one. Resignation is particularly inculcated by Mahommed; and of all his precepts it is that which his followers have best observed: it is even the vice of the East. It had been easy to have made Zeinab speak from the Koran, if the tame language of the Koran could be remembered by the few who have toiled through its dull tautology. I thought it better to express a feeling of religion in that language with which our religious ideas are connected.

And rested like a dome. 11, p. 226.

La mer n'est plus qu'un cercle aux yeux des Matelots,
Où le Ciel forme un dôme appuyé sur les flots.
Le Nouveau Monde, par M. Le Suire.

Here studding azure tablatures. 13, p. 226. The magnificent Mosque at Tauris is faced with varnished bricks, of various colors, like most fine buildings in Persia, says Tavernier. One of its domes is covered with white flower-work upon a green ground; the other has a black ground, spotted with white stars. Gilding is also common upon Oriental buildings. At Boghar in Bactria our old traveller Jenkinson* saw "many houses, temples, and monuments of stone, sumptuously builded and gilt."

In Pegu "they consume about their Varely or idol houses great store of leafe-gold, for that they overlay all the tops of the houses with gold, and some of them are covered with gold from the top to the foote; in covering whereof there is a great store of gold spent, for that every ten years they new overlay them with gold, from the top to the foote, so that with this vanitie they spend great aboundance of golde. For every ten years the rain doth consume the gold from these houses." Cæsar Frederick, in Hakluyt.

A waste of ornament and labor characterizes all the works of the Orientalists. I have seen illuminated Persian manuscripts that must each have been the toil of many years, every page painted, not with representations of life and manners, but usually like the curves and lines of a Turkey carpet, conveying no idea whatever, as absurd to the eye as nonsense-verses to the ear. The little of their literature that has reached us is equally worthless. Our barbarian scholars have called Ferdusi the Oriental Homer. Mr. Champion has published a specimen of his poem; the translation is said to be bad, and certainly must be unfaithful, for it is in rhyme; but the vilest copy of a picture at least represents the subject and the composition. To make this Iliad of the East, as they have sacrilegiously styled it, a good poem, would be realizing the dreams of alchemy, and transmuting lead into gold.

The Arabian Tales certainly abound with genius; they have lost their metaphorical rubbish in passing through the filter of a French translation.

Sennamar built at Hirah, &c.—13, p. 226.

The Arabians call this palace one of the wonders of the world. It was built for Noman-al-Aôuar, one of those Arabian Kings who reigned at Hirah. A single stone fastened the whole structure; the color of the walls varied frequently in a day. Noman richly rewarded the architect Sennamar; but, recollecting afterwards that he might build palaces equal or superior in beauty for his rival kings, ordered that he should be thrown from the highest tower of the edifice.

D'Herbelot.

An African colony had been settled in the north of Ireland long before the arrival of the Neimhedians. It is recorded, that Neimheidh had employed four of their artisans to erect for him two sumptuous palaces, which were so highly finished, that, jealous lest they might construct others on the same, or perhaps a grander plan, he had them privately made away with, the day after they had completed their work.

O'Halloran's History of Ireland.

The Paradise of Irem, &c. 19, p. 227.

|

or Uz, the son of Irem, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, who, after the confusion of tongues, settled in Al-Ahkâf, or the Winding Sands, in the province of Hadramaut, where his posterity greatly multiplied. Their first King was Shedad, the son of Ad, of whom the Eastern writers deliver many fabulous things, particularly that he finished the magnificent city his father had begun; wherein he built a fine palace, adorned with delicious gardens, to embellish which he spared neither cost nor labor, proposing thereby to create in his subjects a superstitious veneration of himself as a God. This garden or paradise was called the garden of Irem, and is men tioned in the Koran, and often alluded to by the Oriental writers. The city, they tell us, is still standing in the deserts | of Aden, being preserved by Providence as a monument of divine justice, though it be invisible, unless very rarely, when God permits it to be seen-a favor one Colabah pretended to have received in the reign of the Khalif Moawiyah, who sending for him to know the truth of the matter, Colabah related his whole adventure; that, as he was seeking a camel he had lost, he found himself on a sudden at the gates of this city, and entering it, saw not one inhabitant; at which being terrified, he staid no longer than to take with him some fine stones, which he showed the Khalif.— Sale.

The descendants of Ad, in process of time, falling from the worship of the true God into idolatry, God sent the prophet Houd (who is generally agreed to be Heber) to preach the unity of his essence, and reclaim them. Houd preached for many years to this people without effect, till God at last was weary of waiting for their repentance. The first punishment which he inflicted was a famine of three years' continuance, during all which time the heavens were closed upon them. This, with the evils which it caused, destroyed a great part of this people, who were then the richest and most powerful of all in Arabia.

The Adites, seeing themselves reduced to this extremity, and receiving no succor from their false gods, resolved to make a pilgrimage to a place in the province of Hegiaz, where at present Mecca is situated. There was then a hillock of red sand there, around which a great concourse of different people might always be seen; and all these nations, the faithful as well as the unfaithful, believed that by visiting this spot with devotion, they should obtain from God whatever they petitioned for, respecting the wants and necessities of life.

The Adites, having then resolved to undertake this religious journey, chose seventy men, at whose head they appointed Mortadh and Kaïl, the two most considerable per onages of the country, to perform this duty in the name of the whole nation, and by this means procure rain from Heaven, without which their country must be ruined. The deputies departed, and were hospitably received by Moawiyah, who at that time reigned in the province of Hegiaz. They explained to him the occasion of their journey, and demanded leave to proceed and perform their devotions at the Red Hillock, that they might procure rain.

Mortadh, who was the wisest of this company, and who had been converted by the Prophet Houd, often remonstrated with his associates, that it was useless to take this journey for the purpose of praying at this chosen spot, unless they had previously adopted the truths which the Prophet preached, and seriously repented of their unbelief. For how, said he, can you hope that God will shed upon us the abundant showers of his mercy, if we refuse to hear the voice of him whom he hath sent to instruct us?

Karl, who was one of the most obstinate in error, and consequently of the Prophet's worst enemies, hearing the discourses of his colleague, requested king Moâwiyah to detain Mortadh prisoner, whilst he and the remainder of his companions proceeded to make their prayers upon the Hillock. Moawiyah consented, and, detaining Mortadh captive, permitted the others to pursue their journey, and accomplish their vow.

Kaïl, now the sole chief of the deputation, having arrived at the place, prayed thus: Lord, give to the people of Ad such rains as it shall please thee. And he had scarcely finished when there appeared three clouds in the sky, one white, one

The tribe of Ad were descended from Ad, the son of Aus red, the third black. At the same time, these words were

• Hakluyt.

heard to proceed from Heaven- Choose which of the three thou wilt. Kaïl chose the black, which he imagined the

Mecca was thus called. Mahommed destroyed the other deposit it in the same grotto from whence it had been removed. superstitions of the Arabs, but he was obliged to adopt their old and rooted veneration for the Well and the Black Stone, and transfer to Mecca the respect and reverence which he had designed for Jerusalem.

Away went Will so willingly,

And all day long he sought;
Till when it grew towards the night,
He in his mind bethought,
He would go home and rest him,
And come again to-morrow;
For if he could not find the Mare,
His heart would break with sorrow.

He went a little farther,

And turn'd his head aside,

And just by goodman Whitfield's gate,
Oh, there the Mare he spied.

He ask'd her how she did;

She stared him in the face,
Then down she laid her head again.
She was in wretched case.

which are fifty of ours, in these times; he also made each side of them an hundred royal cubits. The beginning of this building was in a fortunate horoscope. After that he had finished it, he covered it with colored satin from the top to the bottom; and he appointed a solemn festival, at which were present all the inhabitants of his kingdom. Then he built, in the western pyramid, thirty treasures, filled with store of riches and utensils, and with signatures made of precious stones, and with instruments of iron, and vessels of earth, and with arms that rust not, and with glass which might be bended and yet not broken, and with several kinds of alakakirs, single and double, and with deadly poisons, and with other things besides. He made also in the east Pyramid divers celestial spheres and stars, and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the perfumes which are to be used to them, and the books which treat of these matters. He also put in the colored Pyramid the commentaries of the Priests in chests of black marble, and with every Priest a book, in which were the wonders of his profession, and of his actions, and of his nature, and what was done in his time, and what is, and what shall be, from the beginning of time to the end of it. He placed in every Pyramid a treasurer. The treasurer of the westerly Pyramid was a statue of marble stone, standing upright with a lance, and upon his head a serpent, wreathed. He that came near it, and stood still, the serpent bit him of one side, and wreathing round about his throat and killing him, returned to his place. He made the treasurer of the east Pyramid, an idol of black agate, his eyes open and shining, sitting upon a throne with a lance: when any looked upon him, he heard of one side of him a voice, which took away his sense, so that he fell prostrate upon his face, and ceased not till he died. He made the treasurer of the colored Pyramid a statue of stone, called Albut, sitting: he which looked towards it was drawn by the statue, till he stuck to it, and could not be separated from it, till such time as he died. The Coptites write in their books, that there is an inscription

What though unmoved they bore the deluge weight. — 29, p. 229. Concerning the Pyramids, "I shall put down," says Greaves, "that which is confessed by the Arabian writers to be the most probable relation, as is reported by Ibn Abd Alhokm, whose words, out of the Arabic, are these:The greatest part of chronologers agree, that he which built the Pyra-engraven upon them, the exposition of which, in Arabic, is mids was Saurid Ibn Salhouk, King of Egypt, who lived three hundred years before the flood. The occasion of this was, because he saw, in his sleep, that the whole earth was turned over with the inhabitants of it, the men lying upon their faces, and the stars falling down and striking one another, with a terrible noise; and being troubled, he concealed it. After this, he saw the fixed stars falling to the earth, in the similitude of white fowl, and they snatched up men, carrying them between two great mountains; and these mountains closed upon them, and the shining stars were made dark. Awaking with great fear, he assembles the chief priests of all the provinces of Egypt, an hundred and thirty priests; the chief of them was called Aclimum. Relating the whole matter to them, they took the altitude of the stars, and, making their prognostication, foretold of a deluge. The King said, Will it come to our country? they answered, Yea, and will destroy it. And there remained a certain number of years for to come, and he commanded, in the mean space, to build the Pyramids, and a vault to be made, into which the river Nilus entering, should run into the countries of the west, and into the land Al-Said. And he filled them with telesmes,* and with strange things, and with riches and treasures, and the like. He engraved in them all things that were told him by wise men, as also all profound sciences, the names of alakakirs,† the uses and hurts of them; the science of astrology, and of arithmetic, and of geometry, and of physic. All this may be interpreted by him that knows their characters and language. After he had given order for this building, they cut out vast columus and wonderful stones. They fetcht massy stones from the Ethiopians, and made with these the foundation of the three Pyramids, fastening them together with lead and iron. They built the gates of them forty cubits under ground, and they made the height of the Pyramids one hundred royal cubits,

That which the Arabians commonly mean by telesmes are certain sigilla or amuleta, made under such and such an aspect, or configuration of the stars and planets, with several characters accordingly inscribed.

↑ Alakakir, amongst other significations, is the name of a precious stone; and, therefore, in Abulfeda, it is joined with yacut, a ruby. I imagine it here to signify some magical spell, which, it may be, was engraven on this stone.

this, I KING SAURID built the Pyramids in such and such a time, and finished them in six years: he that comes after me, and says that he is equal to me, let him destroy them in sir hundred years; and yet it is known, that it is easier to pluck down, than to build up: I also covered them, when I had finished them, with sattin; and let him cover them with matts. After that ALMAMON the Calif entered Ægypt, and saw the Pyramids, he desired to know what was within, and therefore would have them opened. They told him it could not possibly be done. He replied, I will have it certainly done. And that hole was opened for him, which stands open to this day, with fire and vinegar. Two smiths prepared and sharpened the iron and engines, which they forced in, and there was a great expense in the opening of it. The thickness of the walls was found to be twenty cubits; and when they came to the end of the wall, behind the place they had digged, there was an ewer of green emerald: in it were a thousand dinars very weighty, every dinar was an ounce of our ounces; they wondered at it, but knew not the meaning of it. Then ALMAMON said, Cast up the account how much hath been spent in making the entrance; they cast it up, and lo it was the same sum which they found; it neither exceeded nor was defective. Within they found a square well, in the square of it there were doors, every door opened into a house, (or vault,) in which there were dead bodies wrapped up in linen. They found towards the top of the Pyramid, a chamber, in which there was a hollow stone in it was a statue of stone like a man, and within it a man, upon whom was a breastplate of gold set with jewels; upon his breast was a sword of invaluable price, and at his head a carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the day; and upon him were characters written with a pen, no man knows what they signify. After ALMAMON had opened it, men entered into it for many years, and descended by the slippery passage which is in it; and some of them came out safe, and others died.'"Greaves's Pyramidographia.

The living carbuncle. - 30, p. 229.

The Carbuncle is to be found in most of the subterranean palaces of Romance. I have no where seen so circumstantial

BOOK I.

an account of its wonderful properties as in a passage of Thuanus, quoted by Stephanius in his Notes to Saxo-Grammaticus.

"Whilst the King was at Bologna, a stone, wonderful in its species and nature, was brought to him from the East Indies, by a man unknown, who appeared by his manners to be a Barbarian. It sparkled as though all burning with an incredible splendor: flashing radiance, and shooting on every side its beams, it filled the surrounding air to a great distance with a light scarcely by any eyes endurable. In this also it was wonderful, that being most impatient of the earth, if it was confined, it would force its way, and immediately fly aloft; neither could it be contained by any art of man in a narrow place, but appeared only to love those of ample extent. It was of the utmost purity, stained by no soil nor spot. Certain shape it had none, for its figure was inconstant and momentarily changing, and though at a distance it was beautiful to the eye, it would not suffer itself to be handled with impunity, but hurt those who obstinately struggled with it, as many persons before many spectators experienced. If by chance any part of it was broken off, for it was not very hard, it become nothing less. "*- Thuanus, lib. 8.

In the Mirror of Stones, Carbuncles are said to be male and female. The females throw out their brightness: the stars appear burning within the males.

Like many other jewels, the Carbuncle was supposed to be an animal substance, formed in the serpent. The serpent's ingenious method of preserving it from the song of the charmer, is related in an after-note. Book 9.

Yet innocent it grew.—31, p. 229.

Adam, says a Moorish author, after having eaten the forbidden fruit, sought to hide himself under the shade of the trees that form the bowers of Paradise: the Gold and Silver trees refused their shade to the father of the human race. God asked them why they did so? Because, replied the Trees, Adam has transgressed against your commandment. Ye have done well, answered the Creator; and that your fidelity may be rewarded, 'tis my decree that men shall hereafter become your slaves, and that in search of you they shall dig into the Chenier. very bowels of the earth.

The black-lead of Borrodale is described as lying in the mine in the form of a tree; it hath a body or root, and veins or branches fly from it in different directions: the root or body is the finest black-lead, and the branches at the extremities the worst the farther they fly. The veins or branches sometimes shoot out to the surface of the ground.- Hutchinson's Hist. of Cumberland.

times divided, by encountring with some kinde of harde
stone; yet is it in other cliftes nourished by the exhalations
and virtue of the roote. - Pietro Martire.

Metals, says Herrera, (5, 3, 15,) are like plants hidden in the bowels of the earth, with their trunk and boughs, which are the veins; for it appears in a certain manner, that like plants they go on growing, not because they have any inward life, but because they are produced in the entrails of the earth by the virtue of the sun and of the planets; and so they go on increasing. And as metals are thus, as it were, plants hidden in the earth; so plants are animals fixed to one place, sustained by the aliment which Nature has provided for them at their birth: And to animals, as they have a more perfect being, a sense and knowledge hath been given, to go about and seek their aliment. So that barren earth is the support of metal, and fertile earth of plants, and plants of animals: the less perfect serving the more perfect.

The fine gold net-work, &c.—31, p. 229.

A great number of stringy fibres seem to stretch out from the boughs of the Palm, on each side, which cross one another in such a manner, that they take out from between the boughs a sort of bark like close net-work, and this they spin out with the hand, and with it make cords of all sizes, which are mostly used in Egypt. They also make of it a sort of brush for clothes. - Pococke.

Crouch'd at this Nimrod's throne.—32, p. 229.

Shedad was the first King of the Adites. I have ornamented his palace less profusely than the Oriental writers who describe it. In the notes to the Bahar-Danush is the following account of its magnificence from the Tafut al Mujalis.

A pleasant and elevated spot being fixed upon, Shuddaud dispatched an hundred chiefs to collect skilful artists and workmen from all countries. He also commanded the monarchs of Syria and Ormus to send him all their jewels and precious stones. Forty camel-loads of gold, silver, and jewels, were daily used in the building, which contained a thousand In the areas spacious quadrangles of many thousand rooms. were artificial trees of gold and silver, whose leaves were emeralds, and fruit clusters of pearls and jewels. The ground was strowed with ambergris, musk, and saffron. Between every two of the artificial trees was planted one of delicious fruit. This romantic abode took up five hundred years in the completion. When finished, Shuddaud marched to view it; and, when arrived near, divided two hundred thousand youthful slaves, whom he had brought with him from Damascus, into four detachments, which were stationed in cantonments They have founde by experience, that the vein of golde is a living tree, and that the same by all waies that it spreadeth prepared for their reception on each side of the garden, and springeth from the roote by the softe pores and passages towards which he proceeded with his favorite courtiers. Sudof the earth, putteth forth branches, even unto the uppermost denly was heard in the air a voice like thunder, and Shudparts of the earth, and ceaseth not until it discover itself unto daud, looking up, beheld a personage of majestic figure and Shuddaud exclaimed, the open aire; at which time it sheweth forthe certaine beau- stern aspect, who said, "I am the Angel of Death, commistiful colours in the steede of floures, round stones of golden sioned to seize thy impure soul." "Give me leisure to enter the garden," and was descendearth in the steede of fruites; and thinne plates insteede of leaves. They say that the roote of the golden tree extendething from his horse, when the seizer of life snatched away his to the center of the earth, and there taketh notishment of increase: for the deeper that they dig, they finde the trunkes thereof to be so much the greater, as farre as they may followe it, for abundance of water springing in the mountains. Of the branches of this tree, they finde some as small as a thread, and others as bigge as a man's finger, according to the largeness or straightnesse of the riftes and cliftes. They have sometimes chanced upon whole caves, sustained and borne up as it were with golden pillers, and this in the waies by the which the branches ascende: the which being filled with the substance of the trunke creeping from beneath, the branche maketh itself waie by whiche it maie pass out. It is often

• Since this note was written, I have found in Feyjoo the history of this fable. It was invented as a riddle or allegory of fire, by a French physician, called Fernelio by the Spanish author, and published by him in a Dialogue, De abditis rerum causis. From hence it was extracted, and sent as a trick to Mizaldo, another physician, who had written a credulous work, De Arcanis NATURE; and a copy of this letter came into the hands of Thuanus. He discovered the deception too late, for a second edition of nis history had been previously published at Frankfort.

impure spirit, and he fell dead upon the ground. At the same time lightnings flashed, and destroyed the whole army of the infidel; and the rose-garden of Irim became concealed from the sight of man.

O Shedad! only in the hour of death.-35, p. 229. Lamai relates, that a great Monarch, whom he does not name, having erected a superb Palace, wished to show it to every man of talents and taste in the city; he therefore invited them to a banquet, and after the repast was finished, asked them if they knew any building more magnificent, and more perfect, in the architecture, in the ornaments, and in the furniture. All the guests contented themselves with expressing their admiration, and lavishing praise, except one, who led a retired and austere life, and was one of those persons whom the Arabians call Zahed.

This man spoke very freely to the Prince, and said to him, is not good, nor the walls sufficiently strong, so that Azrael I find a great defect in this building; it is, that the foundation