THE KING'S DAUGHTER AND THE APE.
There was once a Sultan's daughter, whose heart was taken with
love of a black slave: he abated her maidenhead and she became
passionately addicted to futtering, so that she could not do
without it a single hour and complained of her case to one of her
body women, who told her that no thing poketh and stroketh more
abundantly than the baboon.[FN$438] Now it so chanced one day,
that an ape-leader passed under her lattice, with a great ape; so
she unveiled her face and looking upon the ape, signed to him
with her eyes, whereupon he broke his bonds and chain and climbed
up to the Princess, who hid him in a place with her, and night
and day he abode there, eating and drinking and copulating. Her
father heard of this and would have killed her;--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-sixth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Sultan heard of this work he would have slain his daughter; but
she smoked his design; and, disguising herself in Mameluke's
dress, mounted horse after loading a mule with gold and bullion,
and precious stuffs past all account; then carrying with her the
ape, she fled to Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the
houses without the city and upon the verge of the Suez-desert.
Now, every day, she used to buy meat of a young man, a butcher,
but she came not to him till after noonday; and then she was so
yellow and disordered in face that he said in his mind, "There
must indeed hang some mystery by this slave." "Accordingly (quoth
the butcher) one day when she came to me as usual, I went out
after her secretly, and ceased not to follow her from place to
place, so as she saw me not, till she came to her lodging on the
edge of her waste and entered; and I looked in upon her through a
cranny, and saw her as soon as she was at home, kindle a fire and
cook the meat, of which she ate enough and served up the rest to
a baboon she had by her and he did the same. Then she put off the
slave's habit and donned the richest of women's apparel; and so I
knew that she was a lady. After this she set on wine and drank
and gave the ape to drink; and he stroked her nigh half a score
times without drawing till she swooned away, when he spread over
her a silken coverlet and returned to his place. Then I went down
in the midst of the place and the ape, becoming aware of me,
would have torn me in pieces; but I made haste to pull out my
knife and slit his paunch and his bowels fell out. The noise
aroused the young lady, who awoke terrified and trembling; and,
when she saw the ape in this case, she shrieked such a shriek
that her soul well nigh fled her body. Then she fell down in a
fainting-fit and when she came to herself, she said to me, 'What
moved thee to do thus? Now Allah upon thee, send me after him!'
But I spoke her fair for a while and pledged myself to stand in
the ape's stead in the matter of much poking, till her trouble
subsided and I took her to wife. But when I came to perform my
promise I proved a failure and I fell short in this matter and
could not endure such hard labour: so I complained of my case and
mentioned her exorbitant requirements to a certain old woman who
engaged to manage the affair and said to me, 'Needs must thou
bring me a cooking-pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of the
herb pellitory called wound-wort.'[FN#439] So I brought her what
she sought, and she laid the pellitory in the pot with the
vinegar and set it on the fire, till it was thoroughly boiled.
Then she bade me futter the girl, and I futtered her till she
fainted away, when the old woman took her up (and she
unconscious), and set her parts to the mouth of the cooking-pot.
The steam of the pot entered her slit and there fell from it
somewhat which I examined; and behold, it was two small worms,
one black and the other yellow. Quoth the old, woman, ''The black
was bred of the strokings of the negro and the yellow of stroking
with the baboon.' Now when she recovered from her swoon she abode
with me, in all delight and solace of life, and sought not
swiving as before, for Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn
of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-seventh Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young
man continued: "In truth Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled and acquainted her with the case.
Thereupon I lived with her and she took the old woman to be to
her in the stead of her mother." "And" (said he who told me the
tale) "the old woman and the young man and his wife abode in joy
and cheer till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and
the Sunderer of societies; and glory be to the Ever-living One,
who dieth not and in whose hand is Dominion of the world visible
and invisible!''[FN#440] And another tale they tell is that of
End of Arabian Nights Volume 4.
Arabian Nights, Volume 4
Footnotes
[FN#1] The name is indifferently derived from the red sand about
the town or the reeds and mud with which it was originally built.
It was founded by the Caliph Omar, when the old Capital-Madáin
(Ctesiphon) opposite was held unwholesome, on the West bank of
the Euphrates, four days' march from Baghdad and has now
disappeared. Al-Saffáh, the first Abbaside, made it his
Capital--and it became a famous seat of Moslem learning; the Kufi
school of Arab Grammarians being as renowned as their opponents,
the Basri (of Bassorah). It gave a name to the "Cufic" characters
which are, however, of much older date.
[FN#2] "Ni'amat" = a blessing, and the word is perpetually
occurring in Moslem conversation, "Ni'amatu'lláh" (as pronounced)
is also a favourite P.N. and few Anglo-Indians of the Mutiny date
will forget the scandalous disclosures of Munshi Ni'amatu 'llah,
who had been sent to England by Nana Sahib. Nu'm = prosperity,
good fortune, and a P. N. like the Heb. "Naomi."
[FN#3] i.e. "causing to be prosperous", the name, corrupted by
the Turks to "Tevfik," is given to either sex, e.g. Taufik Pasha
of Egypt, to whose unprosperous rule and miserable career the
signification certainly does not apply.
[FN#4] Lane (ii. 187) alters the two to four years.
[FN#5] i.e. "to Tom, Dick or Harry:" the names like John Doe and
Richard Roe are used indefinitely in Arab. Grammar and Syntax. I
have noted that Amru is written and pronounced Amr: hence Amru,
the Conqueror of Egypt, when told by an astrologer that Jerusalem
would be taken only by a trium literarum homo, with three letters
in his name sent for the Caliph Omar (Omr), to whom the so-called
Holy City at once capitulated. Hence also most probably, the tale
of Bhurtpore and the Lord Alligator (Kumbhir), who however did
not change from Cotton to Combermore for some time after the
successful siege.
[FN#6] BinYúsuf al-Sakafi, a statesman and soldier of the
seventh and eighth centuries (A.D.). He was Governor of Al-Hij az
and Al-Irak under the fifth and sixth Ommiades, and I have
noticed his vigorous rule of the Moslems' Holy Land in my
Pilgrimage (iii. 194, etc.). He pulled down the Ka'abah and
restored it to the condition in which it now is. Al-Siyuti (p.
219) accuses him of having suborned a man to murder Ibn Omar with
a poisoned javelin, and of humiliating the Prophet's companions
by "sealing them in the necks and hands," that is he tied a thong
upon the neck of each and sealed the knot with lead. In Irak he
showed himself equally masterful, but an iron hand was required
by the revolutionists of Kufah and Basrah. He behaved like a good
Knight in rescuing the Moslem women who called upon his name when
taken prisoners by Dahir of Debal (Tathá in Sind). Al-Hajjaj was
not the kind of man the Caliph would have chosen for a pander;
but the Shi'ahs hates him and have given him a lasting bad name.
In the East men respect manly measures, not the hysterical,
philanthropic pseudo-humanitarianism of our modern government
which is really the cruellest of all. When Ziyád bin Abihi was
sent by Caliph Mu'awiyah to reform Bassorah, a den of thieves, he
informed the lieges that he intended to rule by the sword and
advised all evil-doers to quit the city. The people were
forbidden, under pain of teeth, to walk the streets after
prayers, on the first night two hundred suffered; on the second
five and none afterwards. Compare this with our civilised rule in
Egypt where even bands of brigands, a phenomenon perfectly new
and unknown to this century, have started up, where crime has
doubled in quantity and quality, and where "Christian rule" has
thoroughly scandalised a Moslem land.
[FN#7] The old bawd's portrait is admirably drawn: all we
dwellers in the East have known her well: she is so and so. Her
dress and manners are the same amongst the Hindus (see the
hypocritical-female ascetic in the Katha, p. 287) as amongst the
Moslems; men of the world at once recognise her and the prudent
keep out of her way. She is found in the cities of Southern
Europe, ever pious, ever prayerful; and she seems to do her work
not so much for profit as for pure or impure enjoyment. In the
text her task was easy, as she had to do with a pair of
innocents.
[FN#8] Koran, xxv. 70. I give Sale's version.
[FN#9] Easterns, I have observed, have no way of saying "Thank
you;" they express it by a blessing or a short prayer. They have
a right to your surplus: daily bread is divided, they say and,
eating yours, they consider it their own. I have discussed this
matter in Pilgrimage i. 75-77, in opposition to those who declare
that "gratitude" is unknown to Moslems.
[FN#10] Cufa (Kufah) being a modern place never had a "King,"
but as the Hindu says, " Delhi is far" it is a far cry to Loch
Awe. Here we can hardly understand "Malik" as Governor or
Viceroy: can it be syn. with Zú-mál-(moneyed)?
[FN#11] Abd al-Malik has been before mentioned as the "Sweat of
a Stone," etc. He died recommending Al-Hajjaj to his son,
Al-Walid, and one of his sayings is still remembered. "He who
desireth to take a female slave for carnal-enjoyment, let him
take a native of Barbary; if he need one for the sake of
children, let him have a Persian; and whoso desireth one for
service, let him take a Greek." Moderns say, "If you want a
brother (in arms) try a Nubian; one to get you wealth an
Abyssinian and if you want an ass (for labour) a Sáwahíli, or
Zanzibar negroid."
[FN#12] Probably suggested by the history of Antiochus and
Stratonice, with an addition of Eastern mystery such as geomancy.
[FN#13] Arab, "Kárúrah": the "water-doctor" has always been an
institution in the east and he has lately revived in Europe
especially at the German baths and in London.
[FN#14] Lane makes this phrase "O brother of the Persians!"
synonymous with "O Persian!" I think it means more, a Persian
being generally considered "too clever by half."
[FN#15] The verses deal in untranslatable word-plays upon
women's names, Naomi (the blessing) Su'adá or Su'ád (the happy,
which Mr. Redhouse, in Ka'ab's Mantle-poem, happily renders
Beatrice); and Juml (a sum or total) the two latter, moreover,
being here fictitious.
[FN#16] "And he (Jacob) turned from them, and said, 'O how I am
grieved for Joseph' And his eyes became white with mourning. ...
(Quoth Joseph to his brethren), 'Take this my inner garment and
throw it on my father's face and he shall recover his sight.' . .
. So, when the messenger of good tidings came (to Jacob) he threw
it (the shirt) over his face and he recovered his eye-sight."
Koran, xii. 84, 93, 96. The commentators, by way of improvement,
assure us that the shirt was that worn by Abraham when thrown
into the fire (Koran, chaps. xvi.) by Nimrod (!). We know little
concerning "Jacob's daughters" who named the only bridge spanning
the upper Jordan, and who have a curious shrine tomb near Jewish
"Safe" (North of Tiberias), one of the four "Holy Cities." The
Jews ignore these "daughters of Jacob" and travellers neglect
them.
[FN#17] Easterns, I have remarked, mostly recognise the artistic
truth that the animal-man is handsomer than woman and that "fair
sex" is truly only of skin-colour. The same is the general-rule
throughout creation, for instance the stallion compared with the
mare, the cock with the hen; while there are sundry exceptions
such as the Falconidae.
[FN#18] The Badawi (who is nothing if not horsey) compares the
gait of a woman who walks well (in Europe rarely seen out of
Spain) with the slightly swinging walk of a thoroughbred mare,
bending her graceful neck and looking from side to side at
objects as she passes.
[FN#19] Li'lláhi (darr') al-káil, a characteristic idiom.
"Darr"=giving (rich) milk copiously and the phrase expresses
admiration, "To Allah be ascribed (or Allah be praised for) his
rich eloquence who said etc. Some Hebraists would render it,
"Divinely (well) did he speak who said," etc., holding "Allah" to
express a superlative like "Yah" Jah) in Gen. iv. 1; x. 9. Nimrod
was a hunter to the person (or presence) of Yah, i.e. mighty
hunter.
[FN#20] Hamzah and Abbás were the famous uncles of Mohammed
often noticed: Ukayl is not known; possibly it may be Akíl, a son
of the fourth Caliph, Ali.
[FN#21] The Eastern ring is rarely plain; and, its use being
that of a signet, it is always in intaglio: the Egyptians
invented engraving hieroglyphics on wooden stamps for marking
bricks and applied the process to the ring. Moses B. C. 1491
(Exod. xxviii. 9) took two onyx-stones, and graved on them the
names of the children of Israel. From this the signet ring was
but a step. Herodotus mentions an emerald seal-set in gold, that
of Polycrates, the work of Theodorus, son of Telecles the Samian
(iii. 141). The Egyptians also were perfectly acquainted with
working in cameo (anaglyph) and rilievo, as may be seen in the
cavo rilievo of the finest of their hieroglyphs. The Greeks
borrowed from them the cameo and applied it to gems (e.g.
Tryphon's in the Marlborough collection), and they bequeathed the
art to the Romans. We read in a modern book "Cameo means an onyx,
and the most famous cameo in the world is the onyx containing the
Apotheosis of Augustus." The ring is given in marriage because it
was a seal--by which orders were signed (Gen. xxxviii. 18 and
Esther iii. 10-12). I may note that the seal-ring of Cheops
(Khufu), found in the Greatest Pyramid, was in the possession of
my old friend, Doctor Abbott, of Auburn (U.S.), and was sold with
his collection. It is the oldest ring in the world, and settles
the Cheops-question.
[FN#22] This habit of weeping when friends meet after long
parting is customary, I have noted, amongst the American
"Indians," the Badawin of the New World; they shed tears thinking
of the friends they have lost. Like most primitive people they
are ever ready to weep as was Ćneas or Shakespeare's saline
personage,
"This would make a man, a man of salt
To use his eyes for garden waterpots."
(King Lear, iv. 6.)
[FN#23] Here poetical-justice is not done; in most Arab tales
the two adulterous Queens would have been put to death.
[FN#24] Pronounce Aladdin Abush-Shámát.
[FN#25] Arab. "Misr," vulg. Masr: a close connection of Misraim
the "two Misrs," Egypt, upper and lower.
[FN#26] The Persians still call their Consuls "Shah-bander,"
lit. king of the Bandar or port.
[FN#27] Arab. "Dukhúl," the night of going in, of seeing the
bride unveiled for the first time, etcaetera.
[FN#28] Arab. "Barsh" or "Bars," the commonest kind. In India it
is called Ma'jún (=electuary, generally): it is made of Ganja or
young leaves, buds, capsules and florets of hemp (C. saliva),
poppy-seed and flowers of the thorn-apple (daiura) with milk and
auger-candy, nutmegs, cloves, mace and saffron, all boiled to the
consistency of treacle which hardens when cold. Several-recipes
are given by Herklots (Glossary s.v. Majoon). These electuaries
are usually prepared with "Charas," or gum of hemp, collected by
hand or by passing a blanket over the plant in early morning, and
it is highly intoxicating. Another intoxicant is "Sabzi," dried
hemp-leaves, poppy-seed, cucumber heed, black pepper and
cardamoms rubbed down in a mortar with a wooden pestle, and made
drinkable by adding milk, ice-cream, etc. The Hashish of Arabia
is the Hindustani Bhang, usually drunk and made as follows. Take
of hemp-leaves, well washed, 3 drams black pepper 45 grains and
of cloves, nutmeg and mace (which add to the intoxication) each
12 grains. Triturate in 8 ounces of water or the juice of
watermelon or cucumber, strain and drink. The Egyptian Zabíbah is
a preparation of hemp florets, opium and honey, much affected by
the lower orders, whence the proverb: "Temper thy sorrow with
Zabibah. In Al-Hijaz it is mixed with raisins (Zabíb) and smoked
in the water-pipe. (Burck hardt No. 73.) Besides these there is
(1) "Post" poppy-seed prepared in various ways but especially in
sugared sherbets; (2) Datura (stramonium) seed, the produce of
the thorn-apple breached and put into sweetmeats by dishonest
confectioners; it is a dangerous intoxicant, producing
spectral-visions, delirium tremens, etc., and (3) various
preparations of opium especially the "Madad," pills made up with
toasted betel-leaf and smoked. Opium, however, is usually drunk
in the shape of "Kusumba," a pill placed in wet cotton and
squeezed in order to strain and clean it of the cowdung and other
filth with which it is adulterated.
[FN#29] Arab. "Sikankúr" (Gr. {Greek letters}, Lat. Scincus) a
lizard (S. officinalis) which, held in the hand, still acts as an
aphrodisiac in the East, and which in the Middle Ages was
considered a universal-medicine. In the "Adja'ib al-Hind" (Les
Merveilles de l'Inde) we find a notice of a bald-headed old man
who was compelled to know his wife twice a day and twice a night
in consequence of having eaten a certain fish. (Chaps. Ixxviii.
of the translation by M. L. Marcel Devic, from a manuscript of
the tenth century, Paris Lemaire, 1878.) Europeans deride these
prescriptions, but Easterns know better: they affect the fancy,
that is the brain, and often succeed in temporarily relieving
impotence. The recipes for this evil, which is incurable only
when it comes from heart-affections, are innumerable in the East;
and about half of every medical-work is devoted to them. Many a
quack has made his fortune with a few bottles of tincture of
cantharides, and a man who could discover a specific would become
a millionaire in India only. The curious reader will consult for
specimens the Ananga-Ranga Shastra by Koka Pandit; or the "Rujú
'al-Shaykh ila 'l-Sabáh fi Kuwwati 'l-Báh" (the Return of the Old
Man to Youth in power of Procreation) by Ahmad bin Sulaymán known
as Ibn Kamál-Báshá, in 139 chapters lithographed at Cairo. Of
these aphrodisiacs I shall have more to say.
[FN#30] Alá al-Din (our old friend Aladdin) = Glory of the
Faith, a name of which Mohammed who preferred the simplest, like
his own, would have highly disapproved. The most grateful names
to Allah are Abdallah (Allah's Slave) and Abd al-Rahman (Slave of
the Compassionate); the truest are Al-Hárith (the gainer, "bread
winner") and Al-Hammám (the griever); and the hatefullest are
Al-Harb (witch) and Al-Murrah (bitterness, Abu Murrah being a
kunyat or by-name of the Devil). Abu al-Shámát (pronounced
Abushshámát)=Father of Moles, concerning which I have already
given details. These names ending in -Din (faith) began with the
Caliph Al-Muktadi bi-Amri 'llah (regn. A.H. 467= 1075), who
entitled his Wazir "Zahír al-Din (Backer or Defender of the
Faith) and this gave rise to the practice. It may be observed
that the superstition of naming by omens is in no way obsolete.
[FN#31] Meaning that he appeared intoxicated by the pride of his
beauty as though it had been strong wine.
[FN#32] i.e. against the evil eye.
[FN#33] Meaning that he had been delicately reared.
[FN#34] A traditional-saying of Mohammed.
[FN#35] So Boccaccio's "Capo bianco" and "Coda verde." (Day iv.,
Introduct.)
[FN#36] The opening chapter is known as the "Mother of the Book"
(as opposed to Yá Sín, the "heart of the Koran"), the "Surat
(chapter) of Praise," and the "Surat of repetition" (because
twice revealed?) or thanksgiving, or laudation (Ai-Masáni) and by
a host of other names for which see Mr. Rodwell who, however,
should not write "Fatthah" (p. xxv.) nor "Fathah" (xxvii.). The
Fátihah, which is to Al-Islam much what the "Paternoster" is to
Christendom, consists of seven verses, in the usual-Saj'a or
rhymed prose, and I have rendered it as follows:
In the name of the Compassionating, the Compassionate! * Praise
be to Allah who all the Worlds made * The Compassionating, the
Compassionate * King of the Day of Faith! * Thee only do we adore
and of Thee only do we crave aid * Guide us to the path which is
straight * The path of those for whom Thy love is great, not
those on whom is hate, nor they that deviate * Amen! O Lord of
the World's trine.
My Pilgrimage (i. 285; ii. 78 and passim) will supply instances
of its application; how it is recited with open hands to catch
the blessing from Heaven and the palms are drawn down the face
(Ibid. i. 286), and other details,
[FN#37] i.e. when the evil eye has less effect than upon
children. Strangers in Cairo often wonder to see a woman richly
dressed leading by the hand a filthy little boy (rarely a girl)
in rags, which at home will be changed to cloth of gold.
[FN#38] Arab. "Asídah" flour made consistent by boiling in water
with the addition of "Same" clarified butter) and honey: more
like pap than custard.
[FN#39] Arab. "Ghábah" = I have explained as a low-lying place
where the growth is thickest and consequently animals haunt it
during the noon-heats
[FN#40] Arab. "Akkám," one who loads camels and has charge of
the luggage. He also corresponds with the modern Mukharrij or
camel-hirer (Pilgrimage i. 339), and hence the word Moucre
(Moucres) which, first used by La Brocquičre (A.D. 1432), is
still the only term known to the French.
[FN#41] i.e. I am old and can no longer travel.
[FN#42] Taken from Al-Asma'i, the "Romance of Antar," and the
episode of the Asafir Camels.
[FN#43] A Mystic of the twelfth century A.D. who founded the
Kádirí order (the oldest and chiefest of the four universally
recognised), to which I have the honour to belong, teste my
diploma (Pilgrimage, Appendix i.). Visitation is still made to
his tomb at Baghdad. The Arabs (who have no hard g-letter) alter
to "Jílán" the name of his birth-place "Gilan," a tract between
the Caspian and the Black Seas.
[FN#44] The well-known Anglo-Indian "Mucuddum;" lit. "one placed
before (or over) others"
[FN#45] Koran xiii. 14.
[FN#46] i.e.. his chastity: this fashion of objecting to
infamous proposals is very characteristic: ruder races would use
their fists.
[FN#47] Arab. "Ráfizí"=the Shi'ah (tribe, sect) or Persian
schismatics who curse the first three Caliphs: the name is taken
from their own saying "Inná rafizná-hum"=verily we have rejected
them. The feeling between Sunni (the so-called orthodox) and
Shi'ah is much like the Christian love between a Catholic of Cork
and a Protestant from the Black North. As Al-Siyuti or any
historian will show, this sect became exceedingly powerful under
the later Abbaside Caliphs, many of whom conformed to it and
adopted its tractices and innovations (as in the Azan or
prayer-call), greatly to the scandal-of their co-religionists.
Even in the present day the hatred between these representatives
of Arab monotheism and Persian Guebrism continues unabated. I
have given sundry instances m my Pilgrimage, e.g. how the
Persians attempt to pollute the tombs of the Caliphs they abhor.
[FN#48] Arab. "Sakká," the Indian "Bihishtí" (man from Heaven):
Each party in a caravan has one or more.
[FN#49] These "Kirámát" or Saints' miracles, which Spiritualists
will readily accept, are recorded in vast numbers. Most men have
half a dozen to tell, each of his "Pír" or patron, including the
Istidráj or prodigy of chastisement. (Dabistan, iii. 274.)
[FN#50] Great granddaughter of the Imam Hasan buried in Cairo
and famed for "Kirámát." Her father, governor of Al-Medinah, was
imprisoned by Al-Mansur and restored to power by Al-Mahdi. She
was married to a son of the Imam Ja'afar al-Sadik and lived a
life of devotion in Cairo, dying in A.H. 218=824. The corpse of
the Imam al-Shafi'i was carried to her house, now her mosque and
mausoleum: it stood in the Darb al-Sabúa which formerly divided
Old from New Cairo and is now one of the latter's suburbs. Lane
(M. E. chaps. x.) gives her name but little more. The mention of
her shows that the writer of the tale or the copyist was a
Cairene : Abd al-Kadir is world-known : not so the "Sitt."
[FN#51] Arab. "Farkh akrab" for Ukayrib, a vulgarism.
[FN#52] The usual Egyptian irreverence: he relates his
abomination as if it were a Hadis or Tradition of the Prophet
with due ascription.
[FN#53] A popular name, dim. of Zubdah cream, fresh butter,
"creamkin."
[FN#54] Arab. "Mustahall," "Mustahill' and vulg. "Muhallil"
(=one who renders lawful). It means a man hired for the purpose
who marries pro forma and after wedding, and bedding with
actual-consummation, at once divorces the woman. He is held the
reverse of respectable and no wonder. Hence, probably,
Mandeville's story of the Islanders who, on the marriage-night,
"make another man to lie by their wives, to have their
maidenhead, for which they give great hire and much thanks. And
there are certain men in every town that serve for no other
thing; and they call them cadeberiz, that is to say, the fools of
despair, because they believe their occupation is a dangerous
one." Burckhardt gives the proverb (No. 79), "A thousand lovers
rather than one Mustahall," the latter being generally some ugly
fellow picked up in the streets and disgusting to the wife who
must permit his embraces.
[FN#55] This is a woman's oath. not used by men.
[FN#56] Pronounced "Yá Sín" (chaps. xxxvi.) the "heart of the
Koran" much used for edifying recitation. Some pious Moslems in
Egypt repeat it as a Wazifah, or religious task, or as masses for
the dead, and all educated men know its 83 versets by rote.
[FN#57] Arab. "Ál-Dáúd"=the family of David, i.e. David himself,
a popular idiom. The prophet's recitation of the "Mazámir"
(Psalter) worked miracles.
[FN#58] There is a peculiar thickening of the voice in leprosy
which at once betrays the hideous disease.
[FN#59] These lines have occurred in Night clxxxiii. I quote
Mr. Payne (in loco) by way of variety.
[FN#60] Where the "Juzám" (leprosy, elephantiasis, morbus
sacrum, etc. etc.) is supposed first to show: the swelling would
alter the shape. Lane (ii. 267) translates "her wrist which was
bipartite."
[FN#61] Arab. "Zakariyá" (Zacharias): a play upon the term
"Zakar"=the sign of "masculinity." Zacharias, mentioned in the
Koran as the educator of the Virgin Mary (chaps. iii.) and
repeatedly referred to (chaps. xix. etc.), is a well-known
personage amongst Moslems and his church is now the great
Cathedral-Mosque of Aleppo.
[FN#62] Arab. " Ark al-Haláwat " = vein of sweetness.
[FN#63] Arab. "Futúh," which may also mean openings, has before
occurred.
[FN#64] i.e. four times without withdrawing.
[FN#65] i.e. a correspondence of size, concerning which many
rules are given in the Ananga-Rangha Shastra which justly
declares that discrepancy breeds matrimonial-troubles.
[FN#66] Arab. "Ghuráb al-Bayn"= raven of the waste or the
parting: hence the bird of Odin symbolises separation (which is
also called Al-bayn). The Raven (Ghurab = Heb. Oreb and Lat.
Corvus, one of the prehistoric words) is supposed to be seen
abroad earlier than any other bird; and it is entitled "Abu
Zajir," father of omens, because lucky when flying towards the
right and v.v. It is opposed in poetry to the (white) pigeon, the
emblem of union, peace and happiness. The vulgar declare that
when Mohammed hid in the cave the crow kept calling to his
pursuers, "Ghár! Ghár!" (cavern, cavern): hence the Prophet
condemned him to wear eternal-mourning and ever to repeat the
traitorous words. This is the old tale of Coronis and Apollo
(Ovid, lib. ii.).
----------" who blacked the raven o'er
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more."
[FN#67] This use of a Turkish title "Efendi" being=our esquire,
and inferior to a Bey, is a rank anachronism, probably of the
copyist.
[FN#68] Arab. "Samn"=Hind. "Ghi" butter melted, skimmed and
allowed to cool.
[FN#69] Arab. "Ya Wadúd," a title of the Almighty: the Mac.
Edit. has "O David!"
[FN#70] Arab. "Muwashshahah;" a complicated stanza of which
specimens have occurred. Mr. Payne calls it a "ballad," which
would be a "Kunyat al-Zidd."
[FN#71] Arab. "Baháim" (plur. of Bahímah=Heb. Behemoth), applied
in Egypt especially to cattle. A friend of the "Oppenheim" house,
a name the Arabs cannot pronounce was known throughout Cairo as
"Jack al-baháim" (of the cows).
[FN#72] Lit. "The father of side-locks," a nickname of one of
the Tobba Kings. This "Hasan of: the ringlets" who wore two long
pig-tails hanging to his shoulders was the Rochester or Piron of
his age: his name is still famous for brilliant wit, extempore
verse and the wildest debauchery. D'Herbelot's sketch of his life
is very meagre. His poetry has survived to the present day and
(unhappily) we shall] hear more of "Abu Nowás." On the subject of
these patronymics Lane (Mod. Egypt, chaps. iv.) has a strange
remark that "Abu Dáúd i' not the Father of Dáúd or Abu Ali the
Father of Ali, but whose Father is (or was) Dáúd or Ali." Here,
however, he simply confounds Abu = father of (followed by a
genitive), with Abu-h (for Abu-hu) = he, whose father.
[FN#73] Arab. "Samúr," applied in slang language to cats and dogs,
hence the witty Egyptians converted Admiral-Seymour (Lord Alcester)
into "Samúr."
[FN#74] The home-student of Arabic may take this letter as a model
even in the present day; somewhat stiff and old-fashioned, but
gentlemanly and courteous.
[FN#75] Arab. "Salím" (not Sé-lim) meaning the "Safe and sound."
[FN#76] Arab. "Haláwah"=sweetmeat, meaning an entertainment such
as men give to their friends after sickness or a journey. it is
technically called as above, "The Sweetmeat of Safety."
[FN#77] Arab. "Salát" which from Allah means mercy, from the
Angels intercession and pardon; and from mankind blessing.
Concerning the specific effects of blessing the Prophet, see
Pilgrimage (ii. 70). The formula is often slurred over when a man
is in a hurry to speak: an interrupting friend will say " Bless the
Prophet!" and he does so by ejaculating "Sa'am."
[FN#78] Persian, meaning originally a command: it is now applied
to a Wazirial-order as opposed to the " Irádah," the Sultan's
order.
[FN#79] Arab. " Mashá'ilí" lit. the cresses-bearer who has before
appeared as hangman.
[FN#80] Another polite formula for announcing a death.
[FN#81] As he died heirless the property lapsed to the Treasury.
[FN#82]This shaking the kerchief is a signal to disperse and the
action suggests its meaning. Thus it is used in an opposite sense
to "throwing the kerchief," a pseudo-Oriental practice whose
significance is generally understood in Europe.
[FN#83] The body-guard being of two divisions.
[FN#84] Arab. "Hadbá," lit. "hump-backed;" alluding to the Badawi
bier; a pole to which the corpse is slung (Lane). It seems to
denote the protuberance of the corpse when placed upon the bier
which before was flat. The quotation is from Ka'ab's Mantle-Poem
(Burdah v . 37), "Every son of a female, long though his safety may
be, is a day borne upon a ridged implement," says Mr. Redhouse,
explaining the latter as a "bier with a ridged lid." Here we
differ: the Janázah with a lid is not a Badawi article: the
wildlings use the simplest stretcher; and I would translate the
lines,
"The son of woman, whatso his career
One day is borne upon the gibbous bier."
[FN#85] This is a high honour to any courtier.
[FN#86] "Khatun" in Turk. means any lady: mistress, etc., and
follows the name, e.g. Fátimah Khatun. Habzalam Bazazah is supposed
to be a fanciful compound, uncouth as the named; the first word
consisting of "Habb" seed, grain; and "Zalam" of Zulm=seed of
tyranny. Can it be a travesty of "Absalom" (Ab Salám, father of
peace)? Lane (ii. 284) and Payne (iii. 286) prefer Habazlam and
Hebezlem.
[FN#87] Or night. A metaphor for rushing into peril.
[FN#88] Plur. of kumkum, cucurbite, gourd-shaped vessel, jar.
[FN#89] A popular exaggeration for a very expert thief.
[FN#90] Arab. "Buka'at Ad-bum": lit. the "low place of blood"
(where it stagnates): so Al-Buká'ah = Clesyria.
[FN#91] That common and very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism
and self-esteem, "I told you so," is even more common in the naďve
East than in the West. In this case the son's answer is far
superior to the mother's question.
[FN#92] In order to keep his oath to the letter.
[FN#93] "Tabannuj; " literally "hemping" (drugging with hemp or
henbane) is the equivalent in Arab medicine of our "anćsthetics."
These have been used in surgery throughout the East for centuries
before ether and chloroform became the fashion in the civilised
West.
[FN#94] Arab. "Durká'ah," the lower part of the floor, opposed to
the "liwán" or daďs. Liwán =Al-Aywán (Arab. and Pers.) the hall
(including the daďs and the sunken parts)
[FN#95] i.e. he would toast it as he would a mistress.
[FN#96] This till very late years was the custom in Persia, and
Fath Ali Shah never appeared in scarlet without ordering some
horrible cruelties. In Dar-For wearing a red cashmere turban was a
sign of wrath and sending a blood red dress to a subject meant that
he would be slain.
[FN#97] That is, this robbery was committed in the palace by some
one belonging to it. References to vinegar are frequent; that of
Egypt being famous in those days. "Optimum et laudatissimum acetum
a Romanis habebatur Ćgyptum" (Facciolati); and possibly it was
sweetened: the Gesta (Tale xvii.) mentions "must and vinegar." In
Arab Proverbs, One mind by vinegar and another by wine"=each mind
goes its own way, (Arab. Prov. . 628); or, "with good and bad,"
vinegar being spoilt wine.
[FN#98] We have not heard the last of this old "dowsing rod": the
latest form of rhabdomancy is an electrical-rod invented in the
United States.
[FN#99] This is the procčs verbal always drawn up on such
occasions.
[FN#100] The sight of running water makes a Persian long for
strong drink as the sight of a fine view makes the Turk feel
hungry.
[FN#101] Arab. "Min wahid aduww " a peculiarly Egyptian or rather
Cairene phrase.
[FN#102] Al-Danaf=the Distressing Sickness: the title would be
Ahmad the Calamity. Al-Zaybak (the Quicksilver)=Mercury Ali Hasan
"Shuuman"=a pestilent fellow. We shall meet all these worthies
again and again: see the Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo, Night
dccviii., a sequel to The Rogueries of Dalilah, Night dcxcviii.
[FN#103] For the "Sacrifice-place of Ishmael" (not Isaac) see my
Pilgrimage (iii. 306). According to all Arab ideas Ishmael, being
the eldest son, was the chief of the family after his father. I
have noted that this is the old old quarrel between the Arabs and
their cousins the Hebrews.
[FN#104] This black-mail was still paid to the Badawin of Ramlah
(Alexandria) till the bombardment in 1881.
[FN#105] The famous Issus of Cilicia, now a port-village on the
Gulf of Scanderoon.
[FN#106] Arab. " Wada'á" = the concha veneris, then used as small
change.
[FN#107] Arab. "Sakati"=a dealer in "castaway" articles, such es
old metal,damaged goods, the pluck and feet of animals, etc.
[FN#108] The popular tale of Burckhardt's death in Cairo was that
the names of the three first Caliphs were found written upon his
slipper-soles and that he was put to death by decree of the Olema.
It is the merest nonsense, as the great traveller died of dysentery
in the house of my old friend John Thurburn and was buried outside
the Bab al-Nasr of Cairo where his tomb was restored by the late
Rogers Bey (Pilgrimage i. 123).
[FN#109] Prob. a mis-spelling for Arslán, in Turk. a lion, and in
slang a piastre.
[FN#110] Arab. "Maka'ad;" lit. = sitting-room.
[FN#111] Arab. "Khammárah"; still the popular term throughout
Egypt for a European Hotel. It is not always intended to be
insulting but it is, meaning the place where Franks meet to drink
forbidden drinks.
[FN#112] A reminiscence of Mohammed who cleansed the Ka'abah of
its 360 idols (of which 73 names are given by Freytag, Einleitung,
etc. pp. 270, 342-57) by touching them with his staff, whereupon
all fell to the ground; and the Prophet cried (Koran xvii. 84),
"Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: verily, falsehood is a
thing that vanisheth" (magna est veritas, etc.). Amongst the
"idols" are said to have been a statue of Abraham and the horns of
the ram sacrificed in lieu of Ishmael, which (if true) would prove
conclusively that the Abrahamic legend at Meccah is of ancient date
and not a fiction of Al-Islam. Hence, possibly, the respect of the
Judaising Tobbas of Hiwyarland for the Ka'abah. (Pilgrimage, iii.
295.)
[FN#113] This was evidently written by a Sunni as the Shí'ahs
claim to be the only true Moslems. Lane tells an opposite story
(ii. 329). It suggests the common question in the South of Europe,
"Are you a Christian or a Protestant?"
[FN#114] Arab. "Ana fí jírat-ak!" a phrase to be remembered as
useful in time of danger.
[FN#115] i.e. No Jinni, or Slave of the Jewel, was there to
answer.
[FN#116] Arab. "Kunsúl" (pron. "Gunsul") which here means a
well-to-do Frank, and shows the modern date of the tale as it
stands.
[FN#117] From the Ital. "Capitano." The mention of cannon and
other terms in this tale shows that either it was written during
the last century or it has been mishandled by copyists.
[FN#118] Arab. "Minínah"; a biscuit of flour and clarified butter.
[FN#119] Arab. "Waybah"; the sixth part of the Ardabb=6 to 7
English gallons.
[FN#120] He speaks in half-jest ŕ la fellah; and reminds us of
"Hangman, drive on the cart!"
[FN#121] Yochanan (whom Jehovah has blessed) Jewish for John, is
probably a copy of the Chaldean Euahanes, the Oannes of Berosus=Ea
Khan, Hea the fish. The Greeks made it Joannes; the Arabs "Yohanná"
(contracted to "Hanná," Christian) and "Yábyá" (Moslem). Prester
(Priest) John is probably Ung Khan, the historian prince conquered
and slain by Janghiz Khan in A.D. 1202. The modern history of
"John" is very extensive: there may be a full hundred varieties and
derivation' of the name. "Husn Maryam" the beauty (spiritual. etc.)
of the B.V.
[FN#122] Primarily being middle-aged; then aid, a patron, servant,
etc. Also a tribe of the Jinn usually made synonymous with "Márid,"
evil controuls, hostile to men: modern spiritualists would regard
them as polluted souls not yet purged of their malignity. The text
insinuates that they were at home amongst Christians and in Genoa.
[FN#123] Arab. "Sar'a" = epilepsy, falling sickness, of old always
confounded with "possession" (by evil spirits) or "obsession."
[FN#124] Again the true old charge of falsifying the so-called
"Sacred books." Here the Koran is called "Furkán." Sale (sect.
iii.) would assimilate this to the Hebr. "Perek" or "Pirka,"
denoting a section or portion of Scripture; but Moslems understand
it to be the "Book which distinguisheth (faraka, divided) the true
from the false." Thus Caliph Omar was entitled "Fárúk" = the
Distinguisher (between right and wrong). Lastly, "Furkán," meanings
as in Syr. and Ethiop. deliverance, revelation, is applied alike to
the Pentateuch and Koran.
[FN#125] Euphemistic for "thou shalt die."
[FN#126] Lit. "From (jugular) vein to vein" (Arab. "Waríd"). Our
old friend Lucretius again: "Tantane relligio," etc.
[FN#127] As opposed to the "but" or outer room.
[FN#128] Arab. "Darb al-Asfar" in the old Jamalíyah or Northern
part of Cairo.
[FN#129] A noble tribe of Badawin that migrated from Al-Yaman and
settled in Al-Najd Their Chief, who died a few years before
Mohammed's birth, was Al-Hatim (the "black crow"), a model of Arab
manliness and munificence; and although born in the Ignorance he
will enter Heaven with the Moslems. Hatim was buried on the hill
called Owárid: I have already noted this favourite practice of the
wilder Arabs and the affecting idea that the Dead may still look
upon his kith and kin. There is not an Arab book nor, indeed, a
book upon Arabia which does not contain the name of Hatim: he is
mentioned as unpleasantly often as Aristides.
[FN#130] Lord of "Cattle-feet," this King's name is unknown; but
the Kámús mentions two Kings called Zu 'l Kalá'a, the Greater and
the Less. Lane's Shaykh (ii. 333) opined that the man who demanded
Hatim's hospitality was one Abu'l-Khaybari.
[FN#131] The camel's throat, I repeat, is not cut as in the case
of other animals, the muscles being too strong: it is slaughtered
by the "nahr," i.e. thrusting a knife into the hollow at the
commissure of the chest. (Pilgrimage iii. 303.)
[FN#132] Adi became a Moslem and was one of the companions of the
Prophet.
[FN#133] A rival-in generosity to Hatim: a Persian poet praising
his patron's generosity says that it buried that of Hatim and
dimmed that of Ma'an (D'Herbelot). He was a high official-under the
last Ommiade, Marwán al-Himár (the "Ass," or the "Century," the
duration of Ommiade rule) who was routed and slain in A.H. 132=750.
Ma'an continued to serve under the Abbasides and was a favourite
with Al-Mansúr. "More generous or bountiful than Ka'ab" is another
saying (A. P., i. 325); Ka'ab ibn Mámah was a man who, somewhat
like Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen, gave his own portion of drink
while he was dying of thirst to a man who looked wistfully at him,
whence the saying "Give drink to thy brother the Námiri" (A. P., i.
608). Ka'ab could not mount, so they put garments over him to scare
away the wild beasts and left him in the desert to die. "Scatterer
of blessings" (Náshir al-Ni'am) was a title of King Malik of
Al-Yaman, son of Sharhabíl, eminent for his liberality. He set up
the statue in the Western Desert, inscribed "Nothing behind me," as
a warner to others.
[FN#134] Lane (ii. 352) here introduces, between Nights cclxxi.
and ccxc., a tale entitled in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 134) "The
Sleeper and the Waker," i.e. the sleeper awakened; and he calls it:
The Story of Abu-l-Hasan the Wag. It is interesting and founded
upon historical-fact; but it can hardly be introduced here without
breaking the sequence of The Nights. I regret this the more as Mr.
Alexander J. Cotheal-of New York has most obligingly sent me an
addition to the Breslau text (iv. 137) from his MS. But I hope
eventually to make use of it.
[FN#135] The first girl calls gold "Titer" (pure, unalloyed
metal); the second "Asjad" (gold generally) and the third "Ibríz"
(virgin ore, the Greek {Greek letters}. This is a law of Arab
rhetoric never to repeat the word except for a purpose and, as the
language can produce 1,200,000 (to 100,000 in English) the
copiousness is somewhat painful to readers.
[FN#136] Arab. "Shakes" before noticed.
[FN#137] Arab. "Kussá'á"=the curling cucumber: the vegetable is of
the cheapest and the poorer classes eat it as "kitchen" with bread.
[FN#138] Arab. "Haram-hu," a double entendre. Here the Barlawi
means his Harem the inviolate part of the house; but afterwards he
makes it mean the presence of His Honour.
[FN#139] Toledo? this tale was probably known to Washington
Irving. The "Land of Roum " here means simply Frank-land as we are
afterwards told that its name was Andalusia the old Vandal-land, a
term still applied by Arabs to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula.
[FN#140] Arab. "Amáim" (plur. of Imámah) the common word for
turband which I prefer to write in the old unclipt fashion. We got
it through the Port. Turbante and the old French Tolliban from the
(now obsolete) Persian term Dolband=a turband or a sash.
[FN#141] Sixth Ommiade Caliph, A.D. 705-716, from "Tárik" we have
"Gibraltar"=Jabal-al-Tárik.
[FN#142] Arab. "Yunán" = Ionia, applied to ancient Greece as
"Roum" is to the Grćco-Roman Empire.
[FN#143] Arab. "Bahramáni ;" prob. alluding to the well-known
legend of the capture of Somanath (Somnauth) from the Hindus by
Mahmud of Ghazni. In the Ajá'ib al-Hind (before quoted) the
Brahmins are called Abrahamah.
[FN#144] i.e. "Peace be with thee!"
[FN#145] i.e. in the palace when the hunt was over. The bluntness
and plain-speaking of the Badawi, which caused the revelation of
the Koranic chapter "Inner Apartments" (No. xlix.) have always been
favourite themes with Arab tale-tellers as a contrast with citizen
suavity and servility. Moreover the Badawi, besides saying what he
thinks, always tells the truth (unless corrupted by commerce with
foreigners); and this is a startling contrast with the townsfolk.
To ride out of Damascus and have a chat with the Ruwalá is much
like being suddenly transferred from amongst the trickiest of
Mediterranean people to the bluff society of the Scandinavian
North. And the reason why the Turk will never govern the Arab in
peace is that the former is always trying to finesse and to succeed
by falsehood, when the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth is wanted.
[FN#146] Koran. xvi. 112.
[FN#147] A common and expressive way of rewarding the tongue which
"spoke poetry." The Jewels are often pearls.
[FN#148] Ibrahim Abu Ishák bin al-Mahdi, a pretender to the
Caliphate of well known wit and a famed musician surnamed from his
corpulence "Al-Tannín"=the Dragon or, according to others (Lane ii.
336), "Al-Tin"= the fig. His adventurous history will be found in
Ibn Khallikan D'Herbelot and Al-Siyuti.
[FN#149] The Ragha of the Zendavesta, and Rages of the Apocrypha
(Tobit, Judith, etc.), the old capital-of Media Proper, and seat of
government of Daylam, now a ruin some miles south of Teheran which
was built out of its remains. Rayy was founded by Hoshang the
primeval-king who first sawed wood, made doors and dug metal. It is
called Rayy al-Mahdiyyah because Al-Mahdi held his court there.
Harun al-Rashid was also born in it (A.H. 145). It is mentioned by
a host of authors and names one of the Makamat of Al-Hariri.
[FN#150] Human blood being especially impure.
[FN#151] Jones, Brown and Robinson.
[FN#152] Arab. "Kumm ," the Moslem sleeve is mostly (like his
trousers) of ample dimensions and easily converted into a kind of
carpet-bag by depositing small articles in the middle and gathering
up the edge in the hand. In this way carried the weight would be
less irksome than hanging to the waist. The English of Queen Anne's
day had regular sleeve-pockets for memoranda, etc., hence the
saying, to have in one's sleeve.
[FN#153] Arab. "Khuff" worn under the "Bábúg" (a corruption of the
Persian pá-push=feet-covers, papooshes, slippers). [Lane M. E.
chaps. i.]
[FN#154] Done in hot weather throughout the city, a dry line for
camels being left in mid-street to prevent the awkward beasts
slipping. The watering of the Cairo streets of late years has been
excessive; they are now lines of mud in summer as well as in winter
and the effluvia from the droppings of animals have, combined with
other causes, seriously deteriorated the once charming climate. The
only place in Lower Egypt, which has preserved the atmosphere of
1850, is Suez.
[FN#155] Arab. "Hurák:" burnt rag, serving as tinder for flint and
steel, is a common styptic.
[FN#156] Of this worthy, something has been said and there will be
more in a future page.
[FN#157] i.e. the person entitled to exact the blood-wite.
[FN#158] Al-Maamum was a man of sense with all his fanaticism One
of his sayings is preserved "Odious is contentiousness in Kings,
more odious vexation in judges uncomprehending a case; yet more
odious is shallowness of doctors in religions and most odious are
avarice in the rich, idleness in youth, jesting in age and
cowardice in the soldier."
[FN#159] The second couplet is not in the Mac. Edit. but Lane's
Shaykh has supplied it (ii. 339)
[FN#160] Adam's loins, the "Day of Alast," and the Imam (who
stands before the people in prayer) have been explained. The
"Seventh Imam" here is Al-Maamun, the seventh Abbaside the Ommiades
being, as usual, ignored.
[FN#161] He sinned only for the pleasure of being pardoned, which
is poetical-and hardly practical-or probable.
[FN#162] The Katá (sand-grouse) always enters into Arab poetry
because it is essentially a desert bird, and here the comparison is
good because it lays its eggs in the waste far from water which it
must drink morning and evening. Its cry is interpreted "man sakat,
salam" (silent and safe), but it does not practice that precept,
for it is usually betrayed by its piping " Kata! Kata!" Hence the
proverb, "More veracious than the sand-grouse," and "speak not
falsely, for the Kata sayeth sooth," is Komayt's saying. It is an
emblem of swiftness: when the brigand poet Shanfara boasts, "The
ash-coloured Katas can drink only my leavings, after hastening all
night to slake their thirst in the morning," it is a hyperbole
boasting of his speed. In Sind it is called the "rock pigeon" and
it is not unlike a grey partridge when on the wing.
[FN#163] Joseph to his brethren, Koran, xii. 92, when he gives
them his "inner garment" to throw over his father's face.
[FN#164] Arab. "Hajjám"=a cupper who scarifies forehead and legs,
a bleeder, a (blood-) sucker. The slang use of the term is to
thrash, lick, wallop. (Burckhardt. Prov. 34.)
[FN#165] The Bresl. Edit. (vii. 171-174) entitles this tale,
"Story of Shaddád bin Ad and the City of Iram the Columned ;" but
it relates chiefly to the building by the King of the First Adites
who, being promised a future Paradise by Prophet Húd, impiously
said that he would lay out one in this world. It also quotes Ka'ab
al-Ahbár as an authority for declaring that the tale is in the
"Pentateuch of Moses." Iram was in al-Yaman near Adan (our Aden) a
square of ten parasangs (or leagues each= 18,000 feet) every way,
the walls were of red (baked) brick 500 cubits high and 20 broad,
with four gates of corresponding grandeur. It contained 300,000
Kasr (palaces) each with a thousand pillars of gold-bound jasper,
etc. (whence its title). The whole was finished in five hundred
years, and, when Shaddad prepared to enter it, the "Cry of Wrath"
from the Angel of Death slew him and all his many. It is mentioned
in the Koran (chaps. Ixxxix. 6-7) as "Irem adorned with lofty
buildings (or pillars)." But Ibn Khaldun declares that commentators
have embroidered the passage; Iram being the name of a powerful
clan of the ancient Adites and "imád" being a tent-pole: hence
"Iram with the numerous tents or tent-poles." Al-Bayzawi tells the
story of Abdullah ibn Kilabah (D'Herbelot's Colabah). At Aden I met
an Arab who had seen the mysterious city on the borders of
Al-Ahkáf, the waste of deep sands, west of Hadramaut; and probably
he had, the mirage or sun-reek taking its place. Compare with this
tale "The City of Brass" (Night dlxv.).
[FN#166] The biblical-"Sheba," named from the great-grandson of
Joctan, whence the Queen (Bilkis) visited Solomon It was destroyed
by the Flood of Márib.
[FN#167] The full title of the Holy City is "Madinat al-Nab)" =
the City of the Prophet, of old Yasrib (Yathrib) the Iatrippa of
the Greeks (Pilgrimage, ii. 119). The reader will remember that
there are two "Yasribs:" that of lesser note being near Hujr in the
Yamámah province.
[FN#168] "Ka'ab of the Scribes," a well-known traditionist and
religious poet who died (A.H. 32) in the Caliphate of Osman. He was
a Jew who islamised; hence his name (Ahbár, plur. of Hibr, a Jewish
scribe, doctor of science, etc. Jarrett's El-Siyuti, p. 123). He
must not be confounded with another Ka'ab al-Ahbár the Poet of the
(first) Cloak-poem or "Burdah," a noble Arab who was a distant
cousin of Mohammed, and whose tomb at Hums (Emesa) is a place of
pious visitation. According to the best authorities (no Christian
being allowed to see them) the cloak given to the bard by Mohammed
is still preserved together with the Khirkah or Sanjak Sherif
("Holy Coat" or Banner, the national oriflamme) at Stambul in the
Upper Seraglio. (Pilgrimage, i. 213.) Many authors repeat this
story of Mu'awiyah, the Caliph, and Ka'ab of the Burdah, but it is
an evident anachronism, the poet having been dead nine years before
the ruler's accession (A.H. 41).
[FN#169] Koran, lxxxix. 6-7.
[FN#170] Arab. "Kahramán" from Pers., braves, heroes.
[FN#171] The Deity in the East is as whimsical-a despot as any of
his "shadows" or "vice regents." In the text Shaddád is killed for
mere jealousy a base passion utterly unworthy of a godhead; but one
to which Allah was greatly addicted.
[FN#172] Some traditionist, but whether Sha'abi, Shi'abi or
Shu'abi we cannot decide.
[FN#173] The Hazarmaveth of Genesis (x. 26) in South Eastern
Arabia. Its people are the Adramitae (mod. Hazrami) of Ptolemy who
places in their land the Arabić Emporium, as Pliny does his
Massola. They border upon the Homeritć or men of Himyar, often
mentioned in The Nights. Hazramaut is still practically unknown to
us, despite the excursions of many travellers; and the hard nature
of the people, the Swiss of Arabia, offers peculiar obstacles to
exploration.
[FN#174] i.e. the prophet Hud generally identified (?) with Heber.
He was commissioned (Koran, chaps. vii.) to preach Al-Islam to his
tribe the Adites who worshipped four goddesses, Sákiyah (the
rain-giver), Rázikah (food-giver), Háfizah (the saviouress) and
Sálimah (who healed sickness). As has been seen he failed, so it
was useless to send him.
[FN#175] Son of Ibraham al-Mosili, a musician poet and favourite
with the Caliphs Harun al-Rashid and Al-Maamun. He made his name
immortal-by being the first who reduced Arab harmony to systematic
rules, and he wrote a biography of musicians referred to by
Al-Hariri in the Séance of Singar.
[FN#176] This must not be confounded with the "pissing against the
wall" of I Kings, xiv. 10, where watering against a wall denotes a
man as opposed to a woman.
[FN#177] Arab. "Zambíl" or "Zimbíl," a limp basket made of plaited
palm-leaves and generally two handled. It is used for many
purposes, from carrying poultry to carrying earth.
[FN#178] Here we have again the Syriac ''Bakhkh
-un-Bakhkh-un-''=well done! It is the Pers Áferín and means "all
praise be to him."
[FN#179] Arab. "A Tufayli?" So the Arab. Prov. (ii. 838) "More
intrusive than Tufayl" (prob. the P.N. of a notorious sponger). The
Badawin call "Wárish" a man who sits down to meat unbidden and to
drink Wághil; but townsfolk apply the latter to the "Wárish."
[FN#180] Arab. "Artál"=rotoli, pounds; and
"A pint is a pound
All the world round;"
except in highly civilised lands where the pint has a curious power
of shrinking.
[FN#181] One of Al-Maamun's Wazirs. The Caliph married his
daughter whose true name was Búrán; but this tale of girl's freak
and courtship was invented (?) by Ishak. For the splendour of the
wedding and the munificence of the Minister see Lane, ii. 350-352.
[FN#182] I have described this scene, the wretch clinging to the
curtain and sighing and crying as if his heart would break
(Pilgrimage iii. 216 and 220). The same is done at the place
Al-Multazam'"the attached to;" (ibid. 156) and various spots called
Al-Mustajáb, "where prayer is granted" (ibid. 162). At Jerusalem
the Wailing place of the Jews" shows queer scenes; the worshippers
embrace the wall with a peculiar wriggle crying out in Hebrew, "O
build Thy House, soon, without delay," etc.
[FN#183] i.e. The wife. The scene in the text was common at Cairo
twenty years ago; and no one complained of the stick. See
Pilgrimage i., 120.
[FN#184] Arab. "Udm, Udum" (plur. of Idám) = "relish," olives,
cheese, pickled cucumbers, etc.
[FN#185] I have noticed how the left hand is used in the East. In
the second couplet we have "Istinjá"=washing the fundament after
stool. The lines are highly appropriate for a nightman. Easterns
have many foul but most emphatic expressions like those in the text
I have heard a mother say to her brat, "I would eat thy merde!"
(i.e. how I love thee!).
[FN#186] Arab. "Harrák," whence probably our "Carack" and
"Carrack" (large ship), in dictionaries derived from Carrus
Marinus.
[FN#187] Arab. "Gháshiyah"=lit. an étui, a cover; and often a
saddle-cover carried by the groom.
[FN#188] Arab. "Sharáb al-tuffáh" = melapio or cider.
[FN#189] Arab. "Mudawwarah," which generally means a small round
cushion, of the Marocco-work well known in England. But one does
not strike a cushion for a signal, so we must revert to the
original-sense of the word "something round," as a circular plate
of wood or metal, a gong, a "bell" like that of the Eastern
Christians.
[FN#190] Arab. "Túfán" (from the root tauf, going round) a storm,
a circular gale, a cyclone the term universally applied in Al-lslam
to the "Deluge," the "Flood" of Noah. The word is purely Arabic;
with a quaint likeness to the Gr. {Greek letters}, in Pliny typhon,
whirlwind, a giant (Typhus) whence "Typhon" applied to the great
Egyptian god "Set." The Arab word extended to China and was given
to the hurricanes which the people call "Tee foong," great winds,
a second whimsical-resemblance. But Sir John Davis (ii. 383) is
hardly correct when he says, "the name typhoon, in itself a
corruption of the Chinese term, bears a singular (though we must
suppose an accidental) resemblance to the Greek {Greek letters}. "
[FN#191] Plurale majestatis acting superlative; not as Lane
supposes (ii. 224) "a number of full moons, not only one." Eastern
tongues abound in instances beginning with Genesis (i. 1), "Gods
(he) created the heaven," etc. It is still preserved in Badawi
language and a wildling greatly to the astonishment of the citizens
will address his friend "Yá Rijál"= O men!
[FN#192] Arab. "Hásid" = an envier: in the fourth couplet "Azúl"
(Azzál, etc.) = a chider, blamer; elsewhere "Lawwám" = accuser,
censor, slanderer; "Wáshí,"=whisperer, informer; "Rakib"=spying,
envious rival; "Ghábit"=one emulous without envy; and "Shámit"= a
"blue" (fierce) enemy who rejoices over another's calamities.
Arabic literature abounds in allusions to this unpleasant category
of "damned ill-natured friends;" and Spanish and Portuguese
letters, including Brazilian, have thoroughly caught the trick. In
the Eastern mind the "blamer" would be aided by the "evil eye."
[FN#193] Another plural for a singular, "O my beloved!"
[FN#194] Arab. "Khayr"=good news, a euphemistic reply even if the
tidings be of the worst.
[FN#195] Abbás (from 'Abs, being austere; and meaning the "grim
faced") son of Abd al-Muttalib; uncle to Mohammed and eponym of the
Abbaside Khalifahs. A.D. 749=1258.
[FN#196] Katíl = the Irish "kilt."
[FN#197] This hat been explained as a wazirial title of the time.
[FN#198] The phrase is intelligible in all tongues: in Arabic it
is opposed to "dark as night," "black as mud" and a host of
unsavoury antitheses.
[FN#199] Arab. "Awwádah," the popular word; not Udíyyah as in
Night cclvi. "Ud" liter.= rood and "Al-Ud"=the wood is, I have
noted, the origin of our 'lute." The Span. 'laud" is larger and
deeper than the guitar, and its seven strings are played upon with
a plectrum of buffalo-horn.
[FN#200] Arab. "Tabban lahu!"=loss (or ruin) to him. So "bu'dan
lahu"=away with him, abeat in malam rem; and "Suhkan lahu"=Allah
and mercy be far from him, no hope for him I
[FN#201] Arab. "Áyah"=Koranic verses, sign, miracle.
[FN#202] The mole on cheek calls to prayers for his preservation;
and it is black as Bilal the Abyssinian. Fajran may here mean
either "A.-morning" or "departing from grace."
[FN#203] i.e. the young beard (myrtle) can never hope to excel
tile beauties of his cheeks (roses).
[FN#204] i.e. Hell and Heaven.
[FN#205] The first couplet is not in the Mac. Edit. (ii. 171)
which gives only a single couplet but it is found in the Bres.
Edit. which entitles this tale "Story of the lying (or false kázib)
Khalífah." Lane (ii. 392) of course does not translate it.
[FN#206] In the East cloth of frieze that mates with cloth of gold
must expect this treatment. Fath Ali Shah's daughters always made
their husbands enter the nuptial-bed by the foot end.
[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'áni-há," 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 "Anbár" and pronounced "Ambár" 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 "Nigáristán" (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 'lláh (A.H. 295=907), made the damsel
Yamika President of the Diwán al-Mazálim (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 "Kátala k Allah"
(Allah slay thee) and "Lá abá 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-Nisáb"=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] Abú Sa'íd 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 "Nigáristán" 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. "Fúl al-hárr" = beans like horsebeans soaked and
boiled as opposed to the "Fúl 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. "Lá baas ba-zálik," conversational-for "Lá 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. "Sharárif" plur. of Shurráfah=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 Zunúj) is the Persian "Zany" or "Zangi," a black,
altered by the Arabs, who ignore the hard g; and, with the
suffixion of the Persian -bár (region, as in Malabar) we have Zang-
bar which the Arabs have converted to "Zanjibar," in poetry "Murk
al-Zunúj"=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. "Kawárib" plur. of "Kárib" 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 "Takádum"
(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. "'Ukáb," 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
Dijájat Far'aun or Pharaoh's hen. This bird has been known to kill
the Báshah 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 (Nisćtus Bonelli) which the Hindus call Morángá=peacock
slayer.
[FN#245] Here I translate "Nahás"=brass, as the "kumkum"
(cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.
[FN#246] Mansur al-Nimrí, a poet of the time and a protégé 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. "Armaníyah" 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 "Wakíl" 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. Ráh =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
"Shír." And this is how it is written in the Bresl. Edit., vii.
262. "Shár" 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. "Záka" = 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 "Khumásiyah" 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
Sudási (fem. Sudásiyah) 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 Zarká 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. "Hibál" (= ropes) alluding to the A'akál-fillet
which binds the Kúfiyah-kerchief on the Badawi's head. (Pilgrimage,
i. 346.)
[FN#268] Arab. "Khiyál"; afterwards called Kara Gyuz (= "black
eyes," from the celebrated Turkish Wazir). The mise-en-scčne 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 (Mishkát al-Masábih 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 káná bhaveta sádhus" 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 layáli," 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 "Développements, 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 Nasráni", 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, yá Nasráni!"
[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
málihin" we are bound together by the salt.
[FN#287] Arab. "Aláma" = Alá-má = 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.) Kazá for Kattan (cat).
[FN#290] i.e. "the Orthodox in the Faith." Ráshid is a proper
name, witness that scourge of Syria, Ráshid 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 'lláh !).
[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-nári 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. 'Kíl wa kál"=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. Yuván: and Lat.
Juvenis. The Kurd, in tales, is generally a sturdy thief; and in
real-life is little better.
[FN#299] Arab. "Yá 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.
[FN#304] Had he eaten it he would have become her guest. Amongst
the older Badawin it was sufficient to spit upon a man (in
entreaty) to claim his protection: so the horse-thieves when caught
were placed in a hole in the ground covered over with matting to
prevent this happening. Similarly Saladin (Saláh al-Din) the
chivalrous would not order a cup of water for the robber, Reynald
de Châtillon, before putting him to death
[FN#305] Arab. "Kishk" properly "Kashk"=wheat-meal-coarsely ground
and eaten with milk or broth. It is de rigueur with the Egyptian
Copts on the "Friday of Sorrow" (Good Friday): and Lane gives the
recipe for making it (M. E. chaps. xxvi.)
[FN#306] In those days distinctive of Moslems.
[FN#307] The euphemism has before been noticed: the Moslem reader
would not like to pronounce the words "I am a Nazarene." The same
formula occurs a little lower down to save the reciter or reader
from saying "Be my wife divorced," etc.
[FN#308] Arab, "Hájj," a favourite Egyptianism. We are wrong to
write Hajji which an Eastern would pronounce Háj-jí.
[FN#309] This is Cairene "chaff."
[FN#310] Whose shell fits very tight.
[FN#311] His hand was like a raven's because he ate with thumb and
two fingers and it came up with the rice about it like a camel's
hoof in dirty ground. This refers to the proverb (Burckhardt, 756),
"He comes down a crow-claw (small) and comes up a camel-hoof (huge
and round)."
[FN#312] Easterns have a superstitious belief in the powers of
food: I knew a learned man who never sat down to eat without a
ceremonious salam to his meat.
[FN#313] Lane (ii. 464), uses the vile Turkish corruption
"Rustum," which, like its fellow "Rustem," would make a Persian
shudder.
[FN#314] Arab. "Darrij" i.e. let them slide (Americanicč).
[FN#315] This tetrastich has occurred before: so I quote Mr. Payne
(in loco).
[FN#316] Shaykh of Al-Butnah and Jábiyah, therefore a Syrian of
the Hauran near Damascus and grandson to Isú (Esau). Arab mystics
(unlike the vulgar who see only his patience) recognise that
inflexible integrity which refuses to utter "words of wind" and
which would not, against his conscience, confess to wrong-doing
merely to pacify the Lord who was stronger than himself. The
Classics taught this noble lesson in the case of Prometheus versus
Zeus. Many articles are called after Job e.g. Ra'ará' Ayyub or
Ghubayrá (inula Arabica and undulata), a creeper with which he
rubbed himself and got well: the Copts do the same on "Job's
Wednesday," i.e. that before Whit Sunday O.S. Job's father is a
nickname of the camel, etc. etc.
[FN#317] Lane (in loco) renders "I am of their number." But "fí
al-siyák" means popularly "(driven) to the point of death."
[FN#318] Lit. = "pathway, road"; hence the bridge well known as
"finer than a hair and sharper than a sword," over which all
(except Khadijah and a chosen few) must pass on the Day of Doom; a
Persian apparatus bodily annexed by Al-Islam. The old Guebres
called it Puli Chinávar or Chinávad and the Jews borrowed it from
them as they did all their fancies of a future life against which
Moses had so gallantly fought. It is said that a bridge over the
grisly "brook Kedron" was called Sirát (the road) and hence the
idea, as that of hell-fire from Ge-Hinnom (Gehenna) where children
were passed through the fire to Moloch. A doubtful Hadis says, "The
Prophet declared Al-Sirát to be the name of a bridge over hell-
fire, dividing Hell from Paradise" (pp. 17, 122, Reynold's trans.
of Al-Siyuti's Traditions, etc.). In Koran i. 5, "Sirat" is simply
a path, from sarata, he swallowed, even as the way devours (makes
a lakam or mouthful of) those who travel it. The word was orig.
written with Sín but changed for easier articulation to Sád, one of
the four Hurúf al-Mutabbakát, "the flattened," formed by the
broadened tongue in contact with the palate. This Sad also by the
figure Ishmám (=conversion) turns slightly to a Zá, the
intermediate between Sin and Sad.
[FN#319] The rule in Turkey where catamites rise to the highest
rank: C'est un homme de bonne famille (said a Turkish officer in
Egypt) il a été acheté. Hence "Alfi" (one who costs a thousand) is
a well-known cognomen. The Pasha of the Syrian caravan, with which
I travelled' had been the slave of a slave and he was not a
solitary instance. (Pilgrimage i. 90.)
[FN#320] The device of the banquet is dainty enough for any old
Italian novella; all that now comes is pure Egyptian polissonnerie
speaking to the gallery and being answered by roars of laughter.
[FN#321] i.e. "art thou ceremonially pure and therefore fit for
handling by a great man like myself?"
[FN#322] In past days before Egypt was "frankified" many
overlanders used to wash away the traces of travel by a Turkish
bath which mostly ended in the appearance of a rump wriggling
little lad who offered to shampoo them. Many accepted his offices
without dreaming of his usual-use or misuse.
[FN#323] Arab. "Imám." This is (to a Moslem) a most offensive
comparison between prayer and car. cop.
[FN#324] Arab. "Fi zaman-hi," alluding to a peculiarity highly
prized by Egyptians; the use of the constrictor vaginć muscles, the
sphincter for which Abyssinian women are famous. The "Kabbázah" (
= holder), as she is called, can sit astraddle upon a man and can
provoke the venereal-orgasm, not by wriggling and moving but by
tightening and loosing the male member with the muscles of her
privities, milking it as it were. Consequently the cassenoisette
costs treble the money of other concubines. (Arranga-Ranga, p.
127.)
[FN#325] The little eunuchs had evidently studied the Harem.
[FN#326] Lane (ii. 494) relates from Al-Makrizi, that when
Khamárawayh, Governor of Egypt (ninth century), suffered from
insomnia, his physician ordered a pool of quicksilver 50 by 50
cubits, to be laid out in front of his palace, now the Rumaylah
square. "At the corners of the pool were silver pegs, to which were
attached by silver rings strong bands of silk, and a bed of skins,
inflated with air, being thrown upon the pool and secured by the
bands remained in a continual-state of agreeable vacillation." We
are not told that the Prince was thereby salivated like the late
Colonel Sykes when boiling his mercury for thermometric
experiments,
[FN#327] The name seems now unknown. "Al-Khahí'a" is somewhat
stronger than "Wag," meaning at least a "wicked wit." Properly it
is the Span. "perdido," a youth cast off (Khala') by his friends;
though not so strong a term as "Harfúsh"=a blackguard.
[FN#328] Arab. "Farsakh"=parasang.
[FN#329] Arab. "Nahás asfar"=yellow copper, brass as opposed to
Nahás ahmar=copper The reader who cares to study the subject will
find much about it in my "Book of The Sword," chaps. iv.
[FN#330] Lane (ii. 479) translates one stanza of this mukhammas
(pentastich) and speaks of "five more," which would make six.
[FN#331] A servile name. Delicacy, Elegance.
[FN#332] These verses have occurred twice (Night ix. etc.): so I
give Lane's version (ii. 482).
[FN#333] A Badawi tribe to which belonged the generous Ma'an bin
Za'idab, often mentioned The Nights.
[FN#334] Wealthy harems, I have said, are hot-beds of Sapphism and
Tribadism. Every woman past her first youth has a girl whom she
calls her "Myrtle" (in Damascus). At Agbome, capital-of Dahome, I
found that a troop of women was kept for the use of the "Amazons"
(Mission to Gelele, ii. 73). Amongst the wild Arabs, who ignore
Socratic and Sapphic perversions, the lover is always more jealous
of his beloved's girl-friends than of men rivals. In England we
content ourselves with saying that women corrupt women more than
men do.
[FN#335] The Hebrew Pentateuch; Roll of the Law.
[FN#336] I need hardly notice the brass trays, platters and
table-covers with inscriptions which are familiar to every reader:
those made in the East for foreign markets mostly carry imitation
inscriptions lest infidel eyes fall upon Holy Writ.
[FN#337] These six distichs are in Night xiii. I borrow Torrens
(p. 125) to show his peculiar treatment of spinning out 12 lines to
38.
[FN#338] Arab. "Musámirah"=chatting at night. Easterns are
inordinately fond of the practice and the wild Arabs often sit up
till dawn, talking over the affairs of the tribe, indeed a Shaykh
is expected to do so. "Early to bed and early to rise" is a
civilised, not a savage or a barbarous saying. Samír is a companion
in night talk; Rafík of the road; Rahíb in riding horse or camel,
Ká'id in sitting, Sharíb and Rafís at drink, and Nadím at table:
Ahíd is an ally. and Sharík a partner all on the model of "Fa'íl."
[FN#339] In both lover and beloved the excess of love gave them
this clairvoyance.
[FN#340] The prayer will be granted for the excess (not the
purity) of her love.
[FN#341] This wailing over the Past is one of the common-places of
Badawi poetry. The traveller cannot fail, I repeat, to notice the
chronic melancholy of peoples dwelling under the brightest skies.
[FN#342] Moons=Budúr
[FN#343] in Paradise as a martyr.
[FN#344] i.e. to intercede for me in Heaven; as if the young woman
were the prophet.
[FN#345] The comparison is admirable as the two letters are
written. It occurs in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Ramlah).
"So I embraced him close as Lám cleaves to Alif:"
And again;
"She laid aside reluctance and I embraced her close
As if I were Lam and my love Alif."
The Lomad Olaph in Syriac is similarly colligated.
[FN#346] Here is a double entendre "and the infirm letters (viz.
a, w and y) not subject to accidence, left him." The three make up
the root "Awi"=pitying, condoling.
[FN#347] Showing that consummation had taken place. It was a sign
of good breeding to avoid all "indecent hurry" when going to bed.
In some Moslem countries the bridegroom does not consummate the
marriage for seven nights; out of respect for (1) father (2) mother
(3) brother and so forth. If he hurry matters he will be hooted as
an "impatient man" and the wise will quote, "Man is created of
precipitation" (Koran chaps. xxi. 38), meaning hasty and
inconsiderate. I remark with pleasure that the whole of this tale
is told with commendable delicacy. O si sic omnia!
[FN#348] Pers. "Nauroz"(=nau roz, new day):here used in the Arab.
plur.'Nawáriz, as it lasted six days. There are only four:
universal-festivals; the solstices and the equinoxes; and every
successive religion takes them from the sun and perverts them to
its own private purposes. Lane (ii. 496) derives the venerable
Nauroz whose birth is hid in the outer glooms of antiquity from the
"Jewish Passover"(!)
[FN#349] Again the "babes" of the eyes.
[FN#350] i.e. whose glance is as the light of the glowing braise
or (embers). The Arab. "Mikbás"=pan or pot full of small charcoal,
is an article well known in Italy and Southern Europe. The word is
apparently used here because it rhymes with "Anfás" (souls,
spirits).
[FN#351] i.e. martyrdom; a Koranic term "fi sabíli 'llahi" = on
the way of Allah
[FN#352] These rhymes in -y, -ee and -ie are purposely affected,
to imitate the cadence of the Arabic.
[FN#353] Arab. "Sujúd," the ceremonial-prostration, touching the
ground with the forehead So in the Old Testament "he bowed (or fell
down) and worshipped" (Gen. xxiv., 26 Mat. ii., 11), of which our
translation gives a wrong idea.
[FN#354] A girl is called "Alfiyyah " = A-shaped.
[FN#355] i.e. the medial-form of m.
[FN#356] i.e. the inverted n.
[FN#357] It may also mean a "Sevigné of pearls."
[FN#358] Koran xxvii. 12. This was one of the nine "signs" to
wicked "Pharaoh." The "hand of Moses" is a symbol of power and
ability (Koran vii. 105). The whiteness was supernatural-beauty,
not leprosy of the Jews (Exod. iv. 6); but brilliancy, after being
born red or black: according to some commentators, Moses was a
negro.
[FN#359] Koran iii. 103; the other faces become black. This
explains I have noticed the use of the phrases in blessing and
cursing.
[FN#360] Here we have the naked legend of the negro's origin, one
of those nursery tales in which the ignorant of Christendom still
believe But the deduction from the fable and the testimony to the
negro's lack of intelligence, though unpleasant to our ignorant
negrophils, are factual-and satisfactory.
[FN#361] Koran, xcii. 1, 2: an oath of Allah to reward and punish
with Heaven and Hell.
[FN#362] Alluding to the "black drop" in the heart: it was taken
from Mohammed's by the Archangel Gabriel. The fable seems to have
arisen from the verse ' Have we not opened thy breast?" (Koran,
chaps. xciv. 1). The popular tale is that Halímah, the Badawi nurse
of Mohammed, of the Banu Sa'ad tribe, once saw her son, also a
child, running towards her and asked him what was the matter. He
answered, 'My little brother was seized by two men in white who
stretched him on the ground and opened his bellyl" For a full
account and deductions see the Rev. Mr. Badger's article,
"Muhammed" (p. 959) in vol. in. "Dictionary of Christian
Biography."
[FN#363] Arab. "Sumr," lit. brown (as it is afterwards used), but
politely applied to a negro: "Yá Abu Sumrah!" O father of
brownness.
[FN#364] Arab. 'Lumá"=dark hue of the inner lips admired by the
Arabs and to us suggesting most umpleasant ideas. Mr. Chenery
renders it "dark red,' and "ruddy" altogether missing the idea.
[FN#365] Arab. "Saudá," feminine of aswad (black), and meaning
black bile (melancholia) as opposed to leucocholia,
[FN#366] i.e. the Magians, Sabians, Zoroastrians.
[FN#367] The "Unguinum fulgor" of the Latins who did not forget to
celebrate the shining of the nails although they did not Henna them
like Easterns. Some, however, have suggested that
alludes to colouring matter.
[FN#368] Women with white skins are supposed to be heating and
unwholesome: hence the Hindu Rajahs slept with dark girls in the
hot season.
[FN#369] Moslems sensibly have a cold as well as a hot Hell, the
former called Zamharir (lit. "intense cold")or AI-Barahút, after a
well in Hazramaut; as Gehenna (Arab. "Jahannam") from the
furnace-like ravine East of Jerusalem (Night cccxxv.). The icy Hell
is necessary in terrorem for peoples who inhabit cold regions and
who in a hot Hell only look forward to an eternity of "coals and
candles" gratis. The sensible missionaries preached it in Iceland
till foolishly forbidden by Papal-Bull.
[FN#370] Koran ii. 26; speaking of Abraham when he entertained the
angels unawares.
[FN#371] Arab. "Rakb," usually applied to a fast-going caravan of
dromedary riders (Pilgrimage ii. 329). The "Cafilah" is Arab.:
"Caravan" is a corruption of the Pers. "Karwán."
[FN#372] A popular saying. It is interesting to contrast this
dispute between fat and thin with the Shakespearean humour of
Falstaff and Prince Henry.
[FN#373] Arab. "Dalak" vulg. Hajar al-Hammam (Hammam-stone). The
comparison is very apt: the rasps are of baked clay artificially
roughened (see illustrations in Lane M. E. chaps. xvi.). The rope
is called "Masad," a bristling line of palm-fibre like the coir now
familiarly known in England.
[FN#374] Although the Arab's ideal-of beauty, as has been seen and
said, corresponds with ours the Egyptians (Modern) the Maroccans
and other negrofied races like "walking tun-butts" as Clapperton
called his amorous widow.
[FN#375] Arab. "Khayzar" or "Khayzarán" the rattan-palm. Those who
have seen this most graceful "palmijuncus" in its native forest
will recognize the neatness of the simile.
[FN#376] This is the popular idea of a bushy "veil of nature" in
women: it is always removed by depilatories and vellication. When
Bilkis Queen of Sheba discovered her legs by lifting her robe
(Koran xxvii.), Solomon was minded to marry her, but would not do
so till the devils had by a depilatory removed the hair. The
popular preparation (called Núrah) consists of quicklime 7 parts,
and Zirník or orpiment, 3 parts: it is applied in the Hammam to a
perspiring skin, and it must be washed off immediately the hair is
loosened or it burns and discolours. The rest of the body-pile
(Sha'arat opp. to Sha'ar=hair) is eradicated by applying a mixture
of boiled honey with turpentine or other gum, and rolling it with
the hand till the hair comes off. Men I have said remove the pubes
by shaving, and pluck the hair of the arm-pits, one of the vestiges
of pre-Adamite man. A good depilatory is still a desideratum, the
best perfumers of London and Paris have none which they can
recommend. The reason is plain: the hair bulb can be eradicated
only by destroying the skin.
[FN#377] Koran, ii. 64: referring to the heifer which the Jews
were ordered to sacrifice,
[FN#378] Arab. "kallá," a Koranic term possibly from Kull (all)
and lá (not) =prorsus non-altogether not!
[FN#379] "Habáb" or "Habá," the fine particles of dust, which we
call motes. The Cossid (Arab. "Kásid") is the Anglo-Indian term for
a running courier (mostly under Government), the Persian "Shátir"
and the Guebre Rávand.
[FN#380] Arab. "Sambari" a very long thin lance so called after
Samhar, the maker, or the place of making. See vol. ii. p. 1. It is
supposed to cast, when planted in the ground, a longer shadow in
proportion to its height, than any other thing of the kind.
[FN#381] Arab. "Suláfah ;" properly prisane which flows from the
grapes before pressure. The plur. "Sawálif" also means tresses of
hair and past events: thus there is a "triple entendre." And again
"he" is used for "she."
[FN#382] There is a pun in the last line, "Khálun (a mole)
khallauni" (rid me), etc.
[FN#383] Of old Fustát, afterwards part of Southern Cairo, a
proverbially miserable quarter hence the saying, "They quoted Misr
to Káhirah (Cairo), whereon Bab al-Luk rose with its grass," in
derision of nobodies who push themselves forward. Burckhardt, Prov.
276.
[FN#384] Its fruits are the heads of devils; a true Dantesque
fancy. Koran, chaps. xvii. 62, "the tree cursed in the Koran" and
in chaps. xxxvii., 60, "is this better entertainment, or the tree
of Al-Zakkúm?" Commentators say that it is a thorn bearing a bitter
almond which grows in the Tehamah and was therefore promoted to
Hell.
[FN#385] Arab. "Lasm" (lathm) as opposed to Bausah or boseh (a
buss) and Kublah (a kiss,
[FN#386] Arab. "Jufún" (plur. of Jafn) which may mean eyebrows or
eyelashes and only the context can determine which.
[FN#387] Very characteristic of Egyptian manners is the man who
loves six girls equally well, who lends them, as it were, to the
Caliph; and who takes back the goods as if in no wise damaged by
the loan.
[FN#388] The moon is masculine possibly by connection with the
Assyrian Lune-god "Sin"; but I can find no cause for the Sun
(Shams) being feminine.
[FN#389] Arab. "Al-Amin," a title of the Prophet. It is usually
held that this proud name "The honest man," was applied by his
fellow-citizens to Mohammed in early life; and that in his
twenty-fifth year, when the Eighth Ka'abah was being built, it
induced the tribes to make him their umpire concerning the
distinction of placing in position the "Black Stone" which Gabriel
had brought from Heaven to be set up as the starting-post for the
seven circuitings. He distributed the honour amongst the clans and
thus gave universal satisfaction. His Christian biographers mostly
omit to record an anecdote which speaks so highly in Mohammed's
favour. (Pilgrimage iii. 192.)
[FN#390] The idea is that Abu Nowas was a thought-reader such
being the prerogative of inspired poets in the East. His
drunkenness and debauchery only added to his power. I have already
noticed that "Allah strike thee dead" (Kátala-k Allah) is like our
phrase "Confound the fellow, how clever he is."
[FN#391] Again said facetiously, "Devil take you!"
[FN#392] In all hot-damp countries it is necessary to clothe dogs,
morning and evening especially: otherwise they soon die of
rheumatism and loin disease.
[FN#393] =Beatrice. A fragment of these lines is in Night cccxv.
See also Night dcclxxxi.
[FN#394] The Moslems borrowed the horrible idea of a "jealous God"
from their kinsmen, the Jews. Every race creates its own Deity
after the fashion of itself: Jehovah is distinctly a Hebrew, the
Christian Theos is originally a Judćo-Greek and Allah a half-Badawi
Arab. In this tale Allah, despotic and unjust, brings a generous
and noble-minded man to beggary, simply because he fed his dogs off
gold plate. Wisdom and morality have their infancy and youth: the
great value of such tales as these is to show and enable us to
measure man's development.
[FN#395] In Trébutien (Lane ii. 501) the merchant says to
ex-Dives, "Thou art wrong in charging Destiny with injustice. If
thou art ignorant of the cause of thy ruin I will acquaint thee
with it. Thou feddest the dogs in dishes of gold and leftest the
poor to die of hunger." A superstition, but intelligible.
[FN#396] Arab. "Sarráf" = a money changer.
[FN#397] Arab. "Birkah," a common feature in the landscapes of
Lower Egypt: it is either a natural-pool left by the overflow of
the Nile; or, as in the text, a built-up tank, like the "Táláb" for
which India is famous. Sundry of these Birkahs are or were in Cairo
itself; and some are mentioned in The Nights.
[FN#398] This sneer at the "military" and the "police" might come
from an English convict's lips.
[FN#399] Lit. "The conquering King;" a dynastic title assumed by
Saláh al-Dín (Saladin) and sundry of the Ayyúbi (Eyoubite)
sovereigns of Egypt, whom I would call the "Soldans."
[FN#400] "Káhirah" (i.e. City of Mars the Planet) is our Cairo:
Bulak is the port suburb on the Nile, till 1858 wholly disjoined
from the City; and Fostat is the outlier popularly called Old
Cairo. The latter term is generally translated "town of leathern
tents;" but in Arabic "fustát" is an abode of Sha'ar=hair, such as
horse-hair, in fact any hair but "Wabar"=soft hair, as the camel's.
See Lane, Lex.
[FN#401] Arab. "Adl"=just: a legal-witness to whose character
there is no tangible objection a prime consideration in Moslem law.
Here "Adl" is evidently used ironically for a hypocritical-rascal
[FN#402] Lane (ii. 503) considers three thousand dinars (the
figure in the Bres. Edit.) "a more probable sum." Possibly: but, I
repeat, exaggeration is one of the many characteristics of The
Nights.
[FN#403] Calc. Edit. "Kazir:" the word is generally written
"Kazdír," Sansk. Kastira, born probably from the Greek .
[FN#404] This would have passed for a peccadillo in the "good old
days." As late as 1840 the Arnaut soldiers used to "pot" any
peasant who dared to ride (instead of walking) past their barracks.
Life is cheap in hot countries.
[FN#405] Koran, xii. 46 -- a passage expounding the doctrine of
free will: "He who doth right doth it to the advantage of his own
soul; and he who doth evil, doth it against the same; for thy
Lord," etc.
[FN#406] Arab. "Suffah"; whence our Sofa. In Egypt it is a raised
shelf generally of stone, about four feet high and headed with one
or more arches. It is an elaborate variety of the simple "Ták" or
niche, a mere hollow in the thickness of the wall. Both are used
for such articles as basin. ewer and soap; coffee cups, water
bottles etc.
[FN#407] In Upper Egypt (Apollinopolis Parva) pronounced "Goos,"
the Coptic Kos-Birbir, once an emporium of the Arabian trade.
[FN#408] This would appeal strongly to a pious Moslem.
[FN#409] i.e. "the father of a certain person"; here the merchant
whose name may have been Abu'l Hasan, etc. The useful word
(thingumbob, what d'ye call him, donchah, etc.) has been bodily
transferred into Spanish and Portuguese Fulano. It is of old
genealogy, found in the Heb. Fuluní which applies to a person only
in Ruth iv. I, but is constantly so employed by Rabbinic writers.
The Greek use {Greek letters}.
[FN#410] Lit. "by his (i.e. her) hand," etc. Hence Lane (ii. 507)
makes nonsense of the line.
[FN#411] Arab. "Badrah," as has been said, is properly a weight of
10,000 dirhams or drachmas; but popularly used for largesse thrown
to the people at festivals.
[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 (Sirát), 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. "Banú Israíl;" 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 (Matrúk) even
as the mission of Jesus was completed and abrogated by that of
M
