Part 41

[FN#137] This is one of the lucky signs and adds to the value of the beast. There are some fifty of these marks, some of them (like a spiral of hair in the breast which denotes that the rider is a cuckold) so ill-omened that the animal can be bought for almost nothing. Of course great attention is paid to colours, the best being the dark rich bay ("red" of Arabs) with black points, or the flea-bitten grey (termed Azrak=blue or Akhzar=green) which whitens with age. The worst are dun, cream coloured, piebald and black, which last are very rare. Yet according to the Mishkát al- Masábih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. "Ghurrah") and upper lips; next, black with blaze and three white legs (bad, because white- hoofs are brittle):next, bay with white blaze and white fore and hind legs." He also said, "Prosperity is with sorrel horses;" and praised a sorrel with white forehead and legs; but he dispraised the "Shikál," which has white stockings (Arab. "Muhajjil") on alternate hoofs (e.g. right hind and left fore). The curious reader will consult Lady Anne Blunt's "Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, with some Account of the Arabs and their Horses" (1879); but he must remember that it treats of the frontier tribes. The late Major Upton also left a book "Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia" (1881); but it is a marvellous production deriving e.g. Khayl (a horse generically) from Kohl or antimony (p. 275). What the Editor was dreaming of I cannot imagine. I have given some details concerning the Arab horse especially in Al-Yaman, among the Zú Mohammed, the Zú Husayn and the Banu Yam in Pilgrimage iii. 270. As late as Marco Polo's day they supplied the Indian market via Aden; but the "Eye o Al-Yaman" has totally lost the habit of exporting horses.

[FN#138] The shovel-iron which is the only form of spur.

[FN#139] Used for the dromedary: the baggage-camel is haltered.

[FN#140] Arab. "Harwalah," the pas gymnastique affected when circumambulating the Ka'abah (Pilgrimage iii. 208).

[FN#141] "This night" would be our "last night": the Arabs, I repeat, say "night and day," not "day and night."

[FN#142] The vulgar belief is that man's fate is written upon his skull, the sutures being the writing.

[FN#143] Koran ii. 191.

[FN#144] Arab. "Tasbíh"=saying, "Subhán' Allah." It also means a rosary (Egypt. Sebhah for Subhah) a string of 99 beads divided by a longer item into sets of three and much fingered by the would- appear pious. The professional devotee carries a string of wooden balls the size of pigeons' eggs.

[FN#145] The pigeon is usually made to say, ' "Wahhidú Rabba-kumu ''llazi khalaka-kum, yaghfiru lakum zamba-kum" = "Unify (Assert the Unity of) your Lord who created you; so shall He forgive your sin!" As might be expected this "language" is differently interpreted. Pigeon-superstitions are found in all religions and I have noted (Pilgrimage iii, 218) how the Hindu deity of Destruction- reproduction, the third Person of their Triad, Shiva and his Spouse (or active Energy), are supposed to have dwelt at Meccah under the titles of Kapoteshwara (Pigeon-god) and Kapoteshí (Pigeon-goddess).

[FN#146] I have seen this absolute horror of women amongst the Monks of the Coptic Convents.

[FN#147] After the Day of Doom, when men's actions are registered, that of mutual retaliation will follow and all creatures (brutes included) will take vengeance on one another.

[FN#148] The Comrades of the Cave, famous in the Middle Ages of Christianity (Gibbon chaps. xxxiii.), is an article of faith with Moslems, being part subject of chapter xviii., the Koranic Surah termed the Cave. These Rip Van Winkle-tales begin with Endymion so famous amongst the Classics and Epimenides of Crete who slept fifty-seven years; and they extend to modern days as La Belle au Bois dormant. The Seven Sleepers are as many youths of Ephesus (six royal councillors and a shepherd, whose names are given on the authority of Ali); and, accompanied by their dog, they fled the persecutions of Dakianús (the Emperor Decius) to a cave near Tarsús in Natolia where they slept for centuries. The Caliph Mu'awiyah when passing the cave sent into it some explorers who were all killed by a burning wind. The number of the sleepers remains uncertain, according to the Koran (ibid. v. 21) three, five or seven and their sleep lasted either three hundred or three hundred and nine years. The dog (ibid. v. 17) slept at the cave-entrance with paws outstretched and, according to the general, was called "Katmir" or "Kitmir;" but Al-Rakím (v. 8) is also applied to it by some. Others hold this to be the name of the valley or mountain and others of a stone or leaden tablet on which their names were engraved by their countrymen who built a chapel on the spot (v. 20). Others again make the Men of Al-Rakím distinct from the Cave-men, and believe (with Bayzáwi) that they were three youths who were shut up in a grotto by a rock-slip. Each prayed for help through the merits of some good deed: when the first had adjured Allah the mountain cracked till light appeared; at the second petition it split so that they saw one another and after the third it opened. However that may be, Kitmir is one of the seven favoured animals: the others being the Hudhud (hoopoe) of Solomon (Koran xxii. 20); the she-camel of Sálih (chaps. Ixxxvii.); the cow of Moses which named the Second Surah; the fish of Jonah; the serpent of Eve, and the peacock of Paradise. For Koranic revelations of the Cave see the late Thomas Chenery (p. 414 The Assemblies of Al-Hariri: Williams and Norgate, 1870) who borrows from the historian Tabari.

[FN#149] These lines have occurred in Night cxlvi.: I quote Mr. Payne by way of variety.

[FN#150] The wolf (truly enough to nature) is the wicked man without redeeming traits; the fox of Arab folk-lore is the cunning man who can do good on occasion. Here the latter is called "Sa'alab" which may, I have noted, mean the jackal; but further on "Father of a Fortlet" refers especially to the fox. Herodotus refers to the gregarious Canis Aureus when he describes Egyptian wolves as being "not much bigger than foxes" (ii. 67). Canon Rawlinson, in his unhappy version, does not perceive that the Halicarnassian means the jackal and blunders about the hyena.

[FN#151] The older "Leila" or "Leyla": it is a common name and is here applied to woman in general. The root is evidently "layl"=nox, with, probably, the idea, "She walks in beauty like the night."

[FN#152] Arab. Abu 'l-Hosayn; his hole being his fort (Unexplored Syria, ii. 18).

[FN#153] A Koranic phrase often occurring.

[FN#154] Koran v. 35.

[FN#155] Arab. "Bází," Pers. "Báz" (here Richardson is wrong s.v.); a term to a certain extent generic, but specially used for the noble Peregrine (F. Peregrinator) whose tiercel is the Sháhín (or "Royal Bird"). It is sometimes applied to the goshawk (Astur palumbarius) whose proper title, however, is Shah-báz (King-hawk). The Peregrine extends from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and the best come from the colder parts: in Iceland I found that the splendid white bird was sometimes trapped for sending to India. In Egypt "Bazi" is applied to the kite or buzzard and "Hidyah" (a kite) to the falcon (Burckhardt's Prov. 159, 581 and 602). Burckhardt translates "Hidáyah," the Egyptian corruption, by "an ash-grey falcon of the smaller species common throughout Egypt and Syria."

[FN#156] Arab. "Hijl," the bird is not much prized in India because it feeds on the roads. For the Shinnár (caccabis) or magnificent partridge of Midian as large as a pheasant, see "Midian Revisted" ii. 18.

[FN#157] Arab. "Súf;" hence "Súfi,"=(etymologically) one who wears woollen garments, a devotee, a Santon; from =wise; from =pure, or from Safá=he was pure. This is not the place to enter upon such a subject as "Tasawwuf," or Sufyism; that singular reaction from arid Moslem realism and materialism, that immense development of gnostic and Neo-platonic transcendentalism which is found only germinating in the Jewish and Christian creeds. The poetry of Omar-i-Khayyám, now familiar to English readers, is a fair specimen; and the student will consult the last chapter of the Dabistan "On the religion of the Sufiahs." The first Moslem Sufi was Abu Háshim of Kufah, ob. A. H. 150=767, and the first Convent of Sufis called "Takiyah" (Pilgrimage i. 124) was founded in Egypt by Saladin the Great.

[FN#158] i.e. when she encamps with a favourite for the night.

[FN#159] The Persian proverb is "Marg-i-amboh jashni dáred"—death in a crowd is as good as a feast.

[FN#160] Arab. "Kanát", the subterranean water-course called in Persia "Kyáriz." Lane (ii. 66) translates it "brandish around the spear (Kanát is also a cane-lance) of artifice," thus making rank nonsense of the line. Al-Hariri uses the term in the Ass. of the Banu Haram where "Kanát" may be a pipe or bamboo laid underground.

[FN#161] From Al-Tughrái, the author of the Lámiyat al-Ajam, the "Lay of the Outlander;" a Kasidah (Ode) rhyming in Lám (the letter "l" being the ráwi or binder). The student will find a new translation of it by Mr. J. W. Redhouse and Dr. Carlyle's old version (No. liii.) in Mr. Clouston's "Arabian Poetry." Muyid al-Din al-Hasan Abu Ismail nat. Ispahan ob. Baghdad A.H. 182) derived his surname from the Tughrá, cypher or flourish (over the "Bismillah" in royal and official papers) containing the name of the prince. There is an older "Lamiyat al-Arab" a pre-Islamitic L-poem by the "brigand-poet" Shanfara, of whom Mr. W. G. Palgrave has given a most appreciative account in his "Essays on Eastern Questions," noting the indomitable self-reliance and the absolute individualism of a mind defying its age and all around it. Al-Hariri quotes from both.

[FN#162] The words of the unfortunate Azízah, vol. ii., p. 323.

[FN#163] Arab. "Háwí"=a juggler who plays tricks with snakes: he is mostly a Gypsy. The "recompense" the man expects is the golden treasure which the ensorcelled snake is supposed to guard. This idea is as old as the Dragon in the Garden of the Hesperides—and older.

[FN#164] The "Father of going out (to prey) by morning"; for dawn is called Zanab Sirhán the Persian Dum-i-gurg=wolf's tail, i.e. the first brush of light; the Zodiacal Light shown in morning. Sirhán is a nickname of the wolf—Gaunt Grim or Gaffer Grim, the German Isengrin or Eisengrinus (icy grim or iron grim) whose wife is Hersent, as Richent or Hermeline is Mrs. Fox. In French we have lopez, luppe, leu, e.g.

Venant ŕ la queue, leu, leu,

i.e. going in Indian file. Hence the names D'Urfé and Saint-Loup. In Scandinavian, the elder sister of German, Ulf and in German (where the Jews were forced to adopt the name) Wolff whence "Guelph." He is also known to the Arabs as the "sire of a she-lamb," the figure metonymy called "Kunyat bi 'l-Zidd" (lucus a non lucendo), a patronymic or by-name given for opposition and another specimen of "inverted speech."

[FN#165] Arab. "Bint' Arús" = daughter of the bridegroom, the Hindustani Mungus (vulg. Mongoose); a well-known weasel-like rodent often kept tame in the house to clear it of vermin. It is supposed to know an antidote against snake-poison, as the weasel eats rue before battle (Pliny x. 84; xx. 13). In Modern Egypt this viverra is called "Kitt (or Katt) Far'aun" = Pharaoh's cat: so the Percnopter becomes Pharaoh's hen and the unfortunate (?) King has named a host of things, alive and dead. It was worshipped and mummified in parts of Ancient Egypt e.g. Heracleopolis, on account of its antipathy to serpents and because it was supposed to destroy the crocodile, a feat with Ćlian and others have overloaded with fable. It has also a distinct antipathy to cats. The ichneumon as a pet becomes too tame and will not leave its master: when enraged it emits an offensive stench. I brought home for the Zoological Gardens a Central African specimen prettily barred. Burckhardt (Prov. 455) quotes a line:—

Rakas' Ibn Irsin wa zamzama l-Nimsu, (Danceth Ibn Irs whileas Nims doth sing)

and explains Nims by ichneumon and Ibn Irs as a "species of small weasel or ferret, very common in Egypt: it comes into the house, feeds upon meat, is of gentle disposition although not domesticated and full of gambols and frolic."

[FN#166] Arab. "Sinnaur" (also meaning a prince). The common name is Kitt which is pronounced Katt or Gatt; and which Ibn Dorayd pronounces a foreign word (Syriac?). Hence, despite Freitag, Catus (which Isidore derives from catare, to look for) = gatto, chat, cat, an animal unknown to the Classics of Europe who used the mustela or putorius vulgaris and different species of viverrć. The Egyptians, who kept the cat to destroy vermin, especially snakes, called it Mau, Mai, Miao (onomatopoetic): this descendent of the Felis maniculata originated in Nubia; and we know from the mummy pits and Herodotus that it was the same species as ours. The first portraits of the cat are on the monuments of "Beni Hasan," B.C. 2500. I have ventured to derive the familiar "Puss" from the Arab. "Biss (fem. :Bissah"), which is a congener of Pasht (Diana), the cat-faced goddess of Bubastis (Pi-Pasht), now Zagázig. Lastly, "tabby (brindled)-cat" is derived from the Attábi (Prince Attab's) quarter at Baghdad where watered silks were made. It is usually attributed to the Tibbie, Tibalt, Tybalt, Thibert or Tybert (who is also executioner), various forms of Theobald in the old Beast Epic; as opposed to Gilbert the gib-cat, either a tom-cat or a gibbed (castrated) cat.

[FN#167] Arab. "Ikhwán al-Safá," a popular term for virtuous friends who perfectly love each other in all purity: it has also a mystic meaning. Some translate it "Brethren of Sincerity," and hold this brotherhood to be Moslem Freemasons, a mere fancy (see the Mesnevi of Mr. Redhouse, Trubner 1881). There is a well-known Hindustani book of this name printed by Prof. Forbes in Persian character and translated by Platts and Eastwick.

[FN#168] Among Eastern men there are especial forms for "making brotherhood." The "Munhbolá-bhái" (mouth-named brother) of India is well-known. The intense "associativeness" of these races renders isolation terrible to them, and being defenceless in a wild state of society has special horrors. Hence the origin of Caste for which see Pilgrimage (i. 52). Moslems, however, cannot practise the African rite of drinking a few drops of each other's blood. This, by the by, was also affected in Europe, as we see in the Gesta Romanoru, Tale lxvii., of the wise and foolish knights who "drew blood (to drink) from the right arm."

[FN#169] The F. Sacer in India is called "Laghar" and tiercel "Jaghar." Mr. T.E. Jordan (catalogue of Indian Birds, 1839) says it is rare; but I found it the contrary. According to Mr. R. Thompson it is flown at kites and antelope: in Sind it is used upon night-heron (nyctardea nycticorax), floriken or Hobara (Otis aurita), quail, partridge, curlew and sometimes hare: it gives excellent sport with crows but requires to be defended. Indian sportsmen, like ourselves, divide hawks into two orders: the "Siyáh-chasm," or black-eyed birds, long-winged and noble; the "Gulábi-chasm" or yellow-eyed (like the goshawk) round-winged and ignoble.

[FN#170] i.e. put themselves at thy mercy.

[FN#171] I have remarked (Pilgrimage iii.307) that all the popular ape-names in Arabic and Persian, Sa'adán, Maymún, Shádi, etc., express propitiousness—probably euphemistically applied to our "poor relation."

[FN#172] The serpent does not "sting" nor does it "bite;" it strikes with the poison-teeth like a downward stab with a dagger. These fangs are always drawn by the jugglers but they grow again and thus many lives are lost. The popular way of extracting the crochets is to grasp the snake firmly behind the neck with one hand and with the other to tantalise it by offering and withdrawing a red rag. At last the animal is allowed to strike it and a sharp jerk tears out both eye-teeth as rustics used to do by slamming a door. The head is then held downwards and the venom drains from its bag in the shape of a few drops of slightly yellowish fluid which, as conjurers know, may be drunk without danger. The patient looks faint and dazed, but recovers after a few hours and feels as if nothing had happened. In India I took lessons from a snake-charmer but soon gave up the practice as too dangerous.

[FN#173] Arab. "Akh al-Jahálah" = brother of ignorance, an Ignorantin; one "really and truly" ignorant; which is the value of "Ahk" in such phrases as a "brother of poverty," or, "of purity."

[FN#174] Lane (ii. 1) writes "Abu-l-Hasan;" Payne (iii. 49) "Aboulhusn" which would mean "Father of Beauty (Husn)" and is not a Moslem name. Hasan (beautiful) and its dimin. Husayn, names now so common, were (it is said), unknown to the Arabs, although Hassán was that of a Tobba King, before the days of Mohammed who so called his two only grandsons. In Anglo-India they have become "Hobson and Jobson." The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 305) entitles this story "Tale of Abu 'l Hasan the Attár (druggist and perfumer) with Ali ibn Bakkár and what befel them with the handmaid (=járiyah) Shams al-Nahár."

[FN#175] i.e. a descendant, not a Prince.

[FN#176] The Arab shop is a kind of hole in the wall and buyers sit upon its outer edge (Pilgrimage i. 99).

[FN#177] By a similar image the chamćleon is called Abú Kurrat=Father of coolness; because it is said to have the "coldest" eye of all animals and insensible to heat and light, since it always looks at the sun.

[FN#178] This dividing the hemistich words is characteristic of certain tales; so I have retained it although inevitably suggesting:—

I left Matilda at the U- niversity of Gottingen.

[FN#179] These naďve offers in Eastern tales mostly come from the true seducer—Eve. Europe and England especially, still talks endless absurdity upon the subject. A man of the world may "seduce" an utterly innocent (which means an ignorant) girl. But to "seduce" a married woman! What a farce!

[FN#180] Masculine again for feminine: the lines are as full of word-plays, vulgarly called puns, as Sanskrit verses.

[FN#181] The Eastern heroine always has a good appetite and eats well. The sensible Oriental would infinitely despise that maladive Parisienne in whom our neighbours delight, and whom I long to send to the Hospital.

[FN#182] i.e. her rivals have discovered the secret of her heart.

[FN#183] i.e. blood as red as wine.

[FN#184] The wine-cup (sun-like) shines in thy hand; thy teeth are bright as the Pleiads and thy face rises like a moon from the darkness of thy dress-collar.

[FN#185] The masculine of Marjánah (Morgiana) "the she coral-branch ;" and like this a name generally given to negroes. We have seen white applied to a blackamoor by way of metonomy and red is also connected with black skins by way of fun. A Persian verse says :

"If a black wear red, e'en an ass would grin."

[FN#186] Suggesting that she had been sleeping.

[FN#187] Arab. "Raushan," a window projecting and latticed: the word is orig. Persian: so Raushaná (splendour)=Roxana. It appears to me that this beautiful name gains beauty by being understood.

[FN#188] The word means any servant, but here becomes a proper name. "Wasífah" usually= a concubine.

[FN#189] i.e. eagerness, desire, love-longing.

[FN#190] Arab. "Rind," which may mean willow (oriental), bay or aloes wood: Al-Asma'i denies that it ever signifies myrtle.

[FN#191] These lines occur in Night cxiv.: by way of variety I give (with permission) Mr. Payne's version (iii. 59).

[FN#192] Referring to the proverb "Al-Khauf maksúm"=fear (cowardice) is equally apportioned: i.e. If I fear you, you fear me.

[FN#193] The fingers of the right hand are struck upon the palm of the left.

[FN#194] There are intricate rules for "joining" the prayers; but this is hardly the place for a subject discussed in all religious treatises. (Pilgrimage iii. 239.)

[FN#195] The hands being stained with Henna and perhaps indigo in stripes are like the ring rows of chain armour. See Lane's illustration (Mod. Egypt, chaps. i.).

[FN#196] She made rose-water of her cheeks for my drink and she bit with teeth like grains of hail those lips like the lotus-fruit, or jujube: Arab. "Unnab" or "Nabk," the plum of the Sidr or Zizyphus lotus.

[FN#197] Meaning to let Patience run away like an untethered camel.

[FN#198] i.e. her fair face shining through the black hair. "Camphor" is a favourite with Arab poets: the Persians hate it because connected in their minds with death; being used for purifying the corpse. We read in Burckhardt (Prov. 464) "Singing without siller is like a corpse without Hanút"—this being a mixture of camphor and rose-water sprinkled over the face of the dead before shrouded. Similarly Persians avoid speaking of coffee, because they drink it at funerals and use tea at other times.

[FN#199] i.e. she is angry and bites her carnelion lips with pearly teeth.

[FN#200] Arab. "Wa ba'ad;" the formula which follows "Bismillah"—In the name of Allah. The French translate it or sus, etc. I have noticed the legend about its having been first used by the eloquent Koss, Bishop of Najran.

[FN#201] i.e. Her mind is so troubled she cannot answer for what she writes.

[FN#202] The Bul. Edit. (i. 329) and the Mac. Edit. (i. 780) give to Shams al-Nahar the greater part of Ali's answer, as is shown by the Calc. Edit. (230 et seq.) and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 366 et seq.) Lane mentions this (ii. 74) but in his usual perfunctory way gives no paginal references to the Calc. or Bresl.; so that those who would verify the text may have the displeasure of hunting for it.

[FN#203] Arab. "Bi'smi 'lláhi' r-Rahmáni'r-Rahím." This auspicatory formula was borrowed by Al-Islam not from the Jews but from the Guebre "Ba nám-i-Yezdán bakhsháishgar-i-dádár!" (in the name of Yezdan-God—All-generous, All-just!). The Jews have, "In the name of the Great God;" and the Christians, "In the name of the Father, etc." The so-called Sir John Mandeville begins his book, In the name of God, Glorious and Almighty. The sentence forms the first of the Koran and heads every chapter except only the ninth, an exception for which recondite reasons are adduced. Hence even in the present day it begins all books, letters and writings in general; and it would be a sign of Infidelity (i.e. non-Islamism) to omit it. The difference between "Rahmán" and "Rahím" is that the former represents an accidental (compassionating), the latter a constant quality (compassionate). Sale therefore renders it very imperfectly by "In the name of the most merciful God;" the Latinists better, "In nomine Dei misericordis, clementissimi" (Gottwaldt in Hamza Ispahanensis); Mr. Badger much better, "In the name of God, the Pitiful, the Compassionate"—whose only fault is not preserving the assonance: and Maracci best, "In nomine Dei miseratoris misericordis."

[FN#204] Arab. Majnún (i.e. one possessed by a Jinni) the well-known model lover of Layla, a fictitious personage for whom see D'Herbelot (s. v. Megnoun). She was celebrated by Abu Mohammed Nizam al-Din of Ganjah (ob. A.H. 597=1200) pop. known as Nizámi, the caustic and austere poet who wrote:—

The weals of this world are the ass's meed! Would Nizami were of the ass's breed.

The series in the East begins chronologically with Yúsuf and Zulaykhá (Potiphar's wife) sung by Jámi (nat. A.H. 817=1414); the next in date is Khusraw and Shirin (also by Nizami); Farhad and Shirin; and Layla and Majnun (the Night-black maid and the Maniac-man) are the last. We are obliged to compare the lovers with "Romeo and Juliet," having no corresponding instances in modern days: the classics of Europe supply a host as Hero and Leander, Theagenes and Charicleia, etc. etc.