University of Virginia Library

“The fruits of Meru are finer than those of any other place; and one cannot see in any other city such palaces with groves, and streams, and gardens.” —Ebn Haukal's Geography.

One of the royal cities of Khorassan.

Moses.

“Ses disciples assuroient qu'il se couvroit le visage, pour ne pas éblouir ceux qui l'approchoient par l'éclat de son visage comme Moyse.” —D'Herbelot.

Black was the colour adopted by the Caliphs of the House of Abbas, in their garments, turbans, and standards.—“Il faut remarquer ici touchant les habits blancs des disciples de Hakem, que la couleur des habits, des cöeffures et des étendarts des Khalifes Abassides ètant la noire, ce chef de Rebelles ne pouvoit pas choisir une qui lui fût plus opposèe.” —D' Herbelot.

“Our dark javelins, exquisitely wrought of Khathaian reeds, slender and delicate.” —Poem of Amru.

Pichula, used anciently for arrows by the Persians.

The Persians call this plant Gaz. The celebrated shaft of Isfendiar, one of their ancient heroes, was made of it.— “Nothing can be more beautiful than the appearance of this plant in flower during the rains on the banks of rivers, where it is usually interwoven with a lovely twining asclepias.” —Sir W. Jones, Botanical Observations on Select Indian Plants.

The oriental plane. “The chenar is a delightful tree; its bole is of a fine white and smooth bark; and its foliage, which grows in a tuft at the summit, is of a bright green.” —Morier's Travels.

The burning fountains of Brahma near Chittogong, esteemed as holy. —Turner.

China.

“The name of tulip is said to be of Turkish extraction, and given to the flower on account of its resembling a turban.” —Beckmann's History of Inventions.

“The inhabitants of Bucharia wear a round cloth bonnet, shaped much after the Polish fashion, having a large fur border. They tie their kaftans about the middle with a girdle of a kind of silk crape, several times round the body.” —Account of Independent Tartary, in Pinkerton's Collection.

In the war of the Caliph Mahadi against the Empress Irene, for an account of which vide Gibbon, vol. x.

This wonderful Throne was called The Star of the Genii. For a full description of it, see the Fragment, translated by Captain Franklin, from a Persian MS. entitled “The History of Jerusalem,” Oriental Collections, vol. i. p. 235.—When Soliman travelled, the eastern writers say, “He had a carpet of green silk on which his throne was placed, being of a prodigious length and breadth, and sufficient for all his forces to stand upon, the men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his left; and that when all were in order, the wind, at his command, took up the carpet, and transported it, with all that were upon it, wherever he pleased; the army of birds at the same time flying over their heads, and forming a kind of canopy to shade them from the sun.” —Sale's Koran, vol. ii. p. 214. note.

The transmigration of souls was one of his doctrines. —Vide D'Herbelot.

“And when we said unto the angels, Worship Adam, they all worshipped him except Eblis (Lucifer), who refused.” —The Koran, chap. ii.

Moses.

This is according to D'Herbelot's account of the doctrines of Mokanna:—“Sa doctrine étoit, que Dieu avoit pris une forme et figure humaine, depuis qu'il eut commandé aux Anges d'adorer Adam, le premier des hommes. Qu'après la mort d'Adam, Dieu étoit apparu sous la figure de plusieurs Prophétes, et autres grands hommes qu'il avoit choisis, jusqu'à ce qu'il prit celle d'Abu Moslem, Prince de Khorassan, lequel professoit l'erreur de la Tenassukhiah ou Metempschychose; et qu'aprés la mort de ce Prince, la Divinité étoit passée, et descendue en sa personne.”

Jesus.

The Amoo, which rises in the Belur Tag, or Dark Mountains, and running nearly from east to west, splits into two branches; one of which falls into the Caspian sea, and the other into Aral Nahr, or the Lake of Eagles.

The nightingale.

The cities of Com (or Koom) and Cashan are full of mosques, mausoleums, and sepulchres of the descendants of Ali, the Saints of Persia. —Chardin.

An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its white wine.

The miraculous well at Mecca; so called, says Sale, from the murmuring of its waters.

The god Hannaman.—“Apes are in many parts of India highly venerated, out of respect to the God Hannaman, a deity partaking of the form of that race.” —Pennant's Hindoostan.

See a curious account, in Stephen's Persia, of a solemn embassy from some part of the Indies to Goa, when the Portuguese were there, offering vast treasures for the recovery of a monkey's tooth, which they held in great veneration, and which had been taken away upon the conquest of the kingdom of Jafanapatan.

This resolution of Eblis not to acknowledge the new creature, man, was, according to Mahometan tradition, thus adopted:—“The earth (which God had selected for the materials of his work) was carried into Arabia to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where, being first kneaded by the angels, it was afterwards fashioned by God himself into a human form, and left to dry for the space of forty days, or, as others say, as many years; the angels, in the mean time, often visiting it, and Eblis (then one of the angels nearest to God's presence, afterwards the devil) among the rest; but he, not contented with looking at it, kicked it with his foot till it rung; and knowing God designed that creature to be his superior, took a secret resolution never to acknowledge him as such.” —Sale on the Koran.

A kind of lantern formerly used by robbers, called the Hand of Glory, the candle for which was made of the fat of a dead malefactor. This, however, was rather a western than an eastern superstition.

The material of which images of Gaudma (the Birman Deity) are made, is held sacred. “Birmans may not purchase the marble in mass, but are suffered, and indeed encouraged, to buy figures of the Deity ready made.” —Symes's Ava, vol. ii. p. 376.

“It is commonly said in Persia, that if a man breathe in the hot south wind, which in June or July passes over that flower (the Kerzereh), it will kill him.” —Thevenot.

The humming bird is said to run this risk for the purpose of picking the crocodile's teeth. The same circumstance is related of the lapwing, as a fact to which he was witness, by Paul Lucas, Voyage fait en 1714.

The ancient story concerning the Trochilus, or hummingbird, entering with impunity into the mouth of the crocodile, is firmly believed at Java. —Barrow's Cochin-China.

Circum easdem ripas (Nili, viz.) ales est Ibis. Ea serpentium populatur ova, gratissimamque ex his escam nidis suis refert. —Solinus.

“Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.” —Sol. Song.

“They tinged the ends of her fingers scarlet with Henna, so that they resembled branches of coral.” —Story of Prince Futtun in Bahardanush.

“The women blacken the inside of their eyelids with a powder named the black Kohol.” —Russel.

“None of these ladies,” says Shaw, “take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged the hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead ore. Now, as this operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids over the ball of the eye, we shall have a lively image of what the Prophet (Jer. iv. 30.) may be supposed to mean by rending the eyes with painting. This practice is no doubt of great antiquity; for besides the instance already taken notice of, we find that where Jezebel is said (2 Kings, ix. 30.) to have painted her face, the original words are, she adjusted her eyes with the powder of lead-ore.” —Shaw's Travels.

“The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-coloured Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit Poets with many elegant allusions.” —See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv.

A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen. —Niebuhr.

Of the genus mimosa, “which droops its branches whenever any person approaches it, seeming as if it saluted those who retire under its shade.” —Niebuhr.

“Cloves are a principal ingredient in the composition of the perfumed rods, which men of rank keep constantly burning in their presence.” —Turner's Tibet.

“C'est d'où vient le bois d'aloes, que les Arabes appellent Oud Comari, et celui du sandal, qui s'y trouve en grande quantité.” —D' Herbelot.

“Thousands of variegated loories visit the coral-trees.” —Barrow.

“In Mecca there are quantities of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much less kill.” —Pitt's Account of the Mahometans.

“The Pagoda Thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India. It sits perched on the sacred pagodas, and from thence delivers its melodious song.” —Pennant's Hindostan.

Tavernier adds, that while the Birds of Paradise lie in this intoxicated state, the emmets come and eat off their legs; and that hence it is they are said to have no feet.

Birds of Paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in flights from the southern isles to India; and “the strength of the nutmeg,” says Tavernier, “so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth.”

“That bird which liveth in Arabia, and buildeth its nest with cinnamon.” —Brown's Vulgar Errors.

“The spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds.” —Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 421.

Shedad, who made the delicious gardens of Irim, in imitation of Paradise, and was destroyed by lightning the first time he attempted to enter them.

“My Pandits assure me that the plant before us (the Nilica) is their Sephalica, thus named because the bees are supposed to sleep on its blossoms.” —Sir W. Jones.

“They deferred it till the King of Flowers should ascend his throne of enamelled foliage.” —The Bahardanush.

“One of the head-dresses of the Persian women is composed of a light golden chain-work, set with small pearls, with a thin gold plate pendant, about the bigness of a crown-piece, on which is impressed an Arabian prayer, and which hangs upon the cheek below the ear.” —Hanway's Travels.

“Certainly the women of Yezd are the handsomest women in Persia. The proverb is, that to live happy a man must have a wife of Yezd, eat the bread of Yezdecas, and drink the wine of Shiraz.” —Tavernier.

Musnuds are cushioned seats, usually reserved for persons of distinction.

The Persians, like the ancient Greeks, call their musical modes or Perdas by the names of different countries or cities, as the mode of Isfahan, the mode of Irak, &c.

A river which flows near the ruins of Chilminar.

“To the north of us (on the coast of the Caspian, near Badku,) was a mountain, which sparkled like diamonds, arising from the sea-glass and crystals with which it abounds.” —Journey of the Russian Ambassador to Persia, 1746.

“To which will be added the sound of the bells, hanging on the trees, which will be put in motion by the wind proceeding from the throne of God, as often as the blessed wish for music.” —Sale.

“Whose wanton eyes resemble blue water-lilies, agitated by the breeze.” —Jayadeva.

The blue lotos, which grows in Cashmere and in Persia.

It has been generally supposed that the Mahometans prohibit all pictures of animals; but Toderini shows that, though the practice is forbidden by the Koran, they are not more averse to painted figures and images than other people. From Mr. Murphy's work, too, we find that the Arabs of Spain had no objection to the introduction of figures into painting.

This is not quite astronomically true. “Dr. Hadley (says Keil) has shown that Venus is brightest when she is about forty degrees removed from the sun; and that then but only a fourth part of her lucid disk is to be seen from the earth.”

For the loves of King Solomon (who was supposed to preside over the whole race of Genii) with Balkis, the Queen of Sheba or Saba, see D'Herbelot, and the Notes on the Koran, chap. 2.

“In the palace which Solomon ordered to be built against the arrival of the Queen of Saba, the floor or pavement was of transparent glass, laid over running water, in which fish were swimming.” This led the Queen into a very natural mistake, which the Koran has not thought beneath its dignity to commemorate. “It was said unto her, ‘Enter the palace.’ And when she saw it she imagined it to be a great water; and she discovered her legs, by lifting up her robe to pass through it. Whereupon Solomon said to her, ‘Verily, this is the place evenly floored with glass.’” —Chap. 27.

The wife of Potiphar, thus named by the Orientals. The passion which this frail beauty of antiquity conceived for her young Hebrew slave has given rise to a much esteemed poem in the Persian language, entitled Yusef vau Zelikha, by Noureddin Jami; the manuscript copy of which, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is supposed to be the finest in the whole world.” —Note upon Nott's Translation of Hafez.

The particulars of Mahomet's amour with Mary, the Coptic girl, in justification of which he added a new chapter to the Koran, may be found in Gagnier's Notes upon Abulfeda, p. 151.

“Deep blue is their mourning colour.” —Hanway.

The sorrowful nyctanthes, which begins to spread its rich odour after sunset.

“Concerning the vipers, which Pliny says were frequent among the balsam-trees, I made very particular inquiry; several were brought me alive both to Yambo and Jidda.” —Bruce.

“The Lescar or Imperial Camp is divided, like a regular town, into squares, alleys, and streets, and from a rising ground furnishes one of the most agreeable prospects in the world. Starting up in a few hours in an uninhabited plain, it raises the idea of a city built by enchantment. Even those who leave their houses in cities to follow the prince in his progress are frequently so charmed with the Lescar, when situated in a beautiful and convenient place, that they cannot prevail with themselves to remove. To prevent this inconvenience to the court, the Emperor, after sufficient time is allowed to the tradesmen to follow, orders them to be burnt out of their tents. —Dow's Hindostan.

Colonel Wilks gives a lively picture of an Eastern encampment:—“His camp, like that of most Indian armies, exhibited a motley collection of covers from the scorching sun and dews of the night, variegated according to the taste or means of each individual, by extensive inclosures of coloured calico surrounding superb suites of tents; by ragged cloths or blankets stretched over sticks or branches; palm leaves hastily spread over similar supports; handsome tents and splendid canopies; horses, oxen, elephants, and camels; all intermixed without any exterior mark of order or design, except the flags of the chiefs, which usually mark the centres of a congeries of these masses; the only regular part of the encampment being the streets of shops, each of which is constructed nearly in the manner of a booth at an English fair.” —Historical Sketches of the South of India.

The edifices of Chilminar and Balbec are supposed to have been built by the Genii, acting under the orders of Jan ben Jan, who governed the world long before the time of Adam.

“A superb camel, ornamented with strings and tufts of small shells.” —Ali Bey.

A native of Khorassan, and allured southward by means of the water of a fountain between Shiraz and Ispahan, called the Fountain of Birds, of which it is so fond that it will follow wherever that water is carried.

“Some of the camels have bells about their necks, and some about their legs, like those which our carriers put about their fore-horses' necks, which together with the servants (who belong to the camels, and travel on foot,) singing all night, make a pleasant noise, and the journey passes away delightfully.” —Pitt's Account of the Mahometans.

“The camel-driver follows the camels singing, and sometimes playing upon his pipe; the louder he sings and pipes, the faster the camels go. Nay, they will stand still when he gives over his music.” —Tavernier.

“This trumpet is often called, in Abyssinia, nesser cano, which signifies the Note of the Eagle.” —Note of Bruce's Editor.

The two black standards borne before the Caliphs of the House of Abbas were called, allegorically, The Night and The Shadow. —See Gibbon.

The Mahometan religion.

“The Persians swear by the Tomb of Shah Besade, who is buried at Casbin; and when one desires another to asseverate a matter, he will ask him, if he dare swear by the Holy Grave.” —Struy.

Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold.

Nivem Meccam apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut raro visam. —Abulfeda.

The inhabitants of Hejaz or Arabia Petræa, called by an Eastern writer “The People of the Rock.” —Ebn Haukal.

“Those horses, called by the Arabians Kochlani, of whom a written genealogy has been kept for 2000 years. They are said to derive their origin from King Solomon's steeds.” —Niebuhr.

“Many of the figures on the blades of their swords are wrought in gold or silver, or in marquetry with small gems.” —Asiat. Misc. v. i.

Azab or Saba.

“The chiefs of the Uzbek Tartars wear a plume of white heron's feathers in their turbans.” —Account of Independent Tartary.

In the mountains of Nishapour and Tous (in Khorassan) they find turquoises. —Ebn Haukal.

For a description of these stupendous ranges of mountains, see Elphinstone's Caubul.

The Ghebers or Guebres, those original natives of Persia, who adhered to their ancient faith, the religion of Zoroaster, and who, after the conquest of their country by the Arabs, were either persecuted at home, or forced to become wanderers abroad.

“Yezd, the chief residence of those ancient natives, who worship the Sun and the Fire, which latter they have carefully kept lighted, without being once extinguished for a moment, about 3000 years, on a mountain near Yezd, called Ater Quedah, signifying the House or Mansion of the Fire. He is reckoned very unfortunate who dies off that mountain. —Stephen's Persia.

“When the weather is hazy, the springs of Naphtha (on an island near Baku) boil up the higher, and the Naphtha often takes fire on the surface of the earth, and runs in a flame into the sea to a distance almost incredible.” —Hanway on the Everlasting Fire at Baku.

Savary says of the south wind, which blows in Egypt from February to May, “Sometimes it appears only in the shape of an impetuous whirlwind, which passes rapidly, and is fatal to the traveller, surprised in the middle of the deserts. Torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firmament is enveloped in a thick veil, and the sun appears of the colour of blood. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in it.”

In the great victory gained by Mahomed at Beder, he was assisted, say the Mussulmans, by three thousand angels, led by Gabriel, mounted on his horse Hiazum. —See The Koran and its Commentators.

The Tecbir, or cry of the Arabs. “Alla Acbar!” says Ockley, means, “God is most mighty.”

The ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the women of the East sing upon joyful occasions. —Russel.

The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal nor vegetable life.

The ancient Oxus.

A city of Transoxiana.

“You never can cast your eyes on this tree, but you meet there either blossoms or fruit; and as the blossom drops underneath on the ground (which is frequently covered with these purple-coloured flowers), others come forth in their stead,” &c. &c. —Nieuhoff.

The Demons of the Persian mythology.

Carreri mentions the fire-flies in India during the rainy season. —See his Travels.

Sennacherib, called by the Orientals King of Moussal. —D'Herbelot.

Chosroes. For the description of his Throne or Palace, see Gibbon and D'Herbelot.

There were said to be under this Throne or Palace of Khosrou Parviz a hundred vaults filled with “treasures so immense that some Mahometan writers tell us, their Prophet, to encourage his disciples, carried them to a rock, which at his command opened, and gave them a prospect through it of the treasures of Khosrou.”

“The crown of Gerashid is cloudy and tarnished before the heron tuft of thy turban.”—From one of the elegies or songs in praise of Ali, written in characters of gold round the gallery of Abbas's tomb. —See Chardin.

The beauty of Ali's eyes was so remarkable, that whenever the Persians would describe any thing as very lovely, they say it is Ayn Hali, or the Eyes of Ali. —Chardin.

We are not told more of this trick of the Impostor, than that it was “une machine, qu'il disoit être la Lune.” According to Richardson, the miracle is perpetuated in Nekscheb. —“Nakshab, the name of a city in Transoxiania, where they say there is a well, in which the appearance of the moon is to be seen night and day.”

“Il amusa pendant deux mois le peuple de la ville de Nekhscheb, en faisant sortir toutes les nuits du fond d'un puits un corps lumineux semblable à Lune, qui portoit sa lumière jusqu'à la distance de plusieurs miles.” —D'Herbelot.

Hence he was called Sazendéhmah, or the Moon-maker.

The Shechinah, called Sakînat in the Koran. —See Sale's Note, chap. ii.

The parts of the night are made known as well by instruments of music, as by the rounds of the watchmen with cries and small drums. —See Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. i. p. 119.

The Serrapurda, high screens of red cloth, stiffened with cane, used to enclose a considerable space round the royal tents. —Notes on the Bahardanush.

The tents of Princes were generally illuminated. Norden tells us that the tent of the Bey of Girge was distinguished from the other tents by forty lanterns being suspended before it. —See Harmer's Observations on Job.

“From the groves of orange trees at Kauzeroon the bees cull a celebrated honey.” —Morier's Travels.

“A custom still subsisting at this day, seems to me to prove that the Egyptians formerly sacrificed a young virgin to the God of the Nile; for they now make a statue of earth in shape of a girl, to which they give the name of the Betrothed Bride, and throw it into the river.” —Savary.

That they knew the secret of the Greek fire among the Mussulmans early in the eleventh century, appears from Dow's Account of Mamood I. “When he arrived at Moultan, finding that the country of the Jits was defended by great rivers, he ordered fifteen hundred boats to be built, each of which he armed with six iron spikes, projecting from their prows and sides, to prevent their being boarded by the enemy, who were very expert in that kind of war. When he had launched this fleet, he ordered twenty archers into each boat, and five others with fire-balls, to burn the craft of the Jits, and naphtha to set the whole river on fire.”

The agnee aster, too, in Indian poems the Instrument of Fire, whose flame cannot be extinguished, is supposed to signify the Greek Fire.—See Wilks's South of India, vol. i. p. 471.—And in the curious Javan poem, the Brata Yudha given by Sir Stamford Raffles in his History of Java, we find, “He aimed at the heart of Soéta with the sharp-pointed Weapon of Fire.”

The mention of gunpowder as in use among the Arabians, long before its supposed discovery in Europe, is introduced by Ebn Fadhl, the Egyptian geographer, who lived in the thirteenth century. “Bodies,” he says, “in the form of scorpions, bound round and filled with nitrous powder, glide along, making a gentle noise; then, exploding, they lighten, as it were, and burn. But there are others which, cast into the air, stretch along like a cloud, roaring horribly, as thunder roars, and on all sides vomiting out flames, burst, burn, and reduce to cinders whatever comes in their way.” The historian Ben Abdalla, in speaking of the sieges of Abulualid in the year of the Hegira 712, says, “A fiery globe, by means of combustible matter, with a mighty noise suddenly emitted, strikes with the force of lightning, and shakes the citadel.” —See the extracts from Casiri's Biblioth. Arab. Hispan. in the Appendix to Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages.

The Greek fire, which was occasionally lent by the emperors to their allies. “It was,” says Gibbon, “either launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil.”

See Hanway's Account of the Springs of Naphtha at Baku (which is called by Lieutenant Pottinger Joala Mookee, or, the Flaming Mouth,) taking fire and running into the sea. Dr. Cooke, in his Journal, mentions some wells in Circassia, strongly impregnated with this inflammable oil, from which issues boiling water. “Though the weather,” he adds, “was now very cold, the warmth of these wells of hot water produced near them the verdure and flowers of spring.”

Major Scott Waring says, that naphtha is used by the Persians, as we are told it was in hell, for lamps.

“At the great festival of fire, called the Sheb Sezê, they used to set fire to large bunches of dry combustibles, fastened round wild beasts and birds, which being then let loose, the air and earth appeared one great illumination; and as these terrified creatures naturally fled to the woods for shelter, it is easy to conceive the conflagrations they produced.” —Richardson's Dissertation.

“The righteous shall be given to drink of pure wine, sealed; the seal whereof shall be musk.” —Koran, chap. lxxxiii.

“The Afghauns believe each of the numerous solitudes and deserts of their country to be inhabited by a lonely demon, whom they call the Ghoolee Beeabau, or Spirit of the Waste. They often illustrate the wildness of any sequestered tribe, by saying, they are wild as the Demon of the Waste.” —Elphinstone's Caubul.

“Il donna du poison dans le vin à tous ses gens, et se jetta lui-même ensuite dans une cuve pleine de drogues brûlantes et consumantes, afin qu'il ne restât rien de tous les membres de son corps, et que ceux qui restoient de sa secte puissent croire qu'il étoit monté au ciel, ce qui ne manqua pas d'arriver.” —D' Herbelot.

“They have all a great reverence for burial-grounds, which they sometimes call by the poetical name of Cities of the Silent, and which they people with the ghosts of the departed, who sit each at the head of his own grave, invisible to mortal eyes.” —Elphinstone.

Khorassan signifies, in the old Persian language, Province or Region of the Sun. —Sir W. Jones.

“Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane trees upon it.” —Foster.

“The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it.” —Description of Tibet in Pinkerton.

“The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise.” —Sir W. Jones. It appears, however, from a curious letter of the Sultan of Menangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. “This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere.” —Marsden's Sumatra.

“The Mahometans suppose that falling stars are the firebrands wherewith the good angels drive away the bad, when they approach too near the empyrean or verge of the heavens.” —Fryer.

The Forty Pillars; so the Persians call the ruins of Persepolis. It is imagined by them that this palace and the edifices at Balbec were built by Genii, for the purpose of hiding in their subterraneous caverns immense treasures, which still remain there. —D'Herbelot, Volney.

Diodorus mentions the Isle of Panchaia, to the south o Arabia Felix, where there was a temple of Jupiter. This island, or rather cluster of isles, has disappeared, “sunk (says Grandpré) in the abyss made by the fire beneath their foundations.” —Voyage to the Indian Ocean.

The Isles of Panchaia.

“The cup of Jamshid, discovered, they say, when digging for the foundations of Persepolis.” —Richardson.

“It is not like the Sea of India, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris, whose mountains of the coast are stored with gold and precious stones, whose gulfs breed creatures that yield ivory, and among the plants of whose shores are ebony, red wood, and the wood of Hairzan, aloes, camphor, cloves, sandal-wood, and all other spices and aromatics; where parrots and peacocks are birds of the forest, and musk and civet are collected upon the lands.” —Travels of two Mohammedans.

Milton.

For a particular description and plate of the Banyan-tree, see Cordiner's Ceylon.

“With this immense treasure Mamood returned to Ghizni, and in the year 400 prepared a magnificent festival, where he displayed to the people his wealth in golden thrones and in other ornaments, in a great plain without the city of Ghizni.” —Ferishta.

“Mahmood of Gazna, or Ghizni, who conquered India in the beginning of the 11th century.” —See his History in Dow and Sir J. Malcolm.

“It is reported that the hunting equipage of the Sultan Mahmood was so magnificent, that he kept 400 greyhounds and bloodhounds, each of which wore a collar set with jewels, and a covering edged with gold and pearls.” —Universal History, vol. iii.

Objections may be made to my use of the word Liberty in this, and more especially in the story that follows it, as totally inapplicable to any state of things that has ever existed in the East; but though I cannot, of course, mean to employ it in that enlarged and noble sense which is so well understood at the present day, and, I grieve to say, so little acted upon, yet it is no disparagement to the word to apply it to that national independence, that freedom from the interference and dictation of foreigners, without which, indeed, no liberty of any kind can exist; and for which both Hindoos and Persians fought against their Mussulman invaders with, in many cases, a bravery that deserved much better success.

—Bruce.

“Sometimes called,” says Jackson, “Jibbel Kumrie, or the white or lunar coloured mountains; so a white horse is called by the Arabians a moon-coloured horse.”

“The Nile, which the Abyssinians know by the names of Abey and Alawy, or the Giant.” —Asiat. Research. vol. i. p. 387.

See Perry's View of the Levant for an account of the sepulchres in Upper Thebes, and the numberless grots, covered all over with hieroglyphics in the mountains of Upper Egypt.

“The orchards of Rosetta are filled with turtle-doves.” —Sonnini.

Savary mentions the pelicans upon Lake Mœris.

“The superb date-tree, whose head languidly reclines, like that of a handsome woman overcome with sleep.”—Dafard el Hadad.

“That beautiful bird, with plumage of the finest shining blue, with purple beak and legs, the natural and living ornament of the temples and palaces of the Greeks and Romans, which, from the stateliness of its port, as well as the brilliancy of its colours, has obtained the title of Sultana.” —Sonnini.

Jackson, speaking of the plague that occurred in West Barbary, when he was there, says, “The birds of the air fled away from the abodes of men. The hyænas, on the contrary, visited the cemeteries,” &c.

“Gondar was full of hyænas from the time it turned dark, till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcasses, which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are Falashta from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety.” —Bruce.

Bruce.

This circumstance has been often introduced into poetry; —by Vincentius Fabricius, by Darwin, and lately, with very powerful effect, by Mr. Wilson.

“In the East, they suppose the Phœnix to have fifty orifices in his bill, which are continued to his tail; and that, after living one thousand years, he builds himself a funeral pile, sings a melodious air of different harmonies through his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a velocity which sets fire to the wood, and consumes himself.” —Richardson.

“On the shores of a quadrangular lake stand a thousand goblets, made of stars, out of which souls predestined to enjoy felicity drink the crystal wave.” —From Chateaubriand's Description of the Mahometan Paradise, in his Beauties of Christianity.

Richardson thinks that Syria had its name from Suri, a beautiful and delicate species of rose, for which that country has been always famous;—hence, Suristan, the Land of Roses.

“The number of lizards I saw one day in the great court of the Temple of the Sun at Balbec amounted to many thousands; the ground, the walls, and stones of the ruined buildings, were covered with them.” —Bruce.

“The Syrinx or Pan's pipe is still a pastoral instrument in Syria.” —Russel.

“Wild bees, frequent in Palestine, in hollow trunks or branches of trees, and the clefts of rocks. Thus it is said (Psalm lxxxi.), ‘honey out of the stony rock.’” —Burder's Oriental Customs.

“The river Jordan is on both sides beset with little, thick, and pleasant woods, among which thousands of nightingales warble all together.” —Thevenot.

The Temple of the Sun at Balbec.

“You behold there a considerable number of a remarkable species of beautiful insects, the elegance of whose appearance and their attire procured for them the name of Damsels.” —Sonnini.

Imaret, “hospice où on loge et nourrit, gratis, les pélerins pendant trois jours.” —Toderini, translated by the Abbé de Cournand. —See also Castellan's Mœurs des Othomans, tom. v. p. 145.

“Such Turks as at the common hours of prayer are on the road, or so employed as not to find convenience to attend the mosques, are still obliged to execute that duty; nor are they ever known to fail, whatever business they are then about, but pray immediately when the hour alarms them, whatever they are about, in that very place they chance to stand on; insomuch that when a janissary, whom you have to guard you up and down the city, hears the notice which is given him from the steeples, he will turn about, stand still, and beckon with his hand, to tell his charge he must have patience for awhile; when, taking out his handkerchief, he spreads it on the ground, sits cross-legged thereupon, and says his prayers, though in the open market, which, having ended, he leaps briskly up, salutes the person whom he undertook to convey, and renews his journey with the mild expression of Ghell gohnnum ghell, or Come, dear, follow me.” —Aaron Hill's Travels.

The Nucta, or Miraculous Drop, which falls in Egypt precisely on St. John's day, in June, and is supposed to have the effect of stopping the plague.

The Country of Delight—the name of a province in the kingdom of Jinnistan, or Fairy Land, the capital of which is called the City of Jewels. Amberabad is another of the cities of Jinnistan.

The tree Tooba, that stands in Paradise, in the palace of Mahomet. See Sale's Prelim. Disc.—Tooba, says D'Herbelot, signifies beatitude, or eternal happiness.

Mahomet is described, in the 53d chapter of the Koran, as having seen the angel Gabriel “by the lote-tree, beyond which there is no passing: near it is the Garden of Eternal Abode.” This tree, says the commentators, stands in the seventh Heaven, on the right hand of the Throne of God.