Part 15

Here ends the compound tale of Taj al-Muluk cum Aziz plus Azizah, and we return to the history of King Omar's sons.

Footnote 58:

"Zibl" popularly pronounced Zabal, means "dung." Khan is "Chief," as has been noticed; "Zabbál," which Torrens renders literally "dung-drawer," is one who feeds the Hammam with _bois-de-vache_, etc.

Footnote 59:

_i.e._ one who fights the Jihád or "Holy War": it is equivalent to our "good knight."

Footnote 60:

Arab. "Malik." Azud al-Daulah, a Sultan or regent under the Abbaside Caliph Al-Tá'í li 'llah (regn. A.H. 363-381) was the first to take the title of "Malik." The latter in poetry is still written Malík.

Footnote 61:

A townlet on the Euphrates, in the "awwal Shám," or frontier of Syria.

Footnote 62:

_i.e._, the son would look to that.

Footnote 63:

A characteristic touch of Arab pathos, tender and true.

Footnote 64:

Arab. "Mawarid" from "ward" = resorting to pool or water-pit (like those of "Gakdúl") for drinking, as opposed to "Sadr" = returning after having drunk at it. Hence the "Sádir" (part. act.) takes precedence of the "Wárid" in Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawi).

Footnote 65:

One of the fountains of Paradise (Koran, chapt. lxxvi.): the word lit. means "water flowing pleasantly down the throat." The same chapter mentions "Zanjabíl," or the Ginger-fount, which to the Infidel mind unpleasantly suggests "ginger pop."

Footnote 66:

Arab. "Takhíl" = adorning with Kohl.

Footnote 67:

The allusions are far-fetched and obscure as in Scandinavian poetry. Mr. Payne (ii. 314) translates "Naml" by "net." I understand the ant (swarm) creeping up the cheeks, a common simile for a young beard. The lovers are in the Lazá (hell) of jealousy, etc., yet feel in the Na'ím (heaven) of love and robe in green, the hue of hope, each expecting to be the favoured one.

Footnote 68:

Arab. "Ukhuwán," the classical term. There are two chamomiles; the white (Bábúnaj) and the yellow (Kaysún); these however are Syrian names and plants are differently called in almost every Province of Arabia.

Footnote 69:

In nomadic life the parting of lovers happens so frequently that it becomes a stock topic in poetry and often, as here, the lover complains of parting when he is not parted. But the gravamen lies in the word "Wasl" which may mean union, meeting, reunion or coition. As Ka'ab ibn Zuhayr began his famous poem with "Su'ád hath departed," 900 imitators (says Al-Siyuti) adopted the Násib or address to the beloved and Su'ad came to signify a cruel, capricious mistress.

Footnote 70:

As might be expected from a nation of camel-breeders actual cautery which can cause only counter-irritation, is a favourite nostrum; and the Hadis or prophetic saying is "Akhir al-dawá (or al-tibb) al-Kayy" = cautery is the end of medicine-cure; and "Fire and sickness cannot cohabit." Most of the Badawi bear upon their bodies grisly marks of this heroic treatment, whose abuse not unfrequently brings on gangrene. The Hadis (Burckhardt, Proverbs, No. 30) also means "if nothing else avail, take violent measures."

Footnote 71:

The Spaniards have the same expression: "Man is fire and woman is tinder."

Footnote 72:

Arab. "Báshik" from Persian "Báshah" (_accipiter Nisus_) a fierce little species of sparrow-hawk which I have described in "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus" (p. 14, etc.)

Footnote 73:

Lit. "Coals (fit) for frying-pan."

Footnote 74:

Arab. "Libdah," the sign of a pauper or religious mendicant. He is addressed "Yá Abu libdah!" (O father of a felt calotte!)

Footnote 75:

In times of mourning Moslem women do not use perfumes or dyes, like the Henna here alluded to in the pink legs and feet of the dove.

Footnote 76:

Koran, chapt. ii. 23. The idea is repeated in some forty Koranic passages.

Footnote 77:

A woman's name, often occurring. The "daughters of Sa'ada" are zebras, so called because "they resemble women in beauty and graceful agility."

Footnote 78:

Arab. "Tiryák" from Gr. Θηριακόν φάρμακον a drug against venomous bites. It was compounded mainly of treacle, and that of Baghdad and Irák was long held sovereign. The European equivalent, "Venice treacle," (Theriaca Andromachi) is an electuary containing many elements. Badawin eat for counter-poison three heads of garlic in clarified butter for forty days. (Pilgrimage iii. 77.)

Footnote 79:

Could Cervantes have read this? In Algiers he might easily have heard it recited by the tale-tellers. Kanmakan is the typical Arab Knight, gentle and valiant as Don Quixote; Sabbáh is the _Grazioso_, a "Beduin" Sancho Panza. In the "Romance of Antar" we have a similar contrast with Ocab who says: "Indeed I am no fighter: the sword in my hand-palm chases only pelicans;" and, "whenever you kill a satrap, I'll plunder him."

Footnote 80:

_i.e._ The Comely, son of the Spearman, son of the Lion, or Hero.

Footnote 81:

Arab. "Ushári." Old Purchas (vi., i. 9) says there are three kinds of camels (1) _Huguin_ (= Hejin) of tall stature and able to carry 1,000 lbs. (2) _Bechete_ (= Bukhti) the two-humped Bactrian before mentioned and, (3) the _Raguahill_ (Rahíl) small dromedaries unfit for burden but able to cover a hundred miles in a day. The "King of Timbukhtu" (not "Bukhtu's well" pop. Timbuctoo) had camels which reach Segelmesse (Sijalmas) or Darha, nine hundred miles in eight days at most. Lyon makes the Maherry (also called El-Heirie = Mahri) trot nine miles an hour for a long time. Other travellers in North Africa report the _Sabayee_ (Saba'i = seven days wonder) as able to get over six hundred and thirty miles (or thirty-five caravan stages = each eighteen miles) in five to seven days. One of the dromedaries in the "hamlah" or caravan of Mr. Ensor (Journey through Nubia and Darfoor—a charming book) travelled one thousand one hundred and ten miles in twenty-seven days. He notes that his beasts were better with water every five to seven days, but in the cold season could do without drink for sixteen. I found in Al-Hijaz at the end of August that the camels suffered much after ninety hours without drink (Pilgrimage iii. 14). But these were "Júdi" fine-haired animals as opposed to "Khawár" (the Khowás of Chesney, p. 333), coarse-haired, heavy, slow brutes which will not stand great heat.

Footnote 82:

_i.e._ Fortune so willed it (euphemistically).

Footnote 83:

The "minaret" being feminine is usually compared with a fair young girl. The oldest minaret proper is supposed to have been built in Damascus by the Ommiade Caliph (No. X.) Al-Walid A.H. 86-96 (= 705-715). According to Ainsworth (ii. 113) the second was at Kuch Hisar in Chaldea.

Footnote 84:

None of the pure Badawi can swim for the best of reasons, want of waters.

Footnote 85:

The baser sort of Badawi is never to be trusted: he is a traitor born, and looks upon fair play as folly or cowardice. Neither oath nor kindness can bind him: he unites the cruelty of the cat with the wildness of the wolf. How many Englishmen have lost their lives by not knowing these elementary truths! The race has not changed from the days of Mandeville (A.D. 1322) whose "Arabians, who are called Bedouins and Ascopards (?), are right felonious and foul, and of a cursed nature." In his day they "carried but one shield and one spear, without other arm:" now, unhappily for travellers, they have matchlocks and most tribes can manufacture a something called by courtesy gunpowder.

Footnote 86:

Thus by Arab custom they become friends.

Footnote 87:

Our classical term for a noble Arab horse.

Footnote 88:

In Arab. "Khayl" is = horse; Husan, a stallion; Hudúd, a brood stallion; Faras, a mare (but sometimes used as a horse and meaning "that tears over the ground"); Jiyád a steed (noble); Kadísh, a nag (ignoble); Mohr a colt and Mohrah, a filly. There are dozens of other names but these suffice for conversation.

Footnote 89:

Al-Katúl, the slayer; Al-Majnún, the mad; both high compliments in the style inverted.

Footnote 90:

This was a highly honourable exploit, which would bring the doer fame as well as gain

Footnote 91:

This is a true and life-like description of horse-stealing in the Desert: Antar and Burckhardt will confirm every word. A noble Arab stallion is supposed to fight for his rider and to wake him at night if he see any sign of danger. The owner generally sleeps under the belly of the beast which keeps eyes and ears alert till dawn.

Footnote 92:

Arab. "Yaum al-tanádí," _i.e._ Resurrection-day.

Footnote 93:

Arab. "Bilád al-Súdán" = the Land of the Blacks, negro-land, whence the slaves came, a word now fatally familiar to English ears. There are, however, two regions of the same name, the Eastern upon the Upper Nile and the Western which contains the Niger-Valley; and each considers itself _the_ Sudan. And the reader must not confound the Berber of the Upper Nile, the _Berberino_ who acts servant in Lower Egypt, with the Berber of Barbary: the former speaks an African language; the latter a "Semitic" (Arabic) tongue.

Footnote 94:

"Him" for "her."

Footnote 95:

Arab. "Sáibah," a she-camel freed from labour under certain conditions amongst the pagan Arabs; for which see Sale (Prel. Disc. sect. v.).

Footnote 96:

Arab. "Marba'." In early spring the Badawi tribes leave the Rasm or wintering-place (the Turco-Persian "Kishlák") in the desert, where winter-rains supply them, and make for the Yaylák, or summer-quarters, where they find grass and water. Thus the great Ruwala tribe appears regularly every year on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Libanus (Unexplored Syria, i. 117), and hence the frequent "partings."

Footnote 97:

This "renowning it" and boasting of one's tribe (and oneself) before battle is as natural as the war-cry: both are intended to frighten the foe and have often succeeded. Every classical reader knows that the former practice dates from the earliest ages. It is still customary in Arabia during the furious tribal fights, the duello on a magnificent scale, which often ends in half the combatants on either side being placed hors-de-combat. A fair specimen of "renowning it" is Amrú's Suspended Poem with its extravagant panegyric of the Taghlab tribe (p. 64, "Arabian Poetry for English Readers," etc., by W. A. Clouston, Glasgow: privately printed MDCCCLXXXI.; and transcribed from Sir William Jones's translation).

Footnote 98:

The "Turk" appeared soon amongst the Abbaside Caliphs. Mohammed was made to prophecy of them under the title Banú Kantúrah, the latter being a slave-girl of Abraham. The Imam Al-Shafi'i (A.H. 195 = A.D. 810) is said to have foretold their rule in Egypt where an Ottoman defended him against a donkey-boy. (For details see Pilgrimage i. 216.) The Caliph Al-Mu'atasim bi'llah (A.D. 833-842) had more than 10,000 Turkish slaves and was the first to entrust them with high office; so his Arab subjects wrote of him:—

A wretched Turk is thy heart's desire; And to them thou showest thee dam and sire.

His successor Al-Wásik (Vathek, of the terrible eyes) was the first to appoint a Turk his Sultan or regent. After his reign they became prætorians and led to the downfall of the Abbasides.

Footnote 99:

The Persian saying is "First at the feast and last at the fray."

Footnote 100:

_i.e._ a tempter, a seducer.

Footnote 101:

Arab. "Wayl-ak" here probably used in the sense of "Wayh-ak" an expression of affectionate concern.

Footnote 102:

Firdausi, the Homer of Persia, affects the same magnificent exaggeration. The trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one layer (of the seven) from earth and adds it to the (seven of the) Heavens. The "blaze" on the stallion's forehead (Arab. "Ghurrah") is the white gleam of the morning.

Footnote 103:

A noted sign of excitement in the Arab blood horse, when the tail looks like a panache covering the hind-quarter.

Footnote 104:

_i.e._ Prince Kanmakan.

Footnote 105:

The "quality of mercy" belongs to the noble Arab, whereas the ignoble and the Badawin are rancorous and revengeful as camels.

Footnote 106:

Arab. "Khanjar," the poison was let into the grooves and hollows of the poniard.

Footnote 107:

The Pers. "Bang"; Indian "Bhang"; Maroccan "Fasúkh" and S. African "Dakhá." (Pilgrimage i. 64). I heard of a "Hashish-orgie" in London which ended in half the experimentalists being on their sofas for a week. The drug is useful for stokers, having the curious property of making men insensible to heat. Easterns also use it for "Imsák" prolonging coition, of which I speak presently.

Footnote 108:

Arab. "Hashsháshín;" whence De Sacy derived "Assassin." A notable effect of the Hashish preparation is wildly to excite the imagination, a kind of delirium imaginans sive phantasticum.

Footnote 109:

Meaning "Well done!" Mashallah (Má sháa 'llah) is an exclamation of many uses, especially affected when praising man or beast for fear lest flattering words induce the evil eye.

Footnote 110:

Arab. "Kabkáb" vulg. "Kubkáb." They are between three and ten inches high; and those using them for the first time in the slippery Hammam must be careful.

Footnote 111:

Arab. "Majlis" = sitting. The postures of coition, ethnologically curious and interesting, are subjects so extensive that they require a volume rather than a note. Full information can be found in the Ananga-ranga, or Stage of the Bodiless One, a treatise in Sanskrit verse vulgarly known as Koka Pandit from the supposed author, a Wazir of the great Rajah Bhoj or, according to others, of the Maharajah of Kanoj. Under the title Lizzat al-Nisá (The Pleasures—or enjoying—of Women) it has been translated into all the languages of the Moslem East, from Hindustani to Arabic. It divides postures into five great divisions: (1) the woman lying supine, of which there are eleven subdivisions; (2) lying on her side, right or left, with three varieties; (3) sitting, which has ten; (4) standing, with three subdivisions, and (5) lying prone, with two. This total of twenty-nine, with three forms of "Purusháyit," when the man lies supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two, approaching the French _quarante façons_. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both "sit at squat" somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern's limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga-ranga appeared in 1873 under the name of Káma-Shástra; or the Hindoo Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica); but of this only six copies were printed. It was re-issued (printed but not published) in 1885. The curious in such matters will consult the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, privately printed, 1879) by Pisanus Fraxi (H. S. Ashbee).

Footnote 112:

_i.e._ _Le Roi Crotte._

Footnote 113:

This seems to be a punning allusion to Baghdad, which in Persian would mean the Garden (bágh) of Justice (dád). See "Biographical Notices of Persian Poets" by Sir Gore Ouseley, London, Oriental Translation Fund, 1846.

Footnote 114:

The Kardoukhoi (Carduchi) of Xenophon; also called (Strabo xv.) "Kárdakís, from a Persian word signifying manliness," which would be "Kardak" = a doer (of derring-do). They also named the Montes Gordæi the original Ararat of Xisisthrus-Noah's Ark. The Kurds are of Persian race, speaking an old and barbarous Iranian tongue and often of the Shi'ah sect. They are born bandits, highwaymen, cattle-lifters; yet they have spread extensively over Syria and Egypt and have produced some glorious men, witness Sultan Saláh al-Din (Saladin) the Great. They claim affinity with the English in the East, because both races always inhabit the highest grounds they can find.

Footnote 115:

These irregular bands who belong to no tribe are the most dangerous bandits in Arabia, especially upon the northern frontier. Burckhardt, who suffered from them, gives a long account of their treachery and utter absence of that Arab "pundonor" which is supposed to characterise Arab thieves.

Footnote 116:

An euphemistic form to avoid mentioning the incestuous marriage.

Footnote 117:

The Arab form of our "Kinchin lay."

Footnote 118:

These are the signs of a Shaykh's tent.

Footnote 119:

These questions, indiscreet in Europe, are the rule throughout Arabia, as they were in the United States of the last generation.

Footnote 120:

Arab. "Khizáb" a paste of quicklime and lamp-black kneaded with linseed oil which turns the Henna to a dark olive. It is hideously ugly to unaccustomed eyes and held to be remarkably beautiful in Egypt.

Footnote 121:

_i.e._ the God of the Empyrean.

Footnote 122:

A blow worthy of the Sa'alabah tribe to which he belonged.

Footnote 123:

_i.e._ "benefits"; also the name of Mohammed's Mu'ezzin, or crier to prayer, who is buried outside the Jábiah gate of Damascus. Hence amongst Moslems Abyssinians were preferred as mosque-criers in the early ages of Al-Islam. Egypt chose blind men because they were abundant and cheap; moreover they cannot take note of what is doing on the adjoining roof-terraces where women and children love to pass the cool hours that begin and end the day. Stories are told of men who counterfeited blindness for years in order to keep the employment. In Moslem cities the stranger required to be careful how he appeared at a window or on the gallery of a minaret: the people hate to be overlooked and the whizzing of a bullet was the warning to be off. Pilgrimage iii. 185.

Footnote 124:

His instinct probably told him that this opponent was a low fellow; but such insults are common when "renowning it."

Footnote 125:

Arab. "Dara'" or "Dira'," a habergeon, a coat of ring-mail, sometimes worn in pairs. During the wretched "Sudan" campaigns much naïve astonishment was expressed by the English Press to hear of warriors armed cap-à-pie in this armour like medieval knights. They did not know that every great tribe has preserved, possibly from Crusading times, a number of hauberks, even to hundreds. I have heard of only one English traveller who had a mail-jacket made by Wilkinson of Pall Mall, imitating in this point Napoleon III. and (according to the Banker-poet, Rogers) the Duke of Wellington. That of Napoleon is said to have been made of platinum-wire, the work of a Pole who received his money and an order to quit Paris. The late Sir Robert Clifton (they say) tried its value with a Colt after placing it upon one of his coat-models or mannequins. It is easy to make these hauberks arrow-proof or sword-proof, even bullet-proof if Arab gunpowder be used: but against a modern rifle-cone they are worse than worthless as the fragments would be carried into the wound. The British serjeant was right in saying that he would prefer to enter battle in his shirt: and he might even doff that to advantage and return to the primitive custom of man-gymnomachy.

Footnote 126:

Arab. "Jamal" (by Badawin pronounced "Gamal" like the Hebrew) is the generic term for "Camel" through the Gr.κάμηλος: "Ibl" is also the camel-species but not so commonly used. "Hajín" is the dromedary (in Egypt, "Dalúl" in Arabia), not the one-humped camel of the zoologist (_C. dromedarius_) as opposed to the two-humped (_C. Bactrianus_), but a running _i.e._ a riding camel. The feminine is Nákah, for like mules females are preferred. "Bakr" (masc.) and "Bakrah" (fem.) are camel-colts. There are hosts of special names besides those which are general. Mr. Ensor is singular when he states (p. 40) "the male (of the camel) is much the safer animal to choose;" and the custom of the universal East disproves his assertion. Mr. McCoan ("Egypt as it is") tells his readers that the Egyptian camel has two humps; in fact, he describes the camel as it is not.

Footnote 127:

So, in the Romance of Dalhamah (Zát al-Himmah, the heroine) the hero Al-Gundubah ("one locust-man") smites off the head of his mother's servile murderer and cries, "I have taken my blood-revenge upon this traitor slave!" (Lane, M. E. chapt. xxiii.).

Footnote 128:

This gathering all the persons upon the stage before the curtain drops is highly artistic and improbable.

Footnote 129:

He ought to have said his dawn prayers.

Now when it was the Hundred and Forty-sixth Night,

Shahrazad began to relate, in these words,

THE TALE OF THE BIRDS AND BEASTS AND THE CARPENTER.[130]

Quoth she, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that in times of yore and in ages long gone before, a peacock abode with his wife on the sea-shore. Now the place was infested with lions and all manner wild beasts, withal it abounded in trees and streams. So cock and hen were wont to roost by night upon one of the trees, being in fear of the beasts, and went forth by day questing food. And they ceased not thus to do till their fear increased on them and they searched for some place wherein to dwell other than their old dwelling-place; and in the course of their search behold, they happened on an island abounding in streams and trees. So they alighted there and ate of its fruits and drank of its waters. But whilst they were thus engaged, lo! up came to them a duck in a state of extreme terror, and stayed not faring forwards till she reached the tree whereon were perched the two peafowl, when she seemed re-assured in mind. The peacock doubted not but that she had some rare story; so he asked her of her case and the cause of her concern, whereto she answered, "I am sick for sorrow, and my horror of the son of Adam:[131] so beware, and again I say beware of the sons of Adam!" Rejoined the peacock, "Fear not now that thou hast won our protection." Cried the duck, "Alhamdolillah! glory to God, who hath done away my cark and care by means of you being near! For indeed I come of friendship fain with you twain." And when she had ended her speech the peacock's wife came down to her and said, "Well come and welcome and fair cheer! No harm shall hurt thee: how can son of Adam come to us and we in this isle which lieth a-middlemost of the sea? From the land he cannot reach us neither can he come against us from the water. So be of good cheer and tell us what hath betided thee from the child of Adam." Answered the duck, "Know, then, O thou peahen, that of a truth I have dwelt all my life in this island safely and peacefully, nor have I seen any disquieting thing, till one night, as I was asleep, I sighted in my dream the semblance of a son of Adam, who talked with me and I with him. Then I heard a voice say to me:—O thou duck, beware of the son of Adam and be not imposed on by his words nor by that he may suggest to thee; for he aboundeth in wiles and guiles; so beware with all wariness of his perfidy, for again I say, he is crafty and right cunning even as singeth of him the poet:—

He'll offer sweetmeats with his edgèd tongue, ✿ And fox thee with the foxy guile of fox."

[Illustration]