its mangoes, which are certainly the best fruit I ever tasted. The parent tree, from which all those of this species have been grafted, is honoured during the fruit-season by a guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers were stationed between Delhi and the Mahratta coast to secure an abundant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table.”—(Mrs. Graham's "Journal of a Residence in India.")

P. 110.-His fine antique porcelain.—This old porcelain is found in digging, and "if it is esteemed, it is not because it has acquired any new degree of beauty in the earth, but because it has retained its ancient beauty; and this alone is of great importance in China, where they give large sums for the smallest vessels which were used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang, at which time porcelain began to be used by the Emperors" (about the year 442).-(Dunn's "Collection of curious Observations," etc.;—a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits.)

P. 112.-Nasser, the Arabian merchant.-"La lecture de ces Fables plaisoit si fort aux Arabes, que, quand Mahomet les entretenoit de l'Histoire de l'Ancien Testament, ils la méprisoient, lui disant que celles que Nasser leur racontoit étoient beaucoup plus belles. Cette préférence attira à Nasser la malédiction de Mahomet et de tous ses disciples."—(D'Herbelot.)

P. 112.-The blacksmith's apron converted into a banner.— The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the tyrant Zohak, and whose apron became the Royal Standard of Persia.

P. 114.-That sublime bird, which flies always in the air."The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air, and never touch the ground; it is looked upon as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades will in time wear a crown."-(Richardson.)

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In the terms of alliance made by Fuzzel Oola Khan with Hyder in 1760, one of the stipulations was, that he should have the distinction of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fans composed of the feathers of the Humma, according to the practice of his family."-(Wilks's "South

"The Humma is a fabulous

of India." He adds in a note: bird. The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled with a crown. The splendid little bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo Sultaun, found at Seringapatam in 1799, was intended to represent this poetical fancy."

P. 114.-Words like those on the Written Mountain.—“To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions, figures, etc., on those rocks, which have from thence acquired the name of the Written Mountain."—(Volney.) M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to attach some mysterious and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, "who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts."-(Niebuhr.)

P. 115.-Like the Old Man of the Sea.-The Story of Sinbad.

P. 115.-Hafez compares his mistress's hair.-See Nott's "Hafez," Ode v.

P. 115.-The Cámalatá.-" The Cámalatá (called by Linnæus, Ipomea) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the colour and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are celestial rosy red, Love's proper hue,' and have justly procured it the name of Cámalatá, or Love's Creeper.

"Cámalatá may also mean a mythological plant by which all desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of Indra; and if ever flower was worthy of Paradise, it is our charming Ipomea."-(Sir W. Jones.)

P. 116.-That flower-loving Nymph.—“According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son as radiant as herself."-("Asiatic Researches.")

P. 117.-Its plane-tree Isle.-"Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane-trees upon it."-(Foster.)

P. 117.-The golden floods.-"The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it."-(Pinkerton's Description of Tibet.)

P. 118.-Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.-"The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise."-(Sir W. Jones.) It appears, however, from a curious letter of the Sultan of Menangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. "This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere."- (Marsden's "Sumatra.")

P. 118.-Flung at night from angel hands.—“ The Mahometans suppose that falling stars are the firebrands wherewith the good angels drive away the bad, when they approach too near the empyrean or verge of the heavens."-(Fryer.)

P. 119. The pillars of Chilminar.-The Forty Pillars; so the Persians call the ruins of Persepolis. It is imagined by them that this palace and the edifices at Balbec were built by Genii, for the purpose of hiding in their subterraneous caverns immense treasures, which still remain there.-(See D'Herbelot and Volney.)

P. 119. To the south of sun-bright Araby.-The Isles of Panchaia. Diodorus mentions the Isle of Panchaia, to the south of Arabia Felix, where there was a temple of Jupiter. This island, or rather cluster of isles, has disappeared, "sunk," says Grandpré, "in the abyss made by the fire beneath their foundations."-("Voyage to the Indian Ocean.")

P. 119.-The jewell'd cup of their King Jamshid.—“The cup of Jamshid, discovered, they say, when digging for the foundations of Persepolis."-(Richardson.)

P. 119.-O'er coral rocks and amber beds." It is not like

the Sea of India, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris, whose mountains of the coast are stored with gold and precious stones, whose gulfs breed creatures that yield ivory, and among the plants of whose shores are ebony, red wood, and the wood of Hairzan, aloes, camphor, cloves, sandal-wood, and all other spices and aromatics; where parrots and peacocks are, birds of the forest, and musk and civet are collected upon the lands."-("Travels of Two Mohammedans.")

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P. 120.-Thy Pagods and thy pillar'd shades.

"In the ground

The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade,

High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between."—(Milton.) For a particular description and plate of the Banyan-tree, see Cordiner's "Ceylon."

P. 120.-Thy Monarchs and their Thousand Thrones."With this immense treasure Mamood returned to Ghizni, and in the year 400 prepared a magnificent festival, where he displayed to the people his wealth in golden thrones and in other ornaments, in a great plain without the city of Ghizni." -(Ferishta.)

P. 120.-'Tis he of Gazna.-"Mahmood of Gazna, or Ghizni, who conquered India in the beginning of the eleventh century."-(See his history in Dow and Sir J. Malcolm.)

P. 120. His bloodhounds he adorns with gems." It is reported that the hunting equipage of the Sultan Mahmood was so magnificent that he kept 400 greyhounds and bloodhounds, each of which wore a collar set with jewels, and a covering edged with gold and pearls."-(“Universal History," vol. iii.)

P. 121.-For Liberty.-Objections may be made to my use of the word Liberty in this, and more especially in the story that follows it, as totally inapplicable to any state of things that has ever existed in the East; but though I cannot, of course, mean to employ it in that enlarged and noble sense which is so well understood at the present day, and, I grieve to say, so little acted upon, yet it is no disparagement to the word to apply it to that national independence, that freedom from the interference and dictation of foreigners, without

which, indeed, no liberty of any kind can exist; and for which both Hindoos and Persians fought against their Mussulman invaders with, in many cases, a bravery that deserved much better success.

P. 122.-Afric's lunar Mountains.-"The Mountains of the Moon, or the Montes Lunæ of antiquity, at the foot of which the Nile is supposed to rise."—(Bruce.)

"Sometimes called," says Jackson, "Jibbel Kumrie, or the white or lunar-coloured mountains; so a white horse is called by the Arabians a moon-coloured horse."

P. 122.-The new-born Giant's smile.-"The Nile, which the Abyssinians know by the names of Abey and Alawy, or the Giant."—(" Asiatic Researches," vol. i. p. 387.)

P. 122. Her grots, and sepulchres of Kings. See Perry's "View of the Levant" for an account of the sepulchres in Upper Thebes, and the numberless grots, covered all over with hieroglyphics, in the mountains of Upper Egypt.

P. 122.-The doves in warm Rosetta's vale.-"The orchards of Rosetta are filled with turtle-doves."-(Sonnini.)

P. 122.-The white pelicans.-Savary mentions the pelicans upon Lake Moris.

P. 123.-Lovely date-trees bending.-"The superb date-tree, whose head languidly reclines, like that of a handsome woman overcome with sleep."-(Dafard el Hadad.)

P. 123. Some purple-wing'd Sultana.-"That beautiful bird, with plumage of the finest shining blue, with purple beak and legs, the natural and living ornament of the temples and palaces of the Greeks and Romans, which, from the stateliness of its port, as well as the brilliancy of its colours, has obtained the title of Sultana.". ."—(Sonnini.)

P. 124. Only the fierce hyaena stalks.-Jackson, speaking of the plague that occurred in West Barbary, when he was there, says, "The birds of the air fled away from the abodes of men. The hyænas, on the contrary, visited the cemeter

ies," etc.

Gondar was full of hyænas from the time it turned dark