165 ([return])
[ This especially is on the lines of "The Physician Dúbán"; vol. i. 45.]
166 ([return])
[ In text "Wa min-hum man fáha," evidently an error of the scribe for "Man nafáhu." Scott (vi. 351), after the fashion of the "Improver-school," ends the tale, which is somewhat tail-less, after this fashion, "At the same instant, the Sultan and his courtiers found themselves assaulted by invisible agents, who, tearing off their robes, whipped them with scourges till the blood flowed in streams from their lacerated backs. At length the punishment ceased, but the mortification of the Sultan did not end here, for all the gold which the Dirveshe had transmuted returned to its original metals. Thus, by his unjust credulity, was a weak Prince punished for his ungrateful folly. The barber and his son also were not to be found, so that the sultan could gain no intelligence of the Dirveshe, and he and his courtiers became the laughing-stock of the populace for years after their merited chastisement." Is nothing to be left for the reader's imagination?]
167 ([return])
[ See under the same name the story in my Suppl. vol. i. 162; where the genealogy and biography of the story is given. I have translated the W.M. version because it adds a few items of interest. A marginal note of Scott's (in the W.M. MS. v. 196) says that the "Tale is similar to Lesson iv. in the Tirrea Bede." See note at the end of this History.]
168 ([return])
[ For the Badawí tent, see vol. vii. 109.]
169 ([return])
[ In text "Birkah" = a fountain-basin, lake, pond, reservoir. The Bresl. Edit. has "Sardáb" = a souterrain.]