[50]. i.e. “He who violently assaults his peers” (the best men of the age). Batshat al-Kubrá = the Great Disaster, is applied to the unhappy “Battle of Bedr” (Badr) on Ramazan 17, A.H. 2 (= Jan. 13, 624) when Mohammed was so nearly defeated that the Angels were obliged to assist him (Koran, chapts. iii. 11; i. 42; viii. 9). Mohammed is soundly rated by Christian writers for beheading two prisoners Utbah ibn Rabí’a who had once spat on his face and Nazir ibn Háris who recited Persian romances and preferred them to the “foolish fables of the Koran.” What would our forefathers have done to a man who spat in the face of John Knox and openly preferred a French play to the Pentateuch?
[51]. Arab. “Jilbáb” either habergeon (mail-coat) or the buff-jacket worn under it.
[52]. A favourite way, rough and ready, of carrying light weapons; often alluded to in The Nights. So Khusrawán in Antar carried “under his thighs four small darts, each like a blazing flame.”
[53]. Mr. Payne very reasonably supplants here and below Fakhr Taj (who in Night dcxxxiv. is left in her father’s palace and who is reported to be dead in Night dclxvii.) by Star o’ Morn. But the former is also given in the Bul. Edit. (ii. 148), so the story-teller must have forgotten all about her. I leave it as a model specimen of Eastern incuriousness.
[54]. There is some chivalry in his unwillingness to use the magical blade. As a rule the Knights of Romance utterly ignore fair play and take every dirty advantage in the magic line that comes to hand.
[55]. Arab. “Hammál al-Hatabi” = one who carries to market the fuel-sticks which he picks up in the waste. In the Koran (chapt. cxi.) it is applied to Umm Jamíl, wife of Mohammed’s hostile cousin, Abd al-Uzza, there termed Abú Lahab (Father of smokeless Flame) with the implied meaning that she will bear fuel to feed Hell-fire.
[56]. Arab. “Akyál,” lit. whose word (Kaul) is obeyed, a title of the Himyarite Kings, of whom Al-Bergendi relates that one of them left an inscription at Samarcand, which many centuries ago no man could read. This evidently alludes to the dynasty which preceded the “Tobba” and to No. xxiv. Shamar Yar’ash (Shamar the Palsied). Some make him son of Malik surnamed Náshir al-Ni’am (Scatterer of Blessings) others of Afríkús (No. xviii.), who, according to Al-Jannabi, Ahmad bin Yusuf and Ibn Ibdun (Pocock, Spec. Hist. Arab.) founded the Berber (Barbar) race, the remnants of the Causanites expelled by the “robber, Joshua son of Nún,” and became the eponymous of “Africa.” This word which, under the Romans, denoted a small province on the Northern Sea-board, is, I would suggest, A’far-Káhi (Afar-land), the Afar being now the Dankali race, the country of Osiris whom my learned friend, the late Mariette Pasha, derived from the Egyptian “Punt” identified by him with the Somali country. This would make “Africa,” as it ought to be, an Egyptian (Coptic) term.
[57]. Herodotus (i. 80) notes this concerning the camel. Elephants are not allowed to walk the streets in Anglo-Indian cities, where they have caused many accidents.
[58]. Arab. Wahk or Wahak, suggesting the Roman retiarius. But the lasso pure and simple, the favourite weapon of shepherd and herdsmen was well-known to the old Egyptians and in ancient India. It forms one of the T-letters in the hieroglyphs.
[59]. Compare with this and other Arab battle-pieces the Pandit’s description in the Kathá Sarit Sagara, e.g. “Then a confused battle arose with dint of arrow, javelin, lance, mace and axe, costing the lives of countless soldiers (N.B.—Millions are nothing to him); rivers of blood flowed with the bodies of elephants and horses for alligators, with the pearls from the heads of elephants for sands and with the heads of heroes for stones. That feast of battle delighted the flesh-loving demons who, drunk with blood instead of wine, were dancing with the palpitating trunks,” etc., etc. Fasc. xii. 526.