The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VII Part 18

[FN#47] Arab. "Zarraf" (whence our word) from "Zarf"=walking hastily: the old "cameleopard" which originated the nursery idea of its origin. It is one of the most timid of the antelope tribe and unfit for riding.

[FN#48] Arab. "Takht," a useful word, meaning even a saddle.

The usual term is "Haudaj"=the Anglo Indian "howdah."

[FN#49] "Thunder-King," Arab. and Persian.

[FN#50] i.e. "He who violently a.s.saults his peers" (the best men of the age). Batshat al- Kubra=the Great Disaster, is applied to the unhappy "Battle of Bedr" (Badr) on Ramazan 17, A.H. 2 (=Jan. 13, 624) when Mohammed was so nearly defeated that the Angels were obliged to a.s.sist him (Koran, chapts.

iii. 11; i. 42; viii. 9). Mohammed is soundly rated by Christian writers for beheading two prisoners Utbah ibn Rabi'a who had once spat on his face and n.a.z.ir ibn Haris who recited Persian romances and preferred them to the "foolish fables of the Koran." What would our forefathers have done to a man who spat in the face of John Knox and openly preferred a French play to Pentateuch ?

[FN#51] Arab. "Jilbab" either habergeon (mail-coat) or the buff-jacket worn under it.

[FN#52] A favourite way, rough and ready, of carrying light weapons, often alluded to in The Nights. So Khusrawan in Antar carried "under his thighs four small darts, each like a blazing flame."

[FN#53] Mr. Payne very reasonably supplants here and below Fakhr Taj (who in Night dcx.x.xiv is left in her father's palace and who is reported to be dead in Night dclxvii.) by Star o'

Morn. But the former is also given in the Bul. Edit. (ii.

148), so the story teller must have forgotten all about her. I leave it as a model specimen of Eastern incuriousness.

[FN#54] There is some chivalry in his unwillingness to use the magical blade. As a rule the Knights of Romance utterly ignore fair play and take every dirty advantage in the magic line that comes to hand.

[FN#55] Arab. "Hammal al-Hatabi"=one who carries to market the fuel-sticks which he picks up m the waste. In the Koran (chaps. cxi.) it is applied to Umm Jamil, wife of Mohammed's hostile cousin, Abd al-Uzza, there termed Abu Lahab (Father of smokeless Flame) with the implied meaning that she will bear fuel to feed h.e.l.l-fire.

[FN#56] Arab. "Akyal," lit. whose word (Kaul) is obeyed, a t.i.tle of the Himyarite Kings, of whom Al-Bergendi relates that one of them left an inscription at Samarcand, which many centuries ago no man could read. This evidently alludes to the dynasty which preceded the "Tobba" and to No. xxiv. Shamar Yar'ash (Shamar the Palsied). Some make him son of Malik surnamed Nas.h.i.+r al-Ni'am (Scatterer of Blessings) others of Afrikus (No. xviii.), who, according to Al-Jannabi, Ahmad bin Yusuf and Ibn Ibdun (Poc.o.c.k, Spec. Hist. Arab.) founded the Berber (Barber) race, the remnants of the Causanites expelled by the "robber, Joshua son of Nun," and became the eponymus of "Africa." This word which, under the Romans, denoted a small province on the Northern Sea-board, is, I would suggest, A'far-Kahi (Afar-land), the Afar being now the Dankali race, the country of Osiris whom my learned friend, the late Mariette Pasha, derived from the Egyptian "Punt" identified by him with the Somali country. This would make "Africa," as it ought to be, an Egyptian (Coptic) term.

[FN#57] Herodotus (i. 80) notes this concerning the camel.

Elephants are not allowed to walk the streets in Anglo-Indian cities, where they have caused many accidents.

[FN#58] Arab. Wahk or Wahak, suggesting the Roman retiarius.

But the la.s.so pure and simple, the favourite weapon of shepherd and herdsmen was well-known to the old Egyptians and in ancient India. It forms one of the T-letters in the hieroglyphs.

[FN#59] Compare with this and other Arab battle-pieces the Pandit's description in the Katha Sarit Sagara, e.g. "Then a confused battle arose with dint of arrow, javelin, lance, mace and axe, costing the lives of countless soldiers (N.B.-- Millions are nothing to him); rivers of blood flowed with the bodies of elephants and horses for alligators, with the pearls from the heads of elephants for sands and with the heads of heroes for stones. That feast of battle delighted the flesh- loving demons who, drunk with blood instead of wine, were dancing with the palpitating trunks," etc.. etc. Fasc. xii.

526.

[FN#60] The giraffe is here mal-place: it is, I repeat, one of the most timid of the antelope tribe. Nothing can be more graceful than this huge game as it stands under a tree extending its long and slender neck to the foliage above it; but when in flight all the limbs seem loose and the head is carried almost on a level with the back.

[FN#61] The fire-arms may have been inserted by the copier; the cross-bow (Arcubalista) is of unknown antiquity. I have remarked in my book of the Sword (p. 19) that the bow is the first crucial evidence of the distinction between the human weapon and the b.e.s.t.i.a.l arm, and like the hymen or membrane of virginity proves a difference of degree if not of kind between man and the so-called lower animals. I note from Yule's Marco Polo (ii., 143) " that the cross-bow was re-introduced into European warfare during the twelfth century"; but the arbalesta was well known to the bon roi Charlemagne (Regnier Sat. X).

[FN#62] In Al-Islam this was unjustifiable homicide, excused only because the Kafir had tried to slay his own son. He should have been summoned to become a tributary and then, on express refusal, he might legally have been put to death.

[FN#63] i.e. "Rose King," like the Sikh name "Gulab Singh"=Rosewater Lion, sounding in translation almost too absurd to be true.

[FN#64] "Repentance acquits the penitent" is a favourite and n.o.ble saying popular in Al-Islam. It is first found in Seneca; and is probably as old as the dawn of literature.

[FN#65] Here an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of impatience.

[FN#66] i.e. "King Intelligence": it has a ludicrous sound suggesting only "Dandanha-i-Khirad,,=wisdom-teeth. The Mac.

Edit. persistently keeps "Ward Shah," copyist error.

[FN#67] i.e. Fakhr Taj, who had been promised him in marriage.

See Night dcx.x.xlii. supra, vol. vi.

[FN#68] The name does not appear till further on, after vague Eastern fas.h.i.+on which, here and elsewhere I have not had the heart to adopt. The same may be found in Ariosto, pa.s.sim.

[FN#69] A town in Persian Irak, unhappily far from the "Salt sea."

[FN#70] "Earthquake son of Ennosigaius" (the Earthquake- maker).

[FN#71] Arab. "Ruba'al-Kharab" or Ruba'al-Khali (empty quarter), the great central wilderness of Arabia covering some 50,000 square miles and still left white on our maps.

(Pilgrimage, i 14.)

[FN#72] Pers. "Life King", women also a.s.sume the t.i.tle of Shah.

[FN#73] Arab. "Mujauhar": the watery or wavy mark upon Eastern blades is called the "jauhar," lit.=jewel. The peculiarity is also called water and grain, which gives rise to a host of double-entendres, puns, paronomasias and conceits more or less frigid.

[FN#74] Etymologically meaning tyrants or giants; and applied to great heathen conquerors like Nimrod and the mighty rulers of Syria, the Anakim, Giants and other peoples of Hebrew fable. The Akasirah are the Chosroes before noticed.

[FN#75] Arab. "Asker jarrar" lit. "drawing": so in Egyptian slang "Nas jarrar"=folk who wish to draw your money out of your pocket, greedy cheats.

[FN#76] In Turkestan: the name means "Two lights."

[FN#77] In Armenia, mentioned by Sadik Isfahani (Transl. p.

62).

[FN#78] This is the only ludicrous incident in the tale which justifies Von Hammer's suspicion. Compare it with the combat between Rustam and his son Sohrab.

[FN#79] I cannot understand why Trebutien, iii., 457, writes this word Afba. He remarks that it is the "Oina and Riya" of Jami, elegantly translated by M. de Chezy in the Journal Asiatique, vol. 1, 144.

[FN#80] I have described this part of the Medinah Mosque in Pilgrimage ii., 62-69. The name derives from a saying of Mohammed (of which there are many variants), "Between my tomb and my pulpit is a garden of the Gardens of Paradise"

(Burckhardt, Arabia, p. 337). The whole Southern portico (not only a part) now enjoys that honoured name and the tawdry decorations are intended to suggest a parterre.

[FN#81] Mohammed's companions (Ashab), numbering some five hundred, were divided into two orders, the Muhajirin (fugitives) or Meccans who accompanied the Apostle to Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 138) and the Ansar (Auxiliaries) or Medinites who invited him to their city and lent him zealous aid (Ibid. ii. 130). The terms constantly occur in Arab history.

[FN#82] The "Mosque of the Troops," also called Al-Fath (victory), the largest of the "Four Mosques:" it is still a place of pious visitation where prayer is granted. Koran, chap. x.x.xiii., and Pilgrimage ii. 325.

[FN#83] Arab. "Al-Wars," with two meanings. The Alfaz Adwiyah gives it=Kurk.u.m, curc.u.ma, turmeric, safran d'Inde; but popular usage a.s.signs it to Usfur, Kurtum or safflower (carthamus tinctorius). I saw the shrub growing all about Harar which exports it, and it is plentiful in Al-Yaman (Niebuhr, p. 133), where women affect it to stain the skin a light yellow and remove freckles: it is also an internal remedy in leprosy. But the main use is that of a dye, and the Tob stained with Wars is almost universal in some parts of Arabia. Sonnini (p. 510) describes it at length and says that Europeans in Egypt call it "Parrot-seeds" because the bird loves it, and the Levant trader "Saffrenum."

[FN#84] Two men of the great 'Anazah race went forth to gather Karaz, the fruit of the Sant (Mimosa Nilotica) both used for tanning, and never returned. Hence the proverb which is obsolete in conversation. See Burckhardt, Prov. 659: where it takes the place of "ad Graecas Kalendas."

[FN#85] Name of a desert (Mafazah) and a settlement on the Euphrates' bank between Basrah and the site of old Kufah near Kerbela; the well known visitation place in Babylonian Irak.

[FN#86] Of the Banu Sulaym tribe; the adjective is Sulami not Sulaymi.

[FN#87] Arab. "Amam-ak"=before thee (in s.p.a.ce); from the same root as Imam=antistes, leader of prayer; and conducing to perpetual puns, e.g. "You are Imam-i (my leader) and therefore should be Amam-i" (in advance of me).

[FN#88] He was angry, as presently appears, because he had heard of certain love pa.s.sages between the two and this in Arabia is a dishonour to the family.

[FN#89] Euphemy for "my daughter."

[FN#90] The Badawin call a sound dollar "Kirsh hajar" or "Riyal hajar" (a stone dollar; but the word is spelt with the greater h).