[37]. Galland makes this article a linen cloth wrapped about the skull-cap or core of the turban.
[38]. Mr. Coote (loc. cit. p. 185) is unable to produce a puramythe containing all of “Ali Bába;” but, for the two leading incidents he quotes from Prof. Sakellarios two tales collected in Cyprus. One is Morgiana marking the village doors (p. 187), which has occurred doubtless a hundred times. The other, in the “Story of Drakos,” is an ogre, hight “Three Eyes,” who attempts the rescue of his wife with a party of blackamoors (μαύρους) packed in bales and these are all discovered and slain.
[39]. Dans la forêt, says Galland.
[40]. Or “Samsam,” the grain = Sesamum Orientale: hence the French, Sesame, ouvre-toi! The term is cabalistical, like Súlem, Súlam or Shúlam in the Directorium Vitæ Humanæ of Johannes di Capuâ: Inquit vir: Ibam in nocte plenilunii et ascendebam super domum ubi furari intendebam, et accedens ad fenestram ubi radii lune ingrediebantur, et dicebam hanc coniurationem, scilicet sulem sulem, septies, deinde amplectebar lumen lune et sine lesione descendebam ad domum, etc. (pp. 24–25) par Joseph Derenbourg, Membre de l’Institut 1re Fascicule, Paris, F. Vieweg, 67, Rue de Richelieu, 1887.
[41]. In the text “Jatháni” = the wife of an elder brother. Hindostani, like other Eastern languages, is rich in terms for kinship whereof English is so exceptionally poor. Mr. Francis Galtson, in his well-known work “Hereditary Genius,” a misnomer by the by for “Hereditary Talent,” felt this want severely and was at pains to supply it.
[42]. In the text “Thag,” our English “Thug,” often pronounced moreover by the Briton with the sibilant “th.” It means simply a cheat: you say to your servant “Tú bará Thag hai” = thou art a precious rascal; but it has also the secondary meaning of robber, assassin, and the tertiary of Bhawáni-worshippers who offer indiscriminate human sacrifices to the Deëss of Destruction. The word and the thing have been made popular in England through the “Confessions of a Thug” by my late friend Meadows Taylor; and I may record my conviction that were the English driven out of India, “Thuggee,” like piracy in Cutch and in the Persian Gulf, would revive at the shortest possible time.
[43]. i.e. the Civil Governor, who would want nothing better.
[44]. This is in Galland and it is followed by the H. V.; but it would be more natural to suppose that of the quarters two were hung up outside the door and the others within.
[45]. I am unwilling to alter the time honoured corruption: properly it is written Marjánah = the “Coralline,” from Marján = red coral, for which see vols. ii. 100; vii. 373.
[46]. i.e. the “’Iddah,” during which she could not marry. See vol. iii. 292.