[FN#242] Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. 266 et seq.  The fabliau is interesting in more ways than one.  Anepu the elder (Potiphar) understands the language of cattle, an idea ever cropping up in Folk-lore; and Bata (Joseph), his “little brother,” who becomes a “panther of the South (Nubia) for rage” at the wife’s impudique proposal, takes the form of a bull—­ metamorphosis full blown.  It is not, as some have called it, the “oldest book in the world;” that name was given by M. Chabas to a MS. of Proverbs, dating from B.C. 2200.  See also the “Story of Saneha,” a novel earlier than the popular date of Moses, in the Contes Populaires of Egypt.

[FN#243] The fox and the jackal are confounded by the Arabic dialects not by the Persian, whose “Rubah” can never be mistaken for “Shaghal.”  “Sa’lab” among the Semites is locally applied to either beast and we can distinguish the two only by the fox being solitary and rapacious, and the jackal gregarious and a carrion-eater.  In all Hindu tales the jackal seems to be an awkward substitute for the Grecian and classical fox, the Giddar or Kola (Cants aureus) being by no means sly and wily as the Lomri (Vulpes vulgaris).  This is remarked by Weber (Indische Studien) and Prof.  Benfey’s retort about “King Nobel” the lion is by no means to the point.  See Katha Sarit Sagara, ii. 28.

I may add that in Northern Africa jackal’s gall, like jackal’s grape (Solanum nigrum = black nightshade), ass’s milk and melted camel-hump, is used aphrodisiacally as an unguent by both sexes.  See. p. 239, etc., of Le Jardin parfume du Cheikh Nefzaoui, of whom more presently.

[FN#244] Rambler, No. lxvii.

[FN#245] Some years ago I was asked by my old landlady if ever in the course of my travels I had come across Captain Gulliver.

[FN#246] In “The Adventurer” quoted by Mr. Heron, “Translator’s Preface to the Arabian Tales of Chaves and Cazotte.”

[FN#247] “Life in a Levantine Family” chapt. xi.  Since the able author found his “family” firmly believing in The Nights, much has been changed in Alexandria; but the faith in Jinn and Ifrit, ghost and vampire is lively as ever.

[FN#248] The name dates from the second century A. H. or before A. D. 815.

[FN#249] Dabistan i. 231 etc.

[FN#250] Because Si = thirty and Murgh = bird.  In McClenachan’s Addendum to Mackay’s Encyclopaeedia of Freemasonry we find the following definition:  “Simorgh.  A monstrous griffin, guardian of the Persian mysteries.”

[FN#251] For a poor and inadequate description of the festivals commemorating this “Architect of the Gods” see vol. iii. 177, “View of the History etc. of the Hindus” by the learned Dr. Ward, who could see in them only the “low and sordid nature of idolatry.”  But we can hardly expect better things from a missionary in 1822, when no one took the trouble to understand what “idolatry” means.

[FN#252] Rawlinson (ii. 491) on Herod. iii. c. 102.  Nearchus saw the skins of these formicae Indicae, by some rationalists explained as “jackals,” whose stature corresponds with the text, and by others as “pengolens” or ant-eaters (manis pentedactyla).  The learned Sanskritist, H. H. Wilson, quotes the name Pippilika = ant-gold, given by the people of Little Thibet to the precious dust thrown up in the emmet heaps.