerus did not call for a story-teller instead of the “state journal”!—The practice of sleepless khalífs and sultans sending for story-tellers is referred to in many Eastern tales. For an account of public reciters of tales and romances see Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_.

[2] But are even the best novels of these days of grace marked by very much “originality”? Do not prolific novelists _repeat themselves_? Have they not, for the most part, a limited set of characters, which reappear in each succeeding novel? In short, may it not be truly said of them, as Burton (not he of _The Nights_, but he of _The Melancholy_) says of authors in general: “They weave the same web, twist and untwist the same rope, and make new books as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring out of one vessel into another”?

[3] The following particulars regarding the author and his work are derived from Dr. Charles Rieu’s _Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum_, vol. ii, pp. 767-8, Add. 7619, and Or. 1370; and from Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot’s useful and interesting little work, _Persian Portraits: a Sketch of Persian History, Literature, and Politics_ (London: Quaritch), p. 119. The title of _Shamsah ú Kahkahah_, under which Mr. Arbuthnot describes this collection, is taken from the names of a Witch and a Vazír who figure in the second _báb_.

[4] There is another, but wholly different, Tamil tale, with the same title, which is described in Taylor’s _Catalogue Raisonné of Oriental Manuscripts in the Government Library, Madras_, vol. iii, page 460: “A king’s daughter forms an attachment at first sight to the stupid son of another king, who cannot read the writing which she conveys to him, but shows it to a diseased wretch, who tells him it warns him to flee for his life. The king’s daughter is imposed upon by the leper, kills herself, and becomes a disembodied evil spirit, haunting a choultry (or serai for travellers), whom during the night, if they do not answer aright to her cries, she strangles, and vampyre-like sucks their blood.” To be brief, the famous Tamil poetess Avaiyar gets leave of the people to sleep in the choultry in order to put an end to this calamity, and having three times composed a recondite stanza from the strange cries, the evil spirit owns herself conquered and departs. She is re-born as an exceedingly clever princess, and tests the learning and poetical skill of her suitors, till at last she is won by a poor student.—It will be readily supposed that the chief merit of this story consists in the poetical contests.

[5] The stories related to the king by Prince Bakhtyár, though calculated to caution him against rash judgments, have nothing in common with those contained in the Book of Sindibád; while the tales told by Er-Rahwan (which have been translated by Sir Richard F. Burton, and included in the first volume of his _Supplemental Nights_) are of a miscellaneous character—grave and gay, wise and witty—his sole object being to prolong his life by thus amusing the king. The Vazír’s recitals are of considerable importance to “storiologists”: we find among them analogues of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, Pardoner’s Tale, and Merchant’s Tale, and of the well-known legend of St. Eustache (or Placidus), which occurs in the _Gesta Romanorum_, and from which the mediæval metrical romances of _Sir Isumbras_, _Octavian_, _Sir Eglamour_, and _Sir Torrent of Portugal_ were derived.

[6] The Tamil text of THE KING AND HIS FOUR MINISTERS has been printed. Through the kindness of the Pandit, I possess two copies, of different dates, one of which, printed in 1887, has, by way of frontispiece, four figures, in profile, like those in Egyptian paintings, all looking in the same direction, with their hands raised and the palms joined, in respect to the prayer to Ganesa, which is on the opposite page. The first is the minister; the second is the king, with a crown not unlike the Pope’s tiara, and a sword on his shoulder; the third and fourth are devotees, whose clothing is rather scanty.

[7] “Abrégé du roman hindoustani intitulé la Rose de Bakâwalî, par M. le professeur Garcin de Tassy”: in _Nouveau Journal Asiatique_, tome xvi, p. 193ff. and p. 338ff. This has been reprinted along with other translations by the learned Professor.

[8] A Khoja is a master of a household, also a teacher; in the former acceptation it is somewhat equivalent to the old English “goodman.”—Gibb’s _History of the Forty Vezírs_, p. 33.

[9] The humái is a fabulous bird, supposed to bestow prosperity on any person who is overshadowed by its wings.

[10] Oriental writers frequently descant on the advantages of travel; not only because it enlarges the mind (for “home-keeping youths have ever homely wits”), but as a means of acquiring wealth. For some examples, see my _Book of Sindibád_.

[11] The name generally given by the Arabs and Persians to the districts of Northern Africa west of Egypt.

[12] Belief in judicial astrology—in the influence of the planets over the fortunes of men—prevails throughout the East, as it did in Europe until comparatively recent times; indeed the delusion appears to have its adherents in our own country, even in these “double-distilled” days, if it be true that _Zadkiel’s Almanack_ has a very large circulation. Truly “error dies hard!”—An Asiatic, before setting out on a journey, being married, or beginning any important affair, always consults an astrologer to learn the precise lucky moment. In one of the _Játakas_, or Buddhist Birth-Stories, a man having missed making a good match for his son, because he had been told by a spiteful astrologer that the day proposed for the nuptials was inauspicious, a wise old fellow shrewdly remarked: “What is the use of luck in the stars? Surely getting the girl is the luck!” and recited this stanza:

While the star-gazing fool is waiting for luck, the luck goes by; The star of luck is luck, and not any star in the sky.

In the appendix to my edition of the Persian story-book entitled _Bakhtyár Náma_, pp. 218-223, may be found some rather droll anecdotes of the blunders of astrologers.

[13] This custom is observed by Muslims in compliance with the precept of Muhammed: “Whoever,” said he, “believes in God and the day of resurrection, must respect his guest; and the time of being kind to him is one day and one night; and the period of entertaining him is _three days_; and after that, if he does it longer, it benefits him more; but it is not right for a guest to stay in the house of his host so long as to incommode him.” In the introduction to the _Arabian Nights_, King Shahriyár entertains his brother, Shah Zamán, three days, and on the fourth he accompanies him a day’s journey and takes leave of him.

[14] Henna is a preparation made from the leaves of the Egyptian privet (_Lawsonia inermis_), with which women in the East stain the tips of their fingers, the palms of their hands, etc. It imparts a yellowish red or deep orange colour, which disappears in a fortnight or three weeks, when it has to be renewed.—See Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, ch. i.

[15] See note on page 8.—We have in this passage the _motif_ of the romance throughout.

[16] “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!” Besides, the virtuous youth might not keep the secret of her intended intrigue (for such is evidently to be understood) to himself.

[17] Stories, such as this, of unfaithful wives outwitting their husbands, with similar mischances, are common in Eastern collections; and the present well-told tale would probably have been very eagerly adapted by the early Italian novelists, had they known it, among whom, indeed, it has more than one analogue.

[18] A tomán is a Persian gold coin which has varied much in value at different periods; at present it is worth about 7s. 2d. of our money.

[19] The húrís (or, as the term is often written, houries) are the black-eyed nymphs of the Muslim Paradise, of whom Muhammed has promised seventy to each believer.

[20] One of the Egyptian magicians who “withstood Moses,” mentioned by Arabian writers: their chief was called Simeon, and among the eminent masters of the “art magic” were Sadhúr and Ghadúr, Jaath and Mossa, Waran and Lamán, each of whom came attended with his disciples, amounting in all to several thousands.—St. Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, iii, 8, gives the names of two of the magicians as Jannes and Jambres.

[21] The notion of the life or heart of an ogre, witch, etc., being extraneous to the body and concealed in some object—usually very difficult to reach by the heroes who are in their power—is often the subject of the popular fictions of all countries. What is probably the oldest extant instance of this occurs in an Egyptian romance, preserved among the hieratic papyri in the British Museum, which bears to have been written more than 3000 years ago, or about the period when Moses was, in his youth, at the court of Pharaoh. The “curious” reader may find numerous other examples cited in my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. i, pp. 347-351.

[22] Parrots often play important parts in Asiatic tales: here, however, the “intelligent” bird, as will be seen presently, works only mischief.

[23] It does not appear from the preceding part of the narrative that the hero received any ring from a “neighbour’s wife.” Perhaps something has been omitted by a copyist of the Persian text.

[24] Many an honest fellow, besides the generous-hearted Obayd, having been thus beggared by the rapacity of an Asiatic despot, has turned robber in self-defence.

[25] _i.e._, Persia.

[26] An ashrafí is worth about ten shillings.

[27] It is a favourite plan for extricating an impecunious hero out of his difficulties in Eastern fictions to represent him as finding a great treasure in a ruin. And no doubt such an incident has often occurred in Asiatic countries, where—in the absence of such institutions as banks—money and jewels are usually concealed in the earth, old wells, etc., lest the sovereign or one of his greedy ministers should come to know of any person possessing much wealth, and forthwith confiscate it.

[28] By “Rúm” (or Roum) Asiatics generally mean Europe, at least Eastern Europe, and “the land of the Franks” has the same meaning.

[29] This incident recalls popular tales current in our own country of witches turning themselves into cats, and some bold fellow smiting off a paw of one of the unholy sisterhood thus transformed, and next day a woman suspected of witchcraft being found in her bed with one of her hands apparently newly amputated.—Similar stories are told of _werwolves_, or men having the power of transforming themselves for a time into wolves.

[30] Hatim was chief of the Arab tribe of Taï, shortly before the advent of Muhammed, and so highly celebrated for his boundless generosity that at the present day in Muslim countries no greater compliment can be paid to an open-handed man than to call him “another Hatim.”

[31] A gold dínar is worth about ten shillings.

[32] “_Darb er-Ramal_, or geomancy, by which, from certain marks made at random on paper, or on sand (whence, according to some, its name), the professors pretend to discover past, passing, and future events, is, I am informed, mainly founded on astrology.”—Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, ch. xii.

[33] In the East, as in the West, religion is often assumed as a cloak of villainy; and the half-naked darveshes who prowl through Muslim towns and villages, blowing their horns and bellowing their eternal “hakk! hakk!” are for the most part lewd rascals; and not a whit better are most of those who affect to live as hermits. Muhammed said that “there is no monkery in Islám,” which is true in one respect, viz., that while a monk must remain a monk all his life, a darvesh may at any time toss away his begging-bowl and return to his former station in society.

[34] Fars, or Farsistán, is a province of Persia, the capital of which is Shíráz, so much celebrated by Háfiz and other Persian poets. As the Neapolitans have their favourite saying, “See Naples, and die,” so the Persians say that “If Muhammed had tasted the pleasures of Shíráz, he would have begged Allah to make him immortal there.”

[35] This monarch is not to be confounded with that Farídún who was the sixth of the first dynasty (Píshdádí) of ancient Persian kings.

[36] Signet-rings were commonly used throughout the East from the earliest period of which any records have been preserved. When a king gave his signet to any one he was thereby empowered to act in the king’s name. Thus in the Book of Esther we read that King Ahasuerus took his ring from off his finger and gave it first to Haman and afterwards to Mordecai.

[37] In other words, the king resigned his throne in favour of the prince. It seems to have been a common practice for Oriental potentates, at a certain period of life, to retire from the cares of state and turn ascetics—which was very proper, if all the tales be true of their sanguinary doings!

[38] Al-Mu’tasim Billah, was the fourth son of the Khalíf Harún er-Rashíd, and succeeded his second brother, Al-Mámún, A.D. 833. He was the first of the Khalífs who added to his name the title of _Billah_, which is equivalent to the _Dei Gracia_ of Christian sovereigns. Al-Mu’tasim was the 8th Khalíf of the house of Abbas; was born on the 8th month (Shaban) of the year; ascended the throne in the 218th year of the Hijra; lived 48 years; and died on the 18th of the month Rabí I; he fought 8 battles; built 8 palaces; begat 8 sons and 8 daughters; had 8,000 slaves; and had 8,000,000 dínars and 80,000 dirhams [a dirham is a silver coin of the value of sixpence] in his treasury at his death;—whence Oriental historians gave him the name of Al-Musamman, or the Octonary.

[39] When a Persian monarch desires to show his special regard for any great man who has come to his court, he presents him with a _khil’at_, or robe of honour, which is often very valuable.

[40] Compared with this what was the archery feat of Locksley (_alias_ Robin Hood), as described in _Ivanhoe_? It seems to have been a common practice in Persia to suspend a finger-ring as the mark and prize in an archery competition. A story is told of a Sháh who, while on a pleasure excursion to Massala Shíráz, appointed an archery contest for the amusement of himself and his courtiers. He caused a gold ring, set with a valuable gem, to be fixed on the dome of ’Asád, and it was announced that whosoever should send an arrow through the ring should obtain it as the reward of his skill. The four hundred skilled archers forming the royal body-guard each shot at the ring without success. It happened that a boy on a neighbouring house-top was at the same time diverting himself with a little bow, when one of his arrows, shot at random, went through the ring. The boy, having thus obtained the prize, immediately burned his bow, shrewdly observing that he had done so in order that the reputation of this his first feat should never be impaired. (Sa’dí’s _Gulistân_, or Rose-Garden, ch. iii). The famous Persian poet and robber-chief Kurroglú had a band of 777 men under his command, and Demurchy-oglú (_i.e._ the son of the blacksmith) offered himself for a vacancy. Kurroglú, in order to test the nerve of the candidate, bade him sit down; then taking an apple from his pocket and a ring from his finger, he stuck the ring in the apple, and ordered one of his men to remove the cap from the head of the new comer. Having placed the apple on the young man’s head, Kurroglú rode to one side and bent his bow and continued to pass one arrow after another through the ring. Out of sixty arrows that were shot not one went astray. (Chodzko’s _Popular Poetry of Persia_, pp. 88, 89). Here we have the feat of William Tell—with a difference.

[41] The duty of the muezzin is to chant the call to prayer (_adán_) from the minaret of the mosque five times every day. Blind men are generally employed as muezzins, in order that they should not overlook the terraces, or flat roofs, of the houses, where the inmates generally sleep during very hot weather.

[42] The Súfís are the mystics of Islám, and profess to have attained, by meditation, so advanced a stage of spiritual perfection as to render the teachings of the Kurán and the ordinary religious observances quite unnecessary to them. They are generally considered by the “orthodox” as arrant infidels. For an interesting account of some of their public “religious” performances, see the chapter on the Dancing Darveshes in Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_.

[43] Muhammed.

[44] In primitive times even kings were proud of their skill in the art of cookery. Thus in the charming story of Nala and Damayanti (an episode of the great Hindú epic, the _Mahábhárata_) the good Rájá is recognised by his devoted wife, who had been long separated from him, by some meat of his dressing. And in the other grand Indian epic, the _Rámáyana_, the demi-god Rámá is represented as killing and cooking the dinner of his spouse Sitá and himself:

Their thirst allayed, the princes ply the chase, And a fat stag soon falls beneath their arrows. A fire they kindle next, and dress their prize; Then, offering to the gods and manes made, With Sitá they the social banquet share.

And readers of the _Arabian Nights_ will remember how young Bedr ed-Dín Hasan was discovered by the delicious tarts for the making of which he had been always famed.

[45] One of the signs of the Zodiac.

[46] Wrestling has been from the most ancient times a favourite sport in Persia, as it has also been among the Japanese. Due allowance must, of course, be made for the Oriental exaggeration here indulged in, of representing our hero as throwing two hundred men in succession;—still, the author is not inconsistent, for did not he, single-handed, lay about him boldly and scatter the gang of robbers in the mosque and prove more than a match for the townsfolk?

[47] I presume by the “Sun of Prophecy” is meant Muhammed. The “Court of Unity” is Heaven.

[48] This little story is evidently intended as a satire on ascetics whose notions of religious duties spring from their own foolish minds, and who are often held up to ridicule by the most eminent Persian poets and moralists.

[49] In spite of the vigilance with which women in the East are guarded from communication with lovers, it is said that men frequently gain access to harams disguised in female apparel, with or without the connivance of the “neutral personages” who are appointed to keep watch and ward over the private apartments.

[50] This recalls an incident in the Muslim legend of King Solomon’s temporary degradation, in consequence of his having fallen into the heinous sin of idolatry—a legend adapted from the Jewish traditionists—when “the wisest man the world e’er saw” became an outcast and a vagrant, and took service with a fisherman; his wages being two fishes each day.

[51] The wise and witty author of _Hudibras_ partly expresses the same sentiment in these lines:

Man is supreme lord and master Of his own ruin and disaster, Controls his fate, but nothing less In ordering his own happiness: For all his care and providence Is too feeble a defence To render it secure and certain Against the injuries of fortune; And oft, in spite of all his wit, Is lost with one unlucky hit, And ruined with a circumstance And mere punctilio of a chance.

Butler’s _Remains_.

But the Hindú sages give forth no uncertain sound on this subject, as may be seen from these verses, which are cited in the _Hitopadesa_, a Sanskrit version of the celebrated Fables of Bidpaï:

“As from a lump of clay a workman makes whatever he pleases, in like manner a man obtains the destiny prepared by himself.”

“Fortune waits upon that lion of a man who exerts himself. Abject fellows say: ‘It is to be given by destiny.’ Put forth manliness with all your strength. If when effort has been made it succeed not, what blame is there in such a case?”

[52] Muslims regard Lukman as the type of human wisdom. He is said to have been an Ethiopian slave and served in the army of the Hebrew king David. Many striking sayings and fables are ascribed to him, but it is more than doubtful whether he composed any apologues.

[53] The loves of Laylá and Majnún—the Romeo and Juliet of the East—have formed the theme of several very beautiful Persian and Turkish poems. Majnún (which means “mad from love:” his proper name was Kays) was the son of an Arab chief and deeply enamoured of a maiden of another tribe; and on her being married to a foreign and wealthy suitor he became distraught, and fled to the wilderness. When Laylá became a widow and met her lover once more she found him a raving maniac and died soon after. Majnún expired on her tomb.

[54] Muslim poets are never weary of harping on the fancied love of the nightingale (_bulbul_) for the rose, to which he is supposed to pour out his nightly plaint.

[55] “The philosopher,” says a Persian poet, “died of grief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure in a ruin.”

[56] It is rare indeed to find in Eastern tales such sensible observations put in the mouths of sultans, who are for the most part mere lay figures or credulous fools. Mr. R. L. Stevenson has happily described the monarchs that figure in the _Arabian Nights_ as “wooden kings.” Here, however, we have in this sultan a really sagacious man.

[57] The renowned Harún er-Rashíd was not the only Oriental monarch fond of prowling through his capital after nightfall in disguise: Indian kings of the olden time, long before the Muhammedan invasion and subjugation, are said to have made it their regular practice. King James the Fifth of Scotland was wont to adopt all sorts of disguises and go about in quest of _amorous_ adventures.

[58] Blighted, as they firmly believed, by the mere sight of the _unlucky_ man.

[59] Copies of the Kurán are always very beautifully written and often illuminated with great taste and splendour, and are very costly. Poor Shoayb may, however, have been induced to select a Kurán out of the robbers’ booty rather from motives of _piety_ than from any desire of gain.—I may mention that, although the art of printing is now practised both in Persia and Turkey, copies of the Kurán are still multiplied (or were so till very lately) by handwriting, from a superstitious notion that the impure materials employed in printing would profane the sacred text.

[60] Friday is the Muslim Sunday—called _El-Jum’á_, or the Assembly; but it is not observed as a day exclusively devoted to religious exercises, like the “Lord’s Day” among our Protestant “evangelicals,” whose motto seems to be, “Let us all be unhappy together,” on that day which they ought rather to regard as a day of pious rejoicing, could they be consistent; nor are the superstitious notions associated with the Sabbath in Jewish minds entertained by Muslims regarding the day of _El-Jum’á_.

[61] The number _forty_ seems to have been always a favourite among Eastern peoples, and it occurs in the Bible many times in connection with important events. Thus the Flood continued _forty_ days (Gen. vii, 17); Joseph and his kinsmen mourned _forty_ days for their father Jacob (Gen. l, 3); thrice Moses fasted _forty_ days (Exod. xxiv, 18, xxxiv, 28, and Deut. ix, 9-25); during _forty_ days the Hebrew spies searched Canaan (Numb. xiii, 25); Goliath defied the Hebrew army for _forty_ days (1 Sam. xvii, 16); Elijah fasted _forty_ days (1 Kings xix, 8); Nineveh was to be destroyed after _forty_ days (Jonah iii, 4); _forty_ days Ezekiel bore the iniquities of the house of Judah, a day for a year (Ezek. iv, 6); Christ was tempted by Satan during _forty_ days (Matt. iv, 2, and Mark i, 13), and he continued _forty_ days on earth after his resurrection (Acts i, 3); the Israelites were condemned to wander in the wilderness _forty_ years (Numb. xiv, 33).—Muslims mourn _forty_ days for their dead; and they deem a woman ceremonially unclean during _forty_ days after childbirth: among the Israelites the period was forty days when she had given birth to a male child and eighty days in the case of a female child.—In the present romance, our unlucky hero, Nassar, is directed by the hermit’s “last will,” as above, to spend _forty_ days in prayer for the restoration of the fairies’ fountain; he shoots an arrow through a finger-ring _forty_ times (p. 100); but his too expert archery caused an accident to the king, from the effects of which his majesty did not recover until he had been “_forty_ days under medical treatment” (p. 102); poor Shah Manssur was in the power of the cruel sorceress for nearly _forty_ days (p. 26); and the son of the king of Tytmyran was tossed about on the sea in a boat for _forty_ days (p. 73). To conclude this long note: _forty_ is the usual number of a gang of robbers in Eastern tales—that of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” will at once occur to the reader; and we have another example in the diverting story of “Ahmed the Cobbler” (Malcolm’s _Sketches of Persia_), where the king’s treasury is plundered by _forty_ robbers.

[62] Excepting, surely, “the shark and the sun-fish dark”!

[63] “Sometimes it happens,” says our author, “that a man is such a favourite of fortune that if another try to injure him even that will turn to his advantage. Good men refrain in thought and word and deed from injuring their fellow men; but evil-minded men resemble scorpions in their nature, stinging everybody without cause, and with no profit to themselves, while the objects of their hatred nevertheless prosper;—as will appear from the following story of the adventures of Farrukhrúz, whose success was promoted by the enmity which the vazírs of the king of Yaman entertained against him.”

[64] A sensible man! He was well aware that frequently “riches take unto themselves wings and flee away.” The sons of “self-made” men seldom turn out to be of much account—probably because fathers such as Khoja Marján are not often found among those whose sole aim in life has been to “mak’ siller”!

[65] Or Yemen: the ancient Arabia Felix.

[66] “Forty days” again!—see _ante_, note on pp. 140, 141.

[67] A kind of witch’s broomstick, apparently. It is to be regretted that our author (or the holy hermit) did not specify the other properties of this wonderful staff! Doubtless it also provided the possessor with “meat, drink, and clothing,” in common with similar magical articles which figure in the fairy tales of all peoples.

[68] Muslims have derived from the Jewish cabbalists the notion of the marvellous efficacy of the “unutterable Name” of God—called by the Arabs _El-Ism el-Aazam_, “the Most Great Name.” It was, they say, engraved on Solomon’s signet-ring, by means of which he subdued all the genii and demons, save one rebellious and powerful genie called Sakhr, who concealed himself in an island in mid-ocean. But the Wise King “took up” with strange women—with the daughters of idolatrous kings whom he had conquered in battle; and to one of those he gave his ring one unlucky day, to keep for him while he was at his bath. The demon Sakhr, who had been prowling invisibly about the palace, in hopes of catching his royal enemy at an unguarded moment, assumed Solomon’s form and readily obtained possession of the wonder-working ring, and sat on the throne of Israel, while Solomon—whose appearance was at once changed—was driven forth, to wander up and down the land as a beggar. To be brief, the ring was, after long years, found in the maw of a fish—Sakhr having thrown it away when he fled, on being detected as an imposter by the reading of the Law in his presence—and Solomon “came to his own again.” Solomon’s signet-ring figures frequently in Muslim romances and stories: it was with this magical ring that he sealed the copper vessels into which he conjured certain rebellious genii, and then caused them to be thrown into the sea; it also gave him power over all creatures on the earth and in the waters, and over the eight winds, which, at his command, wafted through the air, whithersoever he pleased, himself and his army on the marvellous carpet woven for him by genii—to which the poet Bahá-ed-Dín Zuhayr, of Egypt, thus alludes in an address to his lady-love:

“And now I bid the very wind To speed my loving message on, As though I might its fury bind, Like Solomon.”

The wind is a common messenger of love in the amatory poetry of the East;—thus a pre-Islamite Arabian poet exclaims in apostrophising his beloved: “O may the western breeze tell thee of my ardent desire to return home!”

[69] I reproduce the following notes on treasure-trees from my paper on the Franklin’s Tale (entitled “The Damsel’s Rash Promise”) in _Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”_ printed for the Chaucer Society, p. 336:

In the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_—an ancient Sanskrit story-book—we read of trees with golden trunks, branches of jewels, the clear white flowers of which were clusters of pearls; golden lotuses, etc. Aladdin, it will be remembered, found in the cave, where was deposited the magic lamp, trees bearing “fruit” of emeralds and other gems of great price, with which he took care to stuff his pockets.

In the mediæval romance of Alexander we are told how the world-conqueror jousted with Porus for his kingdom, and having overthrown him, he found in the palace of the vanquished monarch innumerable treasures, and amongst others a vine of which the branches were gold, the leaves emerald, and the fruit of other precious stones—a fiction, says Dunlop, which seems to have been suggested by the golden vine which Pompey carried away from Jerusalem.

The garden of Duke Isope, as described in the _Tale of Beryn_ (Supp. Canterbury Tales: Ch. Soc., p. 84), had a similar tree:

“In mydward of this garden stant a feire tre, Of alle maner levis that under sky [there] be, I-forgit and i-fourmyd, eche in his degre, Of sylvir, and of goldè fyne, that lusty ben to see.”

As the treasures coveted by the Arimaspians were guarded by griffins, and the golden apples of the Hesperides by a dragon, so this garden of Duke Isope was kept by eight “tregetours,” or magicians, who looked like “abominabill wormys,” enough to frighten the bravest man on earth.

The Italian poet Boiardo, in the 12th canto of his _Orlando Innamorato_, represents the virtuous Tisbina as promising her love to Iroldo, who is madly enamoured of her, on condition that he perform a certain task for her: “Beyond the forest of Barbary,” says she, “is a fair garden, which has an iron wall. Herein entrance can be obtained by four gates: one Life keeps, Death, another, Poverty, another, and Riches, another. Whoso goes therein must depart by the opposite gate. In the midst is a tree of vast height, far as an arrow may mount aloft; that tree is of marvellous price, for whenever it blossoms it puts forth pearls, and it is called the Treasure-Tree, for it has apples of emerald and boughs of gold. A branch of this tree,” adds the fair Tisbina, “I must have, otherwise I am in heavy case.”

[70] A species of inferior _jinni_, or genie.

[71] It is a general practice of Muslim men to shave their heads, leaving in front a _kakull_, or tuft of hair, in order, according to some writers, that an enemy, in the day of battle, after cutting off the head of any of the faithful whom he had slain, should have wherewithal to carry it, and not require to pollute it by thrusting his fingers into the mouth. This bears some resemblance to the tuft which North American Indians wear, as a defiance to their foes—to scalp them if they can! The tuft on the Muslim’s head, however, serves another purpose, in being allowed to grow for some time before he sets out on the pilgrimage to Makka, so that, arrived there, he can twist it round his head like a turban, as a guard against the fierce Arabian sun. The Bráhmans also shave their heads, leaving a similar tuft, which, like the “pig-tail” of a Chinaman, is a mark of respectability, and its removal is a very great disgrace.

[72] Iskandar, or Sikandar: Alexander the Great, of whom Muslim writers relate many wonderful stories—especially the Persian poet Nizamí, in his famous _Sikandar-Náma_, or Alexander-Book.—Jamshíd was the fourth of the first (or Píshdádí) dynasty of ancient Persian kings. He is said to have founded Persepolis, and introduced the solar year, and ordered the first day of it, when the sun entered Aries, to be celebrated by a magnificent festival, which is still observed in Persia, and is called the _Nú Rúz_, or the New Day. Of his goblet, above referred to, _Jam-i-Jamshíd_, or the Cup of Jamshíd, marvellous things are related: it mirrored the whole world, foreshadowed future events, and so forth. It is said that such was its lustre that it dazzled all beholders, and hence poets have found it a convenient simile for the brilliant eyes of a pretty girl.

[73] It does not appear that the astrologer’s prediction was fulfilled—though a blind man once shot a crow, but, like the astrologer, for one hit he missed a thousand times. A good story is told of an essay in the capacity of astrologer on the part of Anvarí, the celebrated Persian poet. It so happened that in 1186 A.D. (581 or 582 A.H.) there was a conjunction of all the planets in the sign of Libra. Anvarí predicted a storm which would eradicate trees and destroy all buildings. When the fatal day arrived, it was perfectly calm, and there was the whole year so little wind that the people were unable to winnow their corn. The unlucky poet-astrologer was obliged to fly to Balkh, where he died, in the reign of Sultan Alá-ed-Dín Takash, A.D. 1200 (A.H. 596).

Astrologers having predicted for the year 1523 incessant rains and disastrous floods, the good abbot of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, London, built a house at Harrow-on-the-Hill, and stored it with provisions. Many people followed his example and repaired to high places, in order to escape the expected deluge. But no extraordinary rains occurring, the disappointed soothsayers pacified the people by confessing themselves mistaken just one hundred years in their calculation!—Readers of Chaucer will remember how the arch-rogue Clerk Nicolas, for his own wicked ends, predicted, to his simple landlord, the carpenter, that a flood was presently to come upon the earth, greater than that which Noah and his family “rode-out” in the Ark.

Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali, in her interesting _Observations on the Mussulmans of India_, says: “It is wonderful the influence which a _najúm_ [_i.e._ astrologer] acquires in the houses of many great men in India. Wherever one of those idlers is entertained he is the oracle to be consulted on all occasions. I know those who submit with a childlike docility to the najúm’s opinion, when their better reason, if allowed sway, would decide against the astrologer’s prediction. If the najúm says it is not proper for Nawáb Sahib and his lady to eat, drink, or sleep, to take medicine, to give away or accept any gift, the najúm has said it, and the najúm must be right.” (Vol. i, pp. 69, 70.)

[74] Akhfash was a Muhammedan professor of grammar and literature who was so unlucky as not to be able to attract any disciples; he therefore trained a goat and lectured to it, the docile animal approving, doubting, or denying his propositions as occasion required, and in course of time, when it had attracted a very large number of scholars, its functions ceased.—_E. Rehatsek, the translator._

[75] We have in this scene, between the simple dweller in the desert, the infatuated Farrukhrúz, and the Amír, a capital example of Oriental humour.

[76] Thus the sultan received our hero on a footing of equality with himself, and the scene recalls the meeting of the two brothers, King Sháhriyár and Sháh Zamán in the opening of the _Arabian Nights_.

[77] Notwithstanding all that has been written by European orientalists during the last half-century regarding the Muhammedan religion, the notion is still widely prevalent that, according to the Kuránic teachings, women have not souls. The idea is quite preposterous, and must have been set afloat by bigoted Christian “champions” who wished to throw discredit on the doctrines of Islám. In the Kurán future rewards are promised and future punishments are threatened to men and women alike. And in Muslim stories, which may be considered as faithfully reflecting the general religious belief, women are often spoken of as having gone to Paradise at their death, while it is not unusual for the transcriber of a book to insert at the end a prayer for the souls of his father and mother. Moreover, among the traditions preserved of Muhammed is the following, which shows that the Founder of Islám could occasionally indulge in a little harmless pleasantry: An old woman came to him one day, and asked what should be the lot of such as she in Paradise. The Prophet replied, that no old women would be there, upon which the poor crone set up a loud wail, but Muhammed presently soothed her by smilingly explaining that all the old women would become young when they entered Paradise.

[78] Yet again “forty days”!

[79] The name of the king is derived from Alakápuri, the city of Kavéra, the god of riches, and Alakésa is therefore an appellation signifying a wealthy king.

[80] The Pandit remarks that this kind of statement often occurs in stories in proof of the just reign of a monarch. The Hindú idea is, that so long as justice and equity characterised a king’s rule, even beasts naturally inimical were disposed to live in friendship. When timely rain fails or famine stalks through the land, turning his eyes from the natural causes, the orthodox Hindú will say that such a king is now reigning over them unjustly, and hence the calamity.

[81] According to a Persian writer, “she is a perfect woman who considers her husband as the most accomplished of men, and thinks all the sons of Adam beside quite unworthy of a transient glance from the corner of her half-shut eyes.” And in the _Mahábhárata_ we are told that “she is a good wife whose husband is as her very life.”

[82] “Distinguishing the peculiarities of an animal by its footsteps, etc.,” says the Pandit, “is often met with in Indian stories. Precisely the reverse of this is the tale of the four blind men who disputed about the form of an elephant. One of them had felt only the elephant’s ear, and said it was like a winnow; another examined the breast and a foreleg, and said it was like a thick stump of wood; the third felt the trunk and said it was like a heavy crook; while the fourth, having touched only the tail, declared it was like a sweeping rake.”

[83] A pagoda is now of the value of about 7s. 6d.

[84] Sambhavi and Mahámayi are among the numerous names of Kálí, the goddess of destruction, called also Parvati and Durga: the daughter of Himálaya, sovereign of the snowy mountains. She is described as terrible in form and very irascible in temper. In her amiable form she is called Bhaváni. To address a deity by a number of appellations, as above, is considered as the readiest way to secure favour.—Mr. Natésa Sástrí, in a note in _Indian Notes and Queries_ for Sept. 1887, p. 215, states that “the goddess Kálí is much worshipped in the Madras Presidency, and especially so during an epidemic. During an outbreak of cholera in Madras in 1884, the Kálí image in the Minakshí temple, near the Dvaja Stambha, was daily propitiated by a thousand pots each of ghí (clarified butter) milk, oil, etc.”

[85] Vijanajara, now a village in Hospet _táluk_, Bellary district, Madras Presidency. The proper name of this village is Hampi, but Vijanajara was the name of the dynasty and the kingdom which had its capital there, and was the last great Hindú power in the South. Founded by two adventurers in the middle of the 14th century, it lasted for two centuries, till its sun went down at Tálikot in 1565 A.D. The ruins of Hampi cover nine square miles.—Sir W. W. Hunter’s _Imperial Gazetteer of India_.

[86] A _ghatika_ is twenty-four minutes.

[87] Apparently the arrows were attached to some kind of mechanism which should discharge them on the opening of the pot. “There is nothing new under the sun”! Dynamite is perhaps a discovery of our own times, but “infernal machines,” which served the purpose of king-killers, are of ancient date.

[88] Hindús, at their meals, squat on the ground, with leaves in place of earthenware dishes, on which their food is served. The leaves of the palm are very large, and each may be cut into a number of “plates.”

[89] A long cloth, which is often the only covering worn by Hindús.

[90] The women’s apartments; called by Muslims generally “the haram.”

[91] A sum of money varying, says the Pandit, in different localities in the south of India. In old Chola grants “two pons” occurs.

[92] _i.e._ “Lion among beasts.”

[93] Setti, or Sethi, is a term applied respectfully to many of the races engaged in trade or financial transactions; to the Zoroastrian Parsí, the Muhammedan Bora, and to Hindús in the north and south of the Madras Presidency, occupied as bankers, merchants and shopkeepers.

[94] A species of weasel, commonly, but incorrectly, written “mungoose,” as though the animal was of the _goose_ kind. The mungús is very expert in killing snakes.

[95] Visvesvara: “Lord of all,” a name of Siva, the third deity of the Hindú triad.

[96] The want of children is doubtless felt more or less keenly by all the races of mankind, but the Hindú is taught to believe that he cannot attain ultimate salvation without leaving a son behind him. The Chinese who hold to their old religion have also a great horror of dying and leaving no male offspring to sacrifice to their manes, and to avoid such a calamity they adopt children when they have none of their own. Among most Asiatic peoples, indeed, a childless wife is generally but most unjustly despised, hence the thousand and one nostrums in which Hindú women vainly put faith in expectation of having their sterility removed. We have four notable instances in the Bible of women bearing famous sons after having been long sterile: Sarah, mother of Isaac, the Hebrew patriarch; Rachel, mother of Joseph, viceroy of Egypt; the wife of Manoah, mother of Samson, the Hercules of the Hebrews; and Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.—After all, sterile wives may console themselves with the reflection that children are not always an unalloyed blessing!

[97] “The most useful, plentiful, and best fruit,” says Forbes, in his _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 30, “is the mango, which grows abundantly all over Hindústán, even in the forests and hedge-rows, on trees equal in size to a large English oak, but in appearance and foliage more resembling the Spanish chestnut. This valuable fruit varies in shape, colour, and flavour as much as apples do in Europe. The superior kinds are extremely delicious, and in the interior resemble the large yellow peach of Venice, heightened by the flavour of the orange and agana; and so plentiful are mangoes in the hot season throughout most parts of India that during my residence in Guzerat they were sold in the public markets for one rupee the cusly, or 600 lbs. in English weight for half-a-crown. They are a delicacy to the rich, a nutritious food for the poor, who in the mango season require but little other sustenance.”—The skin of the mango is described as being smooth and tough; its colour when ripe is grass green, or yellow in many shades, with occasional tinges and streaks of bright red; the pulp is as juicy as our wall-fruit. The kernel is of a hot and rather offensive flavour, but the poor people collect it, and when dried grind it into flour for bread, which is more wholesome than agreeable. An orchard of mango-trees is a small fortune to the possessor, and when they are in blossom it forms a luxurious resort to the lovers of Nature.—_Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali._

[98] “Alas!” says Somadeva, “fickle is the mind of woman!” Again: “A woman desires fresh men, as the humble bee wanders from flower to flower.” And again: “A fickle dame is like a sunset—momentarily aglow for everyone.”

[99] Compare with this the question asked of Jesus Christ by his disciples (John ix, 2): “Master, who did sin, _this man_ or his parents, that he was _born_ blind?” from which it would appear some of the Jews in those days entertained notions akin to the Hindú (and Pythagorean) doctrine of metempsychosis.

[100] The parrot, of course, was a human being re-born in that form, in accordance with the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is a fundamental article of the Hindú religion.

[101] It is curious to find goldsmiths and jewellers invariably represented in Hindú stories as arrant rogues. In the fine old Indian drama entitled _Mrichchakati_, or the Toy-Cart, it is said: “There is no lotus that has not a stalk, no trader that is not a cheat, no goldsmith that is not a thief.”

[102] Tope, or stupa, a sepulchral memorial monument; a mound-like building erected for the preservation of relics. They are found in Afghanistán, Tibet, Nepál, and Western Asia; also in various parts of Southern India. On the demise of Gautama [the founder of Buddhism], B.C. 543, his body was consumed, divided into eight portions, and distributed amongst applicants, who erected topes over them. The word _tope_ is the same as _st’hupo_ in Pali—a mound or tumulus; st’hupo, or tope, is therefore a name common to each kind of tumulus, whether it be the solid temple dedicated to the Supreme Being or the massive mound erected over the relics of Buddha, or those of one of his more eminent followers.—Balfour’s _Cyclopædia of India_.

[103] Vedas: “divine knowledge.” The Vedas are the holy books which are the foundations of the Hindú religion. They consist of hymns written in the old form of Sanskrit, and, according to the most generally received opinion, were composed between 1500 and 1000 B.C. Some scholars have thought the oldest of the hymns may be carried back a thousand years farther. The four Vedas are: the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, the last being of comparatively modern date.—See Dowson’s _Classical Dictionary of Hindú Mythology_.

[104] The six Sastras comprise philosophical systems of the Hindús: the term Sastra signifies a treatise or rule.

[105] “It is a very common practice,” remarks the Pandit, “to dupe ordinary people in this manner in Hindú temples. Some impostor will proclaim to the crowd that the god, or goddess, is then upon him, and utter whatever comes uppermost in his mind. He occasionally contrives to accomplish his private ends by such revelations. The ignorant are greatly misled by those impostors, and learned Hindús condemn the practice as gross superstition.”

[106] “Fiat experimentum in corpore vili.”

[107] Full grown and ripe bambú bears a kind of corn which when collected and husked resembles wheat. Hunters cook a most delicious food of bambú grain and honey.

[108] Not only are serpents popularly believed by Asiatics to be guardians of hidden treasures, but they are also said to have most valuable gems in their heads, which they sometimes present to persons who have rendered them good service. This notion was once prevalent in Europe regarding toads; and readers of Shakspeare will remember his comparison of the uses of adversity to the “toad, ugly and venomous, which yet wears a precious jewel in its head.” A curious serpent legend is current in Kandahár regarding ’Alí Mardán Khán, when governor of that city: A cowherd of Kandahár lost two or three of his cattle in a certain pasture and came to the governor to complain about it. ’Alí Mardán Khán ordered him to fill some cowhides with lime, leaving a hole in each, and to place them in the meadow. It appeared that a serpent came daily and carried off the cattle, and on this occasion took away one of the hides, but leaving a track of lime behind him was traced to his lair. The lime in the hide disagreed with him and so he died. Beside his carcase was found a great heap of treasures and the _philosopher’s stone_, which immensely enriched ’Alí Mardán Khán.

[109] See note 2, p. 122.

[110] Ahmed: “Praiseworthy”; one of the appellations of Muhammed.

[111] “Had it not been for thee, verily the heavens had not been created.”—_Kurán._

[112] Burák was the name of the animal that carried Muhammed on his famous (and fabulous) Night Journey through the Seven Heavens; for an account of which see Muir’s _Life of Mahomet_, ii, 219-222; Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_; and D’Herbelot’s _Bibliothèque Orientale_, art. _Borak_.—According to the _Sikandar Náma_ (Alexander-Book) of Nizamí, Burák was silken as to body, silvern as to hoof, and to such a degree swift moving that nothing could equal him.—Canto iv, 12, p. 32 of Clarke’s translation.

[113] Alí was the son-in-law of Muhammed, having married Fatima, the beloved daughter of the Prophet. Of the two great sects of Muslims the _shi’ahs_ consider Alí and his immediate descendants (eleven in number) as “the true and only imáms” in succession of Muhammed, while the _súnís_ regard the khalífs—’Umar, Abú Bakr, etc.—as the lawful representatives of the Prophet. The Persians and the Indian Muslims are (like our present author) _shi’ahs_; the Turks and Arabs are _súnís_.

[114] “Ornament of kings.”

[115] The Hercules of the Persians, and the principal hero of the _Sháh Náma_ (Book of Kings), Firdausí’s great epic.

[116] “Crown of kings.”

[117] It is still a common practice in Persia and India when a child is born—especially a son—for an astrologer to be employed to “cast his horoscope” and thereby foretell the child’s career in life. “In 1670 the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars prevailed in France among persons of the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Medicis brought Henry IV, then a child, to old Nostradamus, whom antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the reverend seer, with a beard which ‘streamed like a meteor in the air,’ terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage. Will it be credited that, one of these magicians having assured Charles IX that he should live as many days as he should turn about on his heel in an hour, standing on one leg, his majesty every morning performed that solemn exercise for an hour, the principal officers of the court, the judges, the chancellors, and the generals likewise, in compliment standing on one leg and turning round!”—_Demonologia_, by J. S. F.

[118] Abú-Síná, or Abú ’Alí Síná, or Ibn-Síná, called generally in Europe Avicenna, was a famous physician and philosopher at the court of Baghdád. Born, at Bukhárá, A.H. 373 (A.D. 983), died, at Hamadán, A.H. 427 (A.D. 1035). He wrote nearly one hundred books on medicine, most of which are now lost. He was also a poet, and some of his verses are still extant.

[119] The patriarch’s grief for the loss of his favourite son Joseph is proverbial among Muslims; but our author has done the “Man of Uz” a great injustice when he likens him to the blind king, as “waiting with impatient anxiety”!

[120] A comely youth is always said by Muslim writers to resemble Joseph, the son of Jacob the Hebrew patriarch, who is considered as the type of manly beauty.

[121] Firdaus: Paradise. Here it is probably used as the name of an imaginary city; at all events I cannot find that there is any town of the name in Persia or India.

[122] Dilbar: “heart-stealer”; and surnamed Lakhí (as will be seen presently) because she required to be paid a _lakh_ (100,000) of rupís by every man who sought her society. The rupí (rupee) is nominally valued at two shillings, but at present it is at considerable discount, being only worth from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. of English currency.

[123] The fascination of the moth for the flame of the candle is a favourite simile with Asiatic writers for the love-struck youth and the beauty whose charms have ensnared him. Sa’dí, in his _Bustán_, has a fine mystical poem on this subject.

[124] See note on pp. 187-8.

[125] Persian writers are extremely fond of far-fetched conceits. In describing sunrise they almost invariably borrow metaphors from the incidents last related. We have had several examples of this peculiarity in the romance of Nassar, as (pp. 6, 7) in the case of the robbery of the royal treasury by one of the eunuchs of the haram, where the author begins his account of next day’s events thus: “When the _eunuch_ of _night_ had retired and the _prince_ of _morn_ established himself in the _palace_ of the horizon,” and so forth. And here we have the game of backgammon between the hero and Dilbar utilised for a description of the natural phenomenon of sunset.

[126] “Sháh-záda:” _lit._ “king-born,” or son of the king; the usual term applied to royal princes in Persia.

[127] A crore is 100 lakhs, or ten millions, according to the Hindú system of numeration; but in Persia it is only 5 lakhs, or 500,000. The artful Dilbar must have had an enormous amount of wealth, if she lost to our hero a hundred crores of rupís, which even according to the Persian computation would be equal to five millions of pounds, English money, estimating the rupí at two shillings. After this she’d be fully justified in describing herself, as honest Dogberry does with some pride, as “one who has had _losses_ too!”

[128] Dívs (or _deevs_) are similar to the Jinn (or Genii) of Arabian mythology. Some are good demons, being faithful Muslims, but those who are unbelievers are for the most part malignant and delight in working evil on mankind.

[129] A quotation from the _Gulistán_, or Rose Garden, of the celebrated Persian poet and philosopher Sa’dí, ch. iii.—Sa’dí was born, at Shíráz, towards the close of the 12th century, and died, in his native city, about 1291 A.D., having lived upwards of a hundred years.

[130] According to the Kurán, because Abraham would not worship idols, Nimrod cast him into a blazing furnace, which was turned into a rose-garden—evidently a distorted version of the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the three devout Hebrew youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.

[131] Standing on one leg in presence of a superior is a mark of profound respect in India.

[132] This fable is omitted by Garcin de Tassy.

[133] It is the common belief in the East that pearls are formed in the oyster out of drops of rain falling into it when the shells are open. This notion is the subject of a mystical poem in Sa’dí’s _Bustán_, or Garden of Odours, Book iv, which has been thus translated:

“A drop of rain trickled from a cloud into the ocean; when it beheld the breadth of its waters it was utterly confounded.

‘What a place this sea is, and what am I? If it is existent, verily I am non-existent.’

Whilst it was thus regarding itself with the eye of contempt, an oyster received it into its bosom.

Fortune preferred it to a place of honour; for it became a renowned royal pearl.

Because it was humble, it found exaltation;—it knocked at the door of nonentity, that it might arise into being.”—Robinson’s _Persian Poetry for English Readers_, p. 328.

[134] Here our author makes the courtesan Dilbar discourse most eloquently and in a highly moral strain. It has always been much easier to preach than to practise, I ween!

[135] Good Muslims never commence any undertaking of importance or danger without first reciting the formula—which is also invariably placed at the beginning of all their writings—“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!” (_Bismillahi er-rahmani er-rahimi_).

[136] “That a salamander is able to live in flames,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “to endure and put out fire, is an assertion not only of great antiquity but confirmed by frequent and not contemptible authority.… All which notwithstanding, there is on the negative authority and experience.… The ground of this opinion might be some sensible resistance of fire observed in the salamander; which being, as Galen determineth, cold in the fourth and moist in the third degree, and having also a mucus humidity above and under the skin, by virtue thereof it may a while endure flame, which being consumed it can resist no more.”—_Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors_, ch. xiv.

[137] See the note on pp. 108-9.

[138] To swear by Solomon, especially by Solomon’s signet-ring, is the most binding oath which the jinn and the fairies can take, since its breach would entail a dreadful punishment.

[139] “Hammála” may mean a woman who carries: Garcin de Tassy calls her “porteuse.”

[140] “Praiseworthy”: “Belauded.”

[141] Badakshán is a mountainous tract of country in Afghán Túrkestán, famous for mines yielding the finest rubies, lapis-lazuli, etc.

[142] The romance writers of mediæval Europe, after the first Crusade, drew largely from Oriental fictions. Thus, for example, in _The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux_, among the many wonders which the hero sees in his journey to the court of the Soudan of Babylon is an underground river, the bed of which was composed of the most precious stones, which possessed a variety of curative properties.

[143] “The heavenly orbs, according to the principles of philosophy, possess a reasonable mind.”—_Akhlák-i Jalálí._ “This,” remarks W.F. Thomson, the translator, “is inferred from continuity of motion and influence without perceptible external cause, and it seems men’s earliest conclusion and the origin of star-worship. Admitting Plato’s notion that souls were introduced, or perhaps kindled, by the heavenly bodies, nothing could be more reasonable than to attempt, by observation and induction, to ascertain the influence contributed by each. The premises only are to be attacked; and for these the chiefs of classical as well as Oriental literature are responsible.”

[144] The cypress, which is in Europe associated with sombre ideas, is by Asiatics commonly employed as a comparison for the graceful stature of a pretty girl.

[145] Muslims are perfectly familiar with the principal narratives in the Bible, from which the Kurán is largely composed.

[146] Asiatic ladies tinge the inner edges of their eyelids with lamp-black in order to increase the lustre of the eyes; it is believed, moreover, to strengthen the sight.

[147] See note 1, p. 250.

[148] This incident is common to folk-tales almost everywhere: sometimes it is a bird who gives the hero one of his feathers, which serves the same purpose.

[149] This was a very unusual condescension on the part of the monarch, even though in honour of his own sons. The common practice (in Persia) is for the sháh to send a deputation the distance of two days’ journey to meet and welcome any distinguished visitors. The deputation is called _istikbál_, and those sent, _písh váz_, openers of the way. A day’s journey is twenty miles.

[150] Kettle-drum.

[151] “Happy.”

[152] Similar question and answer occur in the story of “The Sultan of Yaman and his Three Sons,” one of the tales translated by Jonathan Scott from the Wortley-Montague MS. text of the _Alf Layla wa Layla_, or Thousand and One Nights, which are comprised in the sixth vol. of his edition of the _Arabian Nights Entertainments_, p. 81.

[153] According to Muslim ideas, the shooting stars are stones flung at demons who approach the portals of heaven to listen to the divine communications; and Satan is “stoned” every year by the pilgrims at Makka—for which see Burton’s _Pilgrimage to Meccah and Medinah_.

[154] Chief of police.

[155] See note on p. 46.

[156] Núshírván, surnamed _’Adil_, or the Just (the Chosroes of the Greeks), was of the Sassanian dynasty of ancient Persian kings, and died, after a very prosperous reign of 48 years, A.D. 579. Muhammed was wont to boast of his good fortune in having been born during the reign of so wise and just a prince. His dying injunctions to his son and successor, Hormuz, are thus recorded by Sa’dí (_Bustán_, B. i): “Be thou in heart the guardian of the poor. Be not in bondage to thine own ease. No one will live in comfort in thy kingdom if thou desirest only thine own comfort and sayest, ‘It is enough.’ He will receive no praise from the wise who passeth his nights in sleep whilst the wolf is amidst his flock. Keep watch over the necessitous poor; for the peasant it is from which the king deriveth his throne. The king is the tree, the peasant the root: the tree, O my son, deriveth its strength from the root.”

[157] Garcin de Tassy omits this curious story, and another which immediately follows in the original text, related by the vazír, of the Darvesh and the Nightingale, which I also omit here, as a much better version will be found among the PERSIAN STORIES which follow the present romance.

[158] “Beautiful kingdom.”

[159] In other words: “Succeed in this affair without compromising my dignity; according to the proverb, ‘Take care while shunning one evil of falling into another.’”—See Roebuck’s _Persian and Hindústaní Proverbs_,