Richard Francis Burton

The sage Bhavabhuti [...] after making his initiatory and propitiatory conge to Ganesha, Lord of Incepts, informs the reader that this book is a string of fine pearls to be hung round the neck of human intelligence; a fragrant flower to be borne on the turband of mental wisdom; a jewel of pure gold, which becomes the brow of all supreme minds; and a handful of powdered rubies, whose tonic effects will appear palpably upon the mental digestion of every patient. They were diligently to learn grammar, the Scriptures, and all the religious sciences. They were to become familiar with military tactics, international law, and music, the riding of horses and elephants—especially the latter—the driving of chariots, and the use of the broadsword, the bow, and the mogdars or Indian clubs. They were ordered to be skilful in all kinds of games, in leaping and running, in besieging forts, in forming and breaking bodies of troops; they were to endeavour to excel in every princely quality, to be cunning in ascertaining the power of an enemy, how to make war, to perform journeys, to sit in the presence of the nobles, to separate the different sides of a question, to form alliances, to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, to assign proper punishments to the wicked, to exercise authority with perfect justice, and to be liberal. Whilst under pupilage, the eldest was allowed all the power necessary to obtain a knowledge of royal affairs, and he was not invested with the regal office till in these preparatory steps he had given full satisfaction to his subjects, who expressed high approval of his conduct. When the news reached King Indra, Regent of the Lower Firmament and Protector of Earthly Monarchs, he sent Prithwi Pala, a fierce giant, to defend the city of Ujjayani till such time as its lawful master might reappear, and the guardian used to keep watch and ward night and day over his trust. In less than a year the valorous Raja Vikram became thoroughly tired of wandering about the woods half dressed: now suffering from famine, then exposed to the attacks of wild beasts, and at all times very ill at ease. The giant’s fists were large as watermelons, and his knotted arms whistled through the air like falling trees, threatening fatal blows. But the anchorite, having heard the speeches of the king and his courtiers, thought to himself, ‘They have done this for the purpose of taking away the fruits of my penance.’ Presently, at the further extremity of the smashana, or burning ground, appeared a group. By the lurid flames that flared and flickered round the half-extinguished funeral pyres, with remnants of their dreadful loads, Raja Vikram and Dharma Dhwaj could note the several features of the ill-omened spot. There was an outer circle of hideous bestial forms; tigers were roaring, and elephants were trumpeting; wolves, whose foul hairy coats blazed with sparks of bluish phosphoric light, were devouring the remnants of human bodies; foxes, jackals, and hyenas were disputing over their prey; whilst bears were chewing the livers of children.

Nothing can be more amene or gracious than this modified Pampa form in fine weather.

Walking round the eastern bay, where the ubiquitous black sand striped the yellow shore, we observed that the tide here rises only one foot, whereas at Suez it may reach a metre and a half to seven feet. Nothing could be more promising than the weather, a young moon mirrored in a sea smooth as oil.

Since sware the Parcæ unto me, their friend, / they shall adore my name, my favour prize; / and, as their feats of armèd prowess shend / all feats of rival Rome, I lief devise / some mode of aidance in what things I may, / far as our force o'er man extendeth sway.

"O my son, believe not in swevens which be mere imbroglios of sleep and lying phantasies;" So she went out to fetch her needful from the Bazar and Alaeddin retired to his chamber and taking the Lamp rubbed it, when forthright appeared to him its Slave and said, "Ask, O my lord, whatso thou wantest." "O mother mine, verily this Shaykh is soothfast and no liar: for the first time he but tried me and now he proposeth to perform his promise."

Follow me and fear naught, for I know forty modes of magic by the least of which I could make this city a dashing sea, swollen with clashing billows, and ensorcel each damsel therein to a fish, and all before dawn. Then he turned to me and said, "O mortal, we have it in our law that, when the wife committeth advowtry it is lawful for us to slay her." Of a surety none murdered the damsel but I; take her wreak on me this moment; for, an thou do not thus, I will require it of thee before Almighty Allah. I drew near and perceived that the light came from a precious stone as big as an ostrich egg, set at the upper end of the alcove upon a little chryselephantine couch of ivory and gold; and this jewel, blazing like the sun, cast its rays wide and side. Then Miriam wept passing sore wherethan naught could be more, making sure of separation, and cried to the druggist's wife, “O my mother, said I not to thee that my lord Nur al-Din had been tricked into selling me? […] […] and kissed King Hasan's hands and did homage to him, and swore lealty to him. Then she stood up; and, pronouncing some word to me unintelligible, she said: — By virtue of my egromancy become thou half stone and half man; whereupon I became what thou seest, unable to rise or sit, and neither dead nor alive. And they began disputing about futtering her. […] and awakening, saw a serpent like a dragon, a seldseen sight. So she brought him the China bowl saying in herself, “I shall know what to do when I find out if the words of my child concerning these jewels be soothfast or not”; […] […] an hundred dishes of poultry besides other birds and brewises, fritters and cooling marinades. […] But when I had bestridden the plank, quoth I to myself, "Thou deserveth all that betideth thee. All this is decreed to me of Allah (whose name be exalted!), to turn me from my greed of gain, whence ariseth all that I endure, for I have wealth galore." Then he bestowed robes of honour on the nurses wet and dry and said to them, "Be ye ruthful over them and rear them after the goodliest fashion." Thereupon sat a lady bright of blee, with brow beaming brilliancy, the dream of philosophy, whose eyes were fraught with Babel's gramarye and her eyebrows were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and perfumery and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see. But the daughter of my uncle (this gazelle) had learned gramarye and egromancy and clerkly craft from her childhood; so she bewitched that son of mine to a calf, and my handmaid (his mother) to a heifer, and made them over to the herdsman's care. In a mighty little time their husbands played them false and, taking whatever they could lay hands upon, levanted and left them in the lurch. So the Ifrit cried at her, "Thou whorest and makest me a wittol with thine eyes;" and struck her so that her head went flying. When the King heard this, he was enraged with sore rage; and bade bastinado the sorcerer and clap him in jail, whilst he himself cast the crown from his head and beat his face and smote his breast. By Allah thy bede is good indeed and right is thy rede! When the Bull heard these words he knew the Ass to be his friend and thanked him, saying, "Right is thy rede" Now when the astronomer saw her acuteness and comprehensive learning and heard her fair answers, he bethought him for a sleight to confound her before the Commander of the Faithful, and said to her, "O damsel, tell me, will rain fall this month?" One day, among the days, he bethought him of this and fell lamenting for that the most part of his existence was past and he had not been vouchsafed a son, to inherit the kingdom after him, even as he had inherited it from his fathers and forebears; by reason whereof there betided him sore cark and care and chagrin exceeding. From my dull and commonplace and "respectable" surroundings, the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my pre-dilection, Arabia, a region so familiar to my mind that even at first sight, it seemed a reminiscence of some by gone metem-psychic life in the distant Past. Presently, sweetened by distance, would be heard the wild weird song of lads and lasses, driving or rather pelting, through the gloaming their sheep and goats; and the measured chant of the spearsmen gravely stalking behind their charge, the camels; mingled with bleating of the flocks and the bellowing of the humpy herds; while the reremouse flitted overhead with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the jackal resounded through deepening glooms, and—most musical of music—the palm trees answered the whispers of the night breeze with the softest tones of falling water. Worst of all, the three handsome volumes are rendered unreadable as Sale's Koran by their anglicised Latin, their sesquipedalian un English words, and the stiff and stilted style of half a century ago when our prose was, perhaps, the worst in Europe. Next morning the trader and his wife went to the Bull's crib and sat down, and the driver came and led forth the Bull who, seeing his owner, whisked his tail and brake wind, and frisked about so lustily that the merchant laughed a loud laugh and kept laughing till he fell on his back. Take charge of this fellow, and go off with him to the waste lands about the city; then draw thy scymitar and slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds. [...] and then sprang with a drop leap from one of the trees a big slobbering blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a truly hideous sight. Thereupon the pillar of smoke rose up till all of it was fully out; then it thickened and once more became an Ifrit of hideous presence, who forthright administered a kick to the bottle and sent it flying into the sea. When Sulayman saw me, he took refuge with Allah and bade me embrace the True Faith and obey his behests; but I refused, so sending for this cucurbit he shut me up therein, and stopped it over with lead whereon he impressed the Most High Name, and gave his orders to the Jann who carried me off, and cast me into the midmost of the ocean. Now when he had reached the King's capital wherein was Alaeddin, he alighted at one of the Kháns; and, when he had rested from the weariness of wayfare, he donned his dress and went down to wander about the streets, where he never passed a group without hearing them prate about the pavilion and its grandeur and vaunt the beauty of Alaeddin and his lovesomeness, his liberality and generosity, his fine manners and his good morals. I threw myself down on the island ground, like a dead man, and drowned in desolation swooned away, nor did I return to my senses till next morning, when the sun rose and revived me. Then they set somewhat of food before me, whereof I ate my fill, and gave me somewhat of clothes wherewith I clad myself anew and covered my nakedness; after which they took me up into the ship, […]

Its anthropopathisms are merely exaggerations of what is found in the books of Moses when the Creator is subject to wrath, sorrow, repentance, jealousy, and other human passions of the baser kind. Situated in the bleak and windswept, the stony and barren highlands of Upper Galilee, shaken by earthquakes, and exposed to terrible storms, Safed is one of the least amene sites in the whole of Syria. Not less curious are the statistics showing the natural aptitude of the Jewish people, at once so national in their sentiments and so cosmopolitan in their tendencies, for universal acclimatization. The costly carriage horses work till noon in carts and drays transporting the irritamenta malorum which support the equipage of the afternoon.