[FN#174] i.e..  I cannot look at them long.

[FN#175] Evidently a diabolical way of clapping his hands in applause.  This description of the Foul Fiend has an element of grotesqueness which is rather Christian than Moslem.

[FN#176] Arab.  “Rikki al-Saut,” which may also mean either “lower thy voice,” or “change the air to one less touching.”

[FN#177] “Your” for “thy.”

[FN#178] i.e. written on the “Guarded Tablet” from all eternity.

[FN#179] Arab.  “Al-’Urs wa’al Tubur” which can only mean, ’the wedding (which does not drop out of the tale) and the circumcision.”

[FN#180] I here propose to consider at some length this curious custom which has prevailed amongst so many widely separated races.  Its object has been noted (vol. v. 209), viz. to diminish the sensibility of the glans, no longer lubricated with prostatic lymph; thus the part is hardened against injury and disease and its work in coition is prolonged.  On the other hand, “praeputium in coitu voluptatem (of the woman) auget, unde femina praeputiatis concubitum malunt quam cum Turcis ac Judaeis " says Dimerbroeck (Anatomic).  I vehemently doubt the fact.  Circumcision was doubtless practised from ages immemorial by the peoples of Central Africa, and Welcker found traces of it in a mummy of the xvith century B.C.  The Jews borrowed it from the Egyptian priesthood and made it a manner of sacrament, “uncircumcised” being="unbaptised,” that is, barbarian, heretic; it was a seal of reconciliation, a sign of alliance between the Creator and the Chosen People, a token of nationality imposed upon the body politic.  Thus it became a cruel and odious protestation against the brotherhood of man, and the cosmopolitan Romans derided the verpae ac verpi.  The Jews also used the term figuratively as the “circumcision of fruits” (Lev. xix. 23), and of the heart (Deut. x. 16), and the old law gives copious historical details of its origin and continuance.  Abraham first amputated his horny “calotte” at aet. 99, and did the same for his son and household (Gen. xvii. 24-27).  The rite caused a separation between Moses and his wife (Exod. iv. 25).  It was suspended during the Desert Wanderings and was resumed by Joshua (v. 3-7), who cut off two tons’ weight of prepuces.  The latter became, like the scalps of the Scythians and the North-American “Indians” trophies of victory; Saul promised his daughter Michol to David for a dowry of one hundred, and the son-in-law brought double tale.

Amongst the early Christians opinions concerning the rite differed.  Although the Founder of Christianity was circumcised, St. Paul, who aimed at a cosmopolitan faith discouraged it in the physical phase.  St. Augustine still sustained that the rite removed original sin despite the Fathers who preceded and followed him, Justus, Tertullian, Ambrose and others.  But it gradually lapsed into desuetude and was preserved only in the outlying regions.  Paulus Jovius and