[FN#72] The style is intended to be worthy of the statesman. In my "Mission to Dahome" the reader will find many a similar scene.
[FN#73] The Bresl. Edit. (vol. viii. 22) reads "Turks" or "The
Turk" in lieu of "many peoples."
[FN#74] i.e. the parents.
[FN#75] The humour of this euphuistic Wazirial speech, purposely made somewhat pompous, is the contrast between the unhappy Minister's praises and the result of his prognostication. I cannot refrain from complimenting Mr. Payne upon the admirable way in which he has attacked and mastered all the difficulties of its abstruser passages.
[FN#76] Arab. "Halummъ" plur. of "Halumma" = draw near! The latter form is used by some tribes for all three numbers; others affect a dual and a plural (as in the text). Preston ( Al-Hariri, p. 210) derives it from Heb., but the geographers of Kufah and Basrah (who were not etymologists) are divided about its origin. He translates (p. 221) "Halumma Jarran" = being the rest of the tale in continuation with this, i.e. in accordance with it, like our "and so forth." And in p. 271, he makes Halumma = Hayya i.e. hither! (to prayer, etc).
[FN#77] This is precisely the semi-fatalistic and wholly superstitious address which would find favour with Moslems of the present day: they still prefer "calling upon Hercules" to putting their shoulders to the wheel. Mr. Redhouse had done good work in his day but of late he has devoted himself, especially in the "Mesnevi," to a rapprochement between Al-Islam and Christianity which both would reject (see supra, vol. vii. p. 135). The Calvinistic predestination as shown in the term "vessel of wrath," is but a feeble reflection of Moslem fatalism. On this subject I shall have more to say in a future volume.
[FN#78] The inhabitants of temperate climates have no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my "Zanzibar," vol. ii. 169; and have suffered from such attacks in many places between that and Dahomey.
[FN#79] Arab. "Sa'lab." See vol. iii. 132 {FN#150}, where it is a fox. I render it jackal because that cousin of the fox figures as a carrion-eater in Hindu folk-lore, the Hitopadesa, Panchopakhyan, etc. This tale, I need hardly say, is a mere translation; as is shown by the Kathб s.s. "Both jackal and fox are nicknamed Joseph the Scribe (Tбlib Yъsuf) in the same principle that lawyers are called landsharks by sailors." (P. 65, Moorish Lotus Leaves, etc., by George D. Cowan and R. L. N. Johnston, London, Tinsleys, 1883.)
[FN#80] Arab. "Sahm mush'ab" not "barbed" (at the wings) but with double front, much used for birding and at one time familiar in the West as in the East. And yet "barbed" would make the fable read much better.
[FN#81] Arab. "la'lla," usually = haply, belike; but used here and elsewhere = forsure, certainly.