The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01...

234. Capital and uncial letters; the hand in which the Ka'abah veil is inscribed (Pilgrimage iii. 299, 300).

235. A "Court hand" says Mr. Payne (i. 112): I know nothing of it. Other hands are: the Ta'alík; hanging or oblique, used for finer MSS. and having, according to Richardson, "the same analogy to the Naskhi as our Italic has to the Roman." The Nasta' lík (not Naskh-Ta'alík) much used in India, is, as the name suggests, a mixture of the Naskhi (writing of transactions) and the Ta'alík. The Shikastah (broken hand) everywhere represents our running hand and becomes a hard task to the reader. The Kirmá is another cursive character, mostly confined to the receipts and disbursements of the Turkish treasury. The Diváni, or Court (of Justice) is the official hand, bold and round, a business character, the lines often rising with a sweep or curve towards the (left) end. The Jáli or polished has a variety, the Jali-Ta'alik: the Sulsi (known in many books) is adopted for titles of volumes, royal edicts, diplomas and so forth; "answering much the same purpose as capitals with us, or the flourished letters in illuminated manuscripts" (Richardson). The Tughrái is that of the Tughrá, the Prince's cypher or flourishing signature in ceremonial writings, and containing some such sentence as: Let this be executed. There are others e.g. Yákuti and Sirenkil known only by name. Finally the Maghribi (Moorish) hand differs in form and diacritical points from the characters used further east almost as much as German running hand does from English.

It is curious that Richardson omits the Jali (intricate and convoluted) and the divisions of the Sulusí, Sulsi or Sulus (Thuluth) character, the Sulus al-Khafíf, etc.

236. Arab. "Baghlah"; the male (Baghl) is used only for loads. This is everywhere the rule: nothing is more unmanageable than a restive "Macho"; and he knows that he can always get you off his back when so minded. From "Baghlah" is derived the name of the native craft Anglo-Indicè a "Buggalow."

237. In Heb. "Ben-Adam" is any man opp. to "Beni ish" (Psalm iv. 3)=filii viri, not homines.

238. This posture is terribly trying to European legs; and few white men (unless brought up to it) can squat for any time on their heels. The "tailor-fashion," with crossed legs, is held to be free and easy.

239. Arab. "Katá"=Pterocles Alchata, the well-known sand-grouse of the desert. It is very poor white flesh.

240. Arab. "Khubz" which I do not translate "cake" or "bread," as that would suggest the idea of our loaf. The staff of life in the East is a thin flat circle of dough baked in the oven or on the griddle, and corresponding with the Scotch "scone," the Spanish "tortilla" and the Australian "flap-jack."

241. Arab. "Harísah," a favourite dish of wheat (or rice) boiled and reduced to a paste with shredded meat, spices and condiments. The "bangles" is a pretty girl eating with him.

242. These lines are repeated with a difference in Night cccxxx. They affect Rims cars, out of the way, heavy rhymes: e.g. here Sakáríj (plur. of Sakrúj, platters, porringers); Tayáhíj (plur. of Tayhúj, the smaller caccabis-partridge); Tabáhíj (Persian Tabahjah, an omelet or a stew of meat, onions, eggs, etc.) Ma'áríj ("in stepped piles" like the pyramids; which Lane ii. 495, renders "on the stairs"); Makáríj (plur. of Makraj, a small pot); Damálíj (plur. of dumlúj, a bracelet, a bangle); Dayábíj (brocades) and Tafáríj (openings, enjoyments). In Night cccxxx. we find also Sikábíj (plur. of Sikbáj, marinated meat elsewhere explained); Faráríj (plur. of farrúj, a chicken, vulg. farkh) and Dakákíj (plur. of dakújah, a small jar). In the first line we have also (though not a rhyme) Gharánik Gr. Τερανὸς, a crane, preserved in Romaic. The weeping and wailing are caused by the remembrance that all these delicacies have been demolished like a Badawi camp.

243. This is the vinum coctum, the boiled wine, still a favourite in Southern Italy and Greece.

244. Eastern topers delight in drinking at dawn: upon this subject I shall have more to say in other Nights.

245. Arab. "Adab," a crux to translators, meaning anything between good education and good manners. In mod. Turk. "Edibiyyet" (Adabiyat)=belles lettres and "Edebi" or "Edíb"=a littérateur.

246. The Caliph Al-Maamún, who was a bad player, used to say, "I have the administration of the world and am equal to it, whereas I am straitened in the ordering of a space of two spans by two spans." The "board" was then "a square field of well-dressed leather."

247. The Rabbis (after Matth. xix. 12) count three kinds of Eunuchs; (1) Seris chammah=of the sun, i.e. natural: (2) Seris Adam=manufactured per homines; and (3) Seris Chammayim=of God (i.e. religious abstainer). Seris (castrated) or Abd (slave) is the general Hebrew name.

248. The "Lady of Beauty."

249. "Káf" has been noticed as the mountain which surrounds earth as a ring does the finger: it is popularly used like our Alp and Alpine. The "circumambient Ocean" (Bahr al-muhít) is the Homeric Ocean-stream.

250. The pomegranate is probably chosen here because each fruit is supposed to contain one seed from Eden-garden. Hence a host of superstitions (Pilgrimage iii., 104) possibly connected with the Chaldaic-Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramanu. Hence Persephone or Ishtar tasted the "rich pomegranate's seed." Lenormant, loc. cit. pp. 166,182.

251. i.e. for the love of God—a favourite Moslem phrase.

252. Arab. "Báb," also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.), corresponding with the Persian "Dar" as in Sad-dar, the Hundred Doors. Here, however, it is figurative "I tried a new mode." This scene is in the Mabinogion.

253. I use this Irish term=crying for the dead; as English wants the word for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, "Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living," i.e. punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system in the "weeping-song": I have noted this in "The Lake-Regions of Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chapt. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.

254. These lines are hardly translateable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience" as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to Burckhardt, is planted in grave-yards as a lesson of patience: it is also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house-doors to prevent evil spirits entering; "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane (M. E., chapt. xi.), "it will live for several years and even blossom. Hence (?) it is called Sabr, which signifies patience." But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long-sufferance." I hold the practise to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens of Wák, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350).

255. Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the "River of Peace (or Security)."

256. This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chapt. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden Wire."

257. The fable is probably based on the currents which, as in Eastern Africa, will carry a ship fifty miles a day out of her course. We first find it in Ptolemy (vii. 2) whose Maniólai Islands, of India extra Gangem, cause iron nails to fly out of ships, the effect of the Lapis Herculeus (Loadstone). Rabelais (v. c. 37) alludes to it and to the vulgar idea of magnetism being counteracted by Skordon (Scordon or garlic). Hence too the Adamant (Loadstone) Mountains of Mandeville (chapt. xxvii.) and the "Magnetic Rock" in Mr. Puttock's clever "Peter Wilkins." I presume that the myth also arose from seeing craft built, as on the East African Coast, without iron nails. We shall meet with the legend again. The word Jabal ("Jebel" in Egypt) often occurs in these pages. The Arabs apply it to any rising ground or heap of rocks; so it is not always=our mountain. It has found its way to Europe e.g. Gibraltar and Monte Gibello (or Mongibel in poetry)="Mt. Ethne that men clepen Mounte Gybelle." Other special senses of Jabal will occur.

258. As we learn from the Nubian Geographer the Arabs in early ages explored the Fortunate Islands, Jazírát al-Khálidát (=Eternal Isles), or Canaries, on one of which were reported a horse and horseman in bronze with his spear pointing west. Ibn al-Wardi notes "two images of hard stone, each an hundred cubits high, and upon the top of each a figure of copper pointing with its hand backwards, as though it would say:—Return for there is nothing behind me!" But this legend attaches to older doings. The 23rd Tobba (who succeeded Bilkis), Malik bin Sharhabíl, (or Sharabíl or Sharahíl) surnamed Náshir al-Ni'ám=scatterer of blessings, lost an army in attempting the Western sands and set up a statue of copper upon whose breast was inscribed in antique characters:—

There is no access behind me,

Nothing beyond,

(Saith) The Son of Sharabíl.

259. i.e. I exclaimed "Bismillah!"

260. The lesser ablution of hands, face and feet; a kind of "washing the points." More in Night ccccxl.

261. Arab. "Ruka'tayn"; the number of these bows which are followed by the prostrations distinguishes the five daily prayers.

262. The "Beth Kol" of the Hebrews; also called by the Moslems "Hátif"; for which ask the Spiritualists. It is the Hindu "voice divine" or "voice from heaven."

263. These formulæ are technically called Tasmiyah, Tahlíl (before noted) and Takbír: the "testifying" is Tashhíd.

264. Arab. "Samn," (Pers. "Raughan" Hind. "Ghi") the "single sauce" of the East; fresh butter set upon the fire, skimmed and kept (for a century if required) in leather bottles and demijohns. Then it becomes a hard black mass, considered a panacea for wounds and diseases. It is very "filling": you say jocosely to an Eastern threatened with a sudden inroad of guests, "Go, swamp thy rice with Raughan." I once tried training, like a Hindu Pahlawan or athlete, on Gur (raw sugar), milk and Ghi; and the result was being blinded by bile before the week ended.

265. These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should apply to women.

266. The Bul. Edit. (i. 43) reads otherwise:—I found a garden and a second and a third and so on till they numbered thirty and nine; and, in each garden, I saw what praise will not express, of trees and rills and fruits and treasures. At the end of the last I sighted a door and said to myself, "What may be in this place?; needs must I open it and look in!" I did so accordingly and saw a courser ready saddled and bridled and picketed; so I loosed and mounted him; and he flew with me like a bird till he set me down on a terrace-roof; and, having landed me, he struck me a whisk with his tail and put out mine eye and fled from me. Thereupon I descended from the roof and found ten youths all blind of one eye who, when they saw me exclaimed, "No welcome to thee, and no good cheer!" I asked them, "Do ye admit me to your home and society?" and they answered, "No, by Allah, thou shalt not live amongst us." So I went forth with weeping eyes and grieving heart, but Allah had written my safety on the Guarded Tablet so I reached Baghdad in safety, etc. This is a fair specimen of how the work has been curtailed in that issue.

267. Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the fœtus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).

268. This is contrary to the commands of Al-Islam; Mohammed expressly said "The Astrologers are liars, by the Lord of the Ka'abah!"; and his saying is known to almost all Moslems, lettered or unlettered. Yet, the further we go East (Indiawards) the more we find these practises held in honour. Turning westwards we have:

Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto;