[407]. Arab. Timsah from Coptic (Old Egypt) Emsuh or Msuh. The animal cannot live in salt-water, a fact which proves that the Crocodile Lakes on the Suez Canal were in old days fed by Nile-water; and this was necessarily a Canal.
[408]. So in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 245). In the Mac. text “one man,” which better suits the second crocodile, for the animal can hardly be expected to take two at a time.
[409]. He had ample reason to be frightened. The large Cynocephalus is exceedingly dangerous. When travelling on the Gold Coast with my late friend Colonel De Ruvignes, we suddenly came in the grey of the morning upon a herd of these beasts. We dismounted, hobbled our nags and sat down, sword and revolver in hand. Luckily it was feeding time for the vicious brutes, which scowled at us but did not attack us. During my four years’ service on the West African Coast I heard enough to satisfy me that these powerful beasts often kill men and rape women; but I could not convince myself that they ever kept the women as concubines.
[410]. As we should say in English it is a far cry to Loch Awe: the Hindu byword is, “Dihlí (Delhi) is a long way off.” See vol. i. 37.
[411]. Arab. Fútah, a napkin, a waistcloth, the Indian Zones alluded to by the old Greek travellers.
[412]. Arab. “Yají (it comes) miat khwánjah”—quite Fellah talk.
[413]. As Trébutien shows (ii. 155) these apes were a remnant of some ancient tribe possibly those of Ád who had gone to Meccah to pray for rain and thus escaped the general destruction. See vol. i. 65. Perhaps they were the Jews of Aylah who in David’s day were transformed into monkeys for fishing on the Sabbath (Saturday). Koran ii. 61.
[414]. I can see no reason why Lane purposely changes this to “the extremity of their country.”
[415]. Koran xxii. 44, Mr. Payne remarks:—This absurd addition is probably due to some copyist, who thought to show his knowledge of the Koran, but did not understand the meaning of the verse from which the quotation is taken and which runs thus, “How many cities have We destroyed, whilst yet they transgressed, and they are laid low on their own foundations and wells abandoned and high-builded palaces!” Mr. Lane observes that the words are either misunderstood or purposely misapplied by the author of the tale. Purposeful perversions of Holy Writ are very popular amongst Moslems and form part of their rhetoric; but such is not the case here. According to Von Hammer (Trébutien ii. 154), “Eastern geographers place the Bir al-Mu’utallal (Ruined Well) and the Kasr al-Mashíd (High-builded Castle) in the province of Hadramaut, and we wait for a new Niebuhr to inform us what are the monuments or the ruins so called.” His text translates puits arides et palais de plâtre (not likely!). Lane remarks that Mashíd mostly means “plastered,” but here = Mushayyad, lofty, explained in the Jalálayn Commentary as = rafí’a, high-raised. The two places are also mentioned by Al-Mas’údi; and they occur in Al-Kazwíni (see Night dccclviii.): both of these authors making the Koran directly allude to them.
[416]. Arab. (from Pers.) Aywán which here corresponds with the Egyptian “líwán” a tall saloon with estrades.