[17]. Galland has forgotten this necessary detail: see vol. i. 30 and elsewhere. In Lane’s Story of the man metamorphosed to an ass, the old woman, “quickly covering her face, declared the fact.”
[18]. In the normal forms of this story, which Galland has told very badly, the maiden would have married the man she saved.
[19]. In other similar tales the injured one inflicts such penalty by the express command of his preserver who takes strong measures to ensure obedience.
[20]. In the more finished tales of the true “Nights” the mare would have been restored to human shape after giving the best security for good conduct in time to come.
[21]. i.e. Master Hasan the Ropemaker. Galland writes, after European fashion, “Hassan,” for which see vol. i. 251; and for “Khwájah” vol. vi. 146. “Al-Habbál” was the cognomen of a learned “Háfiz” (= traditionist and Koran reader), Abú Ishák Ibrahim, in Ibn Khall. ii. 262; for another see iv. 410.
[22]. “Sa’d” = prosperity and “Sa’dí” = prosperous; the surname of the “Persian moralist,” for whom see my friend F. F. Arbuthnot’s pleasant booklet, “Persian Portraits” (London, Quaritch, 1887).
[23]. This is true to nature as may be seen any day at Bombay. The crows are equally audacious, and are dangerous to men lying wounded in solitary places.
[24]. The Pers. “Gil-i-sar-shúl” (= head-washing clay), the Sindi “Met,” and the Arab. “Tafl,” a kind of clay much used in Persia, Afghanistan, Sind, etc. Galland turns it into terre à decrasser and his English translators into “scouring sand which women use in baths.” This argillaceous earth mixed with mustard oil is locally used for clay and when rose-leaves and perfumes are used, it makes a tolerable wash-ball. See “Scinde or The Unhappy Valley,” i. 31.
[25]. For the “Cowrie” (Cypræa moneta) see vol. iv. 77. The Bádám or Bídám (almond) used by way of small change in India, I have noted elsewhere.
[26]. Galland has “un morceau de plomb,” which in the Hindi text becomes “Shíshah-ká-paysá” = a (pice) small coin of glass: the translator also terms it a “Faddah,” for which see Nusf (alias “Nuss”), vols. ii. 37; vi. 214 and ix. 139, 167. Glass tokens, by way of coins, were until late years made at Hebron, in Southern Syria.