centuries.  The Caliph Mu’awiyah when passing the cave sent into it some explorers who were all killed by a burning wind.  The number of the sleepers remains uncertain, according to the Koran (ibid. v. 21) three, five or seven and their sleep lasted either three hundred or three hundred and nine years.  The dog (ibid. v. 17) slept at the cave-entrance with paws outstretched and, according to the general, was called “Katmir” or “Kitmir;” but Al-Rakim (v. 8) is also applied to it by some.  Others hold this to be the name of the valley or mountain and others of a stone or leaden tablet on which their names were engraved by their countrymen who built a chapel on the spot (v. 20).  Others again make the Men of Al-Rakim distinct from the Cave-men, and believe (with Bayzawi) that they were three youths who were shut up in a grotto by a rock-slip.  Each prayed for help through the merits of some good deed:  when the first had adjured Allah the mountain cracked till light appeared; at the second petition it split so that they saw one another and after the third it opened.  However that may be, Kitmir is one of the seven favoured animals:  the others being the Hudhud (hoopoe) of Solomon (Koran xxii. 20); the she-camel of Salih (chaps.  Ixxxvii.); the cow of Moses which named the Second Surah; the fish of Jonah; the serpent of Eve, and the peacock of Paradise.  For Koranic revelations of the Cave see the late Thomas Chenery (p. 414 The Assemblies of Al-Hariri:  Williams and Norgate, 1870) who borrows from the historian Tabari.

[FN#149] These lines have occurred in Night cxlvi.:  I quote Mr. Payne by way of variety.

[FN#150] The wolf (truly enough to nature) is the wicked man without redeeming traits; the fox of Arab folk-lore is the cunning man who can do good on occasion.  Here the latter is called “Sa’alab” which may, I have noted, mean the jackal; but further on “Father of a Fortlet” refers especially to the fox.  Herodotus refers to the gregarious Canis Aureus when he describes Egyptian wolves as being “not much bigger than foxes” (ii. 67).  Canon Rawlinson, in his unhappy version, does not perceive that the Halicarnassian means the jackal and blunders about the hyena.

[FN#151] The older “Leila” or “Leyla”:  it is a common name and is here applied to woman in general.  The root is evidently “layl"=nox, with, probably, the idea, “She walks in beauty like the night.”

[FN#152] Arab.  Abu ’l-Hosayn; his hole being his fort (Unexplored Syria, ii. 18).

[FN#153] A Koranic phrase often occurring.

[FN#154] Koran v. 35.

[FN#155] Arab.  “Bazi,” Pers.  “Baz” (here Richardson is wrong s.v.); a term to a certain extent generic, but specially used for the noble Peregrine (F.  Peregrinator) whose tiercel is the Shahin (or “Royal Bird").  It is sometimes applied to the goshawk (Astur palumbarius) whose proper title, however, is Shah-baz (King-hawk).  The Peregrine extends from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin