[77]. This is precisely the semi-fatalistic and wholly superstitious address which would find favour with Moslems of the present day: they still prefer “calling upon Hercules” to putting their shoulders to the wheel. Mr. Redhouse had done good work in his day but of late he has devoted himself, especially in the “Mesnevi,” to a rapprochement between Al-Islam and Christianity which both would reject (see supra, vol. vii. p. [135]). The Calvinistic predestination as shown in the term “vessel of wrath,” is but a feeble reflection of Moslem fatalism. On this subject I shall have more to say in a future volume.
[78]. The inhabitants of temperate climates have no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my “Zanzibar,” vol. ii. [169]; and have suffered from such attacks in many places between that and Dahomey.
[79]. Arab. “Sa’lab.” See vol. iii. [132], where it is a fox. I render it jackal because that cousin of the fox figures as a carrion-eater in Hindu folk-lore, the Hitopadesa, Panchopakhyan, etc. This tale, I need hardly say, is a mere translation; as is shown by the Kathá s.s. “Both jackal and fox are nicknamed Joseph the Scribe (Tálib Yúsuf) in the same principle that lawyers are called landsharks by sailors.” (P. 65, Moorish Lotus Leaves, etc., by George D. Cowan and R. L. N. Johnston, London, Tinsleys, 1883.)
[80]. Arab. “Sahm mush’ab” not “barbed” (at the wings) but with double front, much used for birding and at one time familiar in the West as in the East. And yet “barbed” would make the fable read much better.
[81]. Arab. “la’lla,” usually = haply, belike; but used here and elsewhere = forsure, certainly.
[82]. Arab. “Maghrib” (or in full Maghrib al-Aksá) lit. = the Land of the setting sun for whose relation to “Mauritania” see vol. vii. [220]. It is almost synonymous with “Al-Gharb” = the West whence Portugal borrowed the two Algarves, one being in Southern Europe and the other over the straits about Tangier-Ceuta; fronting Spanish Trafalgar, i.e. Taraf al-Gharb, the edge of the West. I have noted (Pilgrimage i. 9) the late Captain Peel’s mis-translation “Cape of Laurels” (Al-Ghár).
[83]. Even the poorest of Moslem wanderers tries to bear with him a new suit of clothes for keeping the two festivals and Friday service in the Mosque. See Pilgrimage i. 235; iii. 257, etc.
[84]. Arab. “Sáyih” lit. a wanderer, subaudi for religious and ascetic objects; and not to be confounded with the “pilgrim” proper.
[85]. i.e. a Religious, a wandering beggar.
[86]. This was the custom of the whole Moslem world and still is where uncorrupted by Christian uncharity and contempt for all “men of God” save its own. But the change in such places as Egypt is complete and irrevocable. Even in 1852 my Dervish’s frock brought me nothing but contempt in Alexandria and Cairo.