[391] The forty figures of monkeys would give the possessor a power over the divs and jinns, and having them at his command, he could easily overset the usurper, alias his uncle.

[392] The Ismi A’zam, or great name of God.—­See note 2, p. 145.

[393] Alluding to the Asiatic custom of the women being concealed from the view of all, except their husbands or very near relations.

[394] The kazis and muftis are the judges in Turkey, Arabia, Persia and Hindustan, of all civil and religious causes; they likewise marry, divorce, &c.

[395] The tija is the same as the siyum.—­See note 2, page 187.

[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.