The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries
Arab. "Mizr" or "Mizar;" vulg. Búzah; hence the medical Lat. Buza,
the Russian Buza (millet beer), our "booze," the O. Dutch "buyzen"
and the German "busen." This is the old ποθὸς θεῖος of negro and
negroid Africa; the beer of Osiris, of which dried remains have been
found in jars amongst Egyptian tombs. In Equatorial Africa it is
known as "Pombe;" on the Upper Nile "Merissa" or "Mirisi" and amongst
the Kafirs (Caffers) "Tshuala," "Oala" or "Boyala:" I have also heard
of "Buswa" in Central Africa which may be the origin of "Buzah." In
the West it became ζῦθος, (Romaic πίῤῥα), Xythum and cerevisia or
cervisia, the humor ex hordeo, long before the days of King
Gambrinus. Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in
Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all
made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on
beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the
grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and
left to ferment. In Egypt the drink is affected chiefly by Berbers,
Nubians and slaves from the Upper Nile; but it is a superior article
and more like that of Europe than the "Pombe." I have given an
account of the manufacture in The Lake Regions of Central Africa,
vol. ii., p. 286. There are other preparations, Umm-bulbul (mother
nightingale), Dinzáyah and Súbiyah, for which I must refer to the
Shaykh El-Tounsy.
Footnote 124:
There is a terrible truth in this satire, which reminds us of the
noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier
laid, ord et infâme of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.)
We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves,
as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and
scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman
one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the
floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting him but, when she does,
adieu husband and children, honour and religion, life and "soul."
Moreover Nature (human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair
and foul, dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be
like the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants
like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as
Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half-truth when he
backed himself, with an hour's start, against the handsomest man in
England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the
Italians say, _un bel brutto_), was the highest recommendation in the
eyes of very beautiful women.
Footnote 125:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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