Thalaba the Destroyer Part 41

[123] The King and the great Lords have a sort of cellar for magnificence, where they sometimes drink with persons whom they wish to regale. These cellars are square rooms, to which you descend by only two or three steps. In the middle is a small cistern of water, and a rich carpet covers the ground from the walls to the cistern. At the four corners of the cistern are four large gla.s.s bottles, each containing about twenty quarts of wine, one white, another red. From one to the other of these, smaller bottles are ranged of the same material and form, that is, round with a long neck, holding about four or five quarts, white and red alternately. Round the cellar are several rows of niches in the wall, and in each nich is a bottle also of red and white alternately.--Some niches are made to hold two. Some windows give light to the apartment, and all these bottles so well ranged with their various colours have a very fine effect to the eye. They are always kept full, the wine preserving better, and therefore are replenished as fast as they are emptied.

_Tavernier._

[124] The Cuptzi, or King of Persia's merchant, treated us with a collation, which was served in, in plate vermilion-gilt.

The Persians having left us, the Amba.s.sadors sent to the Chief Weywode a present, which was a large drinking cup, vermilion-gilt.

_Amba.s.sador's Travels._

At Ispahan the King's horses were watered with silver pails thus coloured.

The Turks and Persians seem wonderfully fond of gilding, we read of their gilt stirrups, gilt bridles, gilt maces, gilt scymetars, &c. &c.

[125] Mohammedes vinum appellabat _Matrem peccatorum_; cui sententiae Hafez, Anacreon ille Persarum, minime ascribit suam; dicit autem

"Acre illud (vinum) quod vir religiosus _matrem peccatorum_ vocitat, Optabilius n.o.bis ac dulcius videtur, quam virginis suavium."

_Poeseos Asiat. Com._

Illide ignem illum n.o.bis liquidum, Hoc est, ignem illum aquae similem affer.

_Hafez._

[126] They export from Com earthen ware both white and varnished, and this is peculiar to the white ware which is thence transported, that in the summer it cools the water wonderfully and very suddenly, by reason of continual transpiration. So that they who desire to drink cool and deliciously, never drink in the same pot above five or six days at most.

They wash it with rose water the first time, to take away the ill smell of the earth, and they hang it in the air full of water, wrapped up in a moist linen cloth. A fourth part of the water transpires in six hours the first time; after that still less from day to day, till at last the pores are closed up by the thick matter contained in the water which stops in the pores. But so soon as the pores are stopt, the water stinks in the pots, and you must take new ones.

_Chardin._

In Egypt people of fortune burn _Scio mastic_ in their cups, the penetrating odour of which pervades the porous substance, which remains impregnated with it a long time, and imparts to the water a perfume which requires the aid of habit to render it pleasing.

_Sonnini._

[127] Casbin produces the fairest grape in Persia, which they call _Shahoni_, or the royal grape, being of a gold colour, transparent, and as big as a small olive. These grapes are dried and transported all over the kingdom. They also make the strongest wine in the world and the most luscious, but very thick as all strong and sweet wines usually are. This incomparable Grape grows only upon the young branches, which they never water. So that for five months together they grow in the heat of summer and under a scorching sun, without receiving a drop of water, either from the sky or otherwise. When the vintage is over, they let in their cattle to browze in the vineyards, afterwards they cut off all the great wood, and leave only the young stocks about three foot high, which need no propping up with poles as in other places, and therefore they never make use of any such supporters.

_Chardin._

[128] Dr. Fryer received a present from the Caun of Bunder-Aba.s.sae of Apples candied in snow.

When Tavernier made his first visit to the Kan at Erivan, he found him with several of his Officers regaling in the _Chambers of the Bridge_.

They had wine which they cooled with ice, and all kinds of fruit and melons in large plates, under each of which was a plate of ice.

A great number of camels were laden with snow to cool the liquors and fruit of the Caliph Mahadi, when he made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

[129] Of the Indian dancing women who danced before the Amba.s.sadors at Ispahan, "some were shod after a very strange manner, they had above the instep of the foot a string tied, with little bells fastened thereto, whereby they discovered the exactness of their cadence, and sometimes corrected the music itself; as they did also by the Tzarpanes or Castagnets, which they had in their hands, in the managing whereof they were very expert."

At Koojar Mungo Park saw a dance "in which many performers a.s.sisted, all of whom were provided with little bells, which were fastened to their legs and arms."

[130] At Seronge a sort of cloth is made so fine, that the skin may be seen thro' it, as tho' it were naked. Merchants are not permitted to export this, the Governor sending all that is made to the Seraglio of the Great Mogul and the chief Lords of his court. C'est de quoy les Sultanes & les femmes des Grands Seigneurs, se font des chemises, & des robes pour la chaleur, & le Roy & les Grands se plaisent a les voir au travers de ces chemises fines, & a les faire danser.

_Tavernier._

[131] I came to a Village called Cupri-Kent, or the Village of the bridge, because there is a very fair bridge that stands not far from it, built upon a river called Tabadi. This bridge is placed between two mountains separated only by the river, and supported by four arches, unequal both in their height and breadth. They are built after an irregular form, in regard of two great heaps of a rock that stand in the river, upon which they laid so many arches. Those at the two ends are hollowed on both sides and serve to lodge pa.s.sengers, wherein they have made to that purpose little chambers and porticos, with every one a chimney. The Arch in the middle of the river is hollowed quite thro'

from one part to the other with two chambers at the ends, and two large balconies covered, where they take the cool air in the summer with great delight, and to which there is a descent of two pair of stairs hewn out of the rock, there is not a fairer bridge in all Georgia.

_Chardin._

Over the river Isperuth "there is a very fair bridge, built on six arches, each whereof hath a s.p.a.cious room, a kitchen and several other conveniences, lying even with water, the going down into it is by a stone pair of stairs, so that this bridge is able to find entertainment for a whole caravanne."

_Amb. Tr._

The most magnificent of these bridges is the Bridge of Zulpha at Ispahan.

[132] The dust which overspreads these beds of sand is so fine, that the lightest animal, the smallest insect, leaves there as on snow, the vestiges of its track. The varieties of these impressions produce a pleasing effect, in spots where the saddened soul expects to meet with nothing but symptoms of the proscriptions of nature. _It is impossible to see any thing more beautiful_ than the traces of the pa.s.sage of a species of very small lizards extremely common in these desarts. The extremity of their tail forms regular sinuosities, in the middle of two rows of delineations, also regularly imprinted by their four feet, with their five slender toes. These traces are multiplied and interwoven near the subterranean retreats of these little animals, and present a singular a.s.semblage which is _not void of beauty_.

_Sonnini._

[133] These lines are feebly adapted from a pa.s.sage in Burnet's Theory of the Earth.

Haec autem dicta vellem de genuinis & majoribus terrae montibus; non gratos _Bacchi_ colles hic intelligimus, aut amoenos illos monticulos, qui viridi herba & vicino fonte & arboribus, vim aestivi solis repellunt: hisce non deest sua qualiscunque elegantia, & jucunditas. Sed longe aliud hic respicimus, nempe longaeva illa, tristia & squalentia corpora, telluris pondera, quae duro capiti rigent inter nubes, infixisque in terram saxeis pedibus, ab innumeris seculis steterunt immobilia, atque nudo pectore pertulerunt tot annorum ardentes soles, fulmina & procellas. Hi sunt primaevi & immortales illi montes, qui non aliunde, quam ex fracta mundi compage ortum suum ducere potuerunt, nec nisi c.u.m eadem perituri sunt.

The whole chapter _de montibus_ is written with the eloquence of a Poet.

Indeed Gibbon bestowed no exaggerated praise on Burnet in saying that he had "blended scripture, history, and tradition into one magnificent system, with a sublimity of imagination scarcely inferior to Milton himself." This work should be read in Latin, the Author's own translation is miserably inferior. He lived in the worst age of English prose.

[134] The Zaccoum is a tree which issueth from the bottom of h.e.l.l: the fruit thereof resembleth the heads of Devils; and the d.a.m.ned shall eat of the same, and shall fill their bellies therewith; and there shall be given them thereon a mixture of boiling water to drink; afterwards shall they return to h.e.l.l.

_Koran. Chap. 37._

This h.e.l.lish Zaccoum has its name from a th.o.r.n.y tree in Tehama, which bears fruit like an almond, but extremely bitter; therefore the same name is given to the infernal tree.

_Sale._

[135] When the sister of the famous Derar was made prisoner before Damascus with many other Arabian women, she excited them to mutiny, they seized the poles of the tents and attacked their captors. This bold resolution, says Marigny, was not inspired by impotent anger. Most of these women had military inclinations already; particularly those who were of the tribe of Hemiar or of the Homerites, where they are early exercised in riding the horse, and in using the bow, the lance, and the javelin. The revolt was successful, for during the engagement Derar came up to their a.s.sistance.

_Marigny._

[136] In the N. E. parts of Persia there was an old man named Aloadin, a Mahumetan, which had inclosed a goodly vally, situate between two hilles, and furnished it with all variety which Nature and Art could yield, as fruits, pictures, rilles of milk, wine, honey, water, pallaces, and beautifull damosells, richly attired, and called it Paradise. To this was no pa.s.sage but by an impregnable castle, and daily preaching the pleasures of this Paradise to the youth which he kept in his court, sometimes would minister a sleepy drinke to some of them, and then conveigh them thither, where being entertained with these pleasures 4 or 5 days they supposed themselves rapt into Paradise, and then being again cast into a trance by the said drink, he caused them to be carried forth, and then would examine them of what they had seene, and by this delusion would make them resolute for any enterprize which he should appoint them, as to murther any Prince his enemy, for they feared not death in hope of their Mahumetical Paradise. But Haslor or Ulan after 3 years siege destroyed him and this his fools Paradise.

_Purchas._