by Thomas Moore
109 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 color of blood. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in it.”
110 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.
111 The Techir, or cry of the Arabs. “Alla Acbar!” says Ockley, means, “God is most mighty.”
112 The ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the women of the East sing upon joyful occasions.
113 The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal nor vegetable life.
114 The ancient Oxus.
115 A city of Transoxiana.
116 “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-colored flowers), others come forth in their stead,” etc. — Nieuhoff.
117 The Demons of the Persian mythology.
118 Carreri mentions the fire-flies in India during the rainy season. — See his Travels.
119 Sennacherib, called by the Orientals King of Moussal. — D’Herbelot.
120 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.” — Universal History.
121 “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.
122 The beauty of Ali’s eyes was so remarkable, that whenever the Persians would describe anything as very lovely, they say it is Ayn Hali, or the Eyes of Ali. — Chardin.
123 “Nakshab, the name of a city in Transoxiana, where they say there is a well, in which the appearance of the moon is to be seen night and day.”
124 The Shechinah, called Sakfnat in the Koran. — See Sale’s Note, chap. ii.
125 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. .
126 The Serrapurda, high screens of red cloth, stiffened with cane, used to enclose a considerable space round the royal tents. — Notes on the Bakardanush.
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.
127 “From the groves of orange trees at Kauzeroon the bees cull a celebrated honey. — Morier’s Travels.
128 “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.
129 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 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.”
130 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 imflammable oil.”
131 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.’
132 “At the great festival of fire, called the Sheb Seze, 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.
133 “The righteous shall be given to drink of pure wine, sealed: the seal whereof shall be musk.” — Koran, chap lxxxiii.
134 The Afghans 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.
135 “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.
136 The celebrity of Mazagong is owing to its mangoes, which are certainly the best I ever tasted. The parent-tree, from which all those of this species have been grafted, is honored during the fruit-season by a guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers ware stationed between Delhi and the Mahratta coast, to secure an abundant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table.” — Mrs. Graham’sJournal of Residence in India.
137 This old porcelain is found in digging, and “if it is esteemed, it is not because it has acquired any new degree of beauty in the earth, but because it has retained its ancient beauty; and this alone is of great importance in China, where they give large sums for the smallest vessels which were used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang, at which time porcelain began to be used by the Emperors” (about the year 442). — Dunn’s Collection of curious Observations, etc.
138 The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the tyrant Zohak, and whose apron became the royal standard of Persia.
139 “The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air, and never touch the ground; it is looked upon as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades will in time wear a crown.” — Richardson.
In the terms of alliance made by Fuzel Oola Khan with Hyder in 1760, one of the stipulations was, “that he should have the distinction of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fans composed of the feathers of the humma, according to the practice of his family.” — Wilks’s South of India. He adds in a note;— “The Humma is a fabulous bird. The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled with a crown. The splendid little bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo Sultaun, found at Seringapatam in 1799, was intended to represent this poetical fancy.”
140 “To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions, figures, etc., on those rocks, which have from thence acquired the name of the Written Mountain.” — Volney.
M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to attach some mysterious and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, �
��who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts.” — Niebuhr.
141 The Story of Sinbad.
142 “The Cámalatá (called by Linnaeus, Ipomaea) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the color and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are ‘celestial rosy red, Love’s proper hue,’ and have justly procured is the name of Cámalatá, or Love’s creeper.” — Sir W. Jones.
143 “According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself.” — Asiat. Res.
144 “Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane trees upon it. — Foster.
145 “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.
146 “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 Menangeabow, 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’sSumatra.
147 “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 or the heavens.” — Fryer.
148 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.
149 Diodorus mentions the Isle of Panchai, to the south of 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.
150 The Isles of Panchaia.
151 “The cup of Jamshid, discovered, they say, when digging for the foundations of Persepolis.”-Richardson.
152 “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 civit are collected upon the lands.” — Travels of Two Mohammedans.
153 “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.
154 “Mahmood of Gazna, or Chizni, who conquered India in the beginning of the 11th century.” — See his History in Dow and Sir J. Malcolm.
155 “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.
156 “The Mountains of the Moon, or the Montes Lunae of antiquity, at the foot of which the Nile is supposed to arise.” — Bruce.
157 “The Nile, which the Abyssinians know by the names of Abey and Alawy or the Giant.” — Asiat. Research. vol. i. .
158 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.
159 “The orchards of Rosetta are filled with turtle-doves. — Sonnini.
160 Savary mentions the pelicans upon Lake Moeris.
161 “The superb date-tree, whose head languidly reclines, like that of a handsome woman overcome with sleep.” — Dafard el Hadad.
162 “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 part, as well as the brilliancy of its colors, has obtained the title of Sultana,” — Sonnini.
163 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 hyaenas, on the contrary, visited the cemeteries,” etc.
164 “Gondar was full of hyaenas 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 neighboring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety.” — Bruce.
165 “In the East, they suppose the Phoenix 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.
166 “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.”
167 Richardson thinks that Syria had its name from Suri, a beautiful and delicate species of rose, for which that country has always been famous; — hence, Suristan, the Land of Roses.
168 “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.
169 “The Syrinx or Pan’s pipes is still a pastoral instrument in Syria.” — Russel.
170 “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.
171 “The River Jordan is on both sides beset with little, thick, and pleasant woods, among which thousands of nightingales warble all together.” — Thevenot.
172 The Temple of the Sun at Balbec.
173 “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.
174 “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 yelinnum ghell, or Come, dear, follow me.” — Aaron Hill’s Travels.
175 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.
176 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.
177 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.
178 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, say the commentators, stands in the seventh Heaven, on the right hand of the Throne of God.
179 “It is said that the rivers or streams of Basra were reckoned in the time of Peisl ben Abi Bordeh, and amounted to the number of one hundred and twenty thousand streams.” — Ebn Haukal.
180 The name of the javelin with which the Easterns exercise. See Castellan, “Moeurs des Ottomans,” tom. iii. .
181 “This account excited a desire of visiting the Banyan Hospital, as I had heard much of their benevolence to all kinds of animals that were either sick, lame, or infirm, through age or accident. On my arrival, there were presented to my view many horses, cows, and oxen, in one apartment; in another, dogs, sheep, goats, and monkeys, with clean straw for them to repose on. Above stairs were depositories for seeds of many sorts, and flat, broad dishes for water, for the use of birds and insects.” — Parson’s Travels. It is said that all animals know the Banyans, that the most timid approach them, and that birds will fly nearer to them than to other people. — See Grandpré.
182 “A very fragrant grass from the banks of the Ganges, near Heridwar, which in some places covers whole acres, and diffuses, when crushed, a strong odor.” — Sir W. Jones on the Spikenard of the Ancients.
183 “Near this is a curious hill, called Koh Talism, the Mountain of the Talisman, because, according to the traditions of the country, no person ever succeeded in gaining its summit.” — Kinneir.
