-
"'Et je renoie Dieu, et le pooir qu'il a;
Et Marie, sa Mere, qu'on dist qui le porta;
Mahom voel aourer, aportez-le-moi cha!'
* * * * Li Soudans commanda
Qu'on aportast Mahom; et celle l'aoura." (I. p. 72.)
The same romance brings in the story of the Stone of Samarkand, adapted
from ch. xxxiv., and accounts for its sanctity in Saracen eyes because it
had long formed a pedestal for Mahound!
And this notion gave rise to the use of Mawmet for an idol in general;
whilst from the Mahommerie or place of Islamite worship the name of
mummery came to be applied to idolatrous or unmeaning rituals; both very
unjust etymologies. Thus of mosques in Richard Coeur de Lion:
"Kyrkes they made of Crystene Lawe,
And her Mawmettes lete downe drawe." (Weber, II. 228.)
So Correa calls a golden idol, which was taken by Da Gama in a ship of
Calicut, "an image of Mahomed" (372). Don Quixote too, who ought to have
known better, cites with admiration the feat of Rinaldo in carrying off,
in spite of forty Moors, a golden image of Mahomed.
NOTE 3. - 800 li (160 miles) east of Chokiuka or Yarkand, Hiuen Tsang
comes to Kiustanna (Kustana) or KHOTAN. "The country chiefly consists of
plains covered with stones and sand. The remainder, however, is favourable
to agriculture, and produces everything abundantly. From this country are
got woollen carpets, fine felts, well woven taffetas, white and black
jade." Chinese authors of the 10th century speak of the abundant grapes
and excellent wine of Khotan.
Chinese annals of the 7th and 8th centuries tell us that the people of
Khotan had chronicles of their own, a glimpse of a lost branch of history.
Their writing, laws, and literature were modelled upon those of India.
Ilchi, the modern capital, was visited by Mr. Johnson, of the Indian
Survey, in 1865. The country, after the revolt against the Chinese in
1863, came first under the rule of Habib-ullah, an aged chief calling
himself Khan Badshah of Khotan; and since the treacherous seizure and
murder of Habib-ullah by Ya'kub Beg of Kashgar in January 1867, it has
formed a part of the kingdom of the latter.
Mr. Johnson says: "The chief grains of the country are Indian corn, wheat,
barley of two kinds, bajra, jowar (two kinds of holcus), buckwheat and
rice, all of which are superior to the Indian grains, and are of a very
fine quality.... The country is certainly superior to India, and in every
respect equal to Kashmir, over which it has the advantage of being less
humid, and consequently better suited to the growth of fruits. Olives
(?), pears, apples, peaches, apricots, mulberries, grapes, currants, and
melons, all exceedingly large in size and of a delicious flavour, are
produced in great variety and abundance.... Cotton of valuable quality,
and raw silk, are produced in very large quantities."
[Khotan is the chief place of Turkestan for cotton manufactures; its
kham is to be found everywhere.
