The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 167

[28] Black was the color adopted by the Caliphs of the House of Abbas, in their garments, turbans, and standards.

[29] "Our dark javelins, exquisitely wrought of Khathaian reeds, slender and delicate."--_Poem of Amru_.

[30] Pichula, used anciently for arrows by the Persians.

[31] The Persians call this plant Gaz. The celebrated shaft of Isfendiar, one of their ancient heroes, was made of it.--"Nothing can be more beautiful than the appearance of this plant in flower during the rains on the banks of rivers, where it is usually interwoven with a lovely twining asclepias."--_Sir W. Jones_..

[32] The oriental plane. "The chenar is a delightful tree; its bole is of a fine white and smooth bark; and its foliage, which grows in a tuft at the summit, is of a bright green."--_Morier's Travels_..

[33] The burning fountains of Brahma near Chittogong, esteemed as holy.--_Turner_.

[34] China.

[35] "The name of tulip is said to be of Turkish extraction, and given to the flower on account of its resembling a turban."--_Beckmann_'s History of Inventions.

[36] "The inhabitants of Bucharia wear a round cloth bonnet, shaped much after the Polish fas.h.i.+on, having a large fur border. They tie their kaftans about the middle with a girdle of a kind of silk c.r.a.pe, several times round the body."--_Account of Independent Tartary, in Pinkerton's Collection_.

[37] In the war of the Caliph Mahadi against the Empress Irene, for an account of which _vide Gibbon_, vol. x.

[38] When Soliman travelled, the eastern writers say, "He had a carpet of green silk on which his throne was placed, being of a prodigious length and breadth, and sufficient for all his forces to stand upon, the men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his left; and that when all were in order, the wind, at his command, took up the carpet, and transported it, with all that were upon it, wherever he pleased; the army of birds at the same time flying over their heads, and forming a kind of canopy to shade them from the sun."--Sale's Koran, vol. ii. p. 214, note.

[39] The transmigration of souls was one of his doctrines.--_Vide D'Herbelot_..

[40] "And when we said unto the angels. Wors.h.i.+p Adam, they all wors.h.i.+pped him except Eblis (Lucifer), who refused." _The. Koran_, chap. ii.

[41] Moses.

[42] Jesus.

[43] The Amu, which rises in the Belur Tag, or Dark Mountains, and running nearly from east to west, splits into two branches; one of which falls into the Caspian Sea, and the other into Aral Nahr, or the Lake of Eagles.

[44] The nightingale.

[45] The cities of Com (or Koom) and Cashan are full of mosques, mausoleums and sepulchres of the descendants of Ali, the Saints of Persia --_Chardin_..

[46] An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its white wine.

[47] The miraculous well at Mecca: so called, says Sale, from the murmuring of its waters.

[48] The G.o.d Hannaman.--"Apes are in many parts of India highly venerated, out of respect to the G.o.d Hannaman, a deity partaking of the form of that race."--_Pennant's_ Hindoostan. See a curious account in _Stephen's Persia_, of a solemn emba.s.sy from some part of the Indies to Goa when the Portuguese were there, offering vast treasures for the recovery of a monkey's tooth, which they held in great veneration, and which had been taken away upon the conquest of the kingdom of Jafanapatan.

[49] A kind of lantern formerly used by robbers, called the Hand of Glory, the candle for which was made of the fat of a dead malefactor. This, however, was rather a western than an eastern superst.i.tion.

[50] The material of which images of Gaudma (the Birman Deity) are made, is held sacred. "Birmans may not purchase the marble in ma.s.s, but are suffered, and indeed encouraged, to buy figures of the Deity ready made."

--_Sytnes's_ "Ava," vol. ii. p. 876.

[51] "It is commonly said in Persia, that if a man breathe in the hot south wind, which in June or July pa.s.ses over that flower (the Kerzereh), it will kill him."--_Thevenot_.

[52] The humming bird is said to run this risk for the purpose of picking the crocodile's teeth. The same circ.u.mstance is related of the lapwing, as a fact to which he was witness, by _Paul Lucas, "Voyage fait en_ 1714."

The ancient story concerning the Trochilus, or humming-bird, entering with impunity into the mouth of the crocodile, is firmly believed at Java.--_Barrow's "Cochin-China_."

[53] "The feast of Lanterns celebrated at Yamtcheou with more magnificence than anywhere else! and the report goes that the illuminations there are so splendid, that an Emperor once, not daring openly to leave his Court to go thither, committed himself with the Queen and several Princesses of his family into the hands of a magician, who promised to transport them thither in a trice. He made them in the night to ascend magnificent thrones that were borne up by swans, which in a moment arrived at Yamtcheou. The Emperor saw at his leisure all the solemnity, being carried upon a cloud that hovered over the city and descended by degrees; and came back again with the same speed and equipage, n.o.body at court perceiving his absence."--_The Present State of China_," p. 156.

[54] "The vulgar ascribe it to an accident that happened in the family of a famous mandarin, whose daughter, walking one evening upon the sh.o.r.e of a lake, fell in and was drowned: this afflicted father, with his family, ran thither, and the better to find her, he caused a great company of lanterns to be lighted. All the inhabitants of the place thronged after him with torches. The year ensuing they made fires upon the sh.o.r.es the same day; they continued the ceremony every year, every one lighted his lantern, and by degrees it commenced into a custom."--_The Present State of China_."

[55] "Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes."--_Sol. Song_.

[56] "They tinged the ends of her fingers scarlet with Henna, so that they resembled branches of coral."--_Story of Prince Futtun in Baharda.n.u.sh_.

[57] "The women blacken the inside of their eyelids with a powder named the black Kohol."--_Russell_.

"None of these ladies," says _Shaw_, "take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged their hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead ore. Now, as this operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids over the ball of the eye, we shall have a lively image of what the Prophet (Jer. iv. 30) may be supposed to mean by _rending the eyes with painting_. This practice is no doubt of great antiquity; for besides the instance already taken notice of, we find that where Jezebel is said (2 Kings ix. 30.) _to have painted her face_, the original words are, _she adjusted her eyes with the powder of lead-ore_."--_Shaw's_ Travels.

[58] "The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-colored Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit Poets with many elegant allusions."--See _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv.

[59] A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen.--_Niebuhr_.

[60] Of the genus mimosa "which droops its branches whenever any person approaches it, seeming as if it saluted those who retire under its shade."--_Niebuhr_.

[61] Cloves are a princ.i.p.al ingredient in the composition of the perfumed rods, which men of rank keep constantly burning in their presence.-- _Turner's_ "Tibet."

[62] "Thousands of variegated loories visit the coral-trees."--_Barrow_.

[63] "In Mecca there are quant.i.ties of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much less kill."--_Pitt's_ Account of the Mahometans.

[64] "The PaG.o.da Thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India.

It sits perched on the sacred paG.o.das, and from thence delivers its melodious song."--_Pennant's_ "Hindostan."

[65] _Tavernier_ adds, that while the Birds of Paradise lie in this intoxicated state, the emmets come and eat off their legs; and that hence it is they are said to have no feet.

[66] Birds of Paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in flights from the southern isles to India; and "the strength of the nutmeg," says _Tavernier_, "so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth."

[67] "That bird which liveth in Arabia, and buildeth its nest with cinnamon."--_Brown's_ Vulgar Errors.

[68] "The spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds."--_Gibbon_, vol. ix. p. 421.

[69] Shedad, who made the delicious gardens of Irim, in imitation of Paradise, and was destroyed by lightning the first time he attempted to enter them.

[70] "My Pandits a.s.sure me that the plant before us (the Nilica) is their Sephalica, thus named because the bees are supposed to sleep on its blossoms."--_Sir W. Jones_.

[71] They deterred it till the King of Flowers should ascend his throne of enamelled foliage."--_The Baharda.n.u.sh_".

[72] "One of the head-dresses of the Persian women is composed of a light golden chain-work, set with small pearls, with a thin gold plate pendant, about the bigness of a crown-piece, on which is impressed an Arabian prayer, and which hangs upon the cheek below the ear."--_Hanway's_ Travels.

[73] "Certainly the women of Yezd are the handsomest women in Persia. The proverb is, that to live happy a man must have a wife of Yezd, eat the bread of Yezdecas, and drink the wine of s.h.i.+raz."--_Tavernier_.

[74] Musnuds are cus.h.i.+oned seats, usually reserved for persons of distinction.