CALEDONIANS, Gauls from France who colonized south Britain, whence they journeyed to Inverness and Ross.  The word is compounded of two Celtic words, Cael ("Gaul” or “Celt”) and don or dun ("a hill"), so that Cael-don means “Celts of the highlands.”

The Highlanders to this day call themselves “Cael” and their language “Caelic” or “Gaelic” and their country “Caeldock” which the Romans softened into Caledonia.—­Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian.

CALENDERS, a class of Mohammedans who abandoned father and mother, wife and children, relations and possessions, to wander through the world as religious devotees, living on the bounty of those whom they made their dupes.—­D’Herbelot, Supplement, 204.

He diverted himself with the multitude of calenders, santons, and dervises, who had travelled from the heart of India, and halted on their way with the emir.—­W.  Beckford, Vathek (1786).

The Three Calenders, three royal princes, disguised as begging dervishes, each of whom had lost his right eye.  Their adventures form three tales in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

Tale of the First Calender.  No names are given.  This calender was the son of a king, and nephew of another king.  While on a visit to his uncle his father died, and the vizier usurped the throne.  When the prince returned, he was seized, and the usurper pulled out his right eye.  The uncle died, and the usurping vizier made himself master of this kingdom also.  So the hapless young prince assumed the garb of a calender, wandered to Baghdad, and being received into the house of “the three sisters,” told his tale in the hearing of the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid.—­The Arabian Nights.

Tale of the Second Calender. No names given.  This calender, like the first, was the son of a king.  On his way to India he was attacked by robbers, and though he contrived to escape, he lost all his effects.  In his flight he came to a large city, where he encountered a tailor, who gave him food and lodging.  In order to earn a living, he turned woodman for the nonce, and accidentally discovered an underground palace, in which lived a beautiful lady, confined there by an evil genius.  With a view of liberating her, he kicked down the talisman, when the genius appeared, killed the lady, and turned the prince into an ape.  As an ape he was taken on board ship, and transported to a large commercial city, where his penmanship recommended him to the sultan, who made him his vizier.  The sultan’s daughter undertook to disenchant him and restore him to his proper form; but to accomplish this she had to fight with the malignant genius.  She succeeded in killing the genius, and restoring the enchanted prince; but received such severe injuries in the struggle that she died, and a spark of fire which flew into the right eye of the prince destroyed it.  The sultan was so heart-broken at the death of his only child, that he insisted on the prince quitting the kingdom without delay.  So he assumed the garb of a calender, and being received into the hospitable house of “the three sisters,” told his tale in the hearing of the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid.—­The Arabian Nights.