ic 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).
[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).
[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). [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." [489]

Mr. Payne's edition contains notes, but they were