The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IV Part 25

[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'ani-ha," 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 pet.i.tions 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 "Anbar" and p.r.o.nounced "Ambar" 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 "Nigaristan" (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 'llah (A.H. 295=907), made the damsel Yamika President of the Diwan al-Mazalim (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. Ba.s.sorah 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 "Katala k Allah"

(Allah slay thee) and "La aba 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-Nisab"=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] Abu Sa'id 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-Ras.h.i.+d.

[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 "Nigaristan" 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. "Ful al-harr" = beans like horsebeans soaked and boiled as opposed to the "Ful Mudammas" (esp. of Egypt)=unsh.e.l.led 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 p.r.o.nunciation, 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 a.s.s, which eats beans, is degenerate from the wild a.s.s, 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 princ.i.p.al-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 bakhs.h.i.+s.h.!.+" 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 quant.i.ties of pottery, but no China.

The same has lately been done at Clysma, the artificial-mound near Suez, and the gla.s.s and pottery prove it to have been a Roman work which defended the mouth of the old cla.s.sical-sweet-water ca.n.a.l.

[FN#228] Arab. "La baas ba-zalik," conversational-for "La 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. Steinga.s.s suggests a clerical-error for "khazar" (green).

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

[FN#231] p.r.o.nounce 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 sh.o.r.e These blacks would hardly be held " sons of Adam." "Zanj " corrupted to "Zinj " (plur Zunuj) is the Persian "Zany" or "Zangi," a black, altered by the Arabs, who ignore the hard g; and, with the suffixion of the Persian -bar (region, as in Malabar) we have Zang- bar which the Arabs have converted to "Zanjibar," in poetry "Murk al-Zunuj"=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. "Kawarib" plur. of "Karib" prop. a dinghy, a small boat belonging to a s.h.i.+p Here it refers to the canoe (a Carib word) pop. "dug-out" and cla.s.sically "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 t.i.tle 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 "Takadum"

(priority in time).

[FN#237] Lane (ii. 427) gives a pleasant Eastern ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.d,"

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-b.u.t.t) 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 Liba.n.u.s still hold that part of their nation is in the depths of the Celestial-Empire.

[FN#242] I am unwilling to alter the old t.i.tle 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 bra.s.s (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. "'Ukab," 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. Gingia.n.u.s (Latham), the Dijajat Far'aun or Pharaoh's hen. This bird has been known to kill the Bashah 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 (Nisaetus Bonelli) which the Hindus call Moranga=peac.o.c.k slayer.

[FN#245] Here I translate "Nahas"=bra.s.s, as the "k.u.mk.u.m"

(cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.

[FN#246] Mansur al-Nimri, a poet of the time and a protege 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-Ras.h.i.+d. The Bres.