Mr. Roscoe - "The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast"

Alfred Lord Tennyson - "Becket and other plays"

Alexis de Tocqueville et al - "American Institutions and Their Influence"

Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble - "White Ashes"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1




[FN#117] An Arab holds that he has a right to marry his first
cousin, the daughter of his father's brother, and if any win her
from him a death and a blood-feud may result. It was the same in
a modified form amongst the Jews and in both races the
consanguineous marriage was not attended by the evil results
(idiotcy, congenital deafness, etc.) observed in mixed races like
the English and the Anglo-American. When a Badawi speaks of "the
daughter of my uncle" he means wife; and the former is the dearer
title, as a wife can be divorced, but blood is thicker than
water.

[FN#118] Arab. "Kahbah;" the coarsest possible term. Hence the
unhappy "Cave" of Don Roderick the Goth, which simply means The
Whore.

[FN#119] The Arab "Banj" and Hindu "Bhang" (which I use as most
familiar) both derive from the old Coptic "Nibanj" meaning a
preparation of hemp (Cannabis sativa seu Indica); and here it is
easy to recognise the Homeric "Nepenthe." Al- Kazwini explains
the term by "garden hemp (Kinnab bostani or Shahdanaj). On the
other hand not a few apply the word to the henbane (hyoscyamus
niger) so much used in mediaeval Europe. The Kamus evidently means
henbane distinguishing it from Hashish al harafish" = rascals'
grass, i.e. the herb Pantagruelion. The "Alfaz Adwiya" (French
translation) explains "Tabannuj" by "Endormir quelqu'un en lui
faisant avaler de la jusquiame." In modern parlance Tabannuj is =
our anaesthetic administered before an operation, a deadener of
pain like myrrh and a number of other drugs. For this purpose
hemp is always used (at least I never heard of henbane); and
various preparations of the drug are sold at an especial bazar in
Cairo. See the "powder of marvellous virtue" in Boccaccio, iii.,
8; and iv., 10. Of these intoxicants, properly so termed, I shall
have something to say in a future page.

The use of Bhang doubtless dates from the dawn of civilisation,
whose earliest social pleasures would be inebriants. Herodotus
(iv. c. 75) shows the Scythians burning the seeds (leaves and
capsules) in worship and becoming drunken with the fumes, as do
the S. African Bushmen of the present day. This would be the
earliest form of smoking: it is still doubtful whether the pipe
was used or not. Galen also mentions intoxication by hemp.
Amongst Moslems, the Persians adopted the drink as an ecstatic,
and about our thirteenth century Egypt, which began the practice,
introduced a number of preparations to be noticed in the course
of The Nights.

[FN#120] The rubbish heaps which outlie Eastern cities, some
(near Cairo) are over a hundred feet high.

[FN#121] Arab. "Kurrat al-aye;" coolness of eyes as opposed to a
hot eye ("sakhin") one red with tears. The term is true and
picturesque so I translate it literally. All coolness is pleasant
to dwellers in burning lands: thus in Al-Hariri Abu Z yd says of
Bassorah, "I found there whatever could fill the eye with
coolness." And a "cool booty" (or prize) is one which has been
secured without plunging into the flames of war, or imply a
pleasant prize.

[FN#122] Popularly rendered Caucasus (see Night cdxcvi): it
corresponds so far with the Hindu "Udaya" that the sun rises
behind it; and the "false dawn" is caused by a hole or gap. It is
also the Persian Alborz, the Indian Meru (Sumeru), the Greek
Olympus and the Rhiphaean Range (Veliki Camenypoys) or great
starry girdle of the world, etc.

[FN#123] Arab. "Mizr" or "Mizar;" vulg. Buzah; hence the medical
Lat. Buza, the Russian Buza (millet beer), our booze, the O.
Dutch "buyzen" and the German "busen." This is the old
of negro and negroid Africa, the beer of Osiris, of which dried
remains have been found in jars amongst Egyptian tombs. In
Equatorial Africa it known as Pombe; on the Upper Nile "Merissa"
or "Mirisi" and amongst the Kafirs (Caffers) "Tshuala," "Oala" or
"Boyala:" I have also heard of "Buswa"in Central Africa which may
be the origin of "Buzah." In the West it became , (Romaic
), Xythum and cerevisia or cervisia, the humor ex hordeo,
long before the days of King Gambrinus. Central Africans drink it
in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads,
covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off
the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick
as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is
made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment. In
Egypt the drink is affected chiefly by Berbers, Nubians and
slaves from the Upper Nile, but it is a superior article and more
like that of Europe than the "Pombe." I have given an account of
the manufacture in The Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. ii.,
p. 286. There are other preparations, Umm-bulbul (mother nightie
gale), Dinzayah and Subiyah, for which I must refer to the Shaykh
El-Tounsy.

[FN#124] There is a terrible truth in this satire, which reminds
us of the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the
palefrenier laid, ord et infame of Queen Margaret of Navarre
(Heptameron No. xx.). We have all known women who sacrificed
everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless
of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands
nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose
slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed
to her meeting him but, when she does, adieu husband and
children, honour and religion, life and "soul." Moreover Nature
(human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair and foul,
dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be like
the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants
like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as
Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half truth when he
backed himself, with an hour s start, against the handsomest man
in England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the
Italians say, un bel brutto) was the highest recommendation in
the eyes of very beautiful women.

[FN#125] Every Moslem burial-ground has a place of the kind where
honourable women may sit and weep unseen by the multitude. These
visits are enjoined by the Apostle:--Frequent the cemetery,
'twill make you think of futurity! Also:--Whoever visiteth the
graves of his parents (or one of them) every Friday, he shall be
written a pious son, even though he might have been in the world,
before that, a disobedient. (Pilgrimage, ii., 71.) The buildings
resemble our European "mortuary chapels." Said, Pasha of Egypt,
was kind enough to erect one on the island off Suez, for the "use
of English ladies who would like shelter whilst weeping and
wailing for their dead." But I never heard that any of the ladles
went there.

[FN#126] Arab. "Ajal"=the period of life, the appointed time of
death: the word is of constant recurrence and is also applied to
sudden death. See Lane's Dictionary, s.v.

[FN#127] "The dying Badawi to his tribe" (and lover) appears to
me highly pathetic. The wild people love to be buried upon hill
slopes whence they can look down upon the camp; and they still
call out the names of kinsmen and friends as they pass by the
grave-yards. A similar piece occurs in Wetzstein (p. 27,
"Reisebericht ueber Hauran," etc.):--

O bear with you my bones where the camel bears his load
And bury me before you, if buried I must be;
And let me not be burled 'neath the burden of the vine
But high upon the hill whence your sight I ever see!
As you pass along my grave cry aloud and name your names
The crying of your names shall revive the bones of me:
I have fasted through my life with my friends, and in my
death, I will feast when we meet, on that day of joy and
glee.

[FN#128] The Akasirah (plur. of Kasra=Chosroes) is here a title
of the four great dynasties of Persian Kings. 1. The Peshdadian
or Assyrian race, proto-historics for whom dates fail, 2. The
Kayanian (Medes and Persians) who ended with the Alexandrian
invasion in B. C. 331. 3. The Ashkanian (Parthenians or
Arsacides) who ruled till A. D. 202; and 4. The Sassanides which
have already been mentioned. But strictly speaking "Kisri" and
"Kasra" are titles applied only to the latter dynasty and
especially to the great King Anushirwan. They must not be
confounded with "Khusrau" (P. N. Cyrus, Ahasuerus? Chosroes?),
and yet the three seem to have combined in "Caesar," Kaysar and
Czar. For details especially connected with Zoroaster see vol. I,
p. 380 of the Dabistan or School of Manners, translated by David
Shea and Anthony Troyer, Paris, 1843. The book is most valuable,
but the proper names are so carelessly and incorrectly printed
that the student is led into perpetual error.

[FN#129] The words are the very lowest and coarsest; but the
scene is true to Arab life.

[FN#130] Arab."Hayhat:" the word, written in a variety of ways is
onomatopoetic, like our "heigh-ho!" it sometimes means "far from
me (or you) be it!" but in popular usage it is simply "Alas."

[FN#131] Lane (i., 134) finds a date for the book in this
passage. The Soldan of Egypt, Mohammed ibn Kala'un, in the early
eighth century (Hijrah = our fourteenth), issued a sumptuary law
compelling Christians and Jews to wear indigo-blue and
saffron-yellow turbans, the white being reserved for Moslems. But
the custom was much older and Mandeville (chaps. ix.) describes
it in A. D. 1322 when it had become the rule. And it still
endures; although abolished in the cities it is the rule for
Christians, at least in the country parts of Egypt and Syria. I
may here remark that such detached passages as these are
absolutely useless for chronology: they may be simply the
additions of editors or mere copyists.

[FN#132] The ancient "Mustapha" = the Chosen (prophet, i. e.
Mohammed), also titled Al-Mujtaba, the Accepted (Pilgrimage, ii.,
309). "Murtaza"=the Elect, i.e. the Caliph Ali is the older
"Mortada" or "Mortadi" of Ockley and his day, meaning "one
pleasing to (or acceptable to) Allah." Still older writers
corrupted it to "Mortis Ali" and readers supposed this to be the
Caliph's name.

[FN#133] The gleam (zodiacal light) preceding the true dawn; the
Persians call the former Subh-i-kazib (false or lying dawn)
opposed to Subh-i-sadik (true dawn) and suppose that it is caused
by the sun shining through a hole in the world- encircling Mount
Kaf.

[FN#134] So the Heb. "Arun" = naked, means wearing the lower robe
only; = our "in his shirt."

[FN#135] Here we have the vulgar Egyptian colloquialism "Aysh"
(--Ayyu shayyin) for the classical "Ma" = what.

[FN#136] "In the name of Allah!" here said before taking action.

[FN#137] Arab. "Mamluk" (plur. Mamalik) lit. a chattel; and in
The Nights a white slave trained to arms. The "Mameluke Beys" of
Egypt were locally called the "Ghuzz," I use the convenient word
in its old popular sense;

'Tis sung, there's a valiant Mameluke
In foreign lands ycleped (Sir Luke)-
HUDIBRAS.

And hence, probably, Moliere's "Mamamouchi"; and the modern
French use "Mamalue." See Savary's Letters, No. xl.

[FN#138] The name of this celebrated succesor of Nineveh, where
some suppose The Nights were written, is orig. (middle-
gates) because it stood on the way where four great highways
meet. The Arab. form "Mausil" (the vulgar "Mosul") is also
significant, alluding to the "junction" of Assyria and Babylonis.
Hence our "muslin."

[FN#139] This is Mr. Thackeray's "nose-bag." I translate by
"walking-shoes" the Arab "Khuff" which are a manner of loose boot
covering the ankle; they are not usually embroidered, the
ornament being reserved for the inner shoe.

[FN#140] i.e. Syria (says Abulfeda) the "land on the left" (of
one facing the east) as opposed to Al-Yaman the "land on the
right." Osmani would mean Turkish, Ottoman. When Bernard the Wise
(Bohn, p.24) speaks of "Bagada and Axiam" (Mabillon's text) or
"Axinarri" (still worse), he means Baghdad and Ash-Sham (Syria,
Damascus), the latter word puzzling his Editor. Richardson
(Dissert, lxxii.) seems to support a hideous attempt to derive
Sham from Shamat, a mole or wart, because the country is studded
with hillocks! Al-Sham is often applied to Damascus-city whose
proper name Dimishk belongs to books: this term is generally
derived from Damashik b. Kali b. Malik b. Sham (Shem). Lee (Ibn
Batutah, 29) denies that ha-Dimishki means "Eliezer of Damascus."

[FN#141] From Oman = Eastern Arabia.

[FN#142] Arab. "Tamar Hanna" lit. date of Henna, but applied to
the flower of the eastern privet (Lawsonia inermis) which has the
sweet scent of freshly mown hay. The use of Henna as a dye is
known even in Enland. The "myrtle" alluded to may either have
been for a perfume (as it is held an anti-intoxicant) or for
eating, the bitter aromatic berries of the "As" being supposed to
flavour wine and especially Raki (raw brandy).

[FN#143] Lane. (i. 211) pleasantly remarks, "A list of these
sweets is given in my original, but I have thought it better to
omit the names" (!) Dozy does not shirk his duty, but he is not
much more satisfactory in explaining words interesting to
students because they are unfound in dictionaries and forgotten
by the people. "Akras (cakes) Laymuniyah (of limes) wa
Maymuniyah" appears in the Bresl. Edit. as "Ma'amuniyah" which
may mean "Ma'amun's cakes" or "delectable cakes." "Amshat" =
(combs) perhaps refers to a fine kind of Kunafah (vermicelli)
known in Egypt and Syria as "Ghazl al-banat" = girl's spinning.

[FN#144] The new moon carefully looked for by all Moslems because
it begins the Ramazan-fast.

[FN#145] Solomon's signet ring has before been noticed.

[FN#146] The "high-bosomed" damsel, with breasts firm as a cube,
is a favourite with Arab tale tellers. Fanno baruffa is the
Italian term for hard breasts pointing outwards.

[FN#147] A large hollow navel is looked upon not only as a
beauty, but in children it is held a promise of good growth.

[FN#148] Arab. "Ka'ah," a high hall opening upon the central
court: we shall find the word used for a mansion, barrack, men's
quarters, etc.

[FN#149] Babel = Gate of God (El), or Gate of Ilu (P. N. of God),
which the Jews ironically interpreted "Confusion." The tradition
of Babylonia being the very centre of witchcraft and enchantment
by means of its Seven Deadly Spirits, has survived in Al-Islam;
the two fallen angels (whose names will occur) being confined in
a well; Nimrod attempting to reach Heaven from the Tower in a
magical car drawn by monstrous birds and so forth. See p. 114,
Francois Fenormant's "Chaldean Magic," London, Bagsters.

[FN#150] Arab. "Kamat Alfiyyah" = like the letter Alif, a
straight perpendicular stroke. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the
origin of every alphabet (not syllabarium) known to man, one form
was a flag or leaf of water-plant standing upright. Hence
probably the Arabic Alif-shape; while other nations preferred
other modifications of the letter (ox's head, etc), which in
Egyptian number some thirty-six varieties, simple and compound.

[FN#151] I have not attempted to order this marvellous confusion of
metaphors so characteristic of The Nights and the exigencies of Al-
Saj'a = rhymed prose.

[FN#152] Here and elsewhere I omit the "kala (dice Turpino)" of the
original: Torrens preserves "Thus goes the tale" (which it only
interrupts). This is simply letter-wise and sense-foolish.

[FN#153] Of this worthy more at a future time.

[FN#154] i.e., sealed with the Kazi or legal authority's seal of
office.

[FN#155] "Nothing for nothing" is a fixed idea with the Eastern
woman: not so much for greed as for a sexual point d' honneur when
dealing with the adversary--man.

[FN#156] She drinks first, the custom of the universal East, to
show that the wine she had bought was unpoisoned. Easterns, who
utterly ignore the "social glass" of Western civilisation drink
honestly to get drunk; and, when far gone are addicted to horse-
play (in Pers. "Badmasti" = le vin mauvais) which leads to quarrels
and bloodshed. Hence it is held highly irreverent to assert of
patriarchs, prophets and saints that they "drank wine;" and Moslems
agree with our "Teatotallers" in denying that, except in the case
of Noah, inebriatives are anywhere mentioned in Holy Writ.

[FN#157] Arab. "Hur al-Ayn," lit. (maids) with eyes of lively white
and black, applied to the virgins of Paradise who will wive with
the happy Faithful. I retain our vulgar "Houri," warning the reader
that it is a masc. for a fem. ("Huriyah") in Arab, although
accepted in Persian, a genderless speach.

[FN#158] Arab. "Zambur," whose head is amputated in female
circumcision. See Night cccclxxiv.

[FN#159] Ocymum basilicum noticed in Introduction, the bassilico of
Boccaccio iv. 5. The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah represents it as
"sprouting with something also whose smell is foul and disgusting
and the sower at once sets to gather it and burn it with fire."
(The Fables of Bidpai translated from the later Syriac version by
I. G. N. Keith-Falconer, etc., etc., etc., Cambridge University
Press, 1885). Here, however, Habk is a pennyroyal (mentha
puligium), and probably alludes to the pecten.

[FN#160] i. e. common property for all to beat.

[FN#161] "A digit of the moon" is the Hindu equivalent.

[FN#162] Better known to us as Caravanserai, the "Travellers'
Bungalow" of India: in the Khan, however, shelter is to be had, but
neither bed nor board.

[FN#163] Arab. "Zubb." I would again note that this and its
synonyms are the equivalents of the Arabic, which is of the lowest.
The tale-teller's evident object is to accentuate the contrast with
the tragical stories to follow.

[FN#164] "ln the name of Allah," is here a civil form of
dismissal.

[FN#165] Lane (i. 124) is scandalised and naturally enough by this
scene, which is the only blot in an admirable tale admirably told.
Yet even here the grossness is but little more pronounced than what
we find in our old drama (e. g., Shakespeare's King Henry V.)
written for the stage, whereas tales like The Nights are not read
or recited before both sexes. Lastly "nothing follows all this
palming work:" in Europe the orgie would end very differently.
These "nuns of Theleme" are physically pure: their debauchery is of
the mind, not the body. Galland makes them five, including the two
doggesses.

[FN#166] So Sir Francis Walsingham's "They which do that they
should not, should hear that they would not."

[FN#167] The old "Calendar," pleasantly associated with that form
of almanac. The Mac. Edit. has Karandaliyah," a vile corruption,
like Ibn Batutah's "Karandar" and Torrens' "Kurundul:" so in
English we have the accepted vulgarism of "Kernel" for Colonel. The
Bull Edit. uses for synonym "Su'uluk"=an asker, a beggar. Of these
mendicant monks, for such they are, much like the Sarabaites of
mediaeval Europe, I have treated and of their institutions and its
founder, Shaykh Sharif Bu Ali Kalandar (ob. A. H. 724 =1323-24), at
some length in my "History of Sindh," chaps. viii. See also the
Dabistan (i. 136) where the good Kalandar exclaims:--

If the thorn break in my body, how trifling the pain!
But how sorely I feel for the poor broken thorn!

D'Herbelot is right when he says that the Kalandar is not generally
approved by Moslems: he labours to win free from every form and
observance and he approaches the Malamati who conceals all his
good
deeds and boasts of his evil doings--our "Devil's hypocrite."

[FN#168] The "Kalandar" disfigures himself in this manner to show
"mortification."

[FN#169] Arab. "Gharib:" the porter is offended because the word
implies "poor devil;" esp. one out of his own country.

[FN#170] A religious mendicant generally.

[FN#171] Very scandalous to Moslem "respectability" Mohammed said
the house was accursed when the voices of women could be heard out
of doors. Moreover the neighbours have a right to interfere and
abate the scandal.

[FN#172] I need hardly say that these are both historical
personages; they will often be mentioned, and Ja'afar will be
noticed in the Terminal Essay.

[FN#173] Arab. "Same 'an wa ta'atan"; a popular phrase of assent
generally translated "to hear is to obey;" but this formula may be
and must be greatly varied. In places it means "Hearing (the word
of Allah) and obeying" (His prophet, viceregent, etc.)

[FN#174] Arab. "Sawab"=reward in Heaven. This word for which we
have no equivalent has been naturalized in all tongues (e. g.
Hindostani) spoken by Moslems.

[FN#175] Wine-drinking, at all times forbidden to Moslems, vitiates
the Pilgrimage rite: the Pilgrim is vowed to a strict observance of
the ceremonial law and many men date their "reformation" from the
"Hajj." Pilgrimage, iii., 126.

[FN#176] Here some change has been necessary; as the original text
confuses the three "ladies."

[FN#177] In Arab. the plural masc. is used by way of modesty when
a girl addresses her lover and for the same reason she speaks of
herself as a man.

[FN#178] Arab. "Al-Na'im", in ful "Jannat-al-Na'im" = the Garden of
Delights, i.e. the fifth Heaven made of white silver. The generic
name of Heaven (the place of reward) is "Jannat," lit. a garden;
"Firdaus" being evidently derived from the Persian through the
Greek {Greek Letters}, and meaning a chase, a hunting park. Writers
on this subject should bear in mind Mandeville's modesty, "Of
Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there."

[FN#179] Arab. "Mikra'ah," the dried mid-rib of a date-frond used
for many purposes, especially the bastinado.

[FN#180] According to Lane (i., 229) these and the immediately
following verses are from an ode by Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili. They are
in the Bull Edit. not the Mac. Edit.

[FN#181] The original is full of conceits and plays on words which
are not easily rendered in English.

[FN#182] Arab. "Tarjuman," same root as Chald. Targum ( = a
translation), the old "Truchman," and through the Ital. "tergomano"
our "Dragoman," here a messenger.

[FN#183] Lit. the "person of the eyes," our "babe of the eyes," a
favourite poetical conceit in all tongues; much used by the
Elizabethans, but now neglected as a silly kind of conceit. See
Night ccix.

[FN#184] Arab. "Sar" (Thar) the revenge-right recognised by law and
custom (Pilgrimage, iii., 69).

[FN#185] That is "We all swim in the same boat."

[FN#186] Ja'afar ever acts, on such occasions, the part of a wise
and sensible man compelled to join in a foolish frolic. He
contrasts strongly with the Caliph, a headstrong despot who will
not be gainsaid, whatever be the whim of the moment. But Easterns
would look upon this as a proof of his "kingliness."

[FN#187] Arab. "Wa'l- Salam" (pronounced Was-Salam); meaning "and
here ends the matter." In our slang we say "All right, and the
child's name is Antony."

[FN#188] This is a favourite jingle, the play being upon "ibrat" (a
needle-graver) and " 'ibrat" (an example, a warning).

[FN#189] That is "make his bow," as the English peasant pulls his
forelock. Lane (i., 249) suggests, as an afterthought, that it
means:--"Recover thy senses; in allusion to a person's drawing his
hand over his head after sleep or a fit." But it occurs elsewhere
in the sense of "cut thy stick."

[FN#190] This would be a separate building like our family tomb and
probably domed, resembling that mentioned in "The King of the Black
Islands." Europeans usually call it "a little Wali;" or, as they
write it, "Wely," the contained for the container; the "Santon" for
the "Santon's tomb." I have noticed this curious confusion (which
begins with Robinson, i. 322) in "Unexplored Syria," i. 161.

[FN#191] Arab. "Wiswas," = diabolical temptation or suggestion. The
"Wiswasi" is a man with scruples (scrupulus, a pebble in the shoe),
e.g. one who fears that his ablutions were deficient, etc.

[FN#192] Arab. "Katf" = pinioning by tying the arms behind the back
and shoulders (Kitf) a dire disgrace to free-born men.

[FN#193] Arab. "Nafs."=Hebr. Nephesh (Nafash) =soul, life as
opposed to "Ruach"= spirit and breath. In these places it is
equivalent to "I said to myself." Another form of the root is
"Nafas," breath, with an idea of inspiration: so 'Sahib Nafas"
(=master of breath) is a minor saint who heals by expiration, a
matter familiar to mesmerists (Pilgrimage, i., 86).

[FN#194] Arab. "Kaus al-Banduk;" the "pellet bow" of modern India;
with two strings joined by a bit of cloth which supports a ball of
dry clay or stone. It is chiefly used for birding.

[FN#195] In the East blinding was a common practice, especially in
the case of junior princes not required as heirs. A deep
perpendicular incision was made down each corner of the eyes; the
lids were lifted and the balls removed by cutting the optic nerve
and the muscles. The later Caliphs blinded their victims by passing
a red-hot sword blade close to the orbit or a needle over the
eye-ball. About the same time in Europe the operation was performed
with a heated metal basin--the well known bacinare (used by
Ariosto), as happened to Pier delle Vigne (Petrus de Vinea), the
"godfather of modern Italian."

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