Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862"

Emile Zola - "La Conquete De Plassans"

Thomas Babington Macaulay - "The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 3"

Viktor Rydberg - "De vandrande djaeknarne"

Editorial
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 6

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6




[FN#30] Arab. "Mastabah"=the bench or form of masonry before
noticed. In olden Europe benches were much more used than chairs,
these being articles of luxury. So King Horne "sett him abenche;"
and hence our "King's Bench" (Court).

[FN#31] This is from the Bresl. Edit. vol. iv. 32: the Calc. Edit
gives only an abstract and in the Bul. Edit. the Ogre returned
"accompanied by a female, greater than he and more hideous." We
cannot accept Mistress Polyphemus.

[FN#32] This is from Al-Kazwini, who makes the serpent "wind
itself round a tree or a rock, and thus break to pieces the bones
of the breast in its belly."

[FN#33] "Like a closet," in the Calc. Edit. The serpent is an
exaggeration of the python which grows to an enormous size.
Monstrous Ophidia are mentioned in sober history, e.g. that which
delayed the army of Regulus. Dr. de Lacerda, a sober and sensible
Brazilian traveller, mentions his servants sitting down upon a
tree-trunk in the Captaincy of San Paulo (Brasil), which began to
move and proved to be a huge snake. F. M. Pinto (the Sindbad of
Portugal though not so respectable) when in Sumatra takes refuge
in a tree from "tigers, crocodiles, copped adders and serpents
which slay men with their breath." Father Lobo in Tigre (chapt.
x.) was nearly killed by the poison-breath of a huge snake, and
healed himself with a bezoar carried ad hoc. Maffaeaeus makes the
breath of crocodiles suavissimus, but that of the Malabar
serpents and vipers "adeo teter ac noxius ut afflatu ipso necare
perhibeantur."

[FN#34] Arab. "Aurat": the word has been borrowed by the
Hindostani jargon, and means a woman, a wife.

[FN#35] So in Al-Idrisi and Langles: the Bres. Edit. has "Al-
Kalasitah"; and Al-Kazwini "Al-Salamit." The latter notes in it a
petrifying spring which Camoens (The Lus. x. 104), places in
Sunda, i.e. Java-Minor of M. Polo. Some read Salabat-Timor, one
of the Moluccas famed for sanders, cloves, cinnamon, etc.
(Purchas ii. 1784.)

[FN#36] Evidently the hippopotamus (Pliny, viii. 25; ix. 3 and
xxiii. 11). It can hardly be the Mulaccan Tapir, as shields are
not made of the hide. Hole suggests the buffalo which found its
way to Egypt from India via Persia; but this would not be a
speciosum miraculum.

[FN#37] The ass-headed fish is from Pliny (ix. cap. 3): all those
tales are founded upon the manatee (whose dorsal protuberance may
have suggested the camel), the seal and the dugong or sea calf. I
have noticed (Zanzibar i. 205) legends of ichthyological marvels
current on the East African seaboard; and even the monsters of
the Scottish waters are not all known: witness the mysterious
"brigdie." See Bochart De Cetis i. 7; and Purchas iii. 930.

[FN#38] The colossal tortoise is noticed by AElian (De Nat.
Animal. xvi. 17), by Strabo (Lib. xv.), by Pliny (ix. 10) and
Diodorus Siculus (iv. 1) who had heard of a tribe of
Chelonophagi. AElian makes them 16 cubits long near Taprobane and
serving as house-roofs; and others turn the shell into boats and
coracles. A colossochelys was first found on the Scwalik Hills by
Dr. Falconer and Major (afterwards Sir Proby) Cantley. In 1867 M.
Emile Blanchard exhibited to the Academie des Sciences a monster
crab from Japan 1.20 metres long (or 2.50 including legs); and
other travellers have reported 4 metres. These crustaceae seem
never to cease growing and attain great dimensions under
favourable circumstances, i.e. when not troubled by man.

[FN#39] Lane suggests (iii. 97), and with some probability, that
the "bird" was a nautilus; but the wild traditions concerning the
barnacle-goose may perhaps have been the base of the fable. The
albatross also was long supposed never to touch land. Possible
the barnacle, like the barometz of Tartarean lamb, may be a
survivor of the day when the animal and vegetable kingdoms had
not yet branched off into different directions.

[FN#40] Arab. "Zahwah," also meaning a luncheon. The five daily
prayers made all Moslems take strict account of time, and their
nomenclature of its division is extensive.

[FN#41] This is the "insane herb." Davis, who visited Sumatra in
1599 (Purchas i. 120) speaks "of a kind of seed, whereof a little
being eaten, maketh a man to turn foole, all things seeming to
him to be metamorphosed." Linschoten's "Dutroa" was a poppy-like
bud containing small kernels like melons which stamped and
administered as a drink make a man "as if he were foolish, or out
of his wits." This is Father Lobo's "Vanguini" of the Cafres,
called by the Portuguese dutro (Datura Stramonium) still used by
dishonest confectioners. It may be Dampier's Ganga (Ganjah) or
Bang (Bhang) which he justly describes as acting differently
"according to different constitutions; for some it stupefies,
others it makes sleepy, others merry and some quite mad."
(Harris, Collect. ii. 900.) Dr. Fryer also mentions Duty, Bung
and Post, the Poust of Bernier, an infusion of poppy-seed.

[FN#42] Arab. "Ghul," here an ogre, a cannibal. I cannot but
regard the "Ghul of the waste" as an embodiment of the natural
fear and horror which a man feels when he faces a really
dangerous desert. As regards cannibalism, Al-Islam's religion of
common sense freely allows it when necessary to save life, and
unlike our mawkish modern sensibility, never blames those who

Alimentis talibus usi
Produxere animos.

[FN#43] For Cannibals, see the Massagetae of Herod (i.), the
Padaei of India (iii.), and the Essedones near Maeotis (iv.);
Strabo (lib. iv.) of the Luci; Pomponious Mela (iii. 7) and St.
Jerome (ad Jovinum) of Scoti. M. Polo locates them in Dragvia, a
kingdom of Sumatra (iii. 17), and in Angaman (the Andamanian
Isles?), possibly the ten Maniolai which Ptolemy (vii.),
confusing with the Nicobars, places on the Eastern side of the
Bay of Bengal; and thence derives the Heraklian stone (magnet)
which attracts the iron of ships (See Serapion, De Magnete, fol.
6, Edit. of 1479, and Brown's Vulgar Errors, p. 74, 6th Edit.).
Mandeville finds his cannibals in Lamaray (Sumatra) and Barthema
in the "Isle of Gyava" (Java). Ibn Al-Wardi and Al-Kazwini notice
them in the Isle Saksar, in the Sea of the Zanj (Zanzibar): the
name is corrupted Persian "Sag-Sar" (Dogs'-heads) hence the dog-
descended race of Camoens in Pegu (The Lus. x. 122). The Bresl.
Edit. (iv. 52) calls them "Khawarij"=certain sectarians in
Eastern Arabia. Needless to say that cocoa-nut oil would have no
stupefying effect unless mixed with opium or datura, hemp or
henbane.

[FN#44] Black pepper is produced in the Goanese but we must go
south to find the "Bilad al-Filfil" (home of pepper) i.e.
Malabar. The exorbitant prices demanded by Venice for this spice
led directly to the discovery of The Cape route by the
Portuguese; as the "Grains of Paradise" (Amomum Granum Paradisi)
induced the English to explore the West African Coast.

[FN#45] Arab. "Kazdir." Sansk. "Kastir." Gr. "Kassiteron." Lat.
"Cassiteros," evidently derived from one root. The Heb. is
"Badih," a substitute, an alloy. "Tanakah" is the vulg. Arab.
word, a congener of the Assyrian "Anaku," and "Kala-i" is the
corrupt Arab. term used in India.

[FN#46] Our Arabian Ulysses had probably left a Penelope or two
at home and finds a Calypso in this Ogygia. His modesty at the
mention of womankind is notable.

[FN#47] These are the commonplaces of Moslem consolation on such
occasions: the artistic part is their contrast with the
unfortunate widower's prospect.

[FN#48] Lit. "a margin of stone, like the curb-stone of a well."

[FN#49] I am not aware that this vivisepulture of the widower is
the custom of any race, but the fable would be readily suggested
by the Sati (Suttee)-rite of the Hindus. Simple vivisepulture was
and is practised by many people.

[FN#50] Because she was weaker than a man. The Bresl. Edit.
however, has "a gugglet of water and five scones."

[FN#51] The confession is made with true Eastern sang-froid and
probably none of the hearers "disapproved" of the murders which
saved the speaker's life.

[FN#52] This tale is evidently taken from the escape of
Aristomenes the Messenian from the pit into which he had been
thrown, a fox being his guide. The Arabs in an early day were
eager students of Greek literature. Hole (p. 140) noted the
coincidence.

[FN#53] Bresl. Edit. "Khwajah," our "Howajee," meaning a
schoolmaster, a man of letters, a gentleman.

[FN#54] And he does repeat at full length what the hearers must
have known right well. I abridge.

[FN#55] Island of the Bell (Arab. "Nakus"=a wooden gong used by
Christians but forbidden to Moslems). "Kala" is written "Kela,"
"Kullah" and a variety of ways. Baron Walckenaer places it at
Keydah in the Malay peninsula opposite Sumatra. Renaudot
identifies it with Calabar, "somewhere about the point of
Malabar."

[FN#56] Islands, because Arab cosmographers love to place their
speciosa miracula in such places.

[FN#57] Like the companions of Ulysses who ate the sacred oxen
(Od. xii.).

[FN#58] So the enormous kingfisher of Lucian's True History (lib.
ii.).

[FN#59] This tale is borrowed from Ibn Al-Wardi, who adds that
the greybeards awoke in the morning after eating the young Rukh
with black hair which never turned white. The same legend is
recounted by Al-Dimiri (ob. A.H. 808=1405-6) who was translated
into Latin by Bochart (Hierozoicon ii. p. 854) and quoted by Hole
and Lane (iii. 103). An excellent study of Marco Polo's Rukh was
made by my learned friend the late Prof. G. G. Bianconi of
Bologna, "Dell'Uccello Ruc," Bologna, Gamberini, 1868. Prof.
Bianconi predicted that other giant birds would be found in
Madagascar on the East African Coast opposite; but he died before
hearing of Hildebrand's discovery.

[FN#60] Arab. "Izar," the earliest garb of Eastern man; and, as
such preserved in the Meccan pilgrimage. The "waist-cloth" is
either tucked in or kept in place by a girdle.

[FN#61] Arab. "Lif," a succedaneum for the unclean sponge, not
unknown in the "Turkish Baths" of London.

[FN#62] The Persians have a Plinian monster called "Tasmeh-
pa"=Strap-legs without bones. The "Old Man" is not an ourang-
outang nor an Ifrit as in Sayf al-Muluk, Night dcclxxi., but a
jocose exaggeration of a custom prevailing in parts of Asia and
especially in the African interior where the Tsetse-fly prevents
the breeding of burden-beasts. Ibn Batutah tells us that in
Malabar everything was borne upon men's backs. In Central Africa
the kinglet rides a slave, and on ceremonious occasions mounts
his Prime Minister. I have often been reduced to this style of
conveyance and found man the worst imaginable riding: there is no
hold and the sharpness of the shoulder-ridge soon makes the legs
ache intolerably. The classicists of course find the Shaykh of
the Sea in the Tritons and Nereus, and Bochart (Hiero. ii. 858,
880) notices the homo aquaticus, Senex Judaeus and Senex Marinus.
Hole (p. 151) suggests the inevitable ouran-outan (man o' wood),
one of "our humiliating copyists," and quotes "Destiny" in
Scarron's comical romance (Part ii. chapt. i) and "Jealousy"
enfolding Rinaldo. (O.F. lib. 42).

[FN#63] More literally "The Chief of the Sea (-Coast)," Shaykh
being here a chief rather than an elder (eoldermann, alderman).
So the "Old Man of the Mountain," famous in crusading days, was
the Chief who lived on the Nusayriyah or Ansari range, a northern
prolongation of the Libanus. Our "old man" of the text may have
been suggested by the Koranic commentators on chapt. vi. When an
Infidel rises from the grave, a hideous figure meets him and
says, "Why wonderest thou at my loathsomeness? I am thine Evil
Deeds: thou didst ride upon me in the world and now I will ride
upon thee." (Suiting the action to the words.)

[FN#64] In parts of West Africa and especially in Gorilla-land
there are many stories of women and children being carried off by
apes, and all believe that the former bear issue to them. It is
certain that the anthropoid ape is lustfully excited by the
presence of women and I have related how at Cairo (1856) a huge
cynocephalus would have raped a girl had it not been bayonetted.
Young ladies who visited the Demidoff Gardens and menagerie at
Florence were often scandalised by the vicious exposure of the
baboons' parti-coloured persons. The female monkey equally
solicits the attentions of man and I heard in India from my late
friend, Mirza Ali Akbar of Bombay, that to his knowledge
connection had taken place. Whether there would be issue and
whether such issue would be viable are still disputed points: the
produce would add another difficulty to the pseudo-science called
psychology, as such mule would have only half a soul and issue by
a congener would have a quarter-soul. A traveller well known to
me once proposed to breed pithecoid men who might be useful as
hewers of wood and drawers of water: his idea was to put the
highest races of apes to the lowest of humanity. I never heard
what became of his "breeding stables."

[FN#65] Arab. "Jauz al-Hindi": our word cocoa is from the Port.
"Coco," meaning a "bug" (bugbear) in allusion to its caricature
of the human face, hair, eyes and mouth. I may here note that a
cocoa-tree is easily climbed with a bit of rope or a
handkerchief.

[FN#66] Tomb-pictures in Egypt show tame monkeys gathering fruits
and Grossier (Description of China, quoted by Hole and Lane)
mentions a similar mode of harvesting tea by irritating the
monkeys of the Middle Kingdom.

[FN#67] Bresl. Edit. Cloves and cinnamon in those days grew in
widely distant places.

[FN#68] In pepper-plantations it is usual to set bananas (Musa
Paradisiaca) for shading the young shrubs which bear bunches like
ivy-fruit, not pods.

[FN#69] The Bresl. Edit. has "Al-Ma'arat." Langles calls it the
Island of Al-Kamari. See Lane, iii. 86.

[FN#70] Insula, pro. peninsula. "Comorin" is a corrupt. of
"Kanya" (=Virgo, the goddess Durga) and "Kumari" (a maid, a
princess); from a temple of Shiva's wife: hence Ptolemy's {Greek
letters} and near it to the N. East {Greek letters},
"Promontorium Cori quod Comorini caput insulae vocant," says
Maffaeus (Hist. Indic. i. p. 16). In the text "Al'ud" refers to
the eagle-wood (Aloekylon Agallochum) so called because spotted
like the bird's plume. That of Champa (Cochin-China, mentioned in
Camoens, The Lus. x. 129) is still famous.

[FN#71] Arab. "Birkat"=tank, pool, reach, bight. Hence Birkat
Far'aun in the Suez Gulf. (Pilgrimage i. 297.)

[FN#72] Probably Cape Comorin; to judge from the river, but the
text names Sarandib (Ceylon Island) famous for gems. This was
noticed by Marco Polo, iii. cap. 19; and ancient authors relate
the same of "Taprobane."

[FN#73] I need hardly trouble the reader with a note on pearl-
fisheries: the descriptions of travellers are continuous from the
days of Pliny (ix. 35), Solinus (cap. 56) and Marco Polo (iii.
23). Maximilian of Transylvania, in his narrative of Magellan's
voyage (Novus Orbis, p. 532) says that the Celebes produce pearls
big as turtle-doves' eggs; and the King of Porne (Borneo) had two
unions as great as goose's eggs. Pigafetta (in Purchas) reduces
this to hen's eggs and Sir Thomas Herbert to dove's eggs.

[FN#74] Arab. "Anbar" pronounced "Ambar;" wherein I would derive
"Ambrosia." Ambergris was long supposed to be a fossil, a
vegetable which grew upon the sea-bottom or rose in springs; or a
"substance produced in the water like naphtha or bitumen"(!): now
it is known to be the egesta of a whale. It is found in lumps
weighing several pounds upon the Zanzibar Coast and is sold at a
high price, being held a potent aphrodisiac. A small hollow is
drilled in the bottom of the cup and the coffee is poured upon
the bit of ambergris it contains; when the oleaginous matter
shows in dots amidst the "Kaymagh" (coffee-cream), the bubbly
froth which floats upon the surface and which an expert "coffee
servant" distributes equally among the guests. Argensola mentions
in Ceylon, "springs of liquid bitumen thicker than our oil and
some of pure balsam."

[FN#75] The tale-teller forgets that Sindbad and his companions
have just ascended it; but this inconsequence is a characteristic
of the Eastern Saga. I may note that the description of ambergris
in the text tells us admirably well what it is not.

[FN#76] This custom is alluded to by Lane (Mod Egypt, ch. xv.):
it is the rule of pilgrims to Meccah when too ill to walk or ride
(Pilgrimage i. 180). Hence all men carry their shrouds: mine,
after being dipped in the Holy Water of Zemzem, was stolen from
me by the rascally Somal of Berberah.

[FN#77] Arab. "Fulk;" some Edits. read "Kalak" and "Ramaz" (=a
raft).

[FN#78] These lines occur in modified form in Night xi.

[FN#79] These underground rivers (which Dr. Livingstone derided)
are familiar to every geographer from Spenser's "Mole" to the
Poika of Adelberg and the Timavo near Trieste. Hence "Peter
Wilkins" borrowed his cavern which let him to Grandevolet. I have
some experience of Sindbad's sorrows, having once attempted to
descend the Poika on foot. The Classics had the Alpheus (Pliny v.
31; and Seneca, Nat. Quae. vi.), and the Tigris-Euphrates
supposed to flow underground: and the Mediaevals knew the Abana
of Damascus and the Zenderud of Isfahan.

[FN#80] Abyssinians can hardly be called "blackamoors," but the
arrogance of the white skin shows itself in Easterns (e.g. Turks
and Brahmans) as much as, if not more than, amongst Europeans.
Southern India at the time it was explored by Vasco da Gama was
crowded with Abyssinian slaves imported by the Arabs.

[FN#81] "Sarandib" and "Ceylon" (the Taprobane of Ptolemy and
Diodorus Siculus) derive from the Pali "Sihalam" (not the Sansk.
"Sinhala") shortened to Silam and Ilam in old Tamul. Van der Tunk
would find it in the Malay "Pulo Selam"=Isle of Gems (the Ratna-
dwipa or Jewel Isle of the Hindus and the Jazirat al-Yakut or
Ruby-Island of the Arabs); and the learned Colonel Yule (Marco
Polo ii 296) remarks that we have adopted many Malayan names,
e.g. Pegu, China and Japan. Sarandib is clearly "Selan-dwipa,"
which Mandeville reduced to "Silha."

[FN#82] This is the well-known Adam's Peak, the Jabal al-Ramun of
the Arabs where Adam fell when cast out of Eden in the lowest or
lunar sphere. Eve fell at Jeddah (a modern myth) and the unhappy
pair met at Mount Arafat (i.e. recognition) near Meccah. Thus
their fall was a fall indeed. (Pilgrimage iii. 259.)

[FN#83] He is the Alcinous of our Arabian Odyssey.

[FN#84] This word is not in the dictionaries; Hole (p. 192) and
Lane understand it to mean the hog-deer; but why, one cannot
imagine. The animal is neither "beautiful" nor "uncommon" and
most men of my day have shot dozens in the Sind-Shikargahs.

[FN#85] M. Polo speaks of a ruby in Seilan (Ceylon) a palm long
and three fingers thick: William of Tyre mentions a ruby weighing
twelve Egyptian drams (Gibbon ii. 123), and Mandeville makes the
King of Mammera wear about his neck a "rubye orient" one foot
long by five fingers large.

[FN#86] The fable is from Al-Kazwini and Ibn Al-Wardi who place
the serpent (an animal sacred to AEsculapius, Pliny, xxix. 4) "in
the sea of Zanj" (i.e. Zanzibar). In the "garrow hills" of N.
Eastern Bengal the skin of the snake Burrawar (?) is held to cure
pain. (Asiat. Res. vol. iii.)

[FN#87] For "Emerald," Hole (p. 177) would read emery or
adamantine spar.

[FN#88] Evidently Maharaj=Great Rajah, Rajah in Chief, an Hindu
title common to the three potentates before alluded to, the
Narsinga, Balhara or Samiry.

[FN#89] This is probably classical. So the page said to Philip of
Macedon every morning, "Remember, Philip, thou art mortal"; also
the slave in the Roman Triumph,

"Respice poste te: hominem te esse memento!"

And the dying Severus, "Urnlet, soon shalt thou enclose what
hardly a whole world could contain." But the custom may also have
been Indian: the contrast of external pomp with the real vanity
of human life suggests itself to all.

[FN#90] Arab. "Hut"; a term applied to Jonah's whale and to
monsters of the deep, "Samak" being the common fishes.

[FN#91] Usually a two-bow prayer.

[FN#92] This is the recognised formula of Moslem sales.

[FN#93] Arab. "Walimah"; like our wedding-breakfast but a much
more ceremonious and important affair.

[FN#94] i.e. his wife (euphemistically). I remember an Italian
lady being much hurt when a Maltese said to her "Mia moglie con
rispetto parlando" (my wife, saving your presence). "What," she
cried, "he speaks of his wife as he would of the sweepings!"

[FN#95] The serpent in Arabic is mostly feminine.

[FN#96] i.e. in envying his wealth, with the risk of the evil
eye.

[FN#97] I subjoin a translation of the Seventh Voyage from the
Calc. Edit. of the two hundred Nights which differs in essential
points from the above. All respecting Sindbad the Seaman has an
especial interest. In one point this world-famous tale is badly
ordered. The most exciting adventures are the earliest and the
falling off of the interest has a somewhat depressing effect. The
Rukh, the Ogre and the Old Man o' the Sea should come last.

[FN#98] Arab. "Al-Suways:" this successor of ancient Arsinoe was,
according to local tradition, founded by a Santon from Al-Sus in
Marocco who called it after his name "Little Sus" (the wormlet).

[FN#99] Arab. "Mann," a weight varying from two to six pounds:
even this common term is not found in the tables of Lane's Mod.
Egyptians, Appendix B. The "Maund" is a well-known Anglo-Indian
weight.

[FN#100] This article is not mentioned elsewhere in The Nights.

[FN#101] Apparently a fancy title.

[FN#102] The island is evidently Ceylon, long famed for
elephants, and the tree is the well known "Banyan" (Ficus
Indica). According to Linschoten and Wolf, the elephants of all
lands do reverence and honour to those of Ceylon.

[FN#103] "Tusks" not "teeth" which are not valued. As Hole
remarks, the elephants of Pliny and Sindbad are equally conscious
of the value of ivory. Pliny (viii. 3) quotes Herodotus about the
buying of ivories and relates how elephants, when hunted, break
their "cornua" (as Juba called them) against a tree trunk by way
of ransom. AElian, Plutarch, and Philostratus speak of the
linguistic intelligence and religious worship of the "half-reason
with the hand," which the Hindus term "Hathi"=unimanus. Finally,
Topsell's Gesner (p. 152) makes elephants bury their tusks,
"which commonly drop out every tenth year." In Arabian literature
the elephant is always connected with India.

[FN#104] This is a true "City of Brass." (Nuhas asfar=yellow
copper), as we learn in Night dcclxxii. It is situated in the
"Maghrib" (Mauritania), the region of magic and mystery; and the
idea was probably suggested by the grand Roman ruins which rise
abruptly from what has become a sandy waste. Compare with this
tale "The City of Brass" (Night cclxxii.). In Egypt Nuhas is
vulg. pronounced Nihas.

[FN#105] The Bresl. Edit. adds that the seal-ring was of stamped
stone and iron, copper and lead. I have borrowed copiously from
its vol. vi. pp. 343, et seq.

[FN#106] As this was a well-known pre-Islamitic bard, his
appearance here is decidedly anachronistic, probably by
intention.

[FN#107] The first Moslem conqueror of Spain whose lieutenant,
Tarik, the gallant and unfortunate, named Gibraltar (Jabal al-
Tarik).

[FN#108] The colours of the Banu Umayyah (Ommiade) Caliphs were
white, of the Banu Abbas (Abbasides) black, and of the Fatimites
green. Carrying the royal flag denoted the generalissimo or
plenipotentiary.

[FN#109] i.e. Old Cairo, or Fustat: the present Cairo was then a
Coptic village founded on an old Egyptian settlement called Lui-
Tkeshroma, to which belonged the tanks on the hill and the great
well, Bir Yusuf, absurdly attributed to Joseph the Patriarch. Lui
is evidently the origin of Levi and means a high priest (Brugsh
ii. 130) and his son's name was Roma.

[FN#110] I cannot but suspect that this is a clerical error for
"Al-Samanhudi," a native of Samanhud (Wilkinson's "Semenood") in
the Delta on the Damietta branch, the old Sebennytus (in Coptic
Jem-nuti=Jem the God), a town which has produced many
distinguished men in Moslem times. But there is also a Samhud
lying a few miles down stream from Denderah and, as its mounds
prove, it is an ancient site.

[FN#111] Egypt had not then been conquered from the Christians.

[FN#112] Arab. "Kizan fukka'a," i.e. thin and slightly porous
earthenware jars used for Fukka'a, a fermented drink, made of
barley or raisins.

[FN#113] I retain this venerable blunder: the right form is
Samum, from Samm, the poison-wind.

[FN#114] i.e. for worship and to prepare for futurity.

[FN#115] The camel carries the Badawi's corpse to the cemetery
which is often distant: hence to dream of a camel is an omen of
death.

[FN#116] Koran xxiv 39. The word "Sarab" (mirage) is found in
Isaiah (xxxv. 7) where the passage should be rendered "And the
mirage (sharab) shall become a lake" (not, "and the parched
ground shall become a pool"). The Hindus prettily call it
"Mrigatrishna" = the thirst of the deer.

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