[238]. Pírozah = turquoise, is the Persian, Firúzah and Firuzakh (De Sacy Chrest. ii. 84) the Arab. forms. The stone is a favourite in the East where, as amongst the Russians (who affect to despise the Eastern origin of their blood to which they owe so much of its peculiar merit,) it is supposed to act talisman against wounds and death in battle; and the Persians, who hold it to be a guard against the Evil Eye, are fond of inscribing “turquoise of the old rock” with one or more of the “Holy Names.” Of these talismans a modern Spiritualist asks, “Are rings and charms and amulets magnetic, to use an analogue for what we cannot understand, and has the immemorial belief in the power of relics a natural not to say a scientific basis?”
[239]. Samaria is a well-known name amongst Moslems, who call the city Shamrín and Shamrún. It was built, according to Ibn Batrik, upon Mount Samir by Amri who gave it the first name; and the Taríkh Samírí, by Abu al-Fath Abú al-Hasan, is a detailed account of its garbled annals. As Nablús (Neapolis of Herod., also called by him Sebaste) it is now familiar to the Cookite.
[240]. In the text Zangi-i-Adam-kh’wár afterwards called Habashi = an Abyssinian. Galland simply says un nègre. In India the “Habshí” (chief) of Jinjírah (= Al-Jazirah, the Island) was admiral of the Grand Moghul’s fleets. These negroids are still dreaded by Hindús and Hindis and, when we have another “Sepoy Mutiny,” a few thousands of them bought upon the Zanzibar coast, dressed, drilled and officered by Englishmen, will do us yeoman’s service.
[241]. This seems to be a fancy name for a country: the term is Persian = the Oceanland or a seaport town: from “Daryá” the sea and bár = a region, tract, as in Zanzibár = Blackland. The learned Weil explains it (in loco) by Gegend der Brunnen, brunnengleicher ort, but I cannot accept Scott’s note (iv. 400), “Signifying the seacoast of every country: and hence the term is applied by Oriental geographers to the coast of Malabar.”
[242]. The onager, confounded by our older travellers with the zebra, is the Gúr-i-khár of Persia, where it is the noblest game from which kings did not disdain to take a cognomen, e.g. Bahrám-i-Gúr. It is the “wild ass” of Jeremiah (ii. 24: xiv. 6). The meat is famous in poetry for combining the flavours peculiar to all kinds of flesh (Ibn Khallikan iii. 117; iii. 239, etc.) and is noticed by Herodotus (Clio. cxxxiii.) and by Xenophon (Cyro. lib. 1) in sundry passages: the latter describes the relays of horses and hounds which were used in chasing it then as now. The traveller Olearius (A.D. 1637) found it more common than in our present day: Shah Abbas turned thirty-two wild asses into an enclosure where they were shot as an item of entertainment to the ambassadors at his court. The skin of the wild ass’s back produces the famous shagreen, a word seemingly derived from the Pers. “Saghrí,” e.g. “Kyafsh-i-Saghri” = slippers of shagreen, fine wear fit for a “young Duke.” See in Ibn Khallikan (iv. 245) an account of a “Júr” (the Arabised “Gúr”) eight hundred years old.
[243]. “Dasht-i-lá-siwá-Hú” = a desert wherein is none save He (Allah), a howling wilderness.
[244]. Per. “Náz o andáz” = coquetry, in a half-honest sense. The Persian “Káká Siyáh,” i.e. “black brother” (a domestic negro) pronounces Nází-núzí.
[245]. In the text Nimak-harám: on this subject see vol. viii. 12.
[246]. i.e. an Arab of noble strain: see vol. iii. 72.
[247]. In the text “Kazzák” = Cossacks, bandits, mounted highwaymen; the word is well known in India, where it is written in two different ways, and the late Mr. John Shakespear in his excellent Dictionary need hardly have marked the origin “U” (unknown).