“Swan-maidens.  ‘And became three maidens’ (Story of Janshah).[FN#484] We go much too far for an explanation of the legend; a high bred girl is so much like a swan[FN#485] in many points that the idea readily suggests itself.  And it is also aided by the old Egyptian (and Platonic) belief in pre-existence, and by the Rabbinic and Buddhistic doctrine of Ante-Natal sin, to say nothing of metempsychosis. (Josephus’ Antiq., xvii., 153).”

“The Firedrake.  ‘I am the Haunter of this place’ (Ma’aruf the Cobbler).[FN#486] Arab, Amir=one who inhabiteth.  Ruins and impure places are the favourite homes of the Jinn.”

“Sticking Coins on the Face.  ‘Sticks the gold dinar’ (Ali Nur al-Din).[FN#487] It is the custom for fast youths in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere to stick small gold pieces, mere spangles of metal, on the brows, cheeks and lips of the singing and dancing girls, and the perspiration and mask of cosmetics make them adhere for a time, till fresh movement shakes them off.”

“Fillets hung on trees.  ’Over the grave was a tall tree, on which hung fillets of red and green’ (Otbah and Rayya).[FN#488] Lane and many others are puzzled about the use of these articles.  In many cases they are suspended to trees in order to transfer sickness from the body to the tree and to whoever shall touch it.  The Sawahili people term such articles a Keti (seat or vehicle) for the mysterious haunter of the tree, who prefers occupying it to the patient’s person.  Briefly the custom, still popular throughout Arabia, is African and Fetish.”

The value of the notes depends, of course, upon the fact that they are the result of personal observation.  In his knowledge of Eastern peoples, languages and customs Burton stands alone.  He is first and there is no second.  His defence of his notes will be found in the last volume of his Supplemental Nights.  We may quote a few sentences to show the drift of it.  He says “The England of our day would fain bring up both sexes and keep all ages in profound ignorance of sexual and intersexual relations; and the consequences of that imbecility are particularly cruel and afflicting.  How often do we hear women in Society lamenting that they have absolutely no knowledge of their own physiology. ...  Shall we ever understand that ignorance is not innocence.  What an absurdum is a veteran officer who has spent a quarter of a century in the East without knowing that all Moslem women are circumcised, and without a notion of how female circumcision is effected,” and then he goes on to ridicule what the “modern Englishwoman and her Anglo-American sister have become under the working of a mock modesty which too often acts cloak to real devergondage; and how Respectability unmakes what Nature made."[FN#489]