Part 48

[FN#392] Probably Canton with which the Arabs were familiar.

[FN#393] _i.e._ “Who disappointeth not those who put their trust in Him.”

[FN#394] Arab. “Al-Manjaníkát” plur. of manjanik, from Gr. Μάγγανον, Lat. Manganum (Engl. Mangonel from the dim. Mangonella). Ducange Glossarium, s.v. The Greek is applied originally to defensive weapons, then to the artillery of the day, Ballista, catapults, etc. The kindred Arab. form “Manjanín” is applied chiefly to the Noria or Persian waterwheel.

[FN#395] Faghfúr is the common Moslem title for the Emperors of China; in the Kamus the first syllable is Zammated (Fugh); in Al-Mas’udi (chapt. xiv.) we find Baghfúr and in Al-Idrisi Baghbúgh, or Baghbún. In Al-Asma’i Bagh = god or idol (Pehlewi and Persian); hence according to some Baghdád (?) and Bághistán a pagoda (?). Sprenger (Al-Mas’údi, p. 327) remarks that Baghfúr is a literal translation of Tien-tse and quotes Visdelou, “pour mieux faire comprendre de quel ciel ils veulent parler, ils poussent la généalogie (of the Emperor) plus loin. Ils lui donnent le ciel pour père, la terre pour mère, le soleil pour frère aîné et la lune pour sœur aînée.”

[FN#396] Arab. “Kayf hálak” = how de doo? the salutation of a Fellah.

[FN#397] _i.e._ subject to the Maharajah of Hind.

[FN#398] This is not a mistake: I have seen heavy hail in Africa, N. Lat. 4 degrees; within sight of the Equator.

[FN#399] Arab. “Harrákat,” here used in the sense of smaller craft, and presently for a cock-boat.

[FN#400] See vol. i. 138: here by way of variety I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#401] This explains the Arab idea of the “Old Man of the Sea” in Sindbad the Seaman (vol. vi. 50). He was not a monkey nor an unknown monster; but an evil Jinni of the most powerful class, yet subject to defeat and death.

[FN#402] These Plinian monsters abound in Persian literature. For a specimen see Richardson Dissert. p. xlviii.

[FN#403] Arab. “Anyáb,” plur. of “Náb” = canine tooth (eye-tooth of man), tusks of horse and camel, etc.

[FN#404] Arab, “Kásid,” the Anglo-Indian Cossid. The post is called Baríd from the Persian “burídah” (cut) because the mules used for the purpose were dock-tailed. Barid applies equally to the post-mule, the rider and the distance from one station (Sikkah) to another which varied from two to six parasangs. The letter-carrier was termed Al-Faránik from the Pers. Parwánah, a servant. In the Diwán al-Baríd (Post-office) every letter was entered in a Madraj or list called in Arabic Al-Askidár from the Persian “Az Kih dárí” = from whom hast thou it?

[FN#405] “Ten years” in the Bresl. Edit. iv. 244.

[FN#406] In the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 245) we find “Kalak,” a raft, like those used upon the Euphrates, and better than the “Fulk,” or ship, of the Mac. Edit.

[FN#407] Arab. “Timsah” from Coptic (Old Egypt) Emsuh or Msuh. The animal cannot live in salt-water, a fact which proves that the Crocodile Lakes on the Suez Canal were in old days fed by Nile-water; and this was necessarily a Canal.

[FN#408] So in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 245). In the Mac. text “one man,” which better suits the second crocodile, for the animal can hardly be expected to take two at a time.

[FN#409] He had ample reason to be frightened. The large Cynocephalus is exceedingly dangerous. When travelling on the Gold Coast with my late friend Colonel De Ruvignes, we suddenly came in the grey of the morning upon a herd of these beasts. We dismounted, hobbled our nags and sat down, sword and revolver in hand. Luckily it was feeding time for the vicious brutes, which scowled at us but did not attack us. During my four years’ service on the West African Coast I heard enough to satisfy me that these powerful beasts often kill men and rape women; but I could not convince myself that they ever kept the women as concubines.

[FN#410] As we should say in English “it is a far cry to Loch Awe”: the Hindu by-word is, “Dihlí (Delhi) is a long way off.” See vol. i. 37.

[FN#411] Arab. “Fútah”, a napkin, a waistcloth, the Indian Zones alluded to by the old Greek travellers.

[FN#412] Arab. “Yají (it comes) miat khwánjah”—quite Fellah talk.

[FN#413] As Trébutien shows (ii. 155) these apes were a remnant of some ancient tribe possibly those of Ád who had gone to Meccah to pray for rain and thus escaped the general destruction. See vol. i. 65. Perhaps they were the Jews of Aylah who in David’s day were transformed into monkeys for fishing on the Sabbath (Saturday) Koran ii. 61.

[FN#414] I can see no reason why Lane purposely changes this to “the extremity of their country.”

[FN#415] Koran xxii. 44, Mr. Payne remarks:—This absurd addition is probably due to some copyist, who thought to show his knowledge of the Koran, but did not understand the meaning of the verse from which the quotation is taken and which runs thus, “How many cities have We destroyed, whilst yet they transgressed, and they are laid low on their own foundations and wells abandoned and high-builded palaces!” Mr. Lane observes that the words are either misunderstood or purposely misapplied by the author of the tale. Purposeful perversions of Holy Writ are very popular amongst Moslems and form part of their rhetoric; but such is not the case here. According to Von Hammer (Trébutien ii. 154), “Eastern geographers place the Bir al-Mu’utallal (Ruined Well) and the Kasr al-Mashíd (High-builded Castle) in the province of Hadramaut, and we wait for a new Niebuhr to inform us what are the monuments or the ruins so called.” His text translates puits arides et palais de plâtre (not likely!). Lane remarks that Mashíd mostly means “plastered,” but here = Mushayyad, lofty, explained in the Jalálayn Commentary as = rafí’a, high-raised. The two places are also mentioned by Al-Mas’údi; and they occur in Al-Kazwíni (see Night dccclviii.): both of these authors making the Koran directly allude to them.

[FN#416] Arab. (from Pers.) “Aywán” which here corresponds with the Egyptian “líwán” a tall saloon with estrades.

[FN#417] This naïve style of “renowning it” is customary in the East, contrasting with the servile address of the subject—“thy slave” etc.

[FN#418] Daulat (not Dawlah) the Anglo-Indian Dowlat; prop. meaning the shifts of affairs, hence, fortune, empire, kingdom. Khátún = “lady,” I have noted, follows the name after Turkish fashion.

[FN#419] The old name of Suez-town from the Greek Clysma (the shutting), which named the Gulf of Suez “Sea of Kulzum.” The ruins in the shape of a huge mound, upon which Sá’id Pasha built a Kiosk-palace, lie to the north of the modern town and have been noticed by me. (Pilgrimage, Midian, etc.) The Rev. Prof. Sayce examined the mound and from the Roman remains found in it determined it to be a fort guarding the old mouth of the Old Egyptian Sweet-water Canal which then debouched near the town.

[FN#420] _i.e._ Tuesday. See vol. iii. 249.

[FN#421] Because being a Jinniyah the foster-sister could have come to her and saved her from old maidenhood.

[FN#422] Arab. “Hájah” properly a needful thing. This consisted according to the Bresl. Edit. of certain perfumes, by burning which she could summon the Queen of the Jinn.

[FN#423] Probably used in its sense of a “black crow.” The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 261) has “Khátim” (seal-ring) which is but one of its almost innumerable misprints.

[FN#424] Here it is called “Tábik” and afterwards “Tábút.”

[FN#425] _i.e._ raising from the lower hinge-pins. See vol. ii. 214.

[FN#426] Arab. “Abrísam” or “Ibrísam” (from Persian Abrísham or Ibrísham) = raw silk or floss, _i.e._ untwisted silk.

[FN#427] This knightly practice, evidently borrowed from the East, appears in many romances of chivalry _e.g._ When Sir Tristram is found by King Mark asleep beside Ysonde (Isentt) with drawn sword between them, the former cried:—

Gif they weren in sinne Nought so they no lay.

And we are told:—

Sir Amys and the lady bright To bed gan they go; And when they weren in bed laid, Sir Amys his sword out-brayed And held it between them two.

This occurs in the old French romance of Amys and Amyloun which is taken into the tale of the Ravens in the Seven Wise Masters where Ludovic personates his friend Alexander in marrying the King of Egypt’s daughter and sleeps every night with a bare blade between him and the bride. See also Aladdin and his lamp. An Englishman remarked, “The drawn sword would be little hindrance to a man and maid coming together.” The drawn sword represented only the Prince’s honour.

[FN#428] Arab. “Ya Sáki’ al-Wajh,” which Lane translates by “lying” or “liar.”

[FN#429] Kamín (in Bresl. Edit. “bayn” = between) Al-Bahrayn = Ambuscade or lurking-place of the two seas. The name of the city in Lane is “‘Emareeych” imaginary but derived from Emarch (‘imárah) = being populous. Trébutien (ii. 161) takes from Bresl. Edit. “Amar” and translates the port-name, “le lieu de refuge des deux mers.”

[FN#430] _i.e._ “High of (among) the Kings.” Lane proposes to read ‘Ali al-Mulk = high in dominion.

[FN#431] Pronounce Mu’inuddeen = Aider of the Faith. The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 266) also read “Mu’in al-Riyásah” = Mu’in of the Captaincies.

[FN#432] Arab. “Shúm” = a tough wood used for the staves with which donkeys are driven. Sir Gardner Wilkinson informed Lane that it is the ash.

[FN#433] In Persian we find the fuller metaphorical form, “kissing the ground of obedience.”

[FN#434] For the Shaykh of the Sea(-board) in Sindbad the Seaman see vol. vi. 50.

[FN#435] That this riding is a facetious exaggeration of the African practice I find was guessed by Mr. Keightley.

[FN#436] Arab. “Kummasra”: the root seems to be “Kamsara” = being slender or compact.

[FN#437] Lane translates, “by reason of the exhilaration produced by intoxication.” But the Arabic here has no assonance. The passage also alludes to the drunken habits of those blameless Ethiopians, the races of Central Africa where, after midday a chief is rarely if ever found sober. We hear much about drink in England but Englishmen are mere babes compared with these stalwart Negroes. In Unyamwezi I found all the standing bedsteads of pole-sleepers and bark-slabs disposed at an angle of about 20 degrees for the purpose of draining off the huge pottle-fulls of Pombe (Osirian beer) drained by the occupants; and, comminxit lectum potus might be said of the whole male population.

[FN#438] This is not exaggerated. When at Hebron I saw the biblical spectacle of two men carrying a huge bunch slung to a pole, not so much for the weight as to keep the grapes from injury.

[FN#439] The Mac. and Bul. Edits. add, “and with him a host of others after his kind”; but these words are omitted by the Bresl. Edit. and apparently from the sequel there was only one Ghul-giant.

[FN#440] Probably alluding to the most barbarous Persian practice of plucking or tearing out the eyes from their sockets. See Sir John Malcolm’s description of the capture of Kirmán and Morier (in Zohrab, the hostage) for the wholesale blinding of the Asterabadian by the Eunuch-King Agha Mohammed Shah. I may note that the mediæval Italian practice called _bacinare_, or scorching with red-hot basins, came from Persia.

[FN#441] Arab. “Laban” as opposed to “Halíb”: in Night dcclxxiv. (_infra_ p. 365) the former is used for sweet milk, and other passages could be cited. I have noted that all galaktophagi, or milk-drinking races, prefer the artificially soured to the sweet, choosing the fermentation to take place outside rather than inside their stomachs. Amongst the Somal I never saw man, woman or child drink a drop of fresh milk; and they offered considerable opposition to our heating it for coffee.

[FN#442] Arab. “Tákah” not “an aperture” as Lane has it, but an arched hollow in the wall.

[FN#443] In Trébutien (ii. 168) the cannibal is called “Goul Eli-Fenioun” and Von Hammer remarks, “There is no need of such likeness of name to prove that al this episode is a manifest imitation of the adventures of Ulysses in Polyphemus’s cave; * * * and this induces the belief that the Arabs have been acquainted with the poems of Homer.” Living intimately with the Greeks they could not have ignored the Iliad and the Odyssey: indeed we know by tradition that they had translations, now apparently lost. I cannot however, accept Lane’s conjecture that “the story of Ulysses and Polyphemus may have been of Eastern origin.” Possibly the myth came from Egypt, for I have shown that the opening of the Iliad bears a suspicious likeness to the proem of Pentaur’s Epic.

[FN#444] Arab. “Shakhtúr”.

[FN#445] In the Bresl. Edit. the ship is not wrecked but lands Sa’id in safety.

[FN#446] So in the Shah-nameh the Símurgh-bird gives one of her feathers to her protégé Zál which he will throw into the fire when she is wanted.

[FN#447] Bresl. Edit. “Al-Zardakhánát” Arab. plur. of Zarad-Khánah, a bastard word = armoury, from Arab. Zarad (hauberk) and Pers. Khánah = house etc.

[FN#448] Some retrenchment was here found necessary to avoid “damnable iteration.”

[FN#449] _i.e._ Badi’a al-Jamal.

[FN#450] Mohammed.

[FN#451] Koran xxxv. “The Creator” (Fátir) or the Angels, so called from the first verse.

[FN#452] In the Bresl. Edit. (p. 263) Sayf al-Muluk drops asleep under a tree to the lulling sound of a Sákiyah or water-wheel, and is seen by Badi’a al-Jamal, who falls in love with him and drops tears upon his cheeks, etc. The scene, containing much recitation, is long and well told.

[FN#453] Arab. “Lukmah” = a _bouchée_ of bread, meat, fruit or pastry, and especially applied to the rice balled with the hand and delicately inserted into a friend’s mouth.

[FN#454] Arab. “Saláhiyah,” also written Saráhiyah: it means an ewer-shaped glass-bottle.

[FN#455] Arab. “Sarmújah,” of which Von Hammer remarks that the dictionaries ignore it; Dozy gives the forms Sarmúj, Sarmúz, and Sarmúzah and explains them by “espèce de guêtre, de sandale ou de mule, qu’on chausse par-dessus la botte.”

[FN#456] In token of profound submission.

[FN#457] Arab. “Misr” in Ibn Khaldún is a land whose people are settled and civilised hence “Namsur” = we settle; and “Amsár” = settled provinces. Al-Misrayn was the title of Basrah and Kufah the two military cantonments founded by Caliph Omar on the frontier of conquering Arabia and conquered Persia. Hence “Tamsír” = founding such posts, which were planted in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. In these camps were stationed the veterans who had fought under Mohammed; but the spoils of the East soon changed them to splendid cities where luxury and learning flourished side by side. Sprenger (Al-Mas’údi pp. 19, 177) compares them ecclesiastically with the primitive Christian Churches such as Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch. But the Moslems were animated with an ardent love of liberty and Kufah under Al-Hajjaj the masterful, lost 100,000 of her turbulent sons without the thirst for independence being quenched. This can hardly be said of the Early Christians who, with the exception of a few staunch-hearted martyrs, appear in history as pauvres diables and poules mouillées, ever oppressed by their own most ignorant and harmful fancy that the world was about to end.

[FN#458] _i.e._ Waiting to be sold and wasting away in single cursedness.

[FN#459] Arab. “Yá dádati”: dádat is an old servant-woman or slave, often applied to a nurse, like its congener the Pers. Dádá, the latter often pronounced Daddeh, as Daddeh Bazm-árá in the Kuisum-nameh (Atkinson’s “Customs of the Women of Persia,” London, 8vo, 1832).

[FN#460] Marjánah has been already explained. D’Herbelot derives from it the Romance name _Morgante la Déconvenue_, here confounding Morgana with Urganda; and Keltic scholars make Morgain = Mor Gwynn—the white maid (p. 10, Keightley’s Fairy Mythology, London, Whittaker, 1833).