ant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table." Mrs. Graham's Journal of a Residence in India. 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 ancien 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, &c.— a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits. Page 130. 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. 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 of India. He adds in a note; "The Humma is a fabulous 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." Page 130. Whose words, like those on the Written Mountain, last for ever. - "To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions, figures, &c. 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. Page 130. From the dark hyacinth to which Hafez compares his mistress's hair. Vide Nott's Hafez, Ode v. Page 131. To the Camalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented. "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." Sir W. Jones. "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 Ipomæa.” — Ib. Page 132. That Flower-loving Nymph, whom they worship in the temples of Khathay. 66 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 radiant as herself.". - Asiat. Res. Page 135. That blue flower which, Bramins say, Blooms no where 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. Page 136. I know where the Isles of Perfume are. 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. Page 137. Whose air is balm, whose ocean spreads "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. 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, v. Cordiner's Ceylon. Page 138. 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. Page 140. blood like this, For Liberty shed, so holy is. 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. Page 141. Afric's Lunar Mountains. "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." |