[ Page 233.] ... lamb à la crême
No dish among the Easterns was more generally admired. The caliph Abdolmelek, at a splendid entertainment, to which whoever came was welcome, asked Amrou, the son of Hareth, what kind of meat he preferred to all others. The old man answered, “An ass’s neck, well seasoned and roasted.”—“But what say you,” replied the caliph, “to the leg or shoulder of a LAMB à la crême?” and added:
“How sweetly we live if a shadow would last!”
—MS. Laud. No. 161. S. Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol. ii, p. 277.
[ Page 233.] ... made the dwarfs dance against their will
Ali Chelebi al Moufti, in a treatise on the subject, held that dancing after the example of the dervishes, who made it a part of their devotion, was allowable. But in this opinion he was deemed to be heterodox; for Mahometans, in general, place dancing amongst the things that are forbidden.—D’Herbelot, p. 98.
[ Page 233.] ... durst not refuse the commander of the faithful
The mandates of Oriental potentates have ever been accounted irresistible. Hence the submission of these devotees to the will of the caliph.—Esther, i, 19. Daniel, vi, 8. Ludeke, Expos. brevis, p. 60.
[ Page 233.] ... the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time
The Mahometans boast of a doctor who is reported to have read over the Koran not fewer than twenty thousand times.—D’Herbelot, p. 75.