These fans consisted of the trains of peacocks or ostriches, whose quills were set in a long stem, so as to imbricate the plumes in the gradations of their natural growth. Fans of this fashion were formerly used in England. PAGE 256. _... wine hoarded up in bottles, prior to the birth of Mahomet_ The prohibition of wine by the Prophet materially diminished its consumption within the limits of his own dominions. Hence a reserve of it might be expected of the age here specified. The custom of hoarding wine was not unknown to the Persians, though not so often practised by them as by the Greeks and the Romans. “I purchase” (says Lebeid) “the old liquor, at a dear rate, in dark leathern bottles, long reposited; or in casks black with pitch, whose seals I break, and then fill the cheerful goblet.”--_Moallakat_, p. 53. PAGE 256. _... excavated ovens in the rock_ As substitutes for the portable ovens, which were lost. PAGE 257. _... her great camel Alboufaki_ There is a singular and laboured description of a camel in the poem of _Tarafa_; but Alboufaki possessed qualities appropriate to himself, and which rendered him but little less conspicuous than the deformed dun camel of Aad. PAGE 257. _... to set forward, notwithstanding it was noon_ The employment of woodfellers was accounted of all others the most toilsome, as those occupied in it were compelled to forgo that mid-day cessation with which other labourers were indulged. Inatulla speaks proverbially of “woodmen in the meridian hour, scarce able to raise the arms of languor.” The guides of Carathis being of this occupation, she adroitly availed herself of it to urge them forward, without allowing them that repose during the mid-day fervour which travellers in these climates always enjoyed, and which was deemed so essential to the preservation of their health. PAGE 258. _... the confines of some cemetery_ Places of interment in the East were commonly situated in scenes of solitude. We read of one in the History of the First Calender, abounding with so many monuments, that four days were successively spent in it without the inquirer being able to find the tomb he looked for; and, from the story of Ganem, it appears that the doors of these cemeteries were often left open.--_Arabian Nights_, vol. ii, p. 112; vol. iii, p. 135. PAGE 260. _... a Myrabolan comfit_ The invention of this confection is attributed by M. Cardonne to Avicenna, but there is abundant reason, exclusive of our author’s authority, to suppose it of a much earlier origin. Both the Latins and Greeks were acquainted with the balsam, and the tree that produced it was indigenous in various parts of Arabia. PAGE 261. _... blue fishes_ Fishes of the same colour are mentioned in the _Arabian Nights_; and, like these, were endowed with the gift of speech. PAGE 262. _... waving streamers on which were inscribed the names of Allah and the Prophet_