The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IV Part 23

[FN#118] Arab. "Mininah"; a biscuit of flour and clarified b.u.t.ter.

[FN#119] Arab. "Waybah"; the sixth part of the Ardabb=6 to 7 English gallons.

[FN#120] He speaks in half-jest a 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 "Yohanna"

(contracted to "Hanna," Christian) and "Yabya" (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 "Marid,"

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 "Furkan." Sale (sect.

iii.) would a.s.similate 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 ent.i.tled "Faruk" = the Distinguisher (between right and wrong). Lastly, "Furkan," 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. "Warid"). 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 Jamaliyah or Northern part of Cairo.

[FN#129] A n.o.ble 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 Owarid: 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 Kamus mentions two Kings called Zu 'l Kala'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, Marwan al-Himar (the "a.s.s," 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-Mansur. "More generous or bountiful than Ka'ab" is another saying (A. P., i. 325); Ka'ab ibn Mamah 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 Namiri" (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" (Nas.h.i.+r al-Ni'am) was a t.i.tle of King Malik of Al-Yaman, son of Sharhabil, 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 ent.i.tled 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 "t.i.ter" (pure, unalloyed metal); the second "Asjad" (gold generally) and the third "Ibriz"

(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. "Kussa'a"=the curling cuc.u.mber: the vegetable is of the cheapest and the poorer cla.s.ses 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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. "Amaim" (plur. of Imamah) the common word for turband which I prefer to write in the old unclipt fas.h.i.+on. 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 "Tarik" we have "Gibraltar"=Jabal-al-Tarik.

[FN#142] Arab. "Yunan" = Ionia, applied to ancient Greece as "Roum" is to the Graeco-Roman Empire.

[FN#143] Arab. "Bahramani ;" prob. alluding to the well-known legend of the capture of Somanath (Somnauth) from the Hindus by Mahmud of Ghazni. In the Aja'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 Ruwala 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 Ishak bin al-Mahdi, a pretender to the Caliphate of well known wit and a famed musician surnamed from his corpulence "Al-Tannin"=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-Ras.h.i.+d 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. "k.u.mm ," 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 "Babug" (a corruption of the Persian pa-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. "Hurak:" 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 ent.i.tled 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.