Thalaba the Destroyer Part 32

_Poc.o.c.ke_.

[29] 'Tis the custom of Persia to begin their feasts with fruits and preserves. We spent two hours in eating only those and drinking beer, hydromel and aquavitae. Then was brought up the meat in great silver dishes, they were full of rice of divers colours, and upon that, several sorts of meat boild and roasted, as beef, mutton, tame fowl, wild ducks, fish and other things, all very well ordered and very delicate.

The Persians use no knives at table, but the Cooks send up the meat ready cut up into little bits, so that it was no trouble to us to accustome ourselves to their manner of eating. Rice serves them instead of bread. They take a mouthful of it, with the two fore-fingers and the thumb, and so put it into their mouths. Every table had a carver, whom they call Suffret-zi, who takes the meat brought up in the great dishes, to put it into lesser ones, which he fills with 3 or 4 sorts of meat, so as that every dish may serve 2 or at most 3 persons. There was but little drunk till towards the end of the repast, and then the cups went about roundly, and the dinner was concluded with a vessel of porcelane, full of a hot blackish kind of drink, which they call Kahawa.

_Amba.s.sadors Travels._

They laid upon the floor of the Amba.s.sadors room a fine silk cloth, on which there set one and 30 dishes of silver, filled with several sorts of conserves, dry and liquid, and raw fruits, as Melons, Citrons, Quinces, Pears, and some others not known in Europe. Some time after that cloth was taken away that another might be laid in the room of it, and upon this was set rice of all sorts of colours and all sorts of meat boyld and roasted in above fifty dishes of the same metal.

_Amb. Tra._

There is not any thing more ordinary in Persia than rice soaked in water, they call it Plau and eat of it at all their meals, and serve it up in all their dishes. They sometimes put thereto a little of the juice of pomegranates or cherries and saffron, insomuch that commonly you have rice of several colours in the same dish.

_Amb. Tra._

[30] The Tamarind is equally useful and agreable, it has a pulp of a vineous taste, of which a wholesome refreshing liquor is prepared, its shade shelters houses from the torrid heat of the sun, and its fine figure greatly adorns the scenery of the country.

_Niebuhr._

[31] Of pumpkins and melons several sorts grow naturally in the woods, and serve for feeding Camels. But the proper melons are planted in the fields, where a great variety of them is to be found, and in such abundance, that the Arabians of all ranks use them, for some part of the year, as their princ.i.p.al article of food. They afford a very agreeable liquor. When its fruit is nearly ripe, a hole is pierced into the pulp, this hole is then stopped with wax, and the melon left upon the stalk.

Within a few days the pulp is in consequence of this process, converted into a delicious liquor.

_Niebuhr._

[32] l'aspect imprevu de tant de Castillans, D'etonnement, d'effroi, peint ses regards brillans; Ses mains du choix des fruits se formant une etude, Demeurent un moment dans la meme att.i.tude.

_Madame Boccage. La Colombiade._

[33] The Arabians divide their day into twenty four hours, and reckon them from one setting sun to another. As very few among them know what a watch is, and as they conceive, but imperfectly the duration of an hour, they usually determine time almost as when we say, it happened about noon, about evening, &c. The moment when the Sun disappears is called _Maggrib_, about two hours afterwards they call it _El ascha_; two hours later, _El marfa_; midnight _Nus el lejl_: the dawn of morning _El fadsjer_: sun rise _Es subhh_. They eat about nine in the morning, and that meal is called _El ghadda_; noon _El duhhr_; three hours after noon _El asr_. Of all these divisions of time only noon and midnight are well ascertained; they both fall upon the twelfth hour. The others are earlier or later as the days are short or long. The five hours appointed for prayer are _Maggrib, Nus el lejl, El fedsjer, Duhhr_, and _El asr_.

_Niebuhr. Desc. del Arabie._

[34] The use of the bath was forbidden the Moriscoes in Spain, as being an _anti-christian_ custom! I recollect no superst.i.tion but the Catholic in which nastiness is accounted a virtue; as if, says Jortin, piety and filth were synonimous, and religion like the itch, could he caught by wearing foul cloaths.

[35] The effects of the Simoom are instant suffocation to every living creature that happens to be within the sphere of its activity, and immediate putrefaction of the carcases of the dead. The Arabians discern its approach by an unusual redness in the air, and they say that they feel a smell of sulphur as it pa.s.ses. The only means by which any person can preserve himself from suffering by these noxious blasts, is by throwing himself down with his face upon the earth, till this whirlwind of poisonous exhalations has blown over, which always moves at a certain height in the atmosphere. Instinct even teaches the brutes to incline their heads to the ground on these occasions.

_Niebuhr._

The Arabs of the desert call these winds _Semoum_ or poison, and the Turks _Shamyela_, or wind of Syria, from which is formed the _Samiel_.

Their heat is sometimes so excessive that it is difficult to form any idea of its violence without having experienced it; but it may be compared to the heat of a large oven at the moment of drawing out the bread. When these winds begin to blow, the atmosphere a.s.sumes an alarming aspect. The sky at other times so clear, in this climate, becomes dark and heavy; the sun loses his splendour and appears of a violet colour. The air is not cloudy, but grey and thick, and is in fact filled with an extremely subtile dust, which penetrates every where.

This wind, always light and rapid, is not at first remarkably hot, but it increases in heat in proportion as it continues. All animated bodies soon discover it, by the change it produces in them. The lungs which a too rarefied air no longer expands, are contracted and become painful.

Respiration is short and difficult, the skin parched and dry, and the body consumed by an internal heat. In vain is recourse had to large draughts of water; nothing can restore perspiration. In vain is coolness sought for; all bodies in which it is usual to find it, deceives the hand that touches them. Marble, iron, water, notwithstanding the sun no longer appears, are hot. The streets are deserted, and the dead silence of night reigns every where. The inhabitants of houses and villages shut themselves up in their houses, and those of the desert in their tents, or in pits they dig in the earth, where they wait the termination of this destructive heat. It usually lasts three days, but if it exceeds that time it becomes insupportable. Woe to the traveller whom this wind surprizes remote from shelter! he must suffer all its dreadful consequences which sometimes are mortal. The danger is most imminent when it blows in squalls, for then the rapidity of the wind increases the heat to such degree as to cause sudden death. This death is a real suffocation; the lungs being empty, are convulsed, the circulation disordered, and the whole ma.s.s of blood driven by the heart towards the head and breast; whence that haemorrhage at the nose and mouth which happens after death. This wind is especially fatal to persons of a plethoric habit, and those in whom fatigue has destroyed the tone of the muscles and the vessels. The corpse remains a long time warm, swells, turns blue and is easily separated; all which are signs of that putrid fermentation which takes place in animal bodies when the humours become stagnant. These accidents are to be avoided by stopping the nose and mouth with handkerchiefs; an efficacious method likewise is that practised by the camels, who bury their noses in the sand and keep them there till the squall is over.

Another quality of this wind is its extreme aridity; which is such, that water sprinkled on the floor evaporates in a few minutes. By this extreme dryness it withers and strips all the plants, and by exhaling too suddenly the emanations from animal bodies, crisps the skin, closes the pores, and causes that feverish heat which is the invariable effect of suppressed perspiration.

_Volney._

[36] From the _Mirror of Stones_ I extract a few specimens of the absurd ideas once prevalent respecting precious stones.

The _Amethyst_ drives away drunkenness; for being bound on the navel, it restrains the vapour of the wine, and so disolves the ebriety.

_Alectoria_ is a stone of a christalline colour, a little darkish, somewhat resembling limpid water; and sometimes it has veins of the colour of flesh. Some call it _Gallinaceus_, from the place of its generation, the intestines of capons, which were castrated at three years old, and had lived seven, before which time the stone ought not to be taken out, for the older it is, so much the better. When the stone is become perfect in the Capon, he do'nt drink. However tis never found bigger than a large bean. The virtue of this stone is to render him who carries it invisible, being held in the mouth it allays thirst, and therefore is proper for wrestlers; makes a woman agreable to her husband; bestows honors and preserves those already acquired; it frees such as are bewitched; it renders a man eloquent, constant, agreable and amiable; it helps to regain a lost Kingdom, and acquire a foreign one.

_Borax_, _Nosa_, _c.r.a.pondinus_, are names of the same stone, which is extracted from a toad. There are two species; that which is the best is rarely found; the other is black or dun with a cerluean glow, having in the middle the similitude of an eye, and must be taken out while the dead toad is yet panting, and these are better than those which are extracted from it after a long continuance in the ground. They have a wonderful efficacy in poisons. For whoever has taken poison, let him swallow this; which being down, rolls about the bowels, and drives out every poisonous quality that is lodged in the intestines, and then pa.s.ses thro' the fundament, and is preserved.

_Corvia_ or _Corvina_, is a Stone of a reddish colour, and accounted artificial. On the calends of April boil the eggs taken out of a Crow's nest till they are hard: and being cold let them be placed in the nest as they were before. When the crow knows this, she flies a long way to find the stone, and having found it returns to the nest, and the eggs being touched with it, they become fresh and prolific, the Stone must immediately be s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the nest, its virtue is to increase riches, to bestow honors, and to foretell many future events.

_Kinocetus_ is a stone not wholly useless--since it will cast out Devils.

[37] Giafar, the founder of the Barmecides, being obliged to fly from Persia his native country, took refuge at Damascus, and implored the protection of the Caliph Soliman. When he was presented to that Prince, the Caliph suddenly changed colour and commanded him to retire, suspecting that he had poison about him. Soliman had discovered it by means of ten stones which he wore upon his arm. They were fastened there like a bracelet, and never failed to strike one against the other and make a slight noise when any poison was near. Upon enquiry it was found that Giafar carried poison in his ring, for the purpose of self-destruction in case he had been taken by his enemies.

_Marigny._

These foolish old superst.i.tions have died away, and gems are now neither pounded as poison nor worn as antidotes. But the old absurdities respecting poisons have been renewed in our days, by Authors who have revived the calumnies alledged against the Knights-Templar, with the hope of exciting a more extensive persecution.

[38] In the country called Panten or Tathalamasin, "there be canes called Ca.s.san, which overspread the earth like gla.s.se, and out of every knot of them spring foorth certaine branches, which are continued upon the ground almost for the s.p.a.ce of a mile. In the sayd canes there are found certaine stones, one of which stones whosoever carryeth about with him, cannot be wounded with any yron: and therefore the men of that country for the most part carry such stones with them, withersoever they goe. Many also cause one of the armes of their children, while they are young, to be launced, putting one of the said stones into the wound, healing also, and closing up the said wound with the powder of a certain fish (the name whereof I do not know) which powder doth immediately consolidate and cure the said wound. And by the vertue of these stones, the people aforesaid doe for the most part triumph both on sea and land.

Howbeit there is one kind of stratageme which the enemies of this nation, knowing the vertue of the sayd stones, doe practise against them: namely, they provide themselves armour of yron or steele against their arrowes, and weapons also poisoned with the poyson of trees, and they carry in their hands wooden stakes most sharp and hard-pointed, as if they were yron: likewise they shoot arrowes without yron heades, and so they confound and slay some of their unarmed foes trusting too securely unto the vertue of their stones.

_Odoricus in Hakluyt._

We are obliged to Jewellers for our best accounts of the East. In Tavernier there is a pa.s.sage curiously characteristic of his profession.

A European at Delhi complained to him that he had polished and set a large diamond for Aureng-zebe, who had never paid him for his work. But he did not understand his trade, says Tavernier, for if he had been a skilful Jeweller he would have known how to take two or three pieces out of the stone, and pay himself better than the Mogul would have done.

[39] And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.

And it came to pa.s.s as they were burying a man, that behold they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet.

II. _Kings._ XIII. 20. 21.

I must remind my readers that an allusion to the Old Testament is no ways improper in a Mohammedan.

It happened the dead corps of a man was cast ash.o.r.e at Chatham, and being taken up was buried decently in the Church yard; now there was an image or rood in the Church called our Lady of Chatham, this Lady, say the Monks, went the next night and roused up the Clerk, telling him that a sinful person was buried near the place where she was worshipped, who offended her eyes with his ghastly grinning, and unless he were removed, to the great grief of good people she must remove from thence and could work no more miracles. Therefore she desired him to go with her to take him up, and throw him into the river again: which being done, soon after the body floated again, and was taken up and buried in the Church yard; but from that time all miracles ceased, and the place where he was buried did continually sink downwards. This tale is still remembered by some aged people, receiving it by tradition from the popish times of darkness and idolatry.

_Admirable Curiosities, Rarites and Wonders in England._

[40] Matthew of Westminister says the history of the Old Woman of Berkeley, will not appear incredible, if we read the dialogue of St.