[239] Literally, “the parrot of my hand flew away.”

[240] The Muhammadans reckon a hundred and twenty years as the ’umri tabi’i, or the natural period of man’s life.

[241] The mountain of Kaf, is the celebrated abode of the jinns, paris, and divs, and all the fabulous beings of oriental romance.  The Muhammadans, as of yore all good Christians, believe that the earth is a flat circular plane; and on the confines of this circle is a ring of lofty mountains extending all round, serving at once to keep folks from falling off, as well as forming a convenient habitation for the jinns, &c., aforesaid.  The mountain, (I am not certain on whose trigonometrical authority) is said to be 500 farasangs or 2000 English miles in height.

[242] With regard to the plain, simple sentence, “yih kahkar takht uthaya,” we have somewhere seen the following erudite criticism, viz.:—­“With deference to Mir Amman, this is bad grammar.  The nominative to kahkar and uthaya ought to be the same!!!” Now, it is a great pity that the critic did not favour us here with his notions of good grammar.  Just observe, O reader, how the expression stands in the text:  “yih kahkar takht uthaya,” and you will naturally ask, “where is the fault in the grammar?” The nominative, or rather the agent, is pari ne, hence the translation, “the fairy, having thus spoken, took up the throne.”  The poor critic seems to confound “uthaya” with “utha.”

[243] One of the would-be poets of our day has translated the above most elegantly and literally, as follows:—­

    “What mischiefs through this love arise! 
    What broken hearts and miseries!”

[244] The Muhammadans have great confidence in charms which are written on slips of paper, along with numerous astrological characters.  They consist chiefly of quotations from the Kuran, and are often diluted in water, and drank as medicine in various distempers.  As the Indian ink and paper can do no harm, and often act as an emetic, they are probably more innocent than the physic administered by eastern physicians, who are the most ignorant of their profession.  The fact is, that the soi disant “teachers” of mankind, in all ages and countries—­the African fetish, the American Indian sachem, the Hindu jogi, the Musalman mulla, and the Romish priest and miracle-monger—­have all agreed on one point, viz., to impose on their silly victims a multitude of unmeaning ceremonies, and absurd mummeries, in order to conceal their own contemptible vacuity of intellect.

[245] The Jata-dhari Gusa,in is a sect of fanatic Hindu mendicants, who let their hair grow and matted, and go almost naked.

[246] Mahadev is a Hindu idol; the emblem of the creative power, and generally and naturally represented by the Lingum.