Chapter 2

[FN#322] Arab. “Mahá” one of the four kinds of wild cows or bovine antelopes, bubalus, Antelope defassa, A. Ieucoryx, etc.

[FN#323] These lines have occurred in vol. iii. 279; so I quote Lane (iii. 274) by way of variety; although I do not like his “bowels.”

[FN#324] The last verse (286) of chapt. ii. The Cow: “compelleth” in the sense of “burdeneth.”

[FN#325] Salih’s speeches are euphuistic.

[FN#326] From the Fátihah.

[FN#327] A truly Eastern saying, which ignores the “old maids” of the West.

[FN#328] _i.e._ naming her before the lieges as if the speaker were her and his superior. It would have been more polite not to have gone beyond “the unique pearl and the hoarded jewel:” the offensive part of the speech was using the girl’s name.

[FN#329] Meaning emphatically that one and all were nobodies.

[FN#330] Arab Badr, the usual pun.

[FN#331] Arab. “Kirát” (κεράτιον) the bean of the _Abrus precatorius_, used as a weight in Arabia and India and as a bead for decoration in Africa. It is equal to four Kamhahs or wheat grains and about 3 grs. avoir.; and being the twenty fourth of a miskal, it is applied to that proportion of everything. Thus the Arabs say of a perfect man, “He is of four-and-twenty Kirát” _i.e._ pure gold. See vol. iii. 239.

[FN#332] The (she) myrtle: Kazimirski (A. de Biberstein) Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais (Pairs Maisonneuve 1867) gives Marsín=Rose de Jericho: myrte.

[FN#333] Needless to note that the fowler had a right to expect a return present worth double or treble the price of his gift. Such is the universal practice of the East: in the West the extortioner says, “I leave it to you, sir!”

[FN#334] And she does tell him all that the reader well knows.

[FN#335] This was for sprinkling him, but the texts omit that operation. Arabic has distinct terms for various forms of metamorphosis. “Naskh” is change from a lower to a higher, as beast to man; “Maskh” (the common expression) is the reverse; “Raskh” is from animate to inanimate (man to stone) and “Faskh” is absolute wasting away to corruption.

[FN#336] I render this improbable detail literally: it can only mean that the ship was dashed against a rock.

[FN#337] Who was probably squatting on his shop counter. The “Bakkál” (who must not be confounded with the _épicier_), lit. “vender of herbs” =greengrocer, and according to Richardson used incorrectly for Baddál (?) vendor of provisions. Popularly it is applied to a seller of oil, honey, butter and fruit, like the Ital. “Pizzicagnolo”=Salsamentarius, and in North-West Africa to an inn-keeper.

[FN#338] Here the Shaykh is mistaken: he should have said, “The Sun in old Persian.” “Almanac” simply makes nonsense of the Arabian Circe’s name. In Arab. it is “Takwím,” whence the Span. and Port. “Tacuino:” in Heb. Hakamathá-Takunah=sapientia dispositionis astrorum (Asiat. Research. iii. 120).

[FN#339] _i.e._ for thy daily expenses.

[FN#340] _Un adolescent aime toutes les femmes._ Man is by nature polygamic whereas woman as a rule is monogamic and polyandrous only when tired of her lover. For the man, as has been truly said, loves the woman, but the love of the woman is for the love of the man.

[FN#341] I have already noted that the heroes and heroines of Eastern love-tales are always _bonnes fourchettes_: they eat and drink hard enough to scandalise the sentimental amourist of the West; but it is understood that this abundant diet is necessary to qualify them for the Herculean labours of the love night.

[FN#342] Here again a little excision is necessary; the reader already knows all about it.

[FN#343] Arab. “Hiss,” prop. speaking a perception (as of sound or motion) as opposed to “Hadas,” a surmise or opinion without proof.

[FN#344] Arab. “Sawík,” the old and modern name for native frumenty, green grain (mostly barley) toasted, pounded, mixed with dates or sugar and eaten on journeys when cooking is impracticable. M. C. de Perceval (iii. 54), gives it a different and now unknown name; and Mr. Lane also applies it to “ptisane.” It named the “Day of Sawaykah” (for which see Pilgrimage ii. 19), called by our popular authors the “War of the Meal-sacks.”

[FN#345] Mr. Keightley (H. 122–24 Tales and Popular Fictions, a book now somewhat obsolete) remarks, “There is nothing said about the bridle in the account of the sale (_infra_), but I am sure that in the original tale, Badr’s misfortunes must have been owing to his having parted with it. In Chaucer’s Squier’s Tale the bridle would also appear to have been of some importance.” He quotes a story from the Notti Piacevoli of Straparola, the Milanese, published at Venice in 1550. And there is a popular story of the kind in Germany.

[FN#346] Here, for the first time we find the name of the mother who has often been mentioned in the story. Faráshah is the fem. or singular form of “Farásh,” a butterfly, a moth. Lane notes that his Shaykh gives it the very unusual sense of “a locust.”

[FN#347] Punning upon Jauharah = “a jewel” a name which has an Hibernian smack.

[FN#348] In the old version “All the lovers of the Magic Queen resumed their pristine forms as soon as she ceased to live;” moreover, they were all sons of kings, princes, or persons of high degree.

[FN#349] Arab. “Munádamah,” = conversation over the cup (Lane), used somewhat in the sense of “Musámarah” = talks by moonlight.

[FN#350] Arab. “Kursi,” a word of many meanings; here it would allure to the square crate-like seat of palm-fronds used by the Ráwi or public reciter of tales when he is not pacing about the coffee-house.

[FN#351] Von Hammer remarks that this is precisely the sum paid in Egypt for a MS. copy of The Nights.

[FN#352] Arab. “Samar,” the origin of Musámarah, which see, vol. iv. 237.

[FN#353] The pomp and circumstance, with which the tale is introduced to the reader showing the importance attached to it. Lane, most injudiciously I think, transfers the Proemium to a note in chapt. xxiv., thus converting an Arabian Night into an Arabian Note.

[FN#354] ‘Asim = defending (honour) or defended, son of Safwán = clear, cold (dry). Trébutien ii. 126, has Safran.

[FN#355] Fáris = the rider, the Knight, son of Sálih = the righteous, the pious, the just.

[FN#356] In sign of the deepest dejection, when a man would signify that he can fall no lower.

[FN#357] Arab. Yá Khawand (in Bresl. Edit. vol. iv. 191) and fem. form Khawandah (p. 20) from Pers. Kháwand or Kháwandagár = superior, lord, master; Khudáwand is still used in popular as in classical Persian, and is universally understood in Hindostan.

[FN#358] The Biblical Sheba, whence came the Queen of many Hebrew fables.

[FN#359] These would be the interjections of the writer or story-teller. The Mac. Edit. is here a sketch which must be filled up by the Bresl. Edit. vol. iv. 189–318: “Tale of King Asim and his son Sayf al-Mulúk with Badí’a al-Jamál.”

[FN#360] The oath by the Seal-ring of Solomon was the Stygian “swear” in Fairy-land. The signet consisted of four jewels, presented by as many angels, representing the Winds, the Birds, Earth (including sea) and Spirits, and the gems were inscribed with as many sentences: (1) To Allah belong Majesty and Might; (2) All created things praise the Lord; (3) Heaven and Earth are Allah’s slaves and (4) There is no god but _the_ God and Mohammed is His messenger. For Sakhr and his theft of the signet see Dr. Weil’s, “The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud.”

[FN#361] Trébutien (ii. 128) remarks, “Cet Assaf peut être celui auquel David adresse plusieurs de ses psaumes, et que nos interprètes disent avoir été son maître de chapelle (from Biblioth. Orient).”

[FN#362] Mermen, monsters, beasts, etc.

[FN#363] This is in accordance with Eastern etiquette; the guest must be fed before his errand is asked. The Porte, in the days of its pride, managed in this way sorely to insult the Ambassadors of the most powerful European kingdoms and the first French Republic had the honour of abating the barbarians’ nuisance. So the old Scottish Highlanders never asked the name or clan of a chance guest, lest he prove a foe before he had eaten their food.

[FN#364] In Bresl. Edit. (301) Kháfiyah: in Mac. Kháinah, the perfidy.

[FN#365] So in the Mac. Edit., in the Bresl. only one “Kabá” or Kaftan; but from the sequel it seems to be a clerical error.

[FN#366] Arab. “Su’ubán” (Thu’ubán) popularly translated “basilisk.” The Egyptians suppose that when this serpent forms ring round the Ibn ‘Irs (weasel or ichneumon) the latter emits a peculiar air which causes the reptile to burst.

[FN#367] _i.e._ that prophesied by Solomon.

[FN#368] Arab. “Takliyah” from kaly, a fry: Lane’s Shaykh explained it as “onions cooked in clarified butter, after which they are put upon other cooked food.” The mention of onions points to Egypt as the origin of this tale and certainly not to Arabia, where the strong-smelling root is hated.

[FN#369] Von Hammer quotes the case of the Grand Vizier Yúsuf throwing his own pelisse over the shoulders of the Aleppine Merchant who brought him the news of the death of his enemy, Jazzár Pasha.

[FN#370] This peculiar style of generosity was also the custom in contemporary Europe.

[FN#371] Khátún, which follows the name (_e.g._ Hurmat Khatun), in India corresponds with the male title Khan, taken by the Pathan Moslems (_e.g._ Pír Khán). Khánum is the affix to the Moghul or Tartar nobility, the men assuming a double designation _e.g._ Mirza Abdallah Beg. See Oriental collections (Ouseley’s) vol. i. 97.

[FN#372] Lit. “Whatso thou wouldest do that do!” a contrast with our European laconism.

[FN#373] These are booths built against and outside the walls, made of palm-fronds and light materials.

[FN#374] Von Hammer in Trébutien (ii. 135) says, “Such rejoicings are still customary at Constantinople, under the name of Donánmá, not only when the Sultanas are _enceintes_, but also when they are brought to bed. In 1803 the rumour of the pregnancy of a Sultana, being falsely spread, involved all the Ministers in useless expenses to prepare for a Donánmá which never took place.” Lane justly remarks upon this passage that the title Sultán precedes while the feminine Sultánah follows the name.

[FN#375] These words (Bresl. Edit.) would be spoken in jest, a grim joke enough, but showing the elation of the King’s spirits.

[FN#376] A signal like a gong: the Mac. Edit. reads “Tákah,” = in at the window.

[FN#377] Sayf al-Mulúk = “Sword (Egyptian Sif, Arab. Sayf, Gr. {xíphos}) of the Kings”; and he must not be called tout bonnement Sayf. Sái’d = the forearm.

[FN#378] Arab. “Fakíh” = a divine, from Fikh = theology, a man versed in law and divinity _i.e._ (1) the Koran and its interpretation comprehending the sacred ancient history of the creation and prophets (Chapters iii., iv., v. and vi.), (2) the traditions and legends connected with early Moslem History and (3) some auxiliary sciences as grammar, syntax and prosody; logic, rhetoric and philosophy. See p. 18 of “El-Mas’údí’s Historical Encyclopædia etc.,” by my friend Prof. Aloys Springer, London 1841. This fine fragment printed by the Oriental Translation Fund has been left unfinished when the Asiatic Society of Paris has printed in Eight Vols. 8vo the text and translation of MM. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille. What a national disgrace! And the same with the mere abridgment of Ibn Batutah by Prof. Lee (Orient. Tr. Fund 1820) when the French have the fine Edition and translation by Defrémery and Sanguinetti with index etc. in 4 vols. 8vo 1858–59. But England is now content to rank in such matters as encouragement of learning, endowment of research etc., into the basest of kingdoms, and the contrast of status between the learned Societies of London and of Paris, Berlin, Vienna or Rome is mortifying to an Englishman—a national opprobrium.

[FN#379] Arab. “Maydán al-Fíl,” prob. for Birkat al-Fíl, the Tank of the Elephant before-mentioned. Lane quotes Al-Makrizi who in his Khitat informs us that the lakelet was made about the end of the seventh century (A.H.), and in the seventeenth year of the eighth century became the site of the stables. The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 214) reads “Maydan al-‘Adl,” prob. for Al-‘Ádil the name of the King who laid out the Maydán.

[FN#380] Arab. “Asháb al-Ziyá’,” the latter word mostly signifies estates consisting, strictly speaking, of land under artificial irrigation.

[FN#381] The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 215) has “Chawáshiyah” = ‘Chiaush, the Turkish word, written with the Pers. “ch,” a letter which in Arabic is supplanted by “sh,” everywhere except in Morocco.

[FN#382] Arab. “Záwiyah” lit. a corner, a cell. Lane (M. E., chapt. xxiv.) renders it “a small kiosque,” and translates the famous Zawiyat al-Umyán (Blind Men’s Angle) near the south-eastern corner of the Azhar or great Collegiate Mosque of Cairo, “Chapel of the Blind” (chapt. ix.). In popular parlance it suggests a hermitage.

[FN#383] Arab. “Takht,” a Pers. word used as more emphatic than the Arab. Sarír.

[FN#384] This girding the sovereign is found in the hieroglyphs as a peculiarity of the ancient Kings of Egypt, says Von Hammer referring readers to Denon.

[FN#385] Arab. “Mohr,” which was not amongst the gifts of Solomon in Night dcclx. The Bresl. Edit. (p. 220) adds “and the bow,” which is also de trop.

[FN#386] Arab. “Batánah,” the ordinary lining opp. to Tazríb, or quilting with a layer of cotton between two folds of cloth. The idea in the text is that the unhappy wearer would have to carry his cross (the girl) on his back.

[FN#387] This line has occurred in Night dccxliv. supra p. 280.

[FN#388] Arab. “Mu’attik al-Rikáb” _i.e._ who frees those in bondage from the yoke.

[FN#389] In the Mac. Edit. and in Trébutien (ii. 143) the King is here called Schimakh son of Scharoukh, but elsewhere, Schohiali = Shahyál, in the Bresl. Edit. Shahál. What the author means by “Son of ‘Ád the Greater,” I cannot divine.

[FN#390] Lit. “For he is the man who can avail thereto,” with the meaning given in the text.

[FN#391] Arab. “Jazírat,” insula or peninsula, vol. i. 2.

[FN#392] Probably Canton with which the Arabs were familiar.

[FN#393] _i.e._ “Who disappointeth not those who put their trust in Him.”

[FN#394] Arab. “Al-Manjaníkát” plur. of manjanik, from Gr. Μάγγανον, Lat. Manganum (Engl. Mangonel from the dim. Mangonella). Ducange Glossarium, s.v. The Greek is applied originally to defensive weapons, then to the artillery of the day, Ballista, catapults, etc. The kindred Arab. form “Manjanín” is applied chiefly to the Noria or Persian waterwheel.

[FN#395] Faghfúr is the common Moslem title for the Emperors of China; in the Kamus the first syllable is Zammated (Fugh); in Al-Mas’udi (chapt. xiv.) we find Baghfúr and in Al-Idrisi Baghbúgh, or Baghbún. In Al-Asma’i Bagh = god or idol (Pehlewi and Persian); hence according to some Baghdád (?) and Bághistán a pagoda (?). Sprenger (Al-Mas’údi, p. 327) remarks that Baghfúr is a literal translation of Tien-tse and quotes Visdelou, “pour mieux faire comprendre de quel ciel ils veulent parler, ils poussent la généalogie (of the Emperor) plus loin. Ils lui donnent le ciel pour père, la terre pour mère, le soleil pour frère aîné et la lune pour sœur aînée.”

[FN#396] Arab. “Kayf hálak” = how de doo? the salutation of a Fellah.

[FN#397] _i.e._ subject to the Maharajah of Hind.

[FN#398] This is not a mistake: I have seen heavy hail in Africa, N. Lat. 4 degrees; within sight of the Equator.

[FN#399] Arab. “Harrákat,” here used in the sense of smaller craft, and presently for a cock-boat.

[FN#400] See vol. i. 138: here by way of variety I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#401] This explains the Arab idea of the “Old Man of the Sea” in Sindbad the Seaman (vol. vi. 50). He was not a monkey nor an unknown monster; but an evil Jinni of the most powerful class, yet subject to defeat and death.

[FN#402] These Plinian monsters abound in Persian literature. For a specimen see Richardson Dissert. p. xlviii.

[FN#403] Arab. “Anyáb,” plur. of “Náb” = canine tooth (eye-tooth of man), tusks of horse and camel, etc.

[FN#404] Arab, “Kásid,” the Anglo-Indian Cossid. The post is called Baríd from the Persian “burídah” (cut) because the mules used for the purpose were dock-tailed. Barid applies equally to the post-mule, the rider and the distance from one station (Sikkah) to another which varied from two to six parasangs. The letter-carrier was termed Al-Faránik from the Pers. Parwánah, a servant. In the Diwán al-Baríd (Post-office) every letter was entered in a Madraj or list called in Arabic Al-Askidár from the Persian “Az Kih dárí” = from whom hast thou it?

[FN#405] “Ten years” in the Bresl. Edit. iv. 244.

[FN#406] In the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 245) we find “Kalak,” a raft, like those used upon the Euphrates, and better than the “Fulk,” or ship, of the Mac. Edit.

[FN#407] Arab. “Timsah” from Coptic (Old Egypt) Emsuh or Msuh. The animal cannot live in salt-water, a fact which proves that the Crocodile Lakes on the Suez Canal were in old days fed by Nile-water; and this was necessarily a Canal.

[FN#408] So in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 245). In the Mac. text “one man,” which better suits the second crocodile, for the animal can hardly be expected to take two at a time.

[FN#409] He had ample reason to be frightened. The large Cynocephalus is exceedingly dangerous. When travelling on the Gold Coast with my late friend Colonel De Ruvignes, we suddenly came in the grey of the morning upon a herd of these beasts. We dismounted, hobbled our nags and sat down, sword and revolver in hand. Luckily it was feeding time for the vicious brutes, which scowled at us but did not attack us. During my four years’ service on the West African Coast I heard enough to satisfy me that these powerful beasts often kill men and rape women; but I could not convince myself that they ever kept the women as concubines.

[FN#410] As we should say in English “it is a far cry to Loch Awe”: the Hindu by-word is, “Dihlí (Delhi) is a long way off.” See vol. i. 37.

[FN#411] Arab. “Fútah”, a napkin, a waistcloth, the Indian Zones alluded to by the old Greek travellers.

[FN#412] Arab. “Yají (it comes) miat khwánjah”—quite Fellah talk.

[FN#413] As Trébutien shows (ii. 155) these apes were a remnant of some ancient tribe possibly those of Ád who had gone to Meccah to pray for rain and thus escaped the general destruction. See vol. i. 65. Perhaps they were the Jews of Aylah who in David’s day were transformed into monkeys for fishing on the Sabbath (Saturday) Koran ii. 61.

[FN#414] I can see no reason why Lane purposely changes this to “the extremity of their country.”

[FN#415] Koran xxii. 44, Mr. Payne remarks:—This absurd addition is probably due to some copyist, who thought to show his knowledge of the Koran, but did not understand the meaning of the verse from which the quotation is taken and which runs thus, “How many cities have We destroyed, whilst yet they transgressed, and they are laid low on their own foundations and wells abandoned and high-builded palaces!” Mr. Lane observes that the words are either misunderstood or purposely misapplied by the author of the tale. Purposeful perversions of Holy Writ are very popular amongst Moslems and form part of their rhetoric; but such is not the case here. According to Von Hammer (Trébutien ii. 154), “Eastern geographers place the Bir al-Mu’utallal (Ruined Well) and the Kasr al-Mashíd (High-builded Castle) in the province of Hadramaut, and we wait for a new Niebuhr to inform us what are the monuments or the ruins so called.” His text translates puits arides et palais de plâtre (not likely!). Lane remarks that Mashíd mostly means “plastered,” but here = Mushayyad, lofty, explained in the Jalálayn Commentary as = rafí’a, high-raised. The two places are also mentioned by Al-Mas’údi; and they occur in Al-Kazwíni (see Night dccclviii.): both of these authors making the Koran directly allude to them.

[FN#416] Arab. (from Pers.) “Aywán” which here corresponds with the Egyptian “líwán” a tall saloon with estrades.

[FN#417] This naïve style of “renowning it” is customary in the East, contrasting with the servile address of the subject—“thy slave” etc.

[FN#418] Daulat (not Dawlah) the Anglo-Indian Dowlat; prop. meaning the shifts of affairs, hence, fortune, empire, kingdom. Khátún = “lady,” I have noted, follows the name after Turkish fashion.

[FN#419] The old name of Suez-town from the Greek Clysma (the shutting), which named the Gulf of Suez “Sea of Kulzum.” The ruins in the shape of a huge mound, upon which Sá’id Pasha built a Kiosk-palace, lie to the north of the modern town and have been noticed by me. (Pilgrimage, Midian, etc.) The Rev. Prof. Sayce examined the mound and from the Roman remains found in it determined it to be a fort guarding the old mouth of the Old Egyptian Sweet-water Canal which then debouched near the town.

[FN#420] _i.e._ Tuesday. See vol. iii. 249.

[FN#421] Because being a Jinniyah the foster-sister could have come to her and saved her from old maidenhood.

[FN#422] Arab. “Hájah” properly a needful thing. This consisted according to the Bresl. Edit. of certain perfumes, by burning which she could summon the Queen of the Jinn.

[FN#423] Probably used in its sense of a “black crow.” The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 261) has “Khátim” (seal-ring) which is but one of its almost innumerable misprints.

[FN#424] Here it is called “Tábik” and afterwards “Tábút.”

[FN#425] _i.e._ raising from the lower hinge-pins. See vol. ii. 214.

[FN#426] Arab. “Abrísam” or “Ibrísam” (from Persian Abrísham or Ibrísham) = raw silk or floss, _i.e._ untwisted silk.

[FN#427] This knightly practice, evidently borrowed from the East, appears in many romances of chivalry _e.g._ When Sir Tristram is found by King Mark asleep beside Ysonde (Isentt) with drawn sword between them, the former cried:—

Gif they weren in sinne Nought so they no lay.

And we are told:—

Sir Amys and the lady bright To bed gan they go; And when they weren in bed laid, Sir Amys his sword out-brayed And held it between them two.

This occurs in the old French romance of Amys and Amyloun which is taken into the tale of the Ravens in the Seven Wise Masters where Ludovic personates his friend Alexander in marrying the King of Egypt’s daughter and sleeps every night with a bare blade between him and the bride. See also Aladdin and his lamp. An Englishman remarked, “The drawn sword would be little hindrance to a man and maid coming together.” The drawn sword represented only the Prince’s honour.

[FN#428] Arab. “Ya Sáki’ al-Wajh,” which Lane translates by “lying” or “liar.”

[FN#429] Kamín (in Bresl. Edit. “bayn” = between) Al-Bahrayn = Ambuscade or lurking-place of the two seas. The name of the city in Lane is “‘Emareeych” imaginary but derived from Emarch (‘imárah) = being populous. Trébutien (ii. 161) takes from Bresl. Edit. “Amar” and translates the port-name, “le lieu de refuge des deux mers.”

[FN#430] _i.e._ “High of (among) the Kings.” Lane proposes to read ‘Ali al-Mulk = high in dominion.

[FN#431] Pronounce Mu’inuddeen = Aider of the Faith. The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 266) also read “Mu’in al-Riyásah” = Mu’in of the Captaincies.

[FN#432] Arab. “Shúm” = a tough wood used for the staves with which donkeys are driven. Sir Gardner Wilkinson informed Lane that it is the ash.

[FN#433] In Persian we find the fuller metaphorical form, “kissing the ground of obedience.”

[FN#434] For the Shaykh of the Sea(-board) in Sindbad the Seaman see vol. vi. 50.

[FN#435] That this riding is a facetious exaggeration of the African practice I find was guessed by Mr. Keightley.

[FN#436] Arab. “Kummasra”: the root seems to be “Kamsara” = being slender or compact.

[FN#437] Lane translates, “by reason of the exhilaration produced by intoxication.” But the Arabic here has no assonance. The passage also alludes to the drunken habits of those blameless Ethiopians, the races of Central Africa where, after midday a chief is rarely if ever found sober. We hear much about drink in England but Englishmen are mere babes compared with these stalwart Negroes. In Unyamwezi I found all the standing bedsteads of pole-sleepers and bark-slabs disposed at an angle of about 20 degrees for the purpose of draining off the huge pottle-fulls of Pombe (Osirian beer) drained by the occupants; and, comminxit lectum potus might be said of the whole male population.

[FN#438] This is not exaggerated. When at Hebron I saw the biblical spectacle of two men carrying a huge bunch slung to a pole, not so much for the weight as to keep the grapes from injury.

[FN#439] The Mac. and Bul. Edits. add, “and with him a host of others after his kind”; but these words are omitted by the Bresl. Edit. and apparently from the sequel there was only one Ghul-giant.

[FN#440] Probably alluding to the most barbarous Persian practice of plucking or tearing out the eyes from their sockets. See Sir John Malcolm’s description of the capture of Kirmán and Morier (in Zohrab, the hostage) for the wholesale blinding of the Asterabadian by the Eunuch-King Agha Mohammed Shah. I may note that the mediæval Italian practice called _bacinare_, or scorching with red-hot basins, came from Persia.

[FN#441] Arab. “Laban” as opposed to “Halíb”: in Night dcclxxiv. (_infra_ p. 365) the former is used for sweet milk, and other passages could be cited. I have noted that all galaktophagi, or milk-drinking races, prefer the artificially soured to the sweet, choosing the fermentation to take place outside rather than inside their stomachs. Amongst the Somal I never saw man, woman or child drink a drop of fresh milk; and they offered considerable opposition to our heating it for coffee.

[FN#442] Arab. “Tákah” not “an aperture” as Lane has it, but an arched hollow in the wall.

[FN#443] In Trébutien (ii. 168) the cannibal is called “Goul Eli-Fenioun” and Von Hammer remarks, “There is no need of such likeness of name to prove that al this episode is a manifest imitation of the adventures of Ulysses in Polyphemus’s cave; * * * and this induces the belief that the Arabs have been acquainted with the poems of Homer.” Living intimately with the Greeks they could not have ignored the Iliad and the Odyssey: indeed we know by tradition that they had translations, now apparently lost. I cannot however, accept Lane’s conjecture that “the story of Ulysses and Polyphemus may have been of Eastern origin.” Possibly the myth came from Egypt, for I have shown that the opening of the Iliad bears a suspicious likeness to the proem of Pentaur’s Epic.

[FN#444] Arab. “Shakhtúr”.

[FN#445] In the Bresl. Edit. the ship is not wrecked but lands Sa’id in safety.

[FN#446] So in the Shah-nameh the Símurgh-bird gives one of her feathers to her protégé Zál which he will throw into the fire when she is wanted.

[FN#447] Bresl. Edit. “Al-Zardakhánát” Arab. plur. of Zarad-Khánah, a bastard word = armoury, from Arab. Zarad (hauberk) and Pers. Khánah = house etc.

[FN#448] Some retrenchment was here found necessary to avoid “damnable iteration.”

[FN#449] _i.e._ Badi’a al-Jamal.

[FN#450] Mohammed.

[FN#451] Koran xxxv. “The Creator” (Fátir) or the Angels, so called from the first verse.

[FN#452] In the Bresl. Edit. (p. 263) Sayf al-Muluk drops asleep under a tree to the lulling sound of a Sákiyah or water-wheel, and is seen by Badi’a al-Jamal, who falls in love with him and drops tears upon his cheeks, etc. The scene, containing much recitation, is long and well told.

[FN#453] Arab. “Lukmah” = a _bouchée_ of bread, meat, fruit or pastry, and especially applied to the rice balled with the hand and delicately inserted into a friend’s mouth.

[FN#454] Arab. “Saláhiyah,” also written Saráhiyah: it means an ewer-shaped glass-bottle.

[FN#455] Arab. “Sarmújah,” of which Von Hammer remarks that the dictionaries ignore it; Dozy gives the forms Sarmúj, Sarmúz, and Sarmúzah and explains them by “espèce de guêtre, de sandale ou de mule, qu’on chausse par-dessus la botte.”

[FN#456] In token of profound submission.

[FN#457] Arab. “Misr” in Ibn Khaldún is a land whose people are settled and civilised hence “Namsur” = we settle; and “Amsár” = settled provinces. Al-Misrayn was the title of Basrah and Kufah the two military cantonments founded by Caliph Omar on the frontier of conquering Arabia and conquered Persia. Hence “Tamsír” = founding such posts, which were planted in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. In these camps were stationed the veterans who had fought under Mohammed; but the spoils of the East soon changed them to splendid cities where luxury and learning flourished side by side. Sprenger (Al-Mas’údi pp. 19, 177) compares them ecclesiastically with the primitive Christian Churches such as Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch. But the Moslems were animated with an ardent love of liberty and Kufah under Al-Hajjaj the masterful, lost 100,000 of her turbulent sons without the thirst for independence being quenched. This can hardly be said of the Early Christians who, with the exception of a few staunch-hearted martyrs, appear in history as pauvres diables and poules mouillées, ever oppressed by their own most ignorant and harmful fancy that the world was about to end.

[FN#458] _i.e._ Waiting to be sold and wasting away in single cursedness.

[FN#459] Arab. “Yá dádati”: dádat is an old servant-woman or slave, often applied to a nurse, like its congener the Pers. Dádá, the latter often pronounced Daddeh, as Daddeh Bazm-árá in the Kuisum-nameh (Atkinson’s “Customs of the Women of Persia,” London, 8vo, 1832).

[FN#460] Marjánah has been already explained. D’Herbelot derives from it the Romance name _Morgante la Déconvenue_, here confounding Morgana with Urganda; and Keltic scholars make Morgain = Mor Gwynn—the white maid (p. 10, Keightley’s Fairy Mythology, London, Whittaker, 1833).