Page [33]. “Expressed many apprehensions.”—The text gives the address of the Third Vizier as follows: “I am apprehensive lest the affair of Bakhtyār should be known in the out-lying provinces of the world [kingdom], and reaching the ears of sovereigns, occasion scandal, an evil repute arise therefrom. Before this story of Bakhtyār become the common talk, it is expedient to put him to death.”
Page [33]. “He petitioned for mercy:” he cried, al-amān!—quarter!—pardon! Byron’s couplet in the Giaour has rendered this word familiar to English readers:
Resigned carbine or ataghān,
Nor ever raised the craven cry, Amaun!
Page [33]. “If a king punish without due investigation.”—A Hindū dramatist says:
Though the commands of royalty pervade
The world, yet sovereigns should remember,
The light of justice must direct their path.
And Sa`di, in his Bustān, b. I, regarding the duties of a king, says: “If thou sheddest blood, it must not be done without a decree.” But there is too much reason to believe that Eastern monarchs have seldom been guided by the law in administering punishment. Many of the Muslim princes of Northern Africa, in particular, have slain even favourite attendants, from sheer wantonness and love of bloodshed.
Page [34]. Aleppo.—The Berica of the Greeks; Aleppo is the Italian form of Hālab, the native name. On the fall of Palmyra, Hālabu-’s-Shabha (Hālab the ash-coloured) became the grand emporium for the productions of Persia and India, conveyed by caravans from Bagdād and Basra to be shipped at Iskenderūn, or Latakia, for the different ports of Europe. Under the Greek sovereigns of Syria, Aleppo acquired great wealth and consequence, and flourished still more under the Roman Emperors. An aqueduct, constructed before the time of Constantine, conveys a plentiful supply of water from the springs; and the mosques Jāmī, Zacharī, and Halawé, originally Christian churches, are fine specimens of the ancient Roman style, the latter built by the Empress Helena. To the peculiar quality of the water of the Kuwayk (ancient Chalus), which irrigates its far-famed gardens, is ascribed the ring-worm (hābala-’s-sina), which attacks the natives once in their lives, and leaves an indelible scar, which distinguishes an Aleppine throughout the East. In 1797 Aleppo was the victim of the plague, and of earthquakes in 1822 and 1830.