[10]. Phūt is a species of pumpkin, or melon, which bursts and flies into pieces when ripe. [Cucumis mormodica, Watt, Comm. Prod. 438 f.] It also means disunion; and Zalim Singh, who always spoke in parables, compared the States of India to this fruit.
[11]. Literally, ‘the cold-weather castles.’
[12]. Isaiah xxxv. 7.
[13]. Sahra is ‘desert’; Arabic sarāb, Hebrew shārābh, ‘the water of the desert,’ a term which the inhabitants of the Arabian and Persian deserts apply to this optical phenomenon. The 18th verse, chap. xli. of Isaiah is closer to the critic’s version: “I will make the wilderness (sahra) a pool of water.“ Doubtless the translators of Holy Writ, ignorant that this phenomenon was called shārābh, ‘water of the waste,’ deemed it a tautological error; for translated literally, “and the water of the desert shall become real water,” would be nonsense: they therefore lopped off the āb, water, and read sahra instead of shārābh, whereby the whole force and beauty of the prophecy is not merely diminished, but lost. [The Author is mistaken, the words shārābh and sahra having no connexion. See Encyclopaedia Biblica, i. 1077. The mirage in Sanskrit is called mrigatrish, ‘deer’s thirst.’ Another name is Gandharvapura, ‘city of the heavenly choristers.’[choristers.’]]
[14]. Properly a carbonate of soda [barilla, Watt, Econ. Prod. 112 f.].
[15]. [Mirage is due to variations in the refractive index of the atmosphere, caused by sporadic variations of temperature (EB, 11th ed. xviii. 573).]
[16]. [For the tale of the sufferings of the righteous Harischandra see J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, i. 88 ff.; Dowson, Classical Dict. s.v. For the mirage city compare “The City of Brass” (Burton, Arabian Nights, iii. 295).]
[17]. This is in the ancient province of Hariana, and the cradle of the Agarwal race, now mercantile, and all followers of Hari or Vishnu. It might have been the capital of Aggrames, whose immense army threatened Alexander; with Agra it may divide the honour, or both may have been founded by this prince, who was also a Porus, being of Puru’s race. [For Xandrames or Aggrames see Smith, EHI, 40; McCrindle, Alexander, 409. His capital is supposed to have been Pātaliputra, the modern Patna.]
[18]. See Edinburgh Review, vol. xxi. pp. 66 and 138.
[19]. This phenomenon is not uncommon; and the superstitious sailor believes it to be the spectre of a Dutch pirate, doomed, as a warning and punishment, to migrate about these seas.