[253]. I use this Irish term=crying for the dead; as English wants the word for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, "Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living," i.e. punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system in the "weeping-song": I have noted this in "The Lake-Regions of Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chapt. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.
[254]. These lines are hardly translateable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience" as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to Burckhardt, is planted in grave-yards as a lesson of patience: it is also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house-doors to prevent evil spirits entering; "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane (M. E., chapt. xi.), "it will live for several years and even blossom. Hence (?) it is called Sabr, which signifies patience." But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long-sufferance." I hold the practise to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens of Wák, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350).
[255]. Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the "River of Peace (or Security)."
[256]. This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chapt. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden Wire."
[257]. The fable is probably based on the currents which, as in Eastern Africa, will carry a ship fifty miles a day out of her course. We first find it in Ptolemy (vii. 2) whose Maniólai Islands, of India extra Gangem, cause iron nails to fly out of ships, the effect of the Lapis Herculeus (Loadstone). Rabelais (v. c. 37) alludes to it and to the vulgar idea of magnetism being counteracted by Skordon (Scordon or garlic). Hence too the Adamant (Loadstone) Mountains of Mandeville (chapt. xxvii.) and the "Magnetic Rock" in Mr. Puttock's clever "Peter Wilkins." I presume that the myth also arose from seeing craft built, as on the East African Coast, without iron nails. We shall meet with the legend again. The word Jabal ("Jebel" in Egypt) often occurs in these pages. The Arabs apply it to any rising ground or heap of rocks; so it is not always=our mountain. It has found its way to Europe e.g. Gibraltar and Monte Gibello (or Mongibel in poetry)="Mt. Ethne that men clepen Mounte Gybelle." Other special senses of Jabal will occur.
[258]. As we learn from the Nubian Geographer the Arabs in early ages explored the Fortunate Islands, Jazírát al-Khálidát (=Eternal Isles), or Canaries, on one of which were reported a horse and horseman in bronze with his spear pointing west. Ibn al-Wardi notes "two images of hard stone, each an hundred cubits high, and upon the top of each a figure of copper pointing with its hand backwards, as though it would say:—Return for there is nothing behind me!" But this legend attaches to older doings. The 23rd Tobba (who succeeded Bilkis), Malik bin Sharhabíl, (or Sharabíl or Sharahíl) surnamed Náshir al-Ni'ám=scatterer of blessings, lost an army in attempting the Western sands and set up a statue of copper upon whose breast was inscribed in antique characters:—
There is no access behind me,
Nothing beyond,
(Saith) The Son of Sharabíl.
[259]. i.e. I exclaimed "Bismillah!"