The powerful gem, &c.— 25, p. 55. "Some imagine that the crystal is snow turned to ice, which has been hardening thirty years, and is turned to a rock by age." — Mirror of Stones, by Camillus Teonardus, physician of Pisaro, dedicated to Cesar Borgia. "In the cabinet of the Prince of Monaco, among other rarities, are two pieces of crystal, each larger than both hands clinched together. In the middle of one is about a glassful of water; and in the other is some moss, naturally enclosed there when the crystals congealed. These pieces are very curious." Tavernier. "Crystal, precious stones, every stone that has a regular figure, and even flints in smali masses, and consisting of concentric coats, whether found in the perpendicular fissures of rocks or elsewhere, are only exudations, or the concreting juices of flint in large masses: they are, therefore, new and spurious productions, the genuine stalactites of flint or of granite."- Buffon. Before the tent they spread the skin. — 32, p. 59. "With the Arabs, either a round skin is laid on the ground for a small company, or large, coarse woollen cloths for a great number, spread all over the room, and about ten dishes repeated six or seven times over, laid round at a great feast, and whole sheep and lambs boiled and roasted in the middle. When one company has done, another sits round, even to the meanest, till all is consumed. And an Arab prince will often dine in the street before his door, and call to all that pass, even beggars, in the usual expression, Bisimillak, — that is, in the name of God; who come and sit down, and, when they have done, give their Hamdullilth, — that is, God be praised: for the Arabs, who are great levellers, put everybody on a footing with them; and it is by such generosity and hospitality that they maintam their interest." - Pococke. With no false colors, &c. - 33, p. 59. "'Tis the custom of Persia to begin their feasts with fruits and preserves. We spent two hours in eating only those, and drinking beer, hydromel, and aquavitæ. Then was brought up the meat in great silver dishes: they were full of rice of divers colors, and, upon that, several sorts of meat, boiled and roasted, as beef, mutton, tame fowl, wild ducks, fish, and other things, all very well ordered, and very delicate. . . . "The Persians use no knives at table, but the cooks send up the meat ready cut up into little bits, so that it was no trouble to us to accustom ourselves to their manner of eating. Rice serves them instead of bread. They take a mouthful of it with the two fore-fingers and the thumb, and so put it inte their mouths. Every table had a carver, whom they call Suffret-zi, who takes the meat brought up in the great dishes, to put it into lesser ones, which he fills with three or four sorts of meat, so as that every dish may serve two, or at most three, persons. There was but little drunk till towards the end of the repast, and then the cups went about roundly; and the dinner was concluded with a vessel of porcelain, full of a hot, blackish kind of drink, which they called Kalawa (coffee).... They laid upon the floor of the ambassador's room a fine silk cloth, on which there were set one and thirty dishes of silver, filled with several sorts of conserves, dry and liquid, and raw fruits, as melons, citrons, quinces, pears, and some others not known in Europe. Some time after, that cloth was taken away, that another might be laid in the room of it; and upon this was set rice of all sorts of colors, and all sorts of meat, boiled and roasted, in above fifty dishes of the same metal. . . . "There is not any thing more ordinary in Persia than rice soaked in water. They call it Plau, and eat of it at all their meals, and serve it up in all their dishes. They sometimes put thereto a little of the juice of pomegranates, or cherries and saffron, insomuch that commonly you have rice of several colors in the saine dish." - Ambassador's Travels. And whoso drank of the cooling draught. 34, p. 59. "The tamarind is equally useful and agreeable. It has a pulp of a vinous taste, of which a wholesome, refreshing liquor is prepared. Its shade shelters houses from the torrid heat of the sun; and its fine figure greatly adorns the scenery of the country."-Niebuhr. p. 60. He had pierced the Melon's pulp. — 35, "Of pumpkins and melons, several sorts grow naturally in the woods, and serve for feeding camels. But the proper melons are planted in the fields, where a great variety of them is to be found, and in such abundance that the Arabians of all ranks use them, for some part of the year, as their principal article of food. They afford a very agreeable liquor. When its fruit is nearly ripe, a hole is pierced into the pulp: this hole is then stopped with wax, and the melon left upon the stalk. Within a few days, the pulp is, in consequence of this process, converted into a delicious liquor."- Niebuhr. After the law they purified themselves. — 39, p. 62. The use of the bath was forbidden the Moriscoes in Spain, as being an antichristian custom! I recollect no superstition but the Romish in which nastiness is accounted a virtue; "as if," says Jortin, "piety and filth were synonymous, and religion, like the itch, could be caught by wearing foul clothes." Felt not the Simoom pass.· 40, p. 62. "The effects of the Simoom are instant suffocation to every living creature that happens to be within the sphere of its activity, and immediate putrefaction of the carcasses of the dead. The Arabians discern its approach by an unusual redness in the air; and they say that they feel a smell of sulphur as it passes. The only means by which any person can preserve himself from suffering by these noxious blasts, is by throwing himself down, with his face upon the earth, till this whirlwind of poisonous exhalations has blown over, which always moves at a certain height in the atmosphere. Instinct even teaches the brutes to incline their heads to the ground on these occasions.". -Niebuhr. "The Arabs of the desert call these winds Semoum, or poison, and the Turks Shamyela, or wind of Syria, from which is formed the Sumiel.". Volney. THE THIRD BOOK. Time will produce events of which thou canst have no idea; and he to whom thou gavest no commission will bring thee unexpected news. MOALLAKAT: Poem of Tarafa. 1. THALABA. ONEIZA, look! the dead man has a ring: But see the sparkling stone! How it hath caught the glory of the Sun, ONEIZA. Why do you take it from him, Thalaba, And look at it so close? It may have charms |