[188]. This peculiarity is not uncommon amongst the so-called Aryan and Semitic races, while to the African it is all but unknown. Women highly prize a conformation which (as the prostitute described it) is always “either in his belly or in mine.”
[189]. Easterns, I have said, are perfectly aware of the fact that women corrupt women much more than men do. The tale is the “Story of the Libertine Husband” in the Book of Sindibad; blended with the “Story of the Go-between and the Bitch” in the Book of Sindibad. It is related in the “Disciplina Clericalis” of Alphonsus (A.D. 1106); the fabliau of La vieille qui séduisit la jeune fille; the Gesta Romanorum (thirteenth century) and the “Cunning Siddhikari” in the Kathá-Sarit-Ságara.
[190]. The Kashmír people, men and women, have a very bad name in Eastern tales, the former for treachery and the latter for unchastity. A Persian distich says:
If folk be scarce as food in dearth ne’er let three lots come near ye:
First Sindi, second Jat, and third a rascally Kashmeeree.
The women have fair skins and handsome features but, like all living in that zone, Persians, Sindis, Afghans, etc., their bosoms fall after the first child and become like udders. This is not the case with Hindú women, Rajpúts, Maráthís, etc.
[191]. By these words she appealed to his honour.
[192]. These vehicles suggest derivation from European witchery. In the Bresl. Edit. (xii. 304) one of the women rides a “Miknasah” or broom.
[193]. i.e. a recluse who avoids society.
[194]. “Consecrated ground” is happily unknown to Moslems.