[242] "The sweet-scented violet is one of the plants most esteemed, particularly for its great use in Sorbet, which they make of violet sugar."—Hassequist.
[243] "Last of all she took a guitar, and sang a pathetic air in the measure called Nava, which is always used to express the lamentations of absent lovers."—Persian Tales.
[244] "The Easterns used to set out on their longer voyages with music."—Harmer.
[245] "The Gate of Tears, the straits or passage into the Red Sea, commonly called Babelmandel. It received this name from the old Arabians, on account of the danger of the navigation and the number of shipwrecks by which it was distinguished; which induced them to consider as dead, and to wear mourning for all who had the boldness to hazard the passage through it into the Ethiopic ocean."—Richardson.
[246] "I have been told that whensoever an animal falls down dead, one or more vultures, unseen before, instantly appears."—Pennant.
[247] "They fasten some writing to the wings of a Bagdat, or Babylonian pigeon."—Travels of certain Englishmen.
[248] "The Empress of Jehan-Guire used to divert herself with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were many years afterwards known by fillets of gold, which she caused to be put round them."—Harris.
[249] The meteors that Pliny calls "faces."
[250] "The brilliant Canopus, unseen in European climates."—Brown.
[251] A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients, Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen. Tertullian says it has a glittering appearance, as if there had fire in it; and the author of the Dissertation of Harris's Voyages, supposes it to be the opal.