[FN#363] In sign of impatience; “Look sharp!”

[FN#364] i.e. the resemblance of the supposed sister to his wife.  This is a rechauffe of Kamar al-Zaman iid.

[FN#365] This leaving a long lock upon the shaven poll is a very ancient practice:  we find it amongst the old Egyptians.  For the Shushah or top-knot of hair, see vol. i. 308.  It is differently worn in the several regions of the Moslem world:  the Maroccans of the Rif country grow it not on the poll but on one side of the head.  As a rule, however, it is confined to boys, and is shaved off at puberty.

[FN#366] Suspecting her to be a witch because she was old and poor.  The same was the case in Europe when these unfortunates were burned during the early part of the last century and even now the country-folk are often ready to beat or drown them.  The abominable witchcraft acts, which arose from bibliolatry and belief in obsolete superstitions, can claim as many victims in “Protestant” countries, England and the Anglo-American States as the Jesuitical Inquisition.

[FN#367] It is not easy to make sense of this passage especially when the Wazir is spoken of.

[FN#368] This is a rechauffe of the Sandal-Wood Merchant and the Sharpers.  Vol. vi. 202.

[FN#369] I have followed Mr. Payne’s adaptation of the text as he makes sense, whilst the Arabic does not.  I suppose that the holes are disposed crosswise.

[FN#370] i.e.  Thy skill is so great that thou wilt undermine my authority with the king.

[FN#371] This famous tale is first found in a small collection of Latin fables (Adolphi Fabulae apud Leyser Hist.  Poet.  Medii AEvi, p. 200-8), beginning

     Caecus erat quidam, cui pulcra virago, etc.

The date is 1315, and Caxton printed it in English in 1483; hence it was adopted by Boccaccio, Day vii., Novella 9; whence Chaucer’s “Marchaundes Tale”:  this, by-the-by, was translated by Pope in his sixteenth or seventeenth year, and christened “January and May.”  The same story is inserted in La Fontaine (Contes, lib. ii., No. 8), “La Gageure des trois Commeres,” with the normal poirier; and lastly it appears in Wieland’s “Oberon,” canto vi.; where the Fairy King restores the old husband’s sight, and Titania makes the lover on the pear-tree invisible.  Mr. Clouston refers me also to the Bahar-i-Danish, or Prime of Knowledge (Scott’s translation, vol. ii., pp. 64-68); “How the Brahman learned the Tirrea Bede”; to the Turkish “Kirk Wazir” (Forty Wazirs) of the Shaykh-Zadeh (xxivth Wazir’s story); to the “Comoedia Lydiae,” and to Barbazan’s “Fabliaux et Contes” t. iii. p. 451, “La Saineresse,” the cupping-woman.

[FN#372] In the European versions it is always a pear-tree.

[FN#373] This supernatural agency, ever at hand and ever credible to Easterns, makes this the most satisfactory version of the world-wide tale.

[FN#374] i.e. till next harvest time.