35 certain cages of ladies. There are many passages of the Moallakat in which these cages are fully described. Thus, in the poem of Lebeid:—“How were thy tender affections raised, when the damsels of the tribe departed; when they hid themselves in carriages of cotton, like antelopes in their lair, and the tents as they were struck gave piercing sound!

“They were concealed in vehicles, whose sides were well covered with awnings and carpets, with fine-spun curtains and pictured veils.”

Again, Zohair:—

“They are mounted in carriages covered with costly awnings, and with rose-coloured veils, the lining of which have the hue of crimson andem-wood.” Moallakat, by Sir W. Jones, p. 46. 35. See also Lady M. W. Montague, Let. xxvi.

36 the locusts were heard from the thickets on the plain of Catoul. These insects are of the same species with the τιττιξ of the Greeks, and the cicada of the Latins. The locusts are mentioned in Pliny, b. 11. 29. They were so called from loco usto, because the havoc they made wherever they passed left behind the appearance of a place desolated by fire. How could then the commentators of Vathek say that they are called locusts, from their having been so denominated by the first English settlers in America?

37 Vathek—with two little pages. “All the pages of the seraglio are sons of Christians made slaves in time of war, in their most tender age. The incursions of robbers in the confines of Circassia, afford the means of supplying the seraglio, even in times of peace.” Habesci’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 157. That the pages here mentioned were Circassians, appears from the description of their complexion:—more fair than the enamel of Franguistan.

38 Confectioners and cooks. What their precise number might have been in Vathek’s establishment, it is not now easy to determine; but, in the household of the present Grand Seignor, there are not fewer than a hundred and ninety. Habesci’s State, p. 145.

39 torches were lighted. Mr. Marsden relates, in his History of Sumatra, that tigers prove most fatal and destructive enemies to the inhabitants, particularly in their journies; and adds, that the numbers annually slain by those rapacious tyrants of the woods, is almost incredible. As these tremendous enemies are alarmed at the appearance of fire, it is usual for the natives to carry a splendid kind of torch, chiefly to frighten them; and, also, to make a blaze with wood, in different parts, round their villages, p. 149.

40 One of the forests of cedar, that bordered their way, took fire. Accidents of this kind, in Persia, are not unfrequent. “It was an ancient practice with the kings and great men to set fire to large bunches of dry combustibles, fastened round wild beasts and birds, which being then let loose, naturally fled to the woods for shelter, and caused destructive conflagrations.” Richardson’s Dissertat, p. 185.

41 hath seen some part of our bodies; and, what is worse, our very faces. “I was informed,” writes Dr. Cooke, “that the Persian women, in general, would sooner expose to public view any part of their bodies than their faces.” Voyages and Travels, vol. II. p. 443.