Chapter 31

[FN#207] This is always done and for two reasons; the first humanity, that the blow may fall unawares; and, secondly, to prevent the sufferer wincing, which would throw out the headsman.

[FN#208] Arab. "Ma'бni-hб," lit. her meanings, i.e. her inner woman opposed to the formal-seen by every one.

[FN#209] Described in my Pilgrimage (iii. 168, 174 and 175): it is the stone upon which the Patriarch stood when he built the Ka'abah and is said to show the impress of the feet but unfortunately I could not afford five dollars entrance-fee. Caliph Omar placed the station where it now is; before his time it adjoined the Ka'abah. The meaning of the text is, Be thy court a place of pious visitation, etc. At the "Station of Abraham" prayer is especially blessed and expects to be granted. "This is the place where Abraham stood; and whoever entereth therein shall be safe" (Koran ii. 119). For the other fifteen places where petitions are favourably heard by Heaven see ibid. iii. 211-12.

[FN#210] As in the West, so in the East, women answer an unpleasant question by a counter question.

[FN#211] This "Cry of Haro" often occurs throughout The Nights. In real-life it is sure to colece a crowd. especially if an Infidel (non Moslem) be its cause.

[FN#212] In the East a cunning fellow always makes himself the claimant or complainant.

[FN#213] On the Euphrates some 40 miles west of Baghdad The word is written "Anbбr" and pronounced "Ambбr" as usual with the "n" before "b"; the case of the Greek double Gamma.

[FN#214] Syene on the Nile.

[FN#215] The tale is in the richest Rabelaisian humour; and the requisitions of the "Saj'a" (rhymed prose) in places explain the grotesque combinations. It is difficult to divine why Lane omits it: probably he held a hearty laugh not respectable.

[FN#216] A lawyer of the eighth century, one of the chief pupils of the Imam Abu Hanifah, and Kazi of Baghdad under the third, fourth and fifth Abbasides. The tale is told in the quasi- historical-Persian work "Nigбristбn" (The Picture gallery), and is repeated by Richardson, Diss. 7, xiii. None seem to have remarked that the distinguished legist, Abu Yusuf, was on this occasion a law-breaker; the Kazi's duty being to carry out the code not to break it by the tricks of a cunning attorney. In Harun's day, however, some regard was paid to justice, not under his successors, one of whom, Al-Muktadir bi 'llбh (A.H. 295=907), made the damsel Yamika President of the Diwбn al-Mazбlim (Court of the Wronged), a tribunal which took cognizance of tyranny and oppression in high places.

[FN#217] Here the writer evidently forgets that Shahrazad is telling the story to the king, as Boccaccio (ii. 7) forgets that Pamfilo is speaking. Such inconsequences are common in Eastern story-books and a goody-goody sentiment is always heartily received as in an English theatre.

[FN#218] In the Mac. Edit. (ii. 182) "Al-Kushayri." Al-Kasri was

Governor of the two Iraks (I.e. Bassorah and Cufa) in the reign of

Al-Hisham, tenth Ommiade (A.D. 723-741)

[FN#219] Arab. "Thakalata k Ummak!" This is not so much a curse as a playful phrase, like "Confound the fellow." So "Kбtala k Allah" (Allah slay thee) and "Lб abб lak" (thou hast no father or mother). These words are even complimentary on occasions, as a good shot or a fine recitation, meaning that the praised far excels the rest of his tribe.

[FN#220] Koran, iii. 178.

[FN#221] Arab. "Al-Nisбb"=the minimum sum (about half-a crown) for which mutilation of the hand is prescribed by religious law. The punishment was truly barbarous, it chastised a rogue by means which prevented hard honest labour for the rest of his life.

[FN#222] To show her grief.

[FN#223] Abъ Sa'нd Abd al-Malik bin Kurayb, surnamed Al-Asma'i from his grandfather, flor. A.H. 122-306 (=739-830) and wrote amongst a host of compositions the well-known Romance of Antar. See in D'Herbelot the right royal-directions given to him by Harun al-Rashid.

[FN#224] There are many accounts of his death, but it is generally held that he was first beheaded. The story in the text is also variously told and the Persian "Nigбristбn" adds some unpleasant comments upon the House of Abbas. The Persians, for reasons which will be explained in the terminal-Essay, show the greatest sympathy with the Barmecides; and abominate the Abbasides even more than the latter detested the Ommiades.

[FN#225] Not written, as the European reader would suppose.

[FN#226] Arab. "Fъl al-hбrr" = beans like horsebeans soaked and boiled as opposed to the "Fъl Mudammas" (esp. of Egypt)=unshelled beans steamed and boiled all night and eaten with linseed oil as "kitchen" or relish. Lane (M.E., chaps. v.) calls them after the debased Cairene pronunciation, Mudemmes. A legend says that, before the days of Pharaoh (always he of Moses), the Egyptians lived on pistachios which made them a witty, lively race. But the tyrant remarking that the domestic ass, which eats beans, is degenerate from the wild ass, uprooted the pistachio-trees and compelled the lieges to feed on beans which made them a heavy, gross, cowardly people fit only for burdens. Badawis deride "beaneaters" although they do not loathe the pulse like onions. The principal-result of a bean diet is an extraordinary development of flatulence both in stomach and intestines: hence possibly, Pythagoras who had studied ceremonial-purity in Egypt, forbade the use, unless he referred to venery or political-business. I was once sitting in the Greek quarter of Cairo dressed as a Moslem when arose a prodigious hubbub of lads and boys, surrounding, a couple of Fellahs. These men had been working in the fields about a mile east of Cairo and, when returning home, one had said to the other, "If thou wilt carry the hoes I will break wind once for every step we take." He was as good as his word and when they were to part he cried, "And now for thy bakhshish!" which consisted of a volley of fifty, greatly to the delight of the boys.

[FN#227] No porcelain was ever, as far as we can discover, made in Egypt or Syria of the olden day; but, as has been said, there was a regular caravan-intercourse with China At Damascus I dug into the huge rubbish-heaps and found quantities of pottery, but no China. The same has lately been done at Clysma, the artificial-mound near Suez, and the glass and pottery prove it to have been a Roman work which defended the mouth of the old classical-sweet-water canal.

[FN#228] Arab. "Lб baas ba-zбlik," conversational-for "Lб jaram"= there is no harm in it, no objection to it, and, sometimes, "it is a matter of course."

[FN#229] A white emerald is yet unknown; but this adds only to the Oriental-extravagance of the picture. I do not think with Lane (ii. 426) that "abyaz" here can mean "bright." Dr. Steingass suggests a clerical-error for "khazar" (green).

[FN#230] Arab. "Sharбrif" plur. of Shurrбfah=crenelles or battlements; mostly trefoil-shaped; remparts coquets which a six-pounder would crumble.

[FN#231] Pronounce Abul-Muzaffar=Father of the Conqueror.

[FN#232] I have explained the word in my "Zanzibar, City, Island and Coast," vol. i. chaps. v There is still a tribe, the Wadoe, reputed cannibal-on the opposite low East African shore These blacks would hardly be held " sons of Adam." "Zanj " corrupted to "Zinj " (plur Zunъj) is the Persian "Zany" or "Zangi," a black, altered by the Arabs, who ignore the hard g; and, with the suffixion of the Persian -bбr (region, as in Malabar) we have Zang- bar which the Arabs have converted to "Zanjibar," in poetry "Murk al-Zunъj"=Land of the Zang. The term is old; it is the Zingis or Zingisa of Ptolemy and the Zingium of Cosmas Indicopleustes; and it shows the influence of Persian navigation in pre-Islamitic ages. For further details readers will consult "The Lake Regions of Central-Africa" vol. i. chaps. ii

[FN#233] Arab. "Kawбrib" plur. of "Kбrib" prop. a dinghy, a small boat belonging to a ship Here it refers to the canoe (a Carib word) pop. "dug-out" and classically "monoxyle," a boat made of a single tree-trunk hollowed by fire and trimmed with axe and adze. Some of these rude craft which, when manned, remind one of saturnine Caliph Omar's "worms floating on a log of wood," measure 60 feet long and more.

[FN#234] i.e. A descendant of Mohammed in general-and especially through Husayn Ali-son. Here the text notes that the chief of the bazar was of this now innumerable stock, who inherit the title through the mother as well as through the father.

[FN#235] Arab. "Hasab" (=quaneity), the honour a man acquires for himself; opposed to "Nasab" (genealogy) honours inherited from ancestry: the Arabic well expresses my old motto (adopted by Chinese Gordon), "Honour, not Honours."

[FN#236] Note the difference between "Takaddum" ( = standing in presence of, also superiority in excellence) and "Takбdum" (priority in time).

[FN#237] Lane (ii. 427) gives a pleasant Eastern illustration of this saying.

[FN#238] A Koranic fancy; the mountains being the pegs which keep the earth in place. "And he hath thrown before the earth, mountains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you." (Koran, chaps. xvi.) The earth when first created was smooth and thereby liable to a circular motion, like the celestial-orbs; and, when the Angels asked who could stand on so tottering a frame, Allah fixed it the next morning by throwing the mountains in it and pegging them down. A fair prolepsis of the Neptunian theory.

[FN#239] Easy enough for an Englishman to avoid saying "by God," but this common incident in Moslem folk-lore appeals to the peoples who are constantly using the word Allah Wallah, Billah, etc. The Koran expressly says, "Make not Allah the scope (object, lit. arrow-butt) of your oaths" (chaps. ii. 224), yet the command is broken every minute.

[FN#240] This must be the ubiquitous Khizr, the Green Prophet; when Ali appears, as a rule he is on horseback.

[FN#241] The name is apparently imaginary; and a little below we find that it was close to Jinn land. China was very convenient for this purpose: the medieval-Moslems, who settled in considerable numbers at Canton and elsewhere, knew just enough of it to know their own ignorance of the vast empire. Hence the Druzes of the Libanus still hold that part of their nation is in the depths of the Celestial-Empire.

[FN#242] I am unwilling to alter the old title to "City of Copper" as it should be; the pure metal having been technologically used long before the alloy of copper and zinc. But the Maroccan City (Night dlxvi. et seq.) was of brass (not copper). The Hindus of Upper India have an Iram which they call Hari Chand's city (Colonel Tod); and I need hardly mention the Fata Morgana, Island of Saint Borondon; Cape Fly-away; the Flying Dutchman, etc. etc., all the effect of "looming."

[FN#243] This sword which makes men invisible and which takes place of Siegfried's Tarnkappe (invisible cloak) and of "Fortunatus' cap" is common in Moslem folk-lore. The idea probably arose from the venerable practice of inscribing the blades with sentences, verses and magic figures.

[FN#244] Arab. "'Ukбb," in books an eagle (especially black) and P. N. of constellation but in Pop. usage= a vulture. In Egypt it is the Neophron Percnopterus (Jerdon) or N. Gingianus (Latham), the Dijбjat Far'aun or Pharaoh's hen. This bird has been known to kill the Bбshah sparrow-hawk (Jerdon i. 60); yet, curious to say, the reviewers of my "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus" questioned the fact, known to so many travellers, that the falcon is also killed by this "tiger of the air," despite the latter's feeble bill (pp. 35-38). I was faring badly at their hands when the late Mr. Burckhardt Barker came to the rescue. Falconicide is popularly attributed, not only to the vulture, but also to the crestless hawk-eagle (Nisжtus Bonelli) which the Hindus call Morбngб=peacock slayer.

[FN#245] Here I translate "Nahбs"=brass, as the "kumkum" (cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.

[FN#246] Mansur al-Nimrн, a poet of the time and a protйgй of

Yahya's son, Al-Fazl.

[FN#247] This was at least four times Mansur's debt.

[FN#248] Intendant of the Palace to Harun al-Rashid. The Bres. Edit. (vii. 254) begins They tell that there arose full enmity between Ja'afar Barmecide and a Sahib of Misr" (Wazir or Governor of Egypt). Lane (ii. 429) quotes to this purpose amongst Arab; historians Fakhr al-Din. (De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe i., p. 26, edit. ii.)

[FN#249] Arab. "Armanнyah" which Egyptians call after their mincing fashion "Irminiyeh" hence "Ermine" (Mus Ponticus). Armaniyah was much more extensive than our Armenia, now degraded to a mere province of Turkey, and the term is understood to include the whole of the old Parthian Empire.

[FN#250] Even now each Pasha-governor must keep a "Wakнl" in

Constantinople to intrigue and bribe for him at head-quarters.

[FN#251] The symbol of generosity, of unasked liberality, the "black hand" being that of niggardness.

[FN#252] Arab. Rбh =pure (and old) wine. Arabs, like our classics, usually drank their wine tempered. So Imr al-Keys in his Mu'allakah says, "Bring the well tempered wine that seems to be saffron-tinctured; and, when water-mixed, o'erbrims the cup." (v. 2.)

[FN#253] There is nothing that Orientals relish more than these "goody-goody" preachments; but they read and forget them as readily as Westerns.

[FN#254] Lane (ii. 435) ill-advisedly writes "Sher," as "the word is evidently Persian signifying a Lion." But this is only in the debased Indian dialect, a Persian, especially a Shirazi, pronounces "Shнr." And this is how it is written in the Bresl. Edit., vii. 262. "Shбr" is evidently a fancy name, possibly suggested by the dynastic name of the Ghurjistan or Georgian Princes.

[FN#255] Again old experience, which has learned at a heavy cost how many a goodly apple is rotten at the core.

[FN#256] This couplet has occurred in Night xxi. I give Torrens (p. 206) by way of specimen.

[FN#257] Arab. "Zбka" = merely tasting a thing which may be sweet with a bitter after-flavour

[FN#258] This tetraseich was in Night xxx. with a difference.

[FN#259] The lines have occurred in Night xxx. I quote Torrens, p. 311.

[FN#260] This tetrastich is in Night clxix. I borrow from Lane (ii. 62).

[FN#261] The rude but effective refrigerator of the desert Arab who hangs his water-skin to the branch of a tree and allows it to swing in the wind.

[FN#262] Arab "Khumбsiyah" which Lane (ii. 438) renders "of quinary stature." Usually it means five spans, but here five feet, showing that the girl was young and still growing. The invoice with a slave always notes her height in spans measured from ankle-bone to ear and above seven she loses value as being full grown. Hence Sudбsi (fem. Sudбsiyah) is a slave six spans high, the Shibr or full span (9 inches) not the Fitr or short span from thumb to index. Faut is the interval-between every finger, Ratab between index and medius, and Atab between medius and annularis.

[FN#263] "Moon faced" now sounds sufficiently absurd to us, but it was not always so. Solomon (Cant. vi. 10) does not disdain the image "fair as the moon, clear as the sun," and those who have seen a moon in the sky of Arabia will thoroughly appreciate it. We find it amongst the Hindus, the Persians, the Afghans, the Turks and all the nations of Europe. We have, finally, the grand example of Spenser,

"Her spacious forehead, like the clearest moon, etc."

[FN#264] Blue eyes have a bad name in Arabia as in India: the witch Zarkб of Al-Yamamah was noted for them; and "blue eyed" often means "fierce-eyed," alluding to the Greeks and Daylamites, mortal-enemies to Ishmael. The Arabs say "ruddy of mustachio, blue of eye and black of heart."

[FN#265] Before explained as used with camphor to fill the dead man's mouth.

[FN#266] As has been seen, slapping on the neck is equivalent to our "boxing ears," but much less barbarous and likely to injure the child. The most insulting blow is that with shoe sandal-or slipper because it brings foot in contact with head. Of this I have spoken before.

[FN#267] Arab. "Hibбl" (= ropes) alluding to the A'akбl-fillet which binds the Kъfiyah-kerchief on the Badawi's head. (Pilgrimage, i. 346.)

[FN#268] Arab. "Khiyбl"; afterwards called Kara Gyuz (= "black eyes," from the celebrated Turkish Wazir). The mise-en-scиne was like that of Punch, but of transparent cloth, lamp lit inside and showing silhouettes worked by hand. Nothing could be more Fescenntne than Kara Gyuz, who appeared with a phallus longer than himself and made all the Consuls-General-periodically complain of its abuse, while the dialogue, mostly in Turkish, as even more obscene. Most ingenious were Kara Gyuz's little ways of driving on an Obstinate donkey and of tackling a huge Anatolian pilgrim. He mounted the Neddy's back face to tail, and inserting his left thumb like a clyster, hammered it with his right when the donkey started at speed. For the huge pilgrim he used a ladder. These shows now obsolete, used to enliven the Ezbekiyah Gardens every evening and explain Ovid's Words,

"Delicias videam, Nile jocose, tuas!"

[FN#269] Mohammed (Mishkбt al-Masбbih ii. 360-62) says, "Change the whiteness of your hair but not with anything black." Abu Bakr, who was two years and some months older than the Prophet, used tincture of Henna and Katam. Old Turkish officers justify black dyes because these make them look younger and fiercer. Henna stains white hair orange red; and the Persians apply after it a paste of indigo leaves, the result is successively leek-green, emerald-green, bottle-green and lastly lamp-black. There is a stage in life (the youth of old age) when man uses dyes: presently he finds that the whole face wants dye; that the contrast between juvenile coloured hair and ancient skin is ridiculous and that it is time to wear white.

[FN#270] This prejudice extends all over the East: the Sanskrit saying is "Kvachit kбnб bhaveta sбdhus" now and then a monocular is honest. The left eye is the worst and the popular idea is, I have said, that the damage will come by the injured member

[FN#271] The Arabs say like us, "Short and thick is never quick" and "Long and thin has little in."

[FN#272] Arab. "Ba'azu layбli," some night when his mistress failed him.

[FN#273] The fountain in Paradise before noticed.

[FN#274] Before noticed as the Moslem St. Peter (as far as the keys go).

[FN#275] Arab. "Munkasir" = broken, frail, languishing the only form of the maladive allowed. Here again we have masculine for feminine: the eyelids show love-desire, but, etc.

[FN#276] The river of Paradise.

[FN#277] See Night xii. "The Second Kalandar's Tale " vol. i. 113.

[FN#278] Lane (ii. 472) refers for specimens of calligraphy to Herbin's "Dйveloppements, etc." There are many more than seven styles of writing as I have shown in Night xiii.; vol. i. 129.

[FN#279] Amongst good Moslems this would be a claim upon a man.

[FN#280] These lines have occurred twice already: and first appear in Night xxii. I have borrowed from Mr. Payne (iv. 46).

[FN#281] Arab. "Ya Nasrбni", the address is not intrinsically slighting but it may easily be made so. I have elsewhere noted that when Julian (is said to have) exclaimed "Vicisti Nazarene!" he was probably thinking in Eastern phrase "Nasarta, yб Nasrбni!"

[FN#282] Thirst is the strongest of all pleas to an Eastern, especially to a Persian who never forgets the sufferings of his Imam, Husayn, at Kerbela: he would hardly withhold it from the murderer of his father. There is also a Hadis, "Thou shalt not refuse water to him who thirsteth in the desert."

[FN#283] Arab. "Zimmi" which Lane (ii. 474) aptly translates a "tributary." The Koran (chaps. ix.) orders Unbelievers to Islamize or to "pay tribute by right of subjection" (lit. an yadin=out of hand, an expression much debated). The least tribute is one dinar per annum which goes to the poor-rate. and for this the Kafir enjoys protection and almost all the civil rights of Moslems. As it is a question of "loaves and fishes" there is much to say on the subject; "loaves and fishes" being the main base and foundation of all religious establishments.

[FN#284] This tetrastich has before occurred, so I quote Lane (ii. 444).

[FN#285] In Night xxxv. the same occurs with a difference.

[FN#286] The old rite, I repeat, has lost amongst all but the noblest of Arab tribes the whole of its significance; and the traveller must be careful how he trusts to the phrase "Nahnu mбlihin" we are bound together by the salt.

[FN#287] Arab. "Alбma" = Alб-mб = upon what ? wherefore ?

[FN#288] Arab. "Mauz"; hence the Linnean name Musa (paradisiaca, etc.). The word is explained by Sale (Koran, chaps. xxxvii. 146) as "a small tree or shrub;" and he would identify it with Jonah's gourd.

[FN#289] Lane (ii. 446) "bald wolf or empowered fate," reading (with Mac.) Kazб for Kattan (cat).

[FN#290] i.e. "the Orthodox in the Faith." Rбshid is a proper name, witness that scourge of Syria, Rбshid Pasha. Born in 1830, of the Haji Nazir Agha family, Darrah-Beys of Macedonian Draina, he was educated in Paris where he learned the usual-hatred of Europeans: he entered the Egyptian service in 1851, and, presently exchanging it for the Turkish, became in due time Wali (Governor-General) of Syria which he plundered most shamelessly. Recalled in 1872, he eventually entered the Ministry and on June 15 1876, he was shot down, with other villains like himself, by gallant Captain Hasan, the Circassian (Yarham-hu 'llбh !).

[FN#291] Quoted from a piece of verse, of which more presently.

[FN#292] This tetrastich has occurred before (Night cxciii.). I quote Lane (ii. 449), who quotes Dryden's Spanish Friar,

"There is a pleasure sure in being mad

Which none but madmen know."

[FN#293] Lane (ii. 449) gives a tradition of the Prophet, "Whoso is in love, and acteth chastely, and concealeth (his passion) and dieth, dieth a martyr." Sakar is No. 5 Hell for Magi Guebres, Parsis, etc., it is used in the comic Persian curse, "Fi'n-nбri wa Sakar al-jadd w'al-pidar"=ln Hell and Sakar his grandfather and his father.

[FN#294] Arab. "Sifr": I have warned readers that whistling is considered a kind of devilish speech by the Arabs, especially the Badawin, and that the traveller must avoid it. It savours of idolatry: in the Koran we find (chaps. viii. 35), "Their prayer at the House of God (Ka'abah) is none other than whistling and hand-clapping;" and tradition says that they whistled through their fingers. Besides many of the Jinn have only round holes by way of mouths and their speech is whistling a kind of bird language like sibilant English.

[FN#295] Arab. 'Kнl wa kбl"=lit. "it was said and he said;" a popular phrase for chit chat, tittle-tattle, prattle and prate, etc.

[FN#296] Arab. "Hadis." comparing it with a tradition of the

Prophet.

[FN#297] Arab. "Mikashshah," the thick part of a midrib of a palm-frond soaked for some days in water and beaten out till the fibres separate. It makes an exceedingly hard, although not a lasting broom.

[FN#298] Persian, "the youth, the brave;" Sansk. Yuvбn: and Lat. Juvenis. The Kurd, in tales, is generally a sturdy thief; and in real-life is little better.

[FN#299] Arab. "Yб Shatir ;" lit. O clever one (in a bad sense).

[FN#300] Lane (ii. 453) has it. "that I may dress thy hair'" etc.

This is Bowdlerising with a witness.

[FN#301] The sign of respect when a personage dismounts.

(Pilgrimage i. 77.)

[FN#302] So the Hindus speak of "the defilement of separation" as if it were an impurity.

[FN#303] Lane (i. 605) gives a long and instructive note on these public royal-banquets which were expected from the lieges by Moslem subjects. The hanging-penalty is, perhaps, a tattle exaggerated; but we find the same excess in the priestly Gesta Romanorum.