Chapter XVII: Part 17

"My heart is a thrall; my tears ne'er abate * And their rains the
railing of clouds amate;
'Twixt my weeping and watching and wanting love; * And whining
and pining for dearest mate.
Ah my burning heat, my desire, my lowe! * For the plagues that
torture my heart are eight;
And five upon five are in suite of them; * So stand and listen to
all I state:
Mem'ry, madding thoughts, moaning languishment, * Stress of
longing love, plight disconsolate;
In travail, affliction and strangerhood, * And annoy and joy when
on her I wait.
Fail me patience and stay for engrossing care * And sorrows my
suffering soul regrate.
On my heart the possession of passion grows * O who ask of what
fire in my heart's create,
Why my tears in vitals should kindle flame, * Burning heart with
ardours insatiate,
Know, I'm drowned in Deluge[FN#557] of tears and my soul * From
Lazá-lowe fares to Háwiyah-goal."[FN#558]

When the Princess Miriam beheld Nur al-Din and heard his loquence and verse and speech, she made certain that it was indeed her lord Nur al-Din; but she concealed her case from the Wazir's daughter and said to her, "By the virtue of the Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, I thought not thou knewest of my sadness!" Then she arose forthright and withdrawing from the window, returned to her own place, whilst the Wazir's daughter went to her own occupations. The Princess awaited patiently awhile, then returned to the window and sat there, gazing upon her beloved Nur al-Din and delighting her eyes with his beauty and inner and outer grace. And indeed, she saw that he was like unto moon at full on fourteenth night; but he was ever sighing with tears never drying, for that he recalled whatso he had been abying. So he recited these couplets,

"I hope for Union with my love which I may ne'er obtain * At all,
but bitterness of life is all the gain I gain:
My tears are likest to the main for ebb and flow of tide; * But
when I meet the blamer-wight to staunch my tears I'm fain.
Woe to the wretch who garred us part by spelling of his
spells;[FN#559] * Could I but hend his tongue in hand I'd
cut his tongue in twain:
Yet will I never blame the days for whatso deed they did *
Mingling with merest, purest gall the cup they made me
drain!
To whom shall I address myself; and whom but you shall seek * A
heart left hostage in your Court, by you a captive ta'en?
Who shall avenge my wrongs on you,[FN#560] tyrant despotical *
Whose tyranny but grows the more, the more I dare complain?
I made him regnant of my soul that he the reign assain * But me
he wasted wasting too the soul I gave to reign.
Ho thou, the Fawn, whom I so lief erst gathered to my breast *
Enow of severance tasted I to own its might and main,
Thou'rt he whose favours joined in one all beauties known to man,
* Yet I thereon have wasted all my Patience' fair domain.
I entertained him in my heart whereto he brought unrest * But I
am satisfied that I such guest could entertain.
My tears for ever flow and flood, likest the surging sea * And
would I wot the track to take that I thereto attain.
Yet sore I fear that I shall die in depths of my chagrin * And
must despair for evermore to win the wish I'd win."

When Miriam heard the verses of Nur al-Din the loving-hearted, the parted; they kindled in her vitals a fire of desire, and while her eyes ran over with tears, she recited these two couplets,

"I longed for him I love; but, when we met, * I was amazed nor
tongue nor eyes I found.
I had got ready volumes of reproach; * But when we met, could
syllable no sound."

When Nur al-Din heard the voice of Princess Miriam, he knew it and wept bitter tears, saying, "By Allah, this is the chanting of the Lady Miriam."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

End of Volume 8.

Arabian Nights, Volume 8
Footnotes

[FN#1] Ironicè; we are safe as long as we are defended by such a brave.

[FN#2] Blue, azure. This is hardly the place for a protest, but I must not neglect the opportunity of cautioning my readers against rendering Bahr al-Azrak ("Blue River") by "Blue Nile." No Arab ever knew it by that name or thereby equalled it with the White Nile. The term was a pure invention of Abyssinian Bruce who was well aware of the unfact he was propagating, but his inordinate vanity and self-esteem, contrasting so curiously with many noble qualities, especially courage and self-reliance, tempted him to this and many other a traveller's tale.

[FN#3] This is orthodox Moslem doctrine and it does something for the dignity of human nature which has been so unwisely depreciated and degraded by Christianity. The contrast of Moslem dignity and Christian abasement in the East is patent to every unblind traveller.

[FN#4] Here ends vol. iii. of the Mac. Edit.

[FN#5] This famous tale is a sister prose-poem to the "Arabian Odyssey" Sindbad the Seaman; only the Bassorite's travels are in Jinn-land and Japan. It has points of resemblance in "fundamental outline" with the Persian Romance of the Fairy Hasan Bánú and King Bahrám-i-Gúr. See also the Kathá (s.s.) and the two sons of the Asúra Máyá; the Tartar "Sidhi Kúr" (Tales of a Vampire or Enchanted Corpse) translated by Mr. W. J. Thoms (the Father of "Folk-lore" in 1846,) in "Lays and Legends of various Nations"; the Persian Bahár-i-Dánish (Prime of Lore). Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales"; Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days" and Mrs. F. A. Steel's "Tale of the King and his Seven Sons," with notes by Lieutenant (now Captain) R. C. Temple (Folk-lore of the Panjab, Indian Antiquary of March, 1882).

[FN#6] In the Mac. Edit. (vol. iv. i.) the merchant has two sons who became one a brazier ("dealer in copper-wares" says Lane iii. 385) and the other a goldsmith. The Bresl. Edit. (v. 264) mentions only one son, Hasan, the hero of the story which is entitled, "Tale of Hasan al-Basrí and the Isles of Wák Wák."

[FN#7] Arab. "Shásh Abyaz:" this distinctive sign of the True Believer was adopted by the Persian to conceal his being a fire-worshipper, Magian or "Guebre." The latter word was introduced from the French by Lord Byron and it is certainly far superior to Moore's "Gheber."

[FN#8] Persians being always a suspected folk.

[FN#9] Arab. "Al-Búdikah" afterwards used (Night dcclxxix) in the sense of crucible or melting-pot, in modern parlance a pipe-bowl; and also written "Bútakah," an Arab distortion of the Persian "Bútah."

[FN#10] Arab. "Sindán" or "Sindiyán" (Dozy). "Sandán," anvil; "Sindán," big, strong (Steingass).

[FN#11] Arab. "Kímiya," (see vol. i. 305) properly the substance which transmutes metals, the "philosopher's stone" which, by the by, is not a stone; and comes from {chymeía,chymós} = a fluid, a wet drug, as opposed to Iksír (Al-) {Xerón, Xérion}, a dry drug. Those who care to see how it is still studied will consult my History of Sindh (chapt. vii) and my experience which pointed only to the use made of it in base coinage. Hence in mod. tongue Kímiyáwi, an alchemist, means a coiner, a smasher. The reader must not suppose that the transmutation of metals is a dead study: I calculate that there are about one hundred workers in London alone.

[FN#12] Arab. "Al-Kír," a bellows also = Kúr, a furnace. For the full meaning of this sentence, see my "Book of the Sword," p. 119.

[FN#13] Lit. "bade him lean upon it with the shears" (Al-Káz).

[FN#14] There are many kinds of Kohls (Hindos. Surmá and Kajjal) used in medicine and magic. See Herklots, p. 227.

[FN#15] Arab. "Sabíkah" = bar, lamina, from "Sabk" = melting, smelting: the lump in the crucible would be hammered out into an ingot in order to conceal the operation

[FN#16] i.e. £375.

[FN#17] Such report has cost many a life: the suspicion was and is still deadly as heresy in a "new Christian" under the Inquisition.

[FN#18] Here there is a double entendre: openly it means, "Few men recognise as they should the bond of bread and salt:" the other sense would be (and that accounts for the smile), "What the deuce do I care for the bond?"

[FN#19] Arab. "Kabbát" in the Bresl. Edit. "Ka'abán ": Lane (iii. 519) reads "Ka'áb plur. of Ka'ab a cup."

[FN#20] A most palpable sneer. But Hasan is purposely represented as a "softy" till aroused and energized by the magic of Love.

[FN#21] Arab. "Al-iksír" (see Night dcclxxix, supra p. 9): the Greek word which has returned from a trip to Arabia and reappeared in Europe as "Elixir."

[FN#22] "Awák" plur. of "Ukíyah," the well-known "oke," or "ocque," a weight varying from 1 to 2 lbs. In Morocco it is pronounced "Wukíyah," and = the Spanish ounce (p. 279 Rudimentos del Arabe Vulgar, etc., by Fr. José de Lorchundi, Madrid, Rivadeneyra, 1872).

[FN#23] These lines have occurred in vol. iv. 267, where references to other places are given. I quote Lane by way of variety. In the text they are supposed to have been written by the Persian, a hint that Hasan would never be seen again.

[FN#24] i.e. a superfetation of iniquity.

[FN#25] Arab. "Kurbán," Heb. { }Corban = offering, oblation to be brought to the priest's house or to the altar of the tribal God Yahveh, Jehovah (Levit. ii, 2-3 etc.). Amongst the Maronites Kurban is the host (-wafer) and amongst the Turks 'Id al-Kurban (sacrifice-feast) is the Greater Bayram, the time of Pilgrimage.

[FN#26] Nár = fire, being feminine, like the names of the other "elements."

[FN#27] The Egyptian Kurbáj of hippopotamus-hide (Burkh. Nubia, pp. 62,282) or elephant-hide (Turner ii. 365). Hence the Fr. Cravache (as Cravat is from Croat).

[FN#28] In Mac. Edit. "Bahriyah": in Bresl. Edit. "Nawátíyah." See vol. vi. 242, for {Naýtes}, navita, nauta.

[FN#29] In Bresl. Edit. (iv. 285) "Yá Khwájah," for which see vol. vi. 46.

[FN#30] Arab. "Tabl" (vulg. baz) = a kettle-drum about half a foot broad held in the left hand and beaten with a stick or leathern thong. Lane refers to his description (M.E. ii. chapt. v.) of the Dervish's drum of tinned copper with parchment face, and renders Zakhmah or Zukhmah (strap, stirrup-leather) by "plectrum," which gives a wrong idea. The Bresl. Edit. ignores the strap.

[FN#31] The "Spartivento" of Italy, mostly a tall headland which divides the clouds. The most remarkable feature of the kind is the Dalmatian Island, Pelagosa.

[FN#32] The "Rocs" (Al-Arkhákh) in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 290). The Rakham = aquiline vulture.

[FN#33] Lane here quotes a similar incident in the romance "Sayf Zú al-Yazan," so called from the hero, whose son, Misr, is sewn up in a camel's hide by Bahrám, a treacherous Magian, and is carried by the Rukhs to a mountain-top.

[FN#34] These lines occurred in Night xxvi. vol. i. 275: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#35] Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.

[FN#36] i.e. If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt charge me therewith on the Judgment-day.

[FN#37] Arab. "Al-Alwán," plur. of laun (colour). The latter in Egyptian Arabic means a "dish of meat." See Burckhardt No. 279. I repeat that the great traveller's "Arabic Proverbs" wants republishing for two reasons. First he had not sufficient command of English to translate with the necessary laconism and assonance: secondly in his day British Philistinism was too rampant to permit a literal translation. Consequently the book falls short of what the Oriental student requires; and I have prepared it for my friend Mr. Quaritch.

[FN#38] i.e. Lofty, high-builded. See Night dcclxviii. vol. vii. p. 347. In the Bresl. Edit. Al-Masíd (as in Al-Kazwíni): in the Mac. Edit. Al-Mashid

[FN#39] Arab. "Munkati" here = cut off from the rest of the world. Applied to a man, and a popular term of abuse in Al-Hijáz, it means one cut off from the blessings of Allah and the benefits of mankind; a pauvre sire. (Pilgrimage ii. 22.)

[FN#40] Arab. "Baras au Juzám," the two common forms of leprosy. See vol. iv. 51. Popular superstition in Syria holds that coition during the menses breeds the Juzám, Dáa al-Kabír (Great Evil) or Dáa al-Fíl (Elephantine Evil), i.e. Elephantiasis and that the days between the beginning of the flow (Sabíl) to that of coition shows the age when the progeny will be attacked; for instance if it take place on the first day, the disease will appear in the tenth year, on the fourth the fortieth and so on. The only diseases really dreaded by the Badawin are leprosy and small-pox. Coition during the menses is forbidden by all Eastern faiths under the severest penalties. Al-Mas'údi relates how a man thus begotten became a determined enemy of Ali; and the ancient Jews attributed the magical powers of Joshua Nazarenus to this accident of his birth, the popular idea being that sorcerers are thus impurely engendered.

[FN#41] By adoption - See vol. iii. 151. This sudden affection (not love) suggests the "Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance!" of the Anti-Jacobin. But it is true to Eastern nature; and nothing can be more charming than this fast friendship between the Princess and Hasan.

[FN#42] En tout bien et en tout honneur, be it understood.

[FN#43] He had done nothing of the kind; but the feminine mind is prone to exaggeration. Also Hasan had told them a fib, to prejudice them against the Persian.

[FN#44] These nervous movements have been reduced to a system in the Turk. "Ihtilájnámeh" = Book of palpitations, prognosticating from the subsultus tendinum and other involuntary movements of the body from head to foot; according to Ja'afar the Just, Daniel the Prophet, Alexander the Great; the Sages of Persia and the Wise Men of Greece. In England we attend chiefly to the eye and ear.

[FN#45] Revenge, amongst the Arabs, is a sacred duty; and, in their state of civilization, society could not be kept together without it. So the slaughter of a villain is held to be a sacrifice to Allah, who amongst Christians claims for Himself the monopoly of vengeance.

[FN#46] Arab. "Zindík." See vol. v. 230.

[FN#47] Lane translates this "put for him the remaining food and water;" but Al-Ákhar (Mac. Edit.) evidently refers to the Najíb (dromedary).

[FN#48] We can hardly see the heroism of the deed, but it must be remembered that Bahram was a wicked sorcerer, whom it was every good Moslem's bounden duty to slay. Compare the treatment of witches in England two centuries ago.

[FN#49] The mother in Arab tales is ma mère, now becoming somewhat ridiculous in France on account of the over use of that venerable personage.

[FN#50] The forbidden closet occurs also in Sayf Zú al-Yazan, who enters it and finds the bird-girls. Trébutien ii, 208 says, "Il est assez remarquable qu'il existe en Allemagne une tradition à peu près semblable, et qui a fourni le sujet d'un des contes de Musaeus, entitulé, le voile enlevé." Here Hasan is artfully left alone in a large palace without other companions but his thoughts and the reader is left to divine the train of ideas which drove him to open the door.

[FN#51] Arab. "Buhayrah" (Bresl. Edit. "Bahrah"), the tank or cistern in the Hosh (court-yard) of an Eastern house. Here, however, it is a rain-cistern on the flat roof of the palace (See Night dcccviii).

[FN#52] This description of the view is one of the most gorgeous in The Nights.

[FN#53] Here again are the "Swan-maidens" (See vol. v. 346) "one of the primitive myths, the common heritage of the whole Aryan (Iranian) race." In Persia Bahram-i-Gúr when carried off by the Dív Sapíd seizes the Peri's dove-coat: in Santháli folk-lore Torica, the Goatherd, steals the garment doffed by one of the daughters of the sun; and hence the twelve birds of Russian Story. To the same cycle belong the Seal-tales of the Faroe Islands (Thorpe's Northern Mythology) and the wise women or mermaids of Shetland (Hibbert). Wayland the smith captures a wife by seizing a mermaid's raiment and so did Sir Hagán by annexing the wardrobe of a Danubian water-nymph. Lettsom, the translator, mixes up this swan-raiment with that of the Valkyries or Choosers of the Slain. In real life stealing women's clothes is an old trick and has often induced them, after having been seen naked, to offer their persons spontaneously. Of this I knew two cases in India, where the theft is justified by divine example. The blue god Krishna, a barbarous and grotesque Hindu Apollo, robbed the raiment of the pretty Gopálís (cowherdesses) who were bathing in the Arjun River and carried them to the top of a Kunduna tree; nor would he restore them till he had reviewed the naked girls and taken one of them to wife. See also Imr al-Kays (of the Mu'allakah) with "Onaiza" at the port of Daratjuljul (Clouston's Arabian Poetry, p.4). A critic has complained of my tracing the origin of the Swan-maiden legend to the physical resemblance between the bird and a high-bred girl (vol. v. 346). I should have explained my theory which is shortly, that we must seek a material basis for all so-called supernaturalisms, and that anthropomorphism satisfactorily explains the Swan-maiden, as it does the angel and the devil. There is much to say on the subject; but this is not the place for long discussion.

[FN#54] Arab. "Nafs Ammárah," corresponding with our canting term "The Flesh." Nafs al-Nátíkah is the intellectual soul or function; Nafs al-Ghazabíyah = the animal function and Nafs al Shahwáníyah = the vegetative property.

[FN#55] The lines occur in vol. ii. 331: I have quoted Mr. Payne. Here they are singularly out of place.

[FN#56] Not the "green gown" of Anglo-India i.e. a white ball-dress with blades of grass sticking to it in consequence of a "fall backwards."

[FN#57] These lines occur in vol. i. 219: I have borrowed from Torrens (p. 219).

[FN#58] The appearance of which ends the fast and begins the Lesser Festival. See vol. i. 84.

[FN#59] See note, vol. i. 84, for notices of the large navel; much appreciated by Easterns.

[FN#60] Arab. "Shá'ir Al-Walahán" = the love-distraught poet; Lane has "a distracted poet." My learned friend Professor Aloys Sprenger has consulted, upon the subject of Al-Walahán the well-known Professor of Arabic at Halle, Dr. Thorbeck, who remarks that the word (here as further on) must be an adjective, mad, love-distraught, not a "lakab" or poetical cognomen. He generally finds it written Al-Shá'ir al-Walahán (the love-demented poet) not Al-Walahán al-Shá'ir = Walahán the Poet. Note this burst of song after the sweet youth falls in love: it explains the cause of verse-quotation in The Nights, poetry being the natural language of love and battle.

[FN#61] "Them" as usual for "her."

[FN#62] Here Lane proposes a transposition, for "Wa-huwá (and he) fi'l-hubbi," to read "Fi 'l-hubbi wa huwa (wa-hwa);" but the latter is given in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#63] For the pun in "Sabr"=aloe or patience. See vol. i. 138. In Herr Landberg (i. 93) we find a misunderstanding of the couplet--

"Aw'ákibu s-sabri (Kála ba'azuhum)
Mahmúdah: Kultu, 'khshi an takhirriní.'"

"The effects of patience" (or aloes) quoth one "are praiseworthy!" Quoth I, "Much I fear lest it make me stool." Mahmúdah is not only un laxatif, but a slang name for a confection of aloes.

[FN#64] Arab. "Akúna fidá-ka." Fidá = ransom, self-sacrifice and Fidá'an = instead of. The phrase, which everywhere occurs in The Nights, means, "I would give my life to save thine "

[FN#65] Thus accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in prescribing a fib.

[FN#66] i.e. the 25,000 Amazons who in the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 308) are all made to be the King's Banát" = daughters or protégées. The Amazons of Dahome (see my "Mission") who may now number 5,000 are all officially wives of the King and are called by the lieges "our mothers."

[FN#67] The tale-teller has made up his mind about the damsel; although in this part of the story she is the chief and eldest sister and subsequently she appears as the youngest daughter of the supreme Jinn King. The mystification is artfully explained by the extraordinary likeness of the two sisters. (See Night dcccxi.)

[FN#68] This is a reminiscence of the old-fashioned "marriage by capture," of which many traces survive, even among the civilised who wholly ignore their origin.

[FN#69] Meaning her companions and suite.

[FN#70] Arab. "'Abáah" vulg. "'Abáyah." See vol. ii. 133.

[FN#71] Feet in the East lack that development of sebaceous glands which afflicts Europeans.

[FN#72] i.e. cutting the animals' throats after Moslem law.

[FN#73] In Night dcclxxviii. supra p.5, we find the orthodox Moslem doctrine that "a single mortal is better in Allah's sight than a thousand Jinns." For, I repeat, Al-Islam systematically exalts human nature which Christianity takes infinite trouble to degrade and debase. The results of its ignoble teaching are only too evident in the East: the Christians of the so-called (and miscalled) "Holy Land" are a disgrace to the faith and the idiomatic Persian term for a Nazarene is "Tarsá" = funker, coward.

[FN#74] Arab. "Sakaba Kúrahá;" the forge in which children are hammered out?

[FN#75] Arab. "Má al-Maláhat" = water (brilliancy) of beauty.

[FN#76] The fourth of the Seven Heavens, the "Garden of Eternity," made of yellow coral.

[FN#77] How strange this must sound to the Young Woman of London in the nineteenth century.

[FN#78] "Forty days" is a quasi-religious period amongst Moslem for praying, fasting and religious exercises: here it represents our "honey-moon." See vol. v. p. 62.

[FN#79] Yá layta, still popular. Herr Carlo Landberg (Proverbes et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol. i. of Syria, Leyden, E. J. Brill, 1883) explains layta for rayta (=raayta) by permutation of liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42). But the Herr is no Arabist: "Layta" means "would to Heaven," or, simply "I wish," "I pray" (for something possible or impossible); whilst "La'alla" (perhaps, it may be) prays only for the possible: and both are simply particles governing the noun in the oblique or accusative case.

[FN#80] "His" for "her," i.e. herself, making somewhat of confusion between her state and that of her son.

[FN#81] i.e. his mother; the words are not in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#82] Baghdad is called House of Peace, amongst other reasons, from the Dijlah (Tigris) River and Valley "of Peace." The word was variously written Baghdád, Bághdád, (our old Bughdaud and Bagdat), Baghzáz, Baghzán, Baghdán, Baghzám and Maghdád as Makkah and Bakkah (Koran iii. 90). Religious Moslems held Bágh (idol) and Dád (gift) an ill-omened conjunction, and the Greeks changed it to Eirenopolis. (See Ouseley's Oriental Collcctions, vol. i. pp. 18-20.)

[FN#83] This is a popular saying but hardly a "vulgar proverb." (Lane iii. 522.) It reminds rather of Shakespear's:

"So loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly."

[FN#84] i.e. God forbid that I should oppose thee!

[FN#85] Here the writer again forgets apparently, that Shahrazad is speaking: she may, however, use the plural for the singular when speaking of herself.

[FN#86] i.e. She would have pleaded ill-treatment and lawfully demanded to be sold.

[FN#87] The Hindus speak of "the only bond that woman knows--her heart."

[FN#88] i.e. a rarity, a present (especially in Persian).

[FN#89] Arab. "Al-bisát" wa'l-masnad lit. the carpet and the cushion.

[FN#90] For "Báb al-bahr" and "Báb al-Barr" see vol. iii. 281.

[FN#91] She was the daughter of Ja'afar bin Mansúr; but, as will be seen, The Nights again and again called her father Al-Kásim.

[FN#92] This is an error for the fifth which occurs in the popular saying, "Is he the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbás!" i.e. Harun al-Rashid. Lane (note, in loco) thus accounts for the frequent mention of the Caliph, the greatest of the Abbasides in The Nights. But this is a causa non causa.

[FN#93] i.e. I find thy beauty all-sufficient. So the proverb "The son of the quarter (young neighbour) filleth not the eye," which prefers a stranger.

[FN#94] They are mere doggerel, like most of the pièces de circonstance.

[FN#95] Afterwards called Wák Wák, and in the Bresl. Edit. Wák al-Wák. See Lane's notes upon these Islands. Arab Geographers evidently speak of two Wak Waks. Ibn al-Fakih and Al-Mas'údi (Fr. Transl., vol. iii. 6-7) locate one of them in East Africa beyond Zanzibar and Sofala. "Le territoire des Zendjes (Zanzibar-Negroids) commence au canal (Al-Khalij) dérivé du haut Nil (the Juln River?) et se prolonge jusqu'au pays de Sofalah et des Wak-Wak." It is simply the peninsula of Guardafui (Jard Hafun) occupied by the Gallas, pagans and Christians, before these were ousted by the Moslem Somal; and the former perpetually ejaculated "Wak" (God) as Moslems cry upon Allah. This identification explains a host of other myths such as the Amazons, who as Marco Polo tells us held the "Female Island" Socotra (Yule ii. 396). The fruit which resembled a woman's head (whence the puellæ Wakwakienses hanging by the hair from trees), and which when ripe called out "Wak Wak" and "Allah al-Khallák" (the Creator) refers to the Calabash-tree (Adausonia digitata), that grotesque growth, a vegetable elephant, whose gourds, something larger than a man's head, hang by a slender filament. Similarly the "cocoa" got its name, in Port. = Goblin, from the fancied face at one end. The other Wak Wak has been identified in turns with the Seychelles, Madagascar, Malacca, Sunda or Java (this by Langlès), China and Japan. The learned Prof. de Goeje (Arabishe Berichten over Japan, Amsterdam, Muller, 1880) informs us that in Canton the name of Japan is Wo-Kwok, possibly a corruption of Koku-tan, the ebony-tree (Diospyros ebenum) which Ibn Khor-dábah and others find together with gold in an island 4,500 parasangs from Suez and East of China. And we must remember that Basrah was the chief starting-place for the Celestial Empire during the rule of the Tang dynasty (seventh and ninth centuries). Colonel J. W. Watson of Bombay suggests New Guinea or the adjacent islands where the Bird of Paradise is said to cry "Wak Wak!" Mr. W. F. Kirby in the Preface (p. ix.) to his neat little book "The New Arabian Nights," says: "The Islands of Wak-Wak, seven years' journey from Bagdad, in the story of Hasan, have receded to a distance of a hundred and fifty years' journey in that of Majin (of Khorasan). There is no doubt(?) that the Cora Islands, near New Guinea, are intended; for the wonderful fruits which grow there are Birds of Paradise, which settle in flocks on the trees at sunset and sunrise, uttering this very cry." Thus, like Ophir, Wak Wak has wandered all over the world and has been found even in Peru by the Turkish work Tárikh al-Hind al-Gharbi = History of the West Indies (Orient. Coll. iii 189).

[FN#96] I accept the emendation of Lane's Shaykh, "Nasím " (Zephyr) for "Nadím " (cup-companion).

[FN#97] "Jannat al-Ná'im" = Garden of Delights is No. V Heaven, made of white diamond.

[FN#98] This appears to her very prettily put.

[FN#99] This is the "House of Sadness" of our old chivalrous Romances. See chapt. vi. of "Palmerin of England," by Francisco de Moraes (ob. 1572), translated by old Anthony Munday (dateless, 1590?) and "corrected" (read spoiled) by Robert Southey, London, Longmans, 1807.

[FN#100] The lines have occurred in Night clix. (vol. iii. 183), I quote Mr. Payne who, like Lane, prefers "in my bosom" to "beneath my ribs."

[FN#101] In this tale the Bresl. Edit. more than once adds "And let us and you send a blessing to the Lord of Lords" (or to "Mohammed," or to the "Prophet"); and in vol. v. p. 52 has a long prayer. This is an act of contrition in the tale-teller for romancing against the expressed warning of the Founder of Al-Islam.

[FN#102] From Bresl. Edit. (vi. 29): the four in the Mac. Edit. are too irrelevant.

[FN#103] Arab. "Ghayúr"--jealous, an admirable epithet which Lane dilutes to "changeable"--making a truism of a metaphor.

[FN#104] These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#105] i.e. One fated to live ten years.

[FN#106] This poetical way of saying "fourteen" suggests Camoens (The Lusiads) Canto v. 2.

[FN#107] Arab. "Surrah," lit. = a purse: a few lines lower down it is called "'Ulbah" = a box which, of course, may have contained the bag.

[FN#108] The month which begins the Moslem year.

[FN#109] As an Arab often does when deep in thought. Lane appositely quotes John viii. 6. "Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground." Mr. Payne translates, "He fell a-drumming on the earth with his fingers," but this does not complete the sense.

[FN#110] i.e."And the peace of Allah be upon thee! that will end thy story." The Arab formula, "Wa al-Salám" (pron. Wassalám) is used in a variety of senses.

[FN#111] Like Camoens, one of the model lovers, he calls upon Love to torment him still more--ad majorem Dei (amoris) gloriam.

[FN#112] Pron. Aboor-Ruwaysh. "The Father of the little Feather": he is afterwards called "Son of the daughter of the accursed Iblis"; yet, as Lane says, "he appears to be a virtuous person."

[FN#113] Arab. "Kantara al-lijám fi Karbús (bow) sarjih."

[FN#114] I do not translate "beckoned" because the word would give a wrong idea. Our beckoning with the finger moved towards the beckoner makes the so-beckoned Eastern depart in all haste. To call him you must wave the hand from you.

[FN#115] The Arabs knew what large libraries were; and a learned man could not travel without camel-loads of dictionaries.

[FN#116] Arab. "Adim;" now called Bulghár, our Moroccan leather.

[FN#117] Arab. "Zinád," which Lane renders by "instruments for striking fire," and Mr. Payne, after the fashion of the translators of Al-Hariri, "flint and steel."

[FN#118] A congener of Hasan and Husayn, little used except in Syria where it is a favourite name for Christians. The Muhít of Butrus Al-Bostáni (s.v.) tells us that it also means a bird called Abú Hasan and supplies various Egyptian synonyms. In Mod. Arab. Grammar the form Fa''úl is a diminutive as Hammúd for Ahmad, 'Ammúr for 'Amrú. So the fem. form, Fa''úlah, e.g. Khaddúgah = little Khadijah and Naffúsah=little Nafisah; Ar'úrah = little clitoris - whereas in Heb. it is an incrementative e.g. dabbúlah a large dablah (cake or lump of dried figs, etc.).

[FN#119] In the Mac. Edit. "Soldiers of Al-Daylam" i.e. warlike as the Daylamites or Medes. See vol. ii. 94.

[FN#120] Bilkís, it will be remembered, is the Arab. name of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. In Abyssinia she is termed Kebra zá negest or zá makadá, the latter (according to Ferdinand Werne's "African Wanderings," Longmans, 1852) being synonymous with Ityopia or Habash (Ethiopia or Abyssinia).

[FN#121] Arab. "Dakkah," which Lane translates by "settee."

[FN#122] Arab. "Ambar al-Khám" the latter word (raw) being pure Persian.

[FN#123] The author neglects to mention the ugliest part of old-womanhood in the East, long empty breasts like tobacco-pouches. In youth the bosom is beautifully high, arched and rounded, firm as stone to the touch, with the nipples erect and pointing outwards. But after the girl-mother's first child (in Europe le premier embellit) all changes. Nature and bodily power have been overtasked; then comes the long suckling at the mother's expense: the extension of the skin and the enlargement of its vessels are too sudden and rapid for the diminished ability of contraction and the bad food aids in the continual consumption of vitality. Hence, among Eastern women age and ugliness are synonymous. It is only in the highest civilisation that we find the handsome old woman.

[FN#124] The name has occurred in the Knightly tale of King Omar and his sons, Vol. ii. 269. She is here called Mother of Calamities,but in p. 123, Vol. iv. of the Mac. Edit. she becomes "Lady (Zát) al-Dawáhi." It will be remembered that the title means calamitous to the foe.

[FN#125] By this address she assured him that she had no design upon his chastity. In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman, no matter how young, with, "Yá Ummí!" = O my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to make love to her.

[FN#126] Apparently the Wakites numbered their Islands as the Anglo-Americans do their streets. For this they have been charged with "want of imagination"; but the custom is strictly classical. See at Pompeii "Reg (io) I; Ins (ula) I, Via Prima, Secunda," etc.

[FN#127] These are the Puellæ Wakwakienses of whom Ibn Al-Wardi relates after an ocular witness, "Here too is a tree which bears fruits like women who have fair faces and are hung by their hair. They come forth from integuments like large leathern bags (calabash-gourds?) and when they sense air and sun they cry 'Wak! Wak!' (God! God!) till their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the islanders understand this cry wherefrom they augure ill." The Ajáib al-Hind (chapt. xv.) places in Wak-land the Samandal, a bird which enters the fire without being burnt evidently the Egyptian "Pi-Benni," which the Greeks metamorphised to "Phœnix." It also mentions a hare-like animal, now male then female, and the Somal behind Cape Guardafui tell the same tale of their Cynhyænas.

[FN#128] i.e. I will keep thee as though thou wert the apple of my eye.

[FN#129] A mere exaggeration of the "Gull-fairs" noted by travellers in sundry islands as Ascension and the rock off Brazilian Santos.

[FN#130] Arab. "Kámil wa Basít wa Wáfir" = the names of three popular metres, for which see the Terminal Essay.

[FN#131] Arab. "Manáshif" = drying towels, Plur. of Minshafah, and the popular term which Dr. Jonathan Swift corrupted to "Munnassaf." Lane (Nights, Introduct. p. ix.).

[FN#132] Arab. "Shafaif" opposed to "Shafah" the mouth-lips.

[FN#133] Fountains of Paradise. This description is a fair instance of how the Saj'a (prose-rhyme) dislocates the order; an Arab begins with hair, forehead, eyebrows and lashes and when he reaches the nose, he slips down to the toes for the sake of the assonance. If the latter be neglected the whole list of charms must be otherwise ordered; and the student will compare Mr. Payne's version of this passage with mine.

[FN#134] A fair specimen of the Arab logogriph derived from the Abjad Alphabet which contains only the Hebrew and Syriac letters not the six Arabic. Thus 4 X 5=20 which represents the Kaf (K) and 6 X 10=60, or Sin (S). The whole word is thus "Kus", the Greek {kysòs} or {kyssòs}, and the lowest word, in Persian as in Arabic, for the female pudenda, extensively used in vulgar abuse. In my youth we had at the University something of the kind,

To five and five and fifty-five
The first of letters add
To make a thing to please a King
And drive a wise man mad.

Answer VVLVA. Very interesting to the anthropological student is this excursus of Hasan, who after all manner of hardships and horrors and risking his life to recover his wife and children, breaks out into song on the subject of her privities. And it can hardly be tale-teller's gag as both verse and prose show considerable art in composition. (See p. 348.)

Supplementary Note To Hasan of Bassorah.

Note(p.93)--There is something wondrous naïve in a lover who, when asked by his mistress to sing a song in her honour, breaks out into versical praises of her parts. But even the classical Arab authors did not disdain such themes. See in Al-Harírí (Ass. of Mayyáfarikín) where Abú Zayd laments the impotency of old age in form of a Rasy or funeral oration (Preston p. 484, and Chenery p. 221). It completely deceived Sir William Jones, who inserted it into the chapter "De Poesi Funebri," p. 527 (Poeseos Asiaticæ Commentarii), gravely noting, "Hæc Elegia non admodum dissimilis esse videtur pulcherrimi illius carminis de Sauli et Jonathani obitu; at que adeò versus iste 'ubi provocant adversarios nunquam rediit a pugnæ contentione sine spiculo sanguine imbuto,' ex Hebræo reddi videtur,

A sanguine occisorum, a fortium virorum adipe,
Arcus Jonathani non rediit irritus."

I need hardly say with Captain Lockett (226) that this "Sabb warrior," this Arabian Achilles, is the celebrated Bonus Deus or Hellespontiacus of the Ancients. The oration runs thus:--

O folk I have a wondrous tale, so rare
Much shall it profit hearers wise and ware!
I saw in salad-years a potent Brave
And sharp of edge and point his warrior glaive;
Who entered joust and list with hardiment
Fearless of risk, of victory confident,
His vigorous onset straitest places oped
And easy passage through all narrows groped:
He ne'er encountered foe in single fight
But came from tilt with spear in blood stained bright;
Nor stormed a fortress howso strong and stark--
With fencèd gates defended deep and dark--
When shown his flag without th' auspicious cry
"Aidance from Allah and fair victory nigh!" ‡
Thus wise full many a night his part he played
In strength and youthtide's stately garb arrayed,
Dealing to fair young girl delicious joy
And no less welcome to the blooming boy.
But Time ne'er ceased to stint his wondrous strength
(Steadfast and upright as the gallow's length)
Until the Nights o'erthrew him by their might
And friends contemned him for a feckless wight;
Nor was a wizard but who wasted skill
Over his case, nor leach could heal his ill.
Then he abandoned arms abandoned him
Who gave and took salutes so fierce and grim;
And now lies prostrate drooping haughty crest;
For who lives longest him most ills molest.
Then see him, here he lies on bier for bet;--
Who will a shroud bestow on stranger dead?

A fair measure of the difference between Eastern and Western manners is afforded by such a theme being treated by their gravest writers and the verses being read and heard by the gravest and most worshipful men, whilst amongst us Preston and Chenery do not dare even to translate them. The latter, indeed, had all that immodest modesty for which English professional society is notable in this xixth century. He spoiled by needlessly excluding from a scientific publication (Mem. R.A.S.) all of my Proverbia Communia Syriaca (see Unexplored Sryia, i. 364) and every item which had a shade of double entendre. But Nemesis frequently found him out: during his short and obscure rule in Printing House Square, The Thunderer was distinguished by two of the foulest indecencies that ever appeared in an English paper.

‡ The well-known Koranic verse, whereby Allah is introduced into an indecent tale and "Holy Writ" is punned upon. I have noticed (iii. 206) that victory Fat'h lit.=opening everything (as e.g. a maidenhead).

[FN#135] Egyptian and Syrian vulgar term for Mawálíyah or Mawáliyah, a short poem on subjects either classical or vulgar. It generally consists of five lines all rhyming except the penultimate. The metre is a species of the Basít which, however, admits of considerable poetical license; this being according to Lane the usual "Weight,"

/ / / .

The scheme is distinctly anapæstic and Mr. Lyall (Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry) compares with a cognate metre, the Tawíl, certain lines in Abt Vogler, e.g.

"Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is
told."

[FN#136] i.e. repeat the chapter of the Koran termed The Opening, and beginning with these words, "Have we not opened thy breast for thee and eased thee of thy burden which galled thy back? *** Verily with the difficulty cometh ease!"--Koran xciv. vol. 1, 5.

[FN#137] Lane renders Nur al-Hudà (Light of Salvation) by Light of Day which would be Nur al-Hadà.

[FN#138] In the Bresl. Edit. "Yá Salám"=O safety!--a vulgar ejaculation.

[FN#139] A favourite idiom meaning from the mischief which may (or will) come from the Queen.

[FN#140] He is not strong-minded but his feminine persistency of purpose, likest to that of a sitting hen, is confirmed by the "Consolations of religion." The character is delicately drawn.

[FN#141] In token that she intended to act like a man.

[FN#142] This is not rare even in real life: Moslem women often hide and change their names for superstitious reasons, from the husband and his family.

[FN#143] Arab. "Sabab" which also means cause. Vol. ii. 14. There is the same metaphorical use of "Habl"= cord and cause.

[FN#144] Arab. "Himà," a word often occurring in Arab poetry, domain, a pasture or watered land forcibly kept as far as a dog's bark would sound by some masterful chief like "King Kulayb." (See vol. ii. 77.) This tenure was forbidden by Mohammed except for Allah and the Apostle (i.e. himself). Lane translates it "asylum."

[FN#145] She was a maid and had long been of marriageable age.

[FN#146] The young man had evidently "kissed the Blarney stone"; but the flattery is the more telling as he speaks from the heart.

[FN#147] "Inshallah " here being= D. V.

[FN#148] i.e. The "Place of Light" (Pharos), or of Splendour. Here we find that Hasan's wife is the youngest sister, but with an extraordinary resemblance to the eldest, a very masterful young person. The anagnorisis is admirably well managed.

[FN#149] i.e. the sweetmeats of the feast provided for the returning traveller. The old woman (like others) cannot resist the temptation of a young man's lips. Happily for him she goes so far and no farther.

[FN#150] The first, fourth, fifth and last names have already occurred: the others are in order, Star o' Morn, Sun of Undurn and Honour of Maidenhood. They are not merely fanciful, but are still used in Egypt and Syria.

[FN#151] Arab. "Fájirah" and elsewhere "Áhirah," =whore and strumpet used often in loose talk as mere abuse without special meaning.

[FN#152] This to Westerns would seem a most improbable detail, but Easterns have their own ideas concerning "Al-Muhabbat al-ghariziyah" =natural affection, blood speaking to blood, etc.

[FN#153] One of the Hells (see vol. iv. 143). Here it may be advisable to give the names of the Seven Heavens (which are evidently based upon Ptolemaic astronomy) and which correspond with the Seven Hells after the fashion of Arabian system-mania. (1) Dar al-Jalál (House of Glory) made of pearls; (2) Dár al-Salám (of Rest), rubies and jacinths; (3) Jannat al-Maawá (Garden of Mansions, not "of mirrors," as Herklots has it, p. 98), made of yellow copper; (4) Jannat al-Khuld (of Eternity), yellow coral; (5) Jannat al-Na'ím (of Delights), white diamond; (6) Jannat al-Firdaus (of Paradise), red gold; and (7) Jannat al-'Adn (of Eden, or Al-Karár= of everlasting abode, which some make No. 8), of red pearls or pure musk. The seven Hells are given in vol. v. 241; they are intended for Moslems (Jahannam); Christians (Lazà); Jews (Hutamah); Sabians (Sa'ir); Guebres (Sakar); Pagans or idolaters (Jahím); and Hypocrites (Háwiyah).

[FN#154] Arab. "'Atb," more literally= "blame," "reproach."

[FN#155] Bresl. Edit. In the Mac. "it returned to the place whence I had brought it"--an inferior reading.

[FN#156] The dreams play an important part in the Romances of Chivalry, e.g. the dream of King Perion in Amadis de Gaul, chapt. ii. (London; Longmans, 1803).

[FN#157] Amongst Moslems bastardy is a sore offence and a love-child is exceedingly rare. The girl is not only carefully guarded but she also guards herself knowing that otherwise she will not find a husband. Hence seduction is all but unknown. The wife is equally well guarded and lacks opportunities hence adultery is found difficult except in books. Of the Ibn (or Walad) Harám (bastard as opposed to the Ibn Halál) the proverb says, "This child is not thine, so the madder he be the more is thy glee!" Yet strange to say public prostitution has never been wholly abolished in Al-Islam. Al-Mas'údi tells us that in Arabia were public prostitutes'(Bagháyá), even before the days of the Apostle, who affected certain quarters as in our day the Tartúshah of Alexandria and the Hosh Bardak of Cairo. Here says Herr Carlo Landberg (p. 57, Syrian Proverbs) "Elles parlent une langue toute à elle." So pretentious and dogmatic a writer as the author of Proverbes et Dictons de la Province de Syrie, ought surely to have known that the Hosh Bardak is the head-quarters of the Cairene Gypsies. This author, who seems to write in order to learn, reminds me of an acute Oxonian undergraduate of my day who, when advised to take a "coach," became a "coach" himself.

[FN#158] These lines occur in vol. vii. p. 340. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#159] She shows all the semi-maniacal rancour of a good woman, or rather a woman who has not broken the eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out," against an erring sister who has been discovered. In the East also these unco'gúid dames have had, and too often have, the power to carry into effect the cruelty and diabolical malignity which in London and Paris must vent itself in scan. mag. and anonymous letters.

[FN#160] These faintings and trances are as common in the Romances of Chivalry e.g. Amadis of Gaul, where they unlace the garments to give more liberty, pour cold water on the face and bathe the temples and pulses with diluted vinegar (for rose water) exactly as they do in The Nights.

[FN#161] So Hafiz, "Bád-i-Sabá chu bugzarí" etc.

[FN#162] Arab. "Takiyah." See vol. i. 224 and for the Tarn-Kappe vol. iv. p. 176. In the Sinthásana Dwatrinsati (vulgo. Singhásan Battísí), or Thirty-two Tales of a Throne, we find a bag always full of gold, a bottomless purse; earth which rubbed on the forehead overcomes all; a rod which during the first watch of the night furnishes jewelled ornaments; in the second a beautiful girl; in the third invisibility, and in the fourth a deadly foe or death; a flower-garland which renders the possessor invisible and an unfading lotus-flower which produces a diamond every day.

[FN#163] Arab. "Judad," plur. of Jadíd, lit.= new coin, ergo applied to those old and obsolete; 10 Judad were= one nusf or half dirham.

[FN#164] Arab. "Raff," a shelf proper, running round the room about 7-7½ feet from the ground. During my day it was the fashion in Damascus to range in line along the Raff splendid porcelain bowls brought by the Caravans in olden days from China, whilst on the table were placed French and English specimens of white and gold "china" worth perhaps a franc each.

[FN#165] Lane supposes that the glass and china-ware had fallen upon the divan running round the walls under the Raff and were not broken.

[FN#166] These lines have occurred in Night dclxxxix. vol. vii. p. 119. I quote Lane.

[FN#167] The lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#168] This formula, I repeat, especially distinguishes the Tale of Hasan of Bassorah.

[FN#169] These lines have occurred in vol. 1. 249. I quote Lane.

[FN#170] She speaks to the "Gallery," who would enjoy a loud laugh against Mistress Gadabout. The end of the sentence must speak to the heart of many a widow.

[FN#171] These lines occur in vol. i. 25: so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#172] Arab. "Musáhikah;" the more usual term for a Tribade is "Sahíkah" from "Sahk" in the sense of rubbing: both also are applied to onanists and masturbators of the gender feminine.

[FN#173] i.e. by way of halter. This jar is like the cask in Auerbach's Keller; and has already been used by witches; Night dlxxxvii. vol. vi. 158.

[FN#174] Here they are ten but afterwards they are reduced to seven: I see no reason for changing the text with Lane and Payne.

[FN#175] Wazir of Solomon. See vol. i. 42; and vol. iii. 97.

[FN#176] Arab. "Ism al-A'azam," the Ineffable Name, a superstition evidently derived from the Talmudic fancies of the Jews concerning their tribal god, Yah or Yahvah.

[FN#177] The tradition is that Mohámmed asked Akáf al-Wadá'ah "Hast a wife?"; and when answered in the negative, "Then thou appertainest to the brotherhood of Satans! An thou wilt be one of the Christian monks then company therewithal; but an thou be of us, know that it is our custom to marry!"

[FN#178] The old woman, in the East as in the West, being the most vindictive of her kind. I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 70) that a Badawi will sometimes though in shame take the blood-wit; but that if it be offered to an old woman she will dash it to the ground and clutch her knife and fiercely swear by Allah that she will not eat her son's blood.

[FN#179] Neither dome nor fount etc. are mentioned before, the normal inadvertency.

[FN#180] In Eastern travel the rest comes before the eating and drinking.

[FN#181] Arab. "'Id" (pron.'Eed) which I have said (vol. i. 42, 317) is applied to the two great annual festivals, the "Fête of Sacrifice," and the "Break-Fast." The word denotes restoration to favour and Moslems explain as the day on which Adam (and Eve) who had been expelled from Paradise for disobedience was re-established (U'ída) by the relenting of Allah. But the name doubtless dates amongst Arabs from days long before they had heard of the "Lord Nomenclator."

[FN#182] Alluding to Hasan seizing her feather dress and so taking her to wife.

[FN#183] Arab. "Kharajú"=they (masc.) went forth, a vulgarism for "Kharajna" (fem.)

[FN#184] Note the notable housewife who, at a moment when youth would forget everything, looks to the main chance.

[FN#185] Arab. "Al-Malakút" (not "Malkút" as in Freytag) a Sufi term for the world of Spirits (De Lacy Christ, Ar. i. 451). Amongst Eastern Christians it is vulgarly used in the fem. and means the Kingdom of Heaven, also the preaching of the Gospel.

[FN#186] This is so rare, even amongst the poorest classes in the East, that it is mentioned with some emphasis.

[FN#187] A beauty among the Egyptians, not the Arabs.

[FN#188] True Fellah--"chaff."

[FN#189] Alluding to the well-known superstition, which has often appeared in The Nights, that the first object seen in the morning, such as a crow, a cripple, or a cyclops determines the fortunes of the day. Notices in Eastern literature are as old as the days of the Hitopadesa; and there is a something instinctive in the idea to a race of early risers. At an hour when the senses are most impressionable the aspect of unpleasant spectacles has double effect.

[FN#190] Arab. "Masúkah," the stick used for driving cattle, bâton gourdin (Dozy). Lane applies the word to a wooden plank used for levelling the ground.

[FN#191] i.e. the words I am about to speak to thee.

[FN#192] Arab. "Sahifah," which may mean "page" (Lane) or "book" (Payne).

[FN#193] Pronounce, "Abussa'ádát" = Father of Prosperities: Lane imagines that it came from the Jew's daughter being called "Sa'adat." But the latter is the Jew's wife (Night dcccxxxiii) and the word in the text is plural.

[FN#194] Arab. "Furkh samak" lit. a fish-chick, an Egyptian vulgarism.

[FN#195] Arab. "Al-Rasif"; usually a river-quay, levée, an embankment. Here it refers to the great dyke which distributed the Tigris-water.

[FN#196] Arab. "Dajlah," see vol. i, p 180. It is evidently the origin of the biblical "Hid-dekel" "Hid" = fierceness, swiftness.

[FN#197] Arab. "Bayáz" a kind of Silurus (S. Bajad, Forsk.) which Sonnini calls Bayatto, Saksatt and Hébedé; also Bogar (Bakar, an ox). The skin is lubricous, the flesh is soft and insipid and the fish often grows to the size of a man. Captain Speke and I found huge specimens in the Tangany ika Lake.

[FN#198] Arab. "Mu'allim," vulg. "M'allim," prop.= teacher, master esp. of a trade, a craft. In Egypt and Syria it is a civil address to a Jew or a Christian, as Hájj is to a Moslem.

[FN#199] Arab. "Gharámah," an exaction, usually on the part of government like a corvée etc. The Europeo-Egyptian term is Avania (Ital.) or Avanie (French).

[FN#200] Arab. "Sayyib-hu" an Egyptian vulgarism found also in Syria. Hence Sáibah, a woman who lets herself go (a-whoring) etc. It is syn. with "Dashar," which Dozy believes to be a softening of Jashar; and Jashsh became Dashsh.

[FN#201] The Silurus is generally so called in English on account of its feeler-acting mustachios.

[FN#202] See Night dcccvii, vol. viii. p. 94.

[FN#203] This extraordinary confusion of two distinct religious mythologies cannot be the result of ignorance. Educated Moslems know at least as much as Christians do, on these subjects, but the Rawi or story-teller speaks to the "Gallery." In fact it becomes a mere 'chaff' and The Nights give some neat specimens of our modern linguistic.

[FN#204] See vol. ii. 197. "Al-Siddíkah" (fem.) is a title of Ayishah, who, however, does not appear to have deserved it.

[FN#205] The Jew's wife.