Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/276

 268 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat al-Qulub composed by Ilamd- Allah Mustaufi of Qazwin in 740 (1340). Translated by 6. Le Strange. Printed for the Trustees of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial. (London : Luzac, 1919.) The long series of works published by Mr. Le Strange on Islamic geography form an indispensable part of the plant required by the student of medieval oriental history, and his latest volumes are welcome as furnishing materials for the century which followed the compilation of Yaqut's Gazetteer. To the edition of the Persian original which was issued in 1918 he has now appended an English translation with some notes and an exhaustive index. In the former he has called attention to matter which is not found in other authorities, and which, though not copious, is quite suflBcient to justify the publication of the work. Hamd-Allah's account of Persia and Mesopotamia is detailed, and occupies about half the book ; his acquaintance with other regions is scantier, and he has a great liking for tales of wonder and delight. Two whole chapters are devoted to stories of this sort, but the like are scattered over the professedly geographical chapters, whence much folk-lore could be collected. In Nasibin, where gnats and locusts abound, sealed jars were found in Saladin's time, which it was hoped might contain treasure. They con- tained gnats and locusts, which had been thus locked up with a view of restraining the species ; the spell was broken when the jars were once opened. In Istakhr there are two square pillars, each weighing over 100,000 mann, of a stone not found in the neighbourhood ; powder scraped from these stones and laid on wounds will stanch the flow of blood. At Jajarm there are two plane-trees ; if any one, on a Wednesday morning, take between his teeth some of the bark of these trees, he will never again suffer toothache. If a Jew remains in Abarquh for forty days he dies. In the district of Badghish there is a forest of pistachio- nut trees, where if any one carry off the nuts which another has gathered, that very same night his ass will be eaten by a wolf. The copper-mines of Jaushan near Aleppo, which used to give an enormous output, became unremunerative because the inhabitants mocked the family of Husain when they passed the place as prisoners. In lieu of sacrificing a virgin to the Nile, when it failed to rise, the Caliph Omar wrote the river a letter on a potsherd, which was flung in ; the river proved obsequious. About a hundred years after this writer's time (a. h. 866) the caliph's missive had apparently been forgotten by Father Nile, who was brought to reason by the following process : all the members of the Abbasid family were brought to the Nilometer, and took some water in their mouths, which they discharged into a vessel, which was then emptied into the basin of the Nilometer. Three days later the river rose three inches. Modern gold- miners are credited with the belief that the metal grows. Hamd-Allah records a similar opinion, and for once is sceptical. In Sistan, he says, in the times of the Ghaznevid sultans, what resembled a needle in gold was discovered on the ground ; as they dug lower, it got thicker and so increased until it became of the thickness of a great tree. At a later time the mine became choked by an earthquake, and was lost. Hamd-