"Thy charmed signet bears, "Or die the death thy foolishness deserves!" "Servant of Hell! die thou!" quoth Thalaba. And leaning on his bow He fitted the loose string, And laid the arrow in its resting-place. He drew the arrow to its point, The blunted point recoil. A proud and bitter smile Wrinkled Lobaba's cheek. "Try once again thine earthly arms!" he cried. "Rash Boy! the Power I serve "Abandons not his votaries. "It is for Allah's wretched slaves, like thou, "To serve a master, who in the hour of need "Forsakes them to their fate! "I leave thee!" and he shook his staff, and called ... The Chariot of his charms. Swift as the viewless wind, The Sorcerer mounts the seat. "Yet once more weigh thy danger!" he exclaim'd, "Ascend the car with me, "And with the speed of thought The indignant youth vouchsaf'd not to reply, Hark! hark!.. he screams.. Lobaba screams! The rushing Terrors of the Wilderness To fall on thine own head? Death! death! inevitable death! Driven by the breath of God, A column of the Desert met his way. NOTES TO BOOK IV. How great our fathers were, how little we.-P. 188. The Mussulmans are immutably prepossessed, that as the Earth approaches its dissolution, its sons and daughters gradually decrease in their dimensions. As for Dagjial, they say, he will find the race of mankind dwindled into such diminutive pigmies, that their habitations in cities, and all the best towns, will be of no other fabric than the shoes and slippers made in these present ages, placed in rank and file, in seemly and regular order; allowing one pair for two round families.-Morgan's Hist. of Algiers. The Cady then asked me, "If I knew when Hagiuge was to come?" "I have no wish to know any thing about him," said I; “ I hope those days are far off, and will not happen in my time." "What do your books say concerning him?" says he, wisdom."Do they agree with ours?" "I don't know that," said I," till I hear what is written in your books." 66 Hagiuge Magiuge," says he, "are little people not so big as bees, or like the zimb, or fly of Sennaar, that affecting a look of great come in great swarms out of the earth, aye, in multitudes that cannot be counted; two of their chiefs are to ride upon an ass, and every hair of that ass is to be a pipe, and every pipe is to play a different kind of music, and all that hear and follow them are to be carried to hell.” "I know them not," said I; "and, in the name of the Lord, I fear them not, were they twice as little as you say they are, and twice as numerous. I trust in God I shall never be so fond of music as to go to hell after an ass, for all the tunes that he or they can play."-Bruce. These very little people, according to Thevenot, are to be great drinkers, and will drink the sea dry. In the mild lustre, &c.-P. 169. The story of Haruth and Maruth, as in the Poem, may be found in D'Herbelot, and in Sale's notes to the Koran. Of the different accounts, I have preferred that which makes Zohara originally a woman, and metamorphoses her into the planet Venus, to that which says the planet Venus descended as Zohara to tempt the Angels. The Arabians have so childish a love of rhyme, that when two names are usually coupled they make them jingle, as in the case of Haruth and Maruth. Thus they call Cain and Abel, Abel and Kabel. I am informed that the Koran is crowded with rhymes, more particularly at the conclusion of the chapters. A previous price, the knowledge of the name -P. 170. The Ism-Ablah-The Science of the Name of God. They pretend that God is the lock of this science, and 3 Mahommed the key; that consequently none but Mahommedans can attain it; that it discovers what passes in distant countries; that it familiarizes the possessors with the Genii, who are at the command of the initiated, and who instruct them; that it places the winds and the seasons at their disposal; that it heals the bite of serpents, the lame, the maimed, and the blind. They say, that some of their greatest Saints, such as Abdulkadir, Cheilani of Bagdad, and Ibn Alwan, who resided in the south of Yemen, were so far advanced in this science by their devotion, that they said their prayers every noon in the Kaba of Mecca, and were not absent from their own houses any other part of the day. A merchant of Mecca, who had learnt it in all its forms from Mahommed el Dsjanâdsjeni (at present so famous in that city,) pretended that he himself being in danger of perishing at sea, had fastened a billet to the mast with the usual ceremonies, and that immediately the tempest ceased. He showed me at Bombay, but at a distance, a book which contained all sorts of figures and mathematical tables, with instructions how to arrange the billets and the appropriate prayers for every circumstance. But he would neither suffer me to touch the book, nor copy the title. There are some Mahommedans who shut themselves up in a dark place without eating and drinking for a long time, and there with a loud voice repeat certain short prayers till they faint. When they recover, they pretend to have seen not only a crowd of spirits, but God himself, and even the Devil. But the true initiated in the IsmAllah do not seek these visions. The secret of discover |