[FN#356] This is introduced by the translator; as usual with such unedited tales, the name does not occur till much after the proper place for specifying it.

[FN#357] In text “Iz lam naakhaz-ha, wa-illa,” &c.  A fair specimen of Arab. ellipsis.—­If I catch her not (’twill go hard with me), and unless (I catch her) I will, &c.

[FN#358] i.e.  “How far is the fowl from thee!”

[FN#359] [In the Ms. “turayyih,” a modern form for “turawwih.”—­St.]

[FN#360] [The above translation pre-supposes the reading “Farkhah la atammat,” and would require, I believe, the conjunction “hatta” or “ila an” to express “till.”  I read with the Ms. “la tammat,” and would translate:  “a chick not yet full grown, when the crow seized it and flew away with it,” as a complaint of the father for the anticipated untimely end of his son.—­St.]

[FN#361] For “’Aun,” a high degree amongst the “Genies,” see vol. iv. p. 83.  Readers will be pleased with this description of a Jinni; and not a few will regret that they have not one at command.  Yet the history of man’s locomotion compels us to believe that we are progressing towards the time when humanity will become volatile.  Pre-historic Adam was condemned to “Shanks his mare,” or to “go on footback,” as the Boers have it, and his earliest step was the chariot; for, curious to say, driving amongst most peoples preceded riding, as the row-boat forewent the sailer.  But as men increased and the world became smaller and time shorter the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, after many abortive attempts, converted the chariot into a railway-car and the sailer into a steamer.  Aerostatics are still in their infancy and will grow but little until human society shall find some form of flying an absolute necessity when, as is the history of all inventions, the winged woman (and her man) of Peter Wilkins will pass from fiction into fact.  But long generations must come and go before “homo sapiens” can expect to perfect a practice which in the present state of mundane society would be fatal to all welfare.

[FN#362] Scott (p. 200) “Welcome to the sovereign of the Aoon, friendly to his brethren,” (siddik al Akhwan) etc.  Elsewhere he speaks of “the Oone.”

[FN#363] So he carried a portable “toilette,” like a certain Crown Prince and Prince Bahman in Suppl. vol. iii. 329.

[FN#364] There is another form of the saw in verse:—­

Good is good and he’s best whoso worketh it first; * And ill is for me of provisions the worst.

The provision is=viaticum, provaunt for the way.

[The Ms. has “akram” and “azlam"="the more generous,” “the more iniquitous,” meaning that while good should be requited by good, and evil provokes further evil in retaliation, the beginner in either case deserves the greater praise or blame.—­St.]