The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VI Part 14

[FN#79] These underground rivers (which Dr. Livingstone derided) are familiar to every geographer from Spenser's "Mole" to the Poika of Adelberg and the Timavo near Trieste. Hence "Peter Wilkins" borrowed his cavern which let him to Grandevolet. I have some experience of Sindbad's sorrows, having once attempted to descend the Poika on foot. The Cla.s.sics had the Alpheus (Pliny v.

31; and Seneca, Nat. Quae. vi.), and the Tigris-Euphrates supposed to flow underground: and the Mediaevals knew the Abana of Damascus and the Zenderud of Isfahan.

[FN#80] Abyssinians can hardly be called "blackamoors," but the arrogance of the white skin shows itself in Easterns (e.g. Turks and Brahmans) as much as, if not more than, amongst Europeans.

Southern India at the time it was explored by Vasco da Gama was crowded with Abyssinian slaves imported by the Arabs.

[FN#81] "Sarandib" and "Ceylon" (the Taprobane of Ptolemy and Diodorus Siculus) derive from the Pali "Sihalam" (not the Sansk.

"Sinhala") shortened to Silam and Ilam in old Tamul. Van der Tunk would find it in the Malay "Pulo Selam"=Isle of Gems (the Ratna- dwipa or Jewel Isle of the Hindus and the Jazirat al-Yakut or Ruby-Island of the Arabs); and the learned Colonel Yule (Marco Polo ii 296) remarks that we have adopted many Malayan names, e.g. Pegu, China and j.a.pan. Sarandib is clearly "Selan-dwipa,"

which Mandeville reduced to "Silha."

[FN#82] This is the well-known Adam's Peak, the Jabal al-Ramun of the Arabs where Adam fell when cast out of Eden in the lowest or lunar sphere. Eve fell at Jeddah (a modern myth) and the unhappy pair met at Mount Arafat (i.e. recognition) near Meccah. Thus their fall was a fall indeed. (Pilgrimage iii. 259.)

[FN#83] He is the Alcinous of our Arabian Odyssey.

[FN#84] This word is not in the dictionaries; Hole (p. 192) and Lane understand it to mean the hog-deer; but why, one cannot imagine. The animal is neither "beautiful" nor "uncommon" and most men of my day have shot dozens in the Sind-s.h.i.+kargahs.

[FN#85] M. Polo speaks of a ruby in Seilan (Ceylon) a palm long and three fingers thick: William of Tyre mentions a ruby weighing twelve Egyptian drams (Gibbon ii. 123), and Mandeville makes the King of Mammera wear about his neck a "rubye orient" one foot long by five fingers large.

[FN#86] The fable is from Al-Kazwini and Ibn Al-Wardi who place the serpent (an animal sacred to aesculapius, Pliny, xxix. 4) "in the sea of Zanj" (i.e. Zanzibar). In the "garrow hills" of N.

Eastern Bengal the skin of the snake Burrawar (?) is held to cure pain. (Asiat. Res. vol. iii.)

[FN#87] For "Emerald," Hole (p. 177) would read emery or adamantine spar.

[FN#88] Evidently Maharaj=Great Rajah, Rajah in Chief, an Hindu t.i.tle common to the three potentates before alluded to, the Narsinga, Balhara or Samiry.

[FN#89] This is probably cla.s.sical. So the page said to Philip of Macedon every morning, "Remember, Philip, thou art mortal"; also the slave in the Roman Triumph,

"Respice poste te: hominem te esse memento!"

And the dying Severus, "Urnlet, soon shalt thou enclose what hardly a whole world could contain." But the custom may also have been Indian: the contrast of external pomp with the real vanity of human life suggests itself to all.

[FN#90] Arab. "Hut"; a term applied to Jonah's whale and to monsters of the deep, "Samak" being the common fishes.

[FN#91] Usually a two-bow prayer.

[FN#92] This is the recognised formula of Moslem sales.

[FN#93] Arab. "Walimah"; like our wedding-breakfast but a much more ceremonious and important affair.

[FN#94] i.e. his wife (euphemistically). I remember an Italian lady being much hurt when a Maltese said to her "Mia moglie con rispetto parlando" (my wife, saving your presence). "What," she cried, "he speaks of his wife as he would of the sweepings!"

[FN#95] The serpent in Arabic is mostly feminine.

[FN#96] i.e. in envying his wealth, with the risk of the evil eye.

[FN#97] I subjoin a translation of the Seventh Voyage from the Calc. Edit. of the two hundred Nights which differs in essential points from the above. All respecting Sindbad the Seaman has an especial interest. In one point this world-famous tale is badly ordered. The most exciting adventures are the earliest and the falling off of the interest has a somewhat depressing effect. The Rukh, the Ogre and the Old Man o' the Sea should come last.

[FN#98] Arab. "Al-Suways:" this successor of ancient Arsinoe was, according to local tradition, founded by a Santon from Al-Sus in Marocco who called it after his name "Little Sus" (the wormlet).

[FN#99] Arab. "Mann," a weight varying from two to six pounds: even this common term is not found in the tables of Lane's Mod.

Egyptians, Appendix B. The "Maund" is a well-known Anglo-Indian weight.

[FN#100] This article is not mentioned elsewhere in The Nights.

[FN#101] Apparently a fancy t.i.tle.

[FN#102] The island is evidently Ceylon, long famed for elephants, and the tree is the well known "Banyan" (Ficus Indica). According to Linschoten and Wolf, the elephants of all lands do reverence and honour to those of Ceylon.

[FN#103] "Tusks" not "teeth" which are not valued. As Hole remarks, the elephants of Pliny and Sindbad are equally conscious of the value of ivory. Pliny (viii. 3) quotes Herodotus about the buying of ivories and relates how elephants, when hunted, break their "cornua" (as Juba called them) against a tree trunk by way of ransom. aelian, Plutarch, and Philostratus speak of the linguistic intelligence and religious wors.h.i.+p of the "half-reason with the hand," which the Hindus term "Hathi"=unima.n.u.s. Finally, Topsell's Gesner (p. 152) makes elephants bury their tusks, "which commonly drop out every tenth year." In Arabian literature the elephant is always connected with India.

[FN#104] This is a true "City of Bra.s.s." (Nuhas asfar=yellow copper), as we learn in Night dcclxxii. It is situated in the "Maghrib" (Mauritania), the region of magic and mystery; and the idea was probably suggested by the grand Roman ruins which rise abruptly from what has become a sandy waste. Compare with this tale "The City of Bra.s.s" (Night cclxxii.). In Egypt Nuhas is vulg. p.r.o.nounced Nihas.

[FN#105] The Bresl. Edit. adds that the seal-ring was of stamped stone and iron, copper and lead. I have borrowed copiously from its vol. vi. pp. 343, et seq.

[FN#106] As this was a well-known pre-Islamitic bard, his appearance here is decidedly anachronistic, probably by intention.

[FN#107] The first Moslem conqueror of Spain whose lieutenant, Tarik, the gallant and unfortunate, named Gibraltar (Jabal al- Tarik).

[FN#108] The colours of the Banu Umayyah (Ommiade) Caliphs were white, of the Banu Abbas (Abbasides) black, and of the Fatimites green. Carrying the royal flag denoted the generalissimo or plenipotentiary.

[FN#109] i.e. Old Cairo, or Fustat: the present Cairo was then a Coptic village founded on an old Egyptian settlement called Lui- Tkeshroma, to which belonged the tanks on the hill and the great well, Bir Yusuf, absurdly attributed to Joseph the Patriarch. Lui is evidently the origin of Levi and means a high priest (Brugsh ii. 130) and his son's name was Roma.

[FN#110] I cannot but suspect that this is a clerical error for "Al-Samanhudi," a native of Samanhud (Wilkinson's "s.e.m.e.nood") in the Delta on the Damietta branch, the old Sebennytus (in Coptic Jem-nuti=Jem the G.o.d), a town which has produced many distinguished men in Moslem times. But there is also a Samhud lying a few miles down stream from Denderah and, as its mounds prove, it is an ancient site.

[FN#111] Egypt had not then been conquered from the Christians.

[FN#112] Arab. "Kizan f.u.kka'a," i.e. thin and slightly porous earthenware jars used for f.u.kka'a, a fermented drink, made of barley or raisins.

[FN#113] I retain this venerable blunder: the right form is Samum, from Samm, the poison-wind.

[FN#114] i.e. for wors.h.i.+p and to prepare for futurity.

[FN#115] The camel carries the Badawi's corpse to the cemetery which is often distant: hence to dream of a camel is an omen of death.

[FN#116] Koran xxiv 39. The word "Sarab" (mirage) is found in Isaiah (x.x.xv. 7) where the pa.s.sage should be rendered "And the mirage (sharab) shall become a lake" (not, "and the parched ground shall become a pool"). The Hindus prettily call it "Mrigatrishna" = the thirst of the deer.

[FN#117] A name of Allah.

[FN#118] Arab. "Kintar"=a hundredweight (i.e. 100 Ibs.), about 98 3/4 Ibs. avoir. Hence the French quintal and its congeners (Littre).

[FN#119] i.e. "from Sham (Syria) to (the land of) Adnan,"

ancestor of the Naturalized Arabs that is, to Arabia.

[FN#120] Koran lii. 21. "Every man is given in pledge for that which he shall have wrought."

[FN#121] There is a constant clerical confusion in the texts between "Arar" (Juniperus Oxycedrus used by the Breeks for the images of their G.o.ds) and "Marmar" marble or alabaster, in the Talmud "Marmora" = marble. evidently from {Greek letters} = brilliant, the brilliant stone.

[FN#122] These Ifritical names are chosed for their bizarrerie.

"Al-Dahish" = the Amazed; and "Al-A'amash" = one with weak eyes always watering.