The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XIV Part 24

[FN#399] For the "Zakat" = legal alms, which must not be less than two-and-a-half per cent, see vol. i. 339.

[FN#400] In text "Kazdir," for which see vols. iv. 274 and vi.

39. Here is may allude to the canisters which make great show in the general store of a petty shopkeeper.

[FN#401] [The MS. reads "murafraf" (pa.s.sive) from, "Rafraf" = a shelf, arch, anything overhanging something else, there here applying either to the eyebrows as overhanging the eyes, or to the sockets, as forming a vault or cave for them. Perhaps it should be "murafrif" (active part), used of a bird, who spreads his wings and circles round his prey, ready to pounce upon it; hence with prying, hungry, greedy eyes.--St.]

[FN#402] Arab. "Niyyah" with the normal pun upon the name.

[FN#403] Arab. "'Amil Rasad," lit. acting as an observatory: but the style is broken as usual, and to judge from the third line below the sentence may signify "And I am acting as Talisman (to the h.o.a.rd)".

[FN#404] In the text "Ishari," which may have many meanings: I take a "shot" at the most likely. In "The Tale of the Envier and the Envied" the counter-spell in a fumigation by means of some white hair plucked from a white spot, the size of a dirham, at the tail-end of a black tom-cat (vol. i. 124). According to the Welsh legend, "the Devil hates c.o.c.ks"--I suppose since that fowl warned Peter of his fall.

[FN#405] In text "Yaum al-Ahad," which begins the Moslem week: see vols. iii. 249, and vi. 190.

[FN#406] [In Ar. "Harj wa Laght." The former is generally joined with "Marj" (Harj wa Marj) to express utter confusion, chaos, anarchy. "Laght" (also p.r.o.nounced Laghat and written with the palatal "t") has been mentioned supra p. 11 as a synonym of "Jalabah" = clamour, tumult, etc.--St.]

[FN#407] [In Ar. "yahjubu," aor. Of "hajaba" = he veiled, put out of sight, excluded, warded off. Amongst other significations the word is technically used of a nearer degree of relationship excluding entirely or partially a more distant one from inheritance.--St.]

[FN#408] Arab. "Yaum al-Jum'ah" = a.s.sembly-day, Friday: see vol. vi. 120.

[FN#409] A regular Badawi remedy. This Artemisia (Arab. Shayh), which the Dicts. translate "wormwood of Pontus," is the sweetest herb of the Desert, and much relished by the wild men: see my "Pilgrimage," vol. i. 228. The Finnish Arabist Wallin, who died Professor of Arabic at Helsingfors, speaks of a "Farashat al- Shayh" = a carpet of wormwood.

[FN#410] "Sahibi-h," the masculine; because, as the old grammar tells us, that gender is more worthy than the feminine.

[FN#411] i.e., his strength was in the old: see vol. i. 340.

[FN#412] Arab. "Haysumah" = smooth stones (water-rounded?).

[FN#413] For "his flesh was crushed upon his bones," a fair specimen of Arab. "Metonomy-c.u.m-hyperbole." In the days when Mr.

John Bull boasted of his realism versus Gallic idealism, he "got wet to the skin" when M. Jean c.r.a.paud was mouille jusqu'aux os.

For the Angels supposed to haunt a pure and holy well, and the trick played by Ibn Tumart, see Ibn Khaldun's Hist. of the Berbers, vol. ii. 575.

[FN#414] Here begins the second tale which is a weak replica of Galland's "Two Sisters," &c.

[FN#415] This is the usual term amongst savages and barbarians, and during that period the father has no connection with the mother. Civilisation has abolished this natural practice which is observed by all the lower animals and has not improved human matters. For an excellent dissertation on the subject see the letter on Polygamy by Mrs. Belinda M. Pratt, in "The City of the Saints," p. 525.

[FN#416] In text "Kuwayyis," dim. of "Kayyis," and much used in Egypt as an adj. = "pretty," "nice," and as an adv. "well,"

"nicely." See s.v. Spitta Bey's Glossary to Contes Arabes Modernes. The word is familiar to the travellers in the Nile- valley.

[FN#417] In Arab. a "Kanat;" see vol. iii. 141. The first occupation came from nature; the second from seeing the work of the adopted father.

[FN#418] Abu Niyyah, like most house masters in the East, not to speak of Kings, was the last to be told a truth familiar to everyone but himself and his wife.

[FN#419] The MS. breaks off abruptly at this sentence and evidently lacks finish. Scott (vi., 228) adds, "The young princes were acknowledged and the good Abou Neeut had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up to follow his example."

In the MS. this tale is followed by a "Story of his own Adventures related by a connection to an Emir of Egypt." I have omitted it because it is a somewhat fade replica of "The Lovers of the Banu Ozrah" (Vol. vii. 177; Lane iii. 247).

[FN#420] Mr. Chandler remarks (p. 25, "On Lending Bodleian Books, &c."):--"It is said that the Curators can refuse any application if they choose; of course they can, but as a matter of fact no application has ever been refused, and every name added will make it more and more difficult, more and more invidious to refuse anyone." I have, therefore, the singular honour of being the first chosen for rejection.

[FN#421] Mr. Chandler's motion (see p. 28, "Booklending, &c.") was defeated by an amendment prepared by Professor Jowett and the former fought, with mixed success, the report of the Committee of Loans; the doc.u.ment being so hacked as to become useless, and, in this mangled condition, it was referred back to the Committee with a recommendation to consider the best way of carrying out the present statute. The manly and straightforward course of at once proposing a new statute was not adopted, nor was it even formally proposed. Lastly, the applications for loans, which numbered sixteen were submitted to the magnates and were all refused! whilst the application of an Indian subject that MSS. be sent to the India Office for his private use was at once granted.

In my case Professors B. Price and Max Muller, who had often voted for loans, and were willing enough to lend anything to anybody, declined to vote.

[FN#422] According to the statutes, "The Chancellor must be acquainted with the Business (of altering laws concerning the Library), and he must approve, and refer it to the Head of Houses, else no dispensation can be proposed."

[FN#423] The following telegram from the Vienna correspondent of "The Times" (November 16, 1886), is worth quotation:--

"The Committee of the Vienna Congress (of Orientalists) is now preparing a memorial, which will be signed by Archduke Renier, and will be forwarded in a few days to the trustees of the British Museum and to the Secretary of State, praying that a Bill may be introduced into Parliament empowering the British Museum to lend out its Oriental MSS. to foreign savants under proper guarantees. A resolution pledging the members of the Oriental Congress to this course was pa.s.sed at the Congress of Leyden, in 1883, on the motion of Professor D. H. Muller, of Vienna; but it has not yet been acted upon so thoroughly as will be the case now.

"The British Museum is the only great library in Europe which does not lend out its MSS. to foreigners. The university and court libraries of Vienna, the royal and state libraries of Berlin and Munich, those of Copenhagen and Leyden, and Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris all are very liberal in their loans to well-recommended foreigners. In Paris a diplomatic introduction is required. In Munich the library does not lend directly to the foreign borrower; but sends to the library of the capital whence the borrower may have made his application, and leaves all responsibility to that library. In the other libraries, the discretion is left to the librarian, who generally lends without any formalities beyond ascertaining the bona fides and trustworthiness of the applicant. In Vienna, however, there has occasionally been some little excess of formality, so a pet.i.tion is about to be presented to the Emperor by the University professors, begging that the privilege of borrowing may be considered as general, and not as depending on the favour of an official.

"As regards Oriental MSS., it is remarked that the guarantees need not be so minute as in the case of old European MSS., which are often unique copies. According to the learned Professor of Sanskrit in this city, Herr George Buhler, there are very few unique Oriental MSS. in existence of Sanskrit--perhaps not a dozen."

[FN#424] (1.) "On Lending Bodleian Books and Ma.n.u.scripts" (not published). June 10, 1866; (2) Appendix. Barlow's Argument. June, 1866; (3) On Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian Library.

July 27, 1886; Baxter, Printer, Oxford. The three papers abound in earnestness and energy; but they have the "defects of their qualities," as the phrase is; and the subject often runs away with the writer. A single instance will suffice. No. i. p. 23 says, "In a library like the Bodleian, where the practice of lending prevails as it now does, a man may put himself to great inconvenience in order to visit it; he may even travel from Berlin, and when he arrives he may find that all his trouble has been in vain, the very book he wants is out." This must have been written during the infancy of Sir Rowland Hill, and when telegrams were unknown to mankind; all that the Herr has to do in our times is to ask per wire if the volume be at home or not.

[FN#425] Chandler, "On Lending Bodleian Books," etc., p. 18.

[FN#426] Koran, xxiii. 14.