Bagh O Bahar, or Tales of the Four Darweshes Part 19

[396] A kind of litter for the conveyance of women and the sick.

[397] A kind of litter for travelling in Persia and Arabia; two of them are slung across a camel or a mule; those for camels carry four persons.

[398] Viz., his state of castration.

[399] _Zu-l-fakar_, the name of a famous sword that _'Ali_ used to wear.

[400] The veiled horseman, _'Ali Mushkil-Kusha_.

[401] In the original there is a play on the words _haml_ and _hamal_.

[402] Literally, "he made the man in want of a _kauri_ the master of a _lakh_ [of rupees].

[403] _Ryots_ (a corruption of the word _ra'iyat_) are the husbandmen in India; the tillers of the soil who rent small parcels of land from the government, through the medium of the _zamin-dar_, who is a servant of government and not the proprietor of the land, as some have erroneously supposed. The word means keeper of the land, and not the proprietor. In fact, he is like the Irish middleman, in every sense of the word.

[404] A famous garden in Arabia Felix; it is also applied to the garden in Paradise, in which all good Mahometans, according to their belief, are to revel after death.

[405] _'Umman_ is the name of the southern part of _Yaman_ or Arabia Felix; the country which lies between the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the mouth of the Red Sea; the sea which washes this coast is called the sea of _'Umman_ in Persia and Arabia, as the Red Sea is called the sea of _Kulzum_.

[406] A mode of punishment used in former times in Persia, India, and Arabia, against great enemies or atrocious delinquents. Such treatment the poor emperor Valerian experienced from the haughty _Shapur_ or _Shabar_ (the Sapores of the Greeks), king of Persia or Parthia.

[407] The first _darwesh_.

[408] The second _darwesh_.

[409] The third _darwesh_.

[410] The fourth _darwesh_.

[411] The five pure bodies are _Muhammad_, the prophet; _Fatima_, his daughter; _Ali_, her husband; and _Hazan_ and _Husain_, their chidren.

[412] The fourteen innocents are the children of _Hazan_ and _Husain_.

[413] By an arithmetical operation called in Persian _Abjad_; as Persian letters have arithmetical powers, the letters which compose the words _Bagh O Bahar_ added up, produce the sum 1217. From the inscription on most _Muhammadan_ tombs, and those on the gates of mosques, the dates of demise and erection can be ascertained. We had the same barbarous custom in Europe about the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; see the Spectator (No. 60,) on this ridiculous subject, which was considered as a proof of great ingenuity.

[414] A pun on the word _Bahar_, which means spring, when flowers are in full bloom; but the French word _printemps_ conveys more exactly the compound signification; for _Bahar_ not only means spring, but an agreeable spring. The Persians are as fond of these _double entendres_ as any other people; their poetry is strewed with them, and so is their prose. It is not, however, to be considered as a model of pure taste.