[FN#86] The fable is from Al-Kazwini and Ibn Al-Wardi who place the serpent (an animal sacred to Ćsculapius, Pliny, xxix. 4) “in the sea of Zanj” (i.e. Zanzibar). In the “garrow hills” of N. Eastern Bengal the skin of the snake Burrawar (?) is held to cure pain. (Asiat. Res. vol. iii.)
[FN#87] For “Emerald,” Hole (p. 177) would read emery or adamantine spar.
[FN#88] Evidently Maháráj=Great Rajah, Rajah in Chief, an Hindu title common to the three potentates before alluded to, the Narsinga, Balhara or Samiry.
[FN#89] This is probably classical. So the page said to Philip of Macedon every morning, “Remember, Philip, thou art mortal”; also the slave in the Roman Triumph,
“Respice poste te: hominem te esse memento!”
And the dying Severus, “Urnlet, soon shalt thou enclose what hardly a whole world could contain.” But the custom may also have been Indian: the contrast of external pomp with the real vanity of human life suggests itself to all.
[FN#90] Arab. “Hút”; a term applied to Jonah’s whale and to monsters of the deep, “Samak” being the common fishes.
[FN#91] Usually a two-bow prayer.
[FN#92] This is the recognised formula of Moslem sales.
[FN#93] Arab. “Walímah”; like our wedding-breakfast but a much more ceremonious and important affair.