[FN#124] This formula, according to Moslems, would begin with the beginning “There is no iláh but Allah and Adam is the Apostle (rasúl = one sent, a messenger, not nabí = prophet) of Allah.” And so on with Noah, Moses, David (not Solomon as a rule) and Jesus, to Mohammed.
[FN#125] This son of Barachia has been noticed before. The text embroiders the Koranic chapter No. xxvii.
[FN#126] The Bresl. Edit. (vi. 371) reads “Samm-hu”=his poison, prob. a clerical error for “Sahmhu”=his shaft. It was a duel with the “Shiháb” or falling stars, the meteors which are popularly supposed, I have said, to be the arrows shot by the angels against devils and evil spirits when they approach too near Heaven in order to overhear divine secrets.
[FN#127] A fancy sea from the Lat. “Carcer” ( ?).
[FN#128] Andalusian = Spanish, the Vandal-land, a term accepted by the Moslem invader.
[FN#129] This fine description will remind the traveller of the old Haurani towns deserted since the sixth century, which a silly writer miscalled the “Giant Cities of Bashan.” I have never seen anything weirder than a moonlight night in one of these strong places whose masonry is perfect as when first built, the snowy light pouring on the jet-black basalt and the breeze sighing and the jackal wailing in the desert around.
[FN#130] “Zanj,” I have said, is the Arab. form of the Persian “Zang-bar” (=Black-land), our Zanzibar. Those who would know more of the etymology will consult my “Zanzibar,” etc., chaps. i.
[FN#131] Arab. “Tanjah”=Strabo {Greek letters} (derivation uncertain), Tingitania, Tangiers. But why the terminals ?
[FN#132] Or Amidah, by the Turks called “Kara (black) Amid” from the colour of the stones and the Arabs “Diyar-bakr” (Diarbekir), a name which they also give to the whole province—Mesopotamia.
[FN#133] Mayyáfárikín, an episcopal city in Diyar-bakr: the natives are called Fárikí; hence the abbreviation in the text.