242.  I am unwilling to alter the old title to “City of Copper” as it should be; the pure metal having been technologically used long before the alloy of copper and zinc. But the Maroccan City (Night dlxvi. et seq.) was of brass (not copper). The Hindus of Upper India have an Iram which they call Hari Chand’s city (Colonel Tod); and I need hardly mention the Fata Morgana, Island of Saint Borondon; Cape Fly-away; the Flying Dutchman, etc. etc., all the effect of “looming.”

243.  This sword which makes men invisible and which takes place of Siegfried’s Tarnkappe (invisible cloak) and of “Fortunatus’ cap” is common in Moslem folk-lore. The idea probably arose from the venerable practice of inscribing the blades with sentences, verses and magic figures.

244.  Arab. “’Ukáb,” in books an eagle (especially black) and P. N. of constellation but in pop. usage = a vulture. In Egypt it is the Neophron Percnopterus (Jerdon) or N. Gingianus (Latham), the Dijájat Far’aun or Pharaoh’s hen. This bird has been known to kill the Báshah sparrow-hawk (Jerdon i. 60); yet, curious to say, the reviewers of my “Falconry in the Valley of the Indus” questioned the fact, known to so many travellers, that the falcon is also killed by this “tiger of the air,” despite the latter’s feeble bill (pp. 35-38). I was faring badly at their hands when the late Mr. Burckhardt Barker came to the rescue. Falconicide is popularly attributed, not only to the vulture, but also to the crestless hawk-eagle (Nisætus Bonelli) which the Hindus call Morángá = peacock-slayer.

245.  Here I translate “Nahás” = brass; as the “kumkum” (cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.