[FN#200] i.e. the lex talionis, which is the essence of Moslem, and indeed, of all criminal jurisprudence.  We cannot wonder at the judgment of Queen Arwa:  even Confucius, the mildest and most humane of lawgivers, would not pardon the man who allowed his father’s murderer to live.  The Moslem lex talionis (Koran ii. 173) is identical with that of the Jews (Exod. xxi. 24), and the latter probably derives from immemorial usage.  But many modern Rabbins explain away the Mosaical command as rather a demand for a pecuniary mulct than literal retaliation.  The well-known Isaac Aburbanel cites many arguments in proof of this position:  he asks, for instance, supposing the accused have but one eye, should he lose it for having struck out one of another man’s two?  Moreover, he dwells upon the impossibility of inflicting a punishment the exact equivalent of the injury; like Shylock’s pound of flesh without drawing blood.  Moslems, however, know nothing of these frivolities, and if retaliation be demanded the judge must grant it.  There is a legend in Marocco of an English merchant who was compelled to forfeit tooth for tooth at the instance of an old woman, but a profitable concession gilded the pill.

[FN#201] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Bhazmant (!); or the Confident Man.”  “Bakht (-i-) Zaman” in Pers. would=Luck of the Time.

[FN#202] Chavis and Cazotte change the name to “Abadid,” which, like “Khadidan,” is nonsignificant.

[FN#203] Arab.  “Faris,” here a Reiter, or Dugald Dolgetti, as mostly were the hordes led by the mediaeval Italian Condottieri.

[FN#204] So Napoleon the Great also believed that Providence is mostly favorable to “gros bataillons.”

[FN#205] Pers. and Arab.="Good perfection.”

[FN#206] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Baharkan.”  Bihkard (in Shiraz pronounced “Kyard")="Well he did.”

[FN#207] See “Katru” in the Introduction to the Bakhtiyar-namah.

[FN#208] The text has “Jaukalan” for Saulajan, the Persian “Chaugan"=the crooked bat used in Polo.  See vol. 1. 46.

[FN#209] Amongst Moslems, I have noted, circumstantial evidence is not lawful:  the witness must swear to what he has seen.  A curious consideration, how many innocent men have been hanged by “circumstantial evidence.”  See vol. v. 97.

[FN#210] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Abattamant (!), or the Prudent Man;” also Aylan Shah becomes Olensa after Italian fashion.

[FN#211] In Arab. idiom a long hand or arm means power, a phrase not wholly unused in European languages.  Chavis and Cazotte paraphrase “He who keeps his hands crossed upon his breast, shall not see them cut off.”

[FN#212] Arab.  “Jama’a atrafah,” lit.=he drew in his extremities, it being contrary to “etiquette” in the presence of a superior not to cover hands and feet.  In the wild Argentine Republic the savage Gaucho removes his gigantic spurs when coming into the presence of his master.