Then said the King, "Explain to the Barber the case of this Hunchback and what befel him at supper-time; also repeat to him the stories told by the Nazarene, the Jew, the Reeve, and the Tailor; and of no avail to me is a twice told tale." They did his bidding, and the Barber shook his head and said, "By Allah, this is a marvel of marvels! Now uncover me the corpse of yonder Hunchback." They undid the winding-sheet and he sat down and, taking the Hunchback's head in his lap, looked at his face, and laughed and guffaw'd[[697]] till he fell upon his back and said, "There is wonder in every death,[[698]] but the death of this Hunchback is worthy to be written and recorded in letters of liquid gold!" The by-standers were astounded at his words and the King marvelled and said to him, "What ails thee O Silent Man? Explain to us thy words!" "O King of the age," said the Barber, "I swear by thy beneficence that there is still life in this Gobbo Golightly!" Thereupon he pulled out of his waist-belt a barber's budget, whence he took a pot of ointment and anointed therewith the neck of the Hunchback and its arteries. Then he took a pair of iron tweezers and, inserting them into the Hunchback's throat, drew out the fid of fish with its bone; and, when it came to sight, behold, it was soaked in blood. Thereupon the Hunchback sneezed a hearty sneeze and jumped up as if nothing had happened and passing his hand over his face said, "I testify that there is no god, but the God, and I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle of God." At this sight all present wondered; the King of China laughed till he fainted and in like manner did the others. Then said the Sultan, "By Allah, of a truth this is the most marvellous thing I ever saw! O Moslems, O soldiers all, did you ever in the lives of you see a man die and be quickened again? Verily had not Allah vouchsafed to him this Barber, he had been a dead man!" Quoth they, "By Allah, 'tis a marvel of marvels." Then the King of China bade record this tale, so they recorded it and placed it in the royal muniment-rooms; after which he bestowed costly robes of honour upon the Jew, the Nazarene and the Reeve, and bade them depart in all esteem. Then he gave the Tailor a sumptuous dress and appointed him his own tailor, with suitable pay and allowances; and made peace between him and the Hunchback, to whom also he presented a splendid and expensive suit with a suitable stipend. He did as generously with the Barber giving him a gift and a dress of honour; moreover he settled on him a handsome solde and created him Barber-surgeon[[699]] of state and made him one of his cup-companions. So they ceased not to live the most pleasurable life and the most delectable, till there came to them the Destroyer of all delights and the Sunderer of all societies, the Depopulator of palaces and the Garnerer for graves. Yet, O most auspicious King! (continued Shahrazad) this tale is by no means more wonderful than that of the two Wazirs and Anís al-Jalís. Quoth her sister Dunyazad, "And what may that be?"; whereupon she began to relate the following tale of
[496]. Other editions read, "at Bassorah" and the Bresl. (ii. 123) "at Bassorah and Kájkár" (Káshghár): somewhat like in Dover and Sebastopol. I prefer China because further off and making the improbabilities more notable.
[497]. Arab. "Judri," lit. "small stones" from the hard gravelly feeling of the pustules (Rodwell, p. 20). The disease is generally supposed to be the growth of Central Africa where it is still a plague and passed over to Arabia about the birth-time of Mohammed. Thus is usually explained the "war of the elephant" (Koran, chapt. cv.) when the Abyssinian army of Abrahah, the Christian, was destroyed by swallows (Abábíl which Major Price makes the plural of Abilah=a vesicle) which dropped upon them "stones of baked clay," like vetches (Pilgrimage ii. 175). See for details Sale (in loco) who seems to accept the miraculous defence of the Ka'abah. For the horrors of small-pox in Central Intertropical Africa the inoculation, known also to the Badawin of Al-Hijáz and other details, readers will consult "The Lake Regions of Central Africa" (ii. 318). The Hindus "take the bull by the horns" and boldly make "Sítlá" (small-pox) a goddess, an incarnation of Bhawáni, deëss of destruction-reproduction. In China small pox is believed to date from B.C. 1200; but the chronology of the Middle Kingdom still awaits the sceptic.
[498]. In Europe we should add "and all fled, especially the women." But the fatalism inherent in the Eastern mind makes the great difference.
[499]. Arab. "Uzayr." Esdras was a manner of Ripp van Winkle. He was riding over the ruins of Jerusalem when it had been destroyed by the Chaldeans and he doubted by what means Allah would restore it; whereupon he died and at the end of a hundred years he revived. He found his basket of figs and cruse of wine as they were; but of his ass only the bones remained. These were raised to life as Ezra looked on and the ass began at once to bray. Which was a lesson to Esdras. (Koran, chapt. ii). The oath by the ass's hoofs is to ridicule the Jew. Mohammed seems to have had an idée fixe that "the Jews say, Ezra is the son of God" (Koran ix.); it may have arisen from the heterodox Jewish belief that Ezra, when the Law was utterly lost, dictated the whole anew to the scribes of his own memory. His tomb with the huge green dome is still visited by the Jews of Baghdad.
[500]. Arab. "Bádhanj," the Pers. Bád (wind)-gír (catcher): a wooden pent-house on the terrace-roof universal in the nearer East.
[501]. The hunchback, in Arabia as in Southern Europe, is looked upon by the vulgar with fear and aversion: The reason is that he is usually sharper-witted than his neighbours.
[502]. Arab. "Yá Sattár"=Thou who veilest the discreditable secrets of Thy creatures.
[503]. Arab. "Nasráni," a follower of Him of Nazareth and an older name than "Christian" which (Acts xi., 26) was first given at Antioch about A.D. 43. The cry in Alexandria used to be "Ya Nasráni, Kalb awáni!"=O Nazarene! O dog obscene! (Pilgrimage, 1., 160). "Christian" in Arabic can be expressed only by "Masíhi"=follower of the Messiah.