[501]. Arabs note two kinds of leprosy, “Bahak” or “Baras” the common or white, and “Juzám” the black leprosy; the leprosy of the joints, mal rouge. Both are attributed to undue diet as eating fish and drinking milk; and both are treated with tonics, especially arsenic. Leprosy is regarded by Moslems as a Scriptural malady on account of its prevalence amongst the Israelites who, as Manetho tells us, were expelled from Egypt because they infected and polluted the population. In mediæval Christendom an idea prevailed that the Saviour was a leper; hence the term “morbus sacer”; the honours paid to the sufferers by certain Saints and the Papal address (Clement III. A.D. 1189) dilectis filiis leprosis. (Farrar’s Life of Christ, i. 149.) For the “disgusting and impetuous lust” caused by leprosy, see Sonnini (p. 560) who visited the lepers at Canea in Candia. He is one of many who describes this symptom; but in the Brazil, where the foul malady still prevails, I never heard of it.
[502]. A city in Irak; famous for the three days’ battle which caused the death of Yezdegird, last Sassanian king.
[503]. A mountain pass near Meccah famous for the “First Fealty of the Steep” (Pilgrimage ii. 126). The mosque was built to commemorate the event.
[504]. To my surprise I read in Mr. Redhouse’s “Mesnevi” (Trübner, 1881), “Arafat, the mount where the victims are slaughtered by the pilgrims” (p. [60]). This ignorance is phenomenal. Did Mr. Redhouse never read Burckhardt or Burton?
[505]. i.e. listening to the sermon.
[506]. It is sad doggrel.
THE QUEEN OF THE SERPENTS.[[507]]
There was once, in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, a Grecian sage called Daniel, who had disciples and scholars; and the wise men of Greece were obedient to his bidding and relied upon his learning. Withal had Allah denied him a man-child. One night, as he lay musing and weeping over the lack of a son who might inherit his lore, he bethought him that Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) heareth the prayer of those who resort to Him and that there is no doorkeeper at the door of His bounties and that He favoureth whom He will without compt and sendeth no supplicant empty away; nay He filleth their hands with favours and benefits. So he besought the Almighty, the Bountiful, to vouchsafe him a son to succeed him, and to endow him abundantly with His beneficence. Then he returned home and carnally knew his wife who conceived by him the same night.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Four Hundred and Eighty-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Grecian sage returned home and knew his wife who conceived by him the same night. A few days after this he took ship for a certain place, but the ship was wrecked and he saved himself on one of her planks, while only five leaves remained to him of all the books he had. When he returned home, he laid the five leaves in a box and locking it, gave the key to his wife (who then showed big with child), and said to her, “Know that my decease is at hand and that the time draweth nigh for my translation from this abode temporal to the home which is eternal. Now thou art with child and after my death wilt haply bear a son: if this be so, name him Hásib Karím al-Dín[[508]] and rear him with the best of rearing. When the boy shall grow up and shall say to thee:—What inheritance did my father leave me? give him these five leaves, which when he shall have read and understood, he will be the most learned man of his time.” Then he farewelled her and heaving one sigh, departed the world and all that is therein—the mercy of Allah the Most Highest be upon Him! His family and friends wept over him and washed him and bore him forth in great state and buried him; after which they wended their ways home. But few days passed ere his widow bare a handsome boy and named him Hasib Karim al-Din, as her husband charged her; and immediately after his birth she summoned the astrologers, who calculated his ascendants and drawing his horoscope, said to her, “Know, O woman! that this birth will live many a year; but that will be after a great peril in the early part of his life, wherefrom an he escape, he will be given the knowledge of all the exact sciences.” So saying they went their ways. She suckled him two years,[[509]] then weaned him, and when he was five years old, she placed him in a school to learn his book, but he would read nothing. So she took him from school and set him to learn a trade; but he would not master any craft and there came no work from his hands. The mother wept over this and the folk said to her, “Marry him: haply he will take heart for his wife and learn him a trade.” So she sought out a girl and married him to her; but, despite marriage and the lapse of time, he remained idle as before, and would do nothing. One day, some neighbours of hers, who were woodcutters, came to her and said, “Buy thy son an ass and cords and an axe and let him go with us to the mountain and we will all of us cut wood for fuel. The price of the wood shall be his and ours, and he shall provide thee and his wife with his share.” When she heard this, she joyed with exceeding joy and bought her son an ass and cords and hatchet; then, carrying him to the woodcutters, delivered him into their hands and solemnly committed him to their care. Said they, “Have no concern for the boy, our Lord will provide him: he is the son of our Shaykh.” So they carried him to the mountain, where they cut firewood and loaded their asses therewith; then returned to the city and, selling what they had cut, spent the monies on their families. This they did on the next day and the third and ceased not for some time, till it chanced one day, a violent storm of rain broke over them, and they took refuge in a great cave till the downfall should pass away. Now Hasib Karim al-Din went apart from the rest into a corner of the cavern and sitting down, fell to smiting the floor with his axe. Presently he noted that the ground sounded hollow under the hatchet; so he dug there awhile and came to a round flagstone with a ring in it. When he saw this, he was glad and called his comrades the woodcutters,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.