The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook offline txt] 📗

Thug” by my late friend Meadows Taylor; and I may record my conviction that were the English driven out of India, “Thuggee,” like piracy in Cutch and in the Persian Gulf, would revive at the shortest possible time.

 

[FN#294] i.e. the Civil Governor, who would want nothing better.

 

[FN#295]This is in Galland and it is followed by the H. V.; but it would be more natural to suppose that of the quarters two were hung up outside the door and the others within. VOL. XIII [FN#296] I am unwilling to alter the time honoured corruption: properly it is written Marj�nah = the “Coralline,” from Marj�n =

red coral, for which see vols. ii. 100; vii. 373.

 

[FN#297] i.e. the ” �Iddah.” during which she could not marry.

See vol. iii. 292.

 

[FN#298] In Galland he is a savetier * naturellement gai, et qui avait toujours le mot pour rire: the H. V. naturally changed him to a tailor as the Ch�m�r or leather-worker would be inadmissible to polite conversation.

 

[FN#299] i.e. a leader of prayer; the Pers. “P�sh-nam�z” =

fore-prayer, see vols. ii. 203; iv. 111 and 227. Galland has “�m�n,” which can mean only faith, belief, and in this blunder he is conscientiously followed by his translators—servum pecus [FN#300] Galland nails down the corpse in the bier—a Christian practice—and he certainly knew better. Moreover, prayers for the dead are mostly recited over the bier when placed upon the brink of the grave; nor is it usual for a woman to play so prominent a part in the ceremony.

 

[FN#301] See vols. v. 111; ix. 163 and x. 47.

 

[FN#302] Galland is less merciful, “Aussit�t le conducteur fut d�clar� digne de mort tout d’une voix, et il s’y condamna lui-m�me,” etc. The criminal, indeed, condemns himself and firmly offers his neck to be stricken.

 

[FN#303] In the text “Lauh,” for which see vol. v. 73.

 

[FN#304] In Arab. “Kama” = he rose, which, in vulgar speech especially in Egypt, = he began. So in Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes” (p. 124) “K�mat al-Sibhah dh�kat fi yad akh�-h”

= the chaplet began (lit. arose) to wax tight in his brother’s hand. This sense is shadowed forth in classical Arabic.

 

[FN#305] So in old Arabian history “Kas�r” (the Little One), the Arab Zopyrus, stows away in huge camel-bags the 2,000 warriors intended to surprise masterful Queen Zebba. Chronique de Tabar�, vol. ii., 26. Also the armed men in boxes by which Shamar, King of Al-Yaman, took Shamar-kand = Shamar’s-town, now Samarkand.

(Ibid. ii. 158.)

 

[FN#306] i.e. for a walk, a “constitutional”: the phrase is very common in Egypt, and has occurred before.

 

[FN#307] These visions are frequent in Al-Islam; see Pilgrimage iii. 254-55. Of course Christians are not subject to them, as Moslems also are never favoured with glimpses of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; the best proof of their “Subjectivity.”

 

[FN#308] For this word see De Sacy, Chrest. ii. 421. It has already occurred in The Nights, vol. iii. 295.

 

[FN#309] Not a few pilgrims settle for a time or for life in the two Holy Places, which are thus kept supplied with fresh blood.

See Pilgrimage ii. 260.

 

[FN#310] i.e. Bayt al-Mukaddas, for which see vol. ii. 132.

 

[FN#311] An affidavit amongst Moslems is “litis decisio,” as in the jurisprudence of medi val Europe.

 

[FN#312] In Arab folk-lore there are many instances of such precocious boys—enfants terribles they must be in real life. In Ibn Khall. (iii. 104) we find notices of a book “Kit�b Nujab�

al-Abn�” = Treatise on Distinguished Children, by Ibn Zakar al-Sakalli (the Sicilian), ob. A. D. 1169-70. And the boy-Kazi is a favourite role in the plays of peasant-lads who enjoy the irreverent “chaff” almost as much as when “making a Pasha.” This reminds us of the boys electing Cyrus as their King in sport (Herodotus, i. 114). For the cycle of “Precocious Children” and their adventures, see Mr. Clouston (Popular Tales, etc., ii. 1-14), who enters into the pedigree and affiliation. I must, however, differ with that able writer when he remarks at the end, “And now we may regard the story of Valerius Maximus with suspicion, and that of Lloyd as absolutely untrue, so far as William Noy’s alleged share in the ‘case.’ ” The jest or the event happening again and again is no valid proof of its untruth; and it is often harder to believe in derivation than in spontaneous growth.

 

[FN#313] In Galland Ali Cogia, Marchand de Bagdad, is directly followed by the Histoire du Cheval Enchant�. For this “Ebony Horse,” as I have called it, see vol. v. p. 32.

 

[FN#314] “B�n�” = a lady, a dame of high degree generally, e.g.

the (Shah’s) Banu-i-Harem in James Morier (“The Mirza,” iii. 50), who rightly renders Pari Banu = Pari of the first quality. “Peri”

(Par�) in its modern form has a superficial resemblance to “Fairy;” but this disappears in the “Pairika” of the Avesta and the “Pairik” of the modern Parsee. In one language only, the Mult�n�, there is a masculine form for the word “Par�” = a he-fairy (Scinde, ii. 203). In Al-Islam these Peris are beautiful feminine spirits who, created after the “D�vs” (Tabari, i. 7), mostly believe in Allah and the Koran and desire the good of mankind: they are often attacked by the said D�vs, giants or demons, who imprison them in cages hung to the highest trees, and here the captives are visited by their friends who feed them with the sweetest of scents. I have already contrasted them with the green-coated pygmies to which the grotesque fancy of Northern Europe has reduced them. B�n� in Pers. = a princess, a lady, and is still much used, e.g. B�n�-�-Harim, the Dame of the Serraglio, whom foreigners call “Queen of Persia,” and r�m-Banu=“the calm Princess,” a nickname. A Greek story equivalent of Prince Ahmad is told by Pio in Contes Populaires Grecs (No. ii. p. 98) and called {Greek}, the Golden box. Three youths ({Greek}) love the same girl and agree that whoever shall learn the best craft ({Greek}) shall marry her; one becomes an astrologer, the second can raise the dead, and the third can run faster than air. They find her at death’s door, and her soul, which was at her teeth ready to start, goes down ({Greek}).

 

[FN#315] Light of the Day.

 

[FN#316] Galland has “Bisnagar,” which the H. V. corrupts to Bishan-Garh = Vishnu’s Fort, an utter misnomer. Bisnagar, like Bijnagar, Beejanuggur, Vizianuggur, etc., is a Prakrit corruption of the Sanskrit Vij�yanagara = City of Victory, the far-famed Hindu city and capital of the Narasingha or Lord of Southern India, mentioned in The Nights, vols. vi. 18; ix. 84. Nicolo de’

Conti in the xvth century found it a magnificent seat of Empire some fifteen marches south of the pestilential mountains which contained the diamond mines. Accounts of its renown and condition in the last generation have been given by James Grant (“Remarks on the Dekkan”) and by Captain Moore (“Operations of Little’s Detachment against Tippoo Sultan”). The latest description of it is in “The Indian Empire,” by Sir William W. Hunter. Vij�yanagar, village in Bellary district, Madras, lat. 15 degrees 18’ N., long. 76 degrees 30’ E., pop. (1871), 437, inhabiting 172 houses.

The proper name of this village is Hampi, but Vij�yanagar was the name of the dynasty (?) and of the kingdom which had its capital here and was the last great Hindu power of the South. Founded by two adventurers in the middle of the xivth century, it lasted for two centuries till its star went down at T�likot in A. D. 1565.

For a description of the ruins of the old city of Vij�yanagar, which covers a total area of nine square miles, see “Murray’s Handbook for Madras,” by E. B. Eastwick (1879), vol. ix. p. 235.

Authentic history in Southern India begins with the Hindu kingdom of Vij�yanagar, or Narsinha, from A. D. 1118 to 1565. The capital can still be traced within the Madras district of Bellary, on the right bank of the Tungabhadra river—vast ruins of temples, fortifications, tanks and bridges, haunted by hy nas and snakes.

For at least three centuries Vij�yanagar ruled over the southern part of the Indian triangle. Its Rajas waged war and made peace on equal terms with the Mohamadan sultans of the Deccan. See vol.

iv. p. 335, Sir W. W. Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India,”

Edit. 1881.

 

[FN#317] The writer means the great Bazar, the Indian “Chauk,”

which = our English Carfax or Carfex (Carrefour) and forms the core of ancient cities in the East. It is in some places, as Damascus, large as one of the quarters, and the narrow streets or lanes, vaulted over or thatched, are all closed at night by heavy doors well guarded by men and dogs. Trades are still localised, each owning its own street, after the fashion of older England, where we read of Drapers’ Lane and Butchers’ Row; Lombard Street, Cheapside and Old Jewry.

 

[FN#318] The local name of the Patna ganzes. The term was originally applied to the produce of the Coan looms, which, however, was anticipated in ancient Egypt. See p. 287 of “L’Arch�ologie gyptienne” (Paris, A. Quantin) of the learned Professor G. Maspero, a most able popular work by a savant who has left many regrets on the banks of Nilus.

 

[FN#319] The great prototype of the Flying Carpet is that of Sulayman bin D��d, a fable which the Koran (chap. xxi. 81) borrowed from the Talmud, not from “Indian fictions.” It was of green sendal embroidered with gold and silver and studded with precious stones, and its length and breadth were such that all the Wise King’s host could stand upon it, the men to the left and the Jinns to the right of the throne; and when all were ordered, the Wind, at royal command, raised it and wafted it whither the Prophet would, while an army of birds flying overhead canopied the host from the sun. In the Middle Ages the legend assumed another form. “Duke Richard, surnamed ‘Richard sans peur,’

walking with his courtiers one evening in the forest of Moulineaux, near one of his castles on the banks of the Seine, hearing a prodigious noise coming towards him, sent one of his esquires to know what was the matter, who brought him word that it was a company of people under a leader or King. Richard, with five hundred of his bravest Normans, went out to see a sight which the peasants were so accustomed to that they viewed it two or three times a week without fear. The sight of the troop, preceded by two men, who spread a cloth on the ground, made all the Normans run away, and leave the Duke alone. He saw the strangers form themselves into a circle on the cloth, and on asking who they were, was told that they were the spirits of Charles V., King of France, and his servants, condemned to expiate their sins by fighting all night against the wicked and the damned. Richard desired to be of their party, and receiving a strict charge not to quit the cloth, was conveyed with them to Mount Sinai, where, leaving them without quitting the cloth, he said his prayers in the Church of St. Catherine’s Abbey there, while they were fighting, and returned with them. In proof of the truth of this story, he brought back half the wedding-ring of a knight in that convent, whose wife, after six years, concluded him dead, and was going to take a second husband.” (Note in the Lucknow Edition of The Nights.)

 

[FN#320] Amongst Eastern peoples, and especially adepts, the will of man is not a mere