[187] [At a Turkish funeral, after the interment has taken place, the Imâm "assis sur les genoux à côté de la tombe," offers the prayer _Telkin_, and at the conclusion of the prayer recites the _Fathah_, or "opening chapter" of the Korân. ("In the name of the merciful and compassionate God. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Ruler of the day of judgment. Thee we serve, and Thee we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err."--_The Qur'ân_, p. 1, translated by E. H. Palmer, Oxford, 1880): _Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman_, par Mouradja D'Ohsson, Paris, 1787, i. 235-248. Writing to Murray, November 14, 1813, Byron instances the funeral (in the _Bride of Abydos_) as proof of his correctness with regard to local colouring.--_Letters_, 1898, ii. 283.] [188] {207} ["I one evening witnessed a funeral in the vast cemetery of Scutari. An old man, with a venerable beard, threw himself by the side of the narrow grave, and strewing the earth on his head, cried aloud, 'He was my son! my only son!'"--_Constantinople in 1828_, by Charles Macfarlane, 1829, p. 233, note.] [hf] _She whom thy Sultan had been fain to wed_.--[MS.] [189] ["The body of a Moslemin is ordered to be carried to the grave in haste, with hurried steps."--_Ibid._, p. 233, note.] [190] "I came to the place of my birth, and cried, 'The friends of my Youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, 'Where are they?'"--_From an Arabic MS._ The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader: it is given in the second annotation, p. 67, of _The Pleasures of Memory_ [note to Part I. line 103]; a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous: but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur [_Poems_, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, i. 48]. [hg] _There the sad cypress ever glooms_.--[MS.] [hh] {209} _But with the day blush of the sky_.--[MS.] [hi] _And some there be who could believe_.--[MS.] [191] "And airy tongues that _syllable_ men's names." Milton, _Comus_, line 208. For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven (see _Orford's Reminiscences, Lord Orford's Works_, 1798, iv. 283), and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see _Orford's Letters_.