Chapter 33

[FN#412] Arab. "Allaho A'alam"; (God knows!) here the popular phrase for our, "I know not;" when it would be rude to say bluntly "M'adri"= "don't know."

[FN#413] There is a picturesque Moslem idea that good deeds become incarnate and assume human shapes to cheer the doer in his grave, to greet him when he enters Paradise and so forth. It was borrowed from the highly imaginative faith of the Guebre, the Zoroastrian. On Chinavad or Chanyud-pul (Sirбt), the Judgement bridge, 37 rods (rasan) long, straight and 37 fathoms broad for the good, and crooked and narrow as sword-edge for the bad, a nymph-like form will appear to the virtuous and say, "I am the personification of thy good deeds!" In Hell there will issue from a fetid gale a gloomy figure with head like a minaret, red eyeballs, hooked nose, teeth like pillars, spear-like fangs, snaky locks etc. and when asked who he is he will reply, "I am the personification of thine evil acts!" (Dabistan i. 285.) The Hindus also personify everything.

[FN#414] Arab. "Banъ Israнl;" applied to the Jews when theirs was the True Faith i.e. before the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, whose mission completed that of Moses and made it obsolete (Matrъk) even as the mission of Jesus was completed and abrogated by that of Mohammed. The term "Yahъd"=Jew is applied scornfully to the Chosen People after they rejected the Messiah, but as I have said "Israelite" is used on certain occasions, Jew on others.

[FN#415] Arab. "Kasa'ah," a wooden bowl, a porringer; also applied to a saucer.

[FN#416] Arab. "Rasъl"=one sent, an angel, an "apostle;" not to be translated, as by the vulgar, "prophet." Moreover Rasul is higher than Nabн (prophet), such as Abraham, Isaac, etc., depositaries of Al-Islam, but with a succession restricted to their own families. Nabi-mursil (Prophet-apostle) is the highest of all, one sent with a book: of these are now only four, Moses, David, Jesus and Mohammed, the writings of the rest having perished. In Al-Islam also angels rank below men, being only intermediaries (= , nuncii, messengers) between the Creator and the Created. This knowledge once did me a good turn at Harar, not a safe place in those days. (First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 349.)

[FN#417] A doctor of law in the reign of Al-Maamun.

[FN#418] Here the exclamation is= D.V.; and it may be assumed generally to have that sense.

[FN#419] Arab. "Taylasбn," a turban worn hood-fashion by the "Khatнb" or preacher. I have sketched it in my Pilgrimage and described it (iii. 315). Some Orientalists derive Taylasan from Atlas=satin, which is peculiarly inappropriate. The word is apparently barbarous and possibly Persian like Kalansuwah, the Dervish cap. "Thou son of a Taylasбn"=a barbarian. (De Sacy, Chrest. Arab. ii. 269.)

[FN#420] Arab. " Kinyah" vulg. "Kunyat" = patronymic or matronymic; a name beginning with "Abu" (father) or with "Umm" (mother). There are so few proper names in Al-Islam that such surnames, which, as will be seen, are of infinite variety, become necessary to distinguish individuals. Of these sobriquets I shall give specimens further on.

[FN#421] "Whoso seeth me in his sleep, seeth me truly; for Satan cannot assume my semblance," said (or is said to have said) Mohammed. Hence the vision is true although it comes in early night and not before dawn. See Lane M. E., chaps. ix.

[FN#422] Arab. "Al-Maukab ;" the day when the pilgrims march out of the city; it is a holiday for all, high and low.

[FN#423] "The Gate of Salutation ;" at the South-Western corner of the Mosque where Mohammed is buried. (Pilgrimage ii. 60 and plan.) Here "Visitation" (Ziyбrah) begins.

[FN#424] The tale is told by Al-Ishбki in the reign of Al-Maamun.

[FN#425] The speaker in dreams is the Heb. "Waggid," which the learned and angry Graetz (Geschichte, etc. vol. ix.) absurdly translates "Traum souffleur."

[FN#426] Tenth Abbaside. A.D. 849-861

[FN#427] Arab. "Muwallad" (fem. "Muwalladah"); a rearling, a slave born in a Moslem land. The numbers may appear exaggerated, but even the petty King of Ashanti had, till the last war, 3333 "wives."

[FN#428] The Under-prefect of Baghdad.

[FN#429] "Ja'afar," our old Giaffar (which is painfully like "Gaffer," i.e. good father) means either a rushing river or a rivulet.

[FN#430] A regular Fellah's name also that of a village

(Pilgrimage i. 43) where a pleasant story is told about one Haykal.

[FN#431] The "Mountain" means the rocky and uncultivated ground South of Cairo, such as Jabal-al-Ahmar and the geological-sea-coast flanked by the old Cairo-Suez highway.

[FN#432] A popular phrase=our "sharp as a razor."

[FN#433] i.e. are men so few; a favourite Persian phrase.

[FN#434] She is a woman of rank who would cause him to be assassinated.

[FN#435] This is not Al-Hakimbi' Amri'llah the famous or infamous founder of the Druze ((Durъz)) faith and held by them to be, not an incarnation of the Godhead, but the Godhead itself in propriв personв, who reigned A.D. 926-1021: our Hakim is the orthodox Abbaside Caliph of Egypt who dated from two centuries after him (A.D. 1261). Had the former been meant, it would have thrown back this part of The Nights to an earlier date than is generally accepted. But in a place still to come I shall again treat of the subject.

[FN#436] For an account of a similar kind which was told to me during the last few years see "Midian Revisited," i. 15. These hiding-places are innumerable in lands of venerable antiquity like Egypt; and, if there were any contrivance for detecting hidden treasure, it would make the discoverer many times a millionaire.

[FN#437] i.e. it had been given to him or his in writing, like the book left to the old woman before quoted in "Midian," etc.

[FN#438] Arab. "Kird" (pron. in Egypt "Gird"). It is usually the hideous Abyssinian cynocephalus which is tamed by the ape-leader popularly called Kuraydati (Lane, M.E., chaps. xx.). The beast has a natural-penchant for women ; I heard of one which attempted to rape a girl in the public street and was prevented only by a sentinel's bayonet. They are powerful animals and bite like greyhounds.

[FN#439] Easterns attribute many complaints (such as toothache) to worms, visible as well as microscopic, which may be held a fair prolepsis of the "germ-theory" the bacterium. the bacillus, the microbe. Nymphomania, the disease alluded to in these two tales is always attributed to worms in the vagina.

[FN#440] Bestiality, very rare in Arabia is fatally common amongst those most debauched of debauched races, the Egyptian proper and the Sindis. Hence the Pentateuch, whose object was to breed a larger population of fighting men, made death the penalty for lying with a beast (Deut. xxvii. 21). C. S. Sonnini (Travels, English translation, p. 663) gives a curious account of Fellah lewdness. "The female crocodile during congress is turned upon her back ( ?) and cannot rise without difficulty. Will it be believed that there are men who take advantage of the helpless situation of the female, drive off the male, and supplant him in this frightful intercourse ? Horrible embraces, the knowledge of which was wanting to complete the disgusting history of human perversity!" The French traveller forgets to add the superstitious explanation of this congress which is the sovereignest charm for rising to rank and riches. The Ajбib al-Hind tells a tale (chaps. xxxix.) of a certain Mohammed bin Bullishad who had issue by a she-ape: the young ones were hairless of body and wore quasi-human faces; and the father's sight had become dim by his bestial-practice.