Part 21

The balsam tree is nearly of the same size as a sprig of myrtle, and its leaves are like those of the herb sweet-marjoram. Vipers take up their residence about these plants, and are in some places more numerous than in others; for the juice of the balsam tree is their sweetest food, and they are delighted with the shade produced by its leaves. When the time therefore arrives for gathering the juice of this Tree, the Arabians come into the sacred grove, each of them holding two twigs, by shaking these, they put to flight the Vipers; for they are unwilling to kill them, because they consider them as the sacred inhabitants of the balsam. And if it happens that any one is wounded by a Viper, the wound resembles that which is made by iron, but is not attended with any dangerous consequences; for these animals being fed with the juice of the balsam tree, which is the most odoriferous of all trees, their poison becomes changed from a deadly quality into one which produces a milder effect.

_Pausanias._

The inhabitants of Helicon say that none of the herbs or roots which are produced in this mountain are destructive to mankind, they add that the pastures here even debilitate the venom of serpents; so that those who are frequently bit by serpents in this part, escape the danger with greater ease than if they were of the nation of the Psylli, or had discovered an antidote against poison.

_Pausanias._

[155] The common people of England have long been acquainted with this change which muscular fibre undergoes. Before the circumstance was known to philosophers, I have heard them express a dislike and loathing to spermaceti.--"because it was dead-men's fat."

[156] The Persians are strangely superstitious about the burial of their Kings. For fearing lest by some magical art any enchantments should be practised upon their bodies to the prejudice of their children, they conceal, as much as in them lies, the real place of interment.

To this end they send to several places several coffins of lead, with others of wood, which they call Taboat, and bury all alike with the same magnificence. In this manner they delude the curiosity of the people, who cannot discern by the outside in which of the coffins the real body should be. Not but it might be discovered by such as would put themselves to the expence and trouble of doing it. And thus it shall be related in the life of Habas the great, that twelve of these coffins were conveyed to twelve of the principal Mosques, not for the sake of their riches, but of the person which they enclosed; and yet nobody knew in which of the twelve the King's body was laid, tho' the common belief is, that it was deposited at Ardevil.

It is also said in the life of Sefie I. that there were three coffins carried to three several places, as if there had been a triple production from one body, tho' it were a thing almost certainly known, that the coffin where the body was laid, was carried to this same city of Kom, and to the same place where the deceased King commanded the body of his deceased father to be carried.

_Chardin._

They imagine the dead are capable of pain, a Portugueze gentleman had one day ignorantly strayed among the tombs, and a Moor, after much wrangling obliged him to go before the Cadi. The gentleman complained of violence and asserted he had committed no crime, but the judge informed him he was mistaken, for that the poor dead suffered when trodden on by Christian feet. Muley Ishmael once had occasion to bring one of his wives thro' a burial ground, and the people removed the bones of their relations, and murmuring said he would neither suffer the living nor the dead to rest in peace.

_Chenier. additional chapt. by the Translator._

Were this Moorish superstition true, there would have been some monkish merit in the last request of St. Swithin, "when he was ready to depart out of this world, he commanded (for humilityes sake) his body to be buried in the Church-yard, whereon every one might tread with their feet.

_English Martyrologe._

There is a story recorded, how that St. Frithstane was wont every day to say masse and office for the dead; and one evening as he walked in the Church-yard reciting the said office, when he came to _requiescant in pace_, the voyces in the graves round about made answere aloud, and said _Amen_.

_English Martyrologe._

[157] The Mohammedan tradition is even more horrible than this: The corpse of the wicked is gnawed and stung till the resurrection of ninety-nine Dragons, with seven heads each, or as others say, their sins will become venomous Beasts, the grievous ones stinging like Dragons, the smaller like Scorpions, and the others like Serpents; circumstances which some understand in a figurative sense.

_Sale's preliminary discourse._

This Mohammedan tale may be traced to the Scripture; "whose worm dieth not."

[158] The night Léïleth-ul-cadr is considered as being particularly consecrated to eneffable mysteries. There is a prevailing opinion, that a thousand secret and invisible prodigies are performed on this night; that all the inanimate beings then pay their adoration to God; that all the waters of the sea lose their saltness and become fresh at these mysterious moments; that such in fine, is its sanctity, that prayers said during this night are equal in value to all those which can be said in a thousand successive months. It has not however pleased God, says the author of the celebrated theological work entitled _Ferkann_, to reveal it to the faithful: no prophet, no saint has been able to discover it: hence this night, so august, so mysterious, so favoured by Heaven, has hitherto remained undiscovered.

_D'Ohsson._

[159] In Persia, when the King is in his _Megeler_, that is in his Council Chamber, with the Lords whose right it is to be present, there is a sort of half-curtain suspended from a plank, which certain officers wave backward and forward with cords, as a fan, to freshen the air. This is called _Badzen, wind for the women_.

_Tavernier._

[160] A Physician of Ragusa was deputed by that little Republic to negotiate with the Emperor of the Turks. Before he embarked on this voyage he took into his service a boy of a red complection, the only son of a widow, a poor woman, but a woman of honour and virtuous. This Envoy on his arrival at Constantinople immediately addressed himself to the first Physician of his imperial highness, that thro' his favour he might have more access to negociate for his country. The Mahometan had no sooner set eyes on the young Ragusan, than he employed every artifice to induce his master to leave him. The boy himself, at last, wishing to remain at Constantinople, flattered by the fair prospects that were held out to him, and touched with a tender and heroic compassion for her who had given him birth, prayed his protector to leave him with the Barbarian, and carry to his mother the money which on that account he would receive: So that the Ragusan physician left his servant to the Byzantian, and received from him a purse of a thousand sequins. After some days the Italian went to take leave of the Mohammedan Physician, and to thank him for his favours; and he requested earnestly to see the red-headed boy before his departure. The Turk was obliged to own he had made poison of him, and led him into a chamber where the naked body of the boy was still suspended by the feet. The first master of the red-headed boy was greatly surprized at the sight and still more so when he heard that the boy had been beaten upon the belly for six hours, by slaves who relieved one another, till he died: and that a poison was made of the last foam that came from his mouth, so penetrating, that if the stirrup of a horse were touched with the point of a pin that had been dipt in it, he who should mount would immediately die.

_Plaidoyers Historiques par M. Tristan._ 1650.

In this volume the pleadings of the Mother against the Ragusan physician, and his defence are given. The Mother says, it is impossible that he, being a Physician himself, should not have known for what the Infidel Physician wanted to purchase a red-headed boy, as he himself would have made the same use of him had he not been afraid of the laws, the rest is in the usual stile of Tristan's rhetoric.

As the Moslem employed a red-headed Christian in this manufactory, it should seem that a Turk ought to be used in Christendom. But as Turks are not easily caught, a Jew might do.

In the Islands of Barlovento and in all the country of Brazil, in Santa Marta and in the new kingdom, and in other countries, where a cruel sort of Indians inhabited, they used another sort of poison; for they would take the leg of an Indian whom they had killed, and hang it up in the air against the sun, and fill it with many barbs of poisoned arrows, which were taken out of the flesh of an Indian, which after some days they took out, and without cleansing of them, they dried them in the air where the sun did not come, and then they headed their arrows with them; and that became the most malevolent poison, and the most hard to be cured in the world. After the Spaniards came into that country and waged war upon the Indians, they then made it with the flesh of Spaniards, whom they killed or took; but more particularly they desired the flesh of some red-headed Spaniard, whose hairs were of a deep saffron colour; for they were of opinion that there was more heat in that flesh, and consequently more virulency in the poison which it produced: but perhaps they may have heard it often said amongst the Spaniards themselves, that red-headed men are fit to make a composition of poison.

_Garcilasso's Royal Commentaries of Peru._

"Three ounces of a red-haired wench" were among the ingredients of the witch-caldron in Macbeth. Why red-hair was supposed to be a symptom of leprosy, was one of the questions proposed by Michaelis to Niebuhr and his fellow-travellers for investigation. It is singular that at the time when these opinions prevailed universally, golden locks should enter into almost every description of female beauty. If the word of a poet may he taken (and the rhymer now quoted cannot be suspected of invention enough for a lie,) the ladies even wore red wigs, for he says of Absalom

Hasta los hombros pende su cabello Mas que el oro de Arabia roxo y bello.

Cada año qual renuevo lo cortava A damas se vendia para ornato. _David, del Doctor Jacobo Uziel._

Adown his shoulders his long tresses roll'd, More beautiful and red than Eastern gold, And annual as he cropt, the envied hair Was yearly sold to ornament the fair.

The Javanese had a method of procuring poison similar to the Turkish receipt which I have employed.

The Cameleon, or Indian Salamander, otherwise called Gekko.

This creature, which is not only found in Brasil, but also in the Isle of Java, belonging to the East Indies, and which by our people is called Gekko, from its constant cry, (like among us that of the Cuckoe) is properly an Indian Salamander. It is about a foot long, its skin of of a pale or sea green colour, with red spots. The head is not unlike that of a tortoise, with a streight mouth. The eyes are very large, starting out of the head, with long and small eye-apples. The tail is distinguished by several white rings; its teeth are so sharp as to make an impression even upon steel. Each of its four legs had five crooked claws aimed on the end with nails. Its gait is very slow, but wherever it fastens it is not easily removed. It dwells commonly upon rotten trees, or among the ruines of old houses and churches; it oftentimes settles near the bedsteads, which makes sometimes the moors pull down their huts.

Its constant cry is _gekko_, but before it begins it makes a kind of hissing noise. The sting of this creature is so venomous, that the wound proves mortal, unless it be immediately burnt with a red hot iron, or cut off. The blood is of a palish colour, resembling poison itself.

The Javanese use to dip their arrows in the blood of this creature; and those who deal in poisons among them, (an art much esteemed in the island of Java, by both sexes) hang it up with a string tied to the tail on the cieling, by which means it being exasperated to the highest pitch sends forth a yellow liquor out of its mouth, which they gather in small pots set underneath, and afterwards coagulate into a body in the sun. This they continue for several months together, by giving daily food to the creature. It is unquestionably the strongest poison in the world; its urine being of so corrosive a quality, that it not only raises blisters, wherever it touches the skin, but turns the flesh black, and causes a gangrene.

_Nieuhoff._

Is there any analogy between a foam thus procured and the saliva of a mad dog?

[161] The fiction of the Upas is too well known from the Botanic Garden, to need repetition. Suffice it here to remark that the Tree is said to have sprung up as a punishment to the guilty Islanders.

None of our early travellers mention this Tree, and they were too fond of wonders to omit so monstrous a tale, had it been true. It is curious that such a story should have been invented by a Dutchman.

Perhaps the seed of the Upas is contained in the following passage.

Neere unto the said Iland (Java) is another countrey called Panten, or Tathalamasin. In this land there are trees yeelding meale, hony and wine, and the most deadly poison in all the whole world: for against it there is but one onley remedy; and that is this; if a man hath taken of the poyson, and would be delivered from the danger thereof, let him temper the dung of aman in water, and so drinke a good quantity thereof and it expels the poyson immediately.

_Odoricus the Minorite Frier. In Hakluyt._

[162] When any person is to be buried, it is usual to bring the corpse at mid-day or afternoon prayers, to one or other of these Mosques, from whence it is accompanied by the greatest part of the congregation, to the grave. Their processions, at these times, are not so slow and solemn as in most parts of Christendom: for the whole company make what haste they can, singing as they go along, some select verses of their Coran. That absolute submission which they pay to the will of God, allows them not to use any consolatory words upon these occasions: no loss or misfortune is to be hereupon regretted or complained of: instead likewise of such expressions of sorrow and condolence, as may regard the deceased, the compliments turn upon the person, who is the nearest concerned, a blessing (say his friends) be upon your head.

_Shaw._

All Mahometans inter the dead at the hour set apart for prayer; the defunct is not kept in the house, except he expires after sunset, but the Body is transported to the Mosque, whither it is carried by those who are going to prayer; each from a spirit of devotion is desirous to carry in his turn. Women regularly go on Friday to weep over, and pray at the sepulchres of the dead, whose memory they hold dear.

_Chenier._

This custom of crowding about a funeral contributes to spread the plague in Turkey.--It is not many years since, in some parts of Worcestershire, the mourners were accustomed to kneel with their heads upon the coffin during the burial service.

The fullest account of a Mohammedan funeral is in the Lettres sur la Grece, of M. Guys. Chance made him the spectator of a ceremony which the Moslem will not suffer an Infidel to prophane by his presence.

"About ten in the morning I saw the grave-digger at work; the slaves and the women of the family were seated in the burial ground, many other women arrived, and then they all began to lament. After this prelude they one after the other embraced one of the little pillars which are placed upon the graves, crying out _Ogloum, ogloum, soena Mussaphir gueldi_, My Son, my Son, a guest is coming to see thee. At these words their tears and sobs began anew; but the storm did not continue long; they all seated themselves, and entered into conversation.

At noon I heard a confused noise, and cries of lamentation, it was the funeral which arrived. A Turk preceded it, bearing upon his head a small chest; four other Turks carried the bier upon their shoulders, then came the father, the relations and the friends of the dead in great numbers. Their cries ceased at the entrance of the burial ground, but then they quarrelled--and for this. The man who bore the chest opened it, it was filled with copies of the Koran, a croud of Turks, young and old, threw themselves upon the books and scrambled for them. Those who succeeded ranged themselves around the Iman, and all at once began to recite the Koran, almost as Boys say their lesson. Each of the readers received ten parats, about fifteen sols, wrapt in paper. It was then for these fifteen pence that these pious assistants had quarrelled, and in our own country you might have seen them fight for less.

The bier was placed by the grave, in which the grave-digger was still working, and perfumes were burnt by it. After the reading of the Koran the Iman chanted some Arabic prayers, and his full-chant would, no doubt, have appeared to you, as it did to me, very ridiculous. All the Turks were standing; they held their hands open over the grave, and answered _Amen_ to all the prayers which the Iman addressed to God for the deceased.

The prayers finished, a large chest was brought about six feet long and three broad; its boards were very thick. The coffin is usually made of cypress; thus literally is verified the phrase of Horace that the cypress is our last possession.

Neque harum, quas colis, arborum, Te, præter invisas cupressus, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.

The cemeteries of the Turks are usually planted with these trees, to which they have a religious attachment. The chest which was in loose pieces, having been placed in the grave, the coffin was laid in it, and above planks, with other pieces of wood. Then all the Turks, taking spades, cast earth upon the grave to cover it. This is a part of the ceremony at which all the bystanders assisted in their turn.

Before the corpse is buried it is carried to the Mosque. Then after having recited the _Fatka_ (a prayer very similar to our Lord's prayer, which is repeated by all present) the Iman asks the congregation what they have to testify concerning the life and morals of the deceased. Each then in his turn relates those good actions with which he was acquainted. The body is then washed, and wrapped up like a mummy, so that it cannot be seen. Drugs and spices are placed in the bier with it, and it is carried to interment. Before it is lowered into the grave, the Iman commands silence, saying, "Cease your lamentations for a moment, and let me instruct this Moslem how to act, when he arrives in the other world." Then in the ear of the corpse, he directs him how to answer the Evil Spirit who will not fail to question him respecting his religion, &c. This lesson finished, he repeats the _Fatka_ with all the assistants, and the body is let down into the grave. After they have thrown earth three times upon the grave, as the Romans used, they retire. The Iman only remains, he approaches the grave, stoops down, inclines his ear, and listens to hear if the Dead disputes when the Angel of Death comes to take him: then he bids him farewell, and in order to be well paid, never fails to report to the family the best news of the dead.

[163] The Turks bury not at all within the walls of the city, but the great Turkish Emperors themselves, with their wives and children about them, and some few other of their great Bassaes, and those only in chappels by themselves built for that purpose. All the rest of the Turks are buried in the fields; some of the better sort in tombs of marble, but the rest with tomb-stones laid upon them, or with two great stones, one set up at the head and the other at the feet of every grave; the greatest part of them being of white marble, brought from the Isle of Marmora.

They will not bury any man where another hath been buried, accounting it impiety to dig up another man's bones: by reason whereof they cover all the best ground about the city with such great white stones: which, for the infinite number of them, are thought sufficient to make another wall about the city.

_Knolles._

The Turks bury by the way-side, believing that the passengers will pray for the souls of the dead.

_Tavernier._

[164] All that day we travelled over plains all covered with snow as the day before, and indeed it is not only troublesome but very dangerous to travel thro' these deep snows. The mischief is that the beams of the sun which lie all day long upon it, molest the eyes and face with such a scorching beat as very much weakens the sight, whatever remedy a man can apply, by wearing as the people of the country do, a thin handkerchief of green or black silk, which no way abates the annoyance.

_Chardin._

When they have to travel many days thro' a country covered with snow, Travellers to preserve their sight, cover the face with a silk kerchief made on purpose, like a sort of black crape. Others have large furred bonnets, bordered with goat skin, and the long goat-hair hanging over the face is as serviceable as the crape.

_Tavernier._

An Abyssinian historian says, that the village, called Zinzenam, _rain upon rain_, has its name from an extraordinary circumstance that once happened in these parts, for a shower of rain fell, which was not properly of the nature of rain, as it did not run upon the ground, but remained very light, having scarce the weight of feathers, of a beautiful white colour like flower; it fell in showers, and occasioned a darkness in the air more than rain, and liker to mist. It covered the face of the whole country for several days, retaining its whiteness the whole time, then went away like dew, without leaving any smell, or unwholsome effect behind it.

So the Dutch were formerly expelled from an East Indian Settlement, because their Consul, in narrating to the Prince of the Country the wonders of Europe, chanced to say that in his own Country, Water became a solid body once a year, for some time: when Men or even Horses might pass over it without sinking.--The prince in a rage said that he had hitherto listened to his tales with patience, but this was so palpable a Lie, that he would never more be connected with Europeans, who only could assert such monstrous falshoods.

[165] A strange account of the Cedars of Lebanon is given by De la Roque. _Voyage de Syrie & du Mont Liban._ 1722.

"This little forest is composed of twenty Cedars of a prodigious size, so large indeed that the finest Planes, Sycamores, and other large trees which we had seen could not be compared with them. Besides these principal Cedars, there were a great number of lesser ones, and some very small, mingled with the large trees, or in little clumps near them. They differed not in their foliage, which resembles the Juniper, and is green throughout the year: but the great Cedars spread at their summit and form a perfect round, whereas the small ones rise in a pyramidal form like the Cypress. Both diffuse the same pleasant odour; the large ones only yield fruit, a large cone in shape almost like that of the Pine, but of a browner colour, and compacter shell. It gives a very pleasant odour, and contains a sort of thick and transparent balm, which oozes out thro' small apertures, and falls drop by drop. This fruit which it is difficult to separate from the stalk, contains a nut like that of the Cypress; it grows at the end of the boughs, and turns its point upwards.