'A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English; with a Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations' [‎35v] (75/1826)

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D IS S E R TAT ION.
it in the air, the wind was expected immediately to
spring up."
Astrology, divination, and the interpretation of
dreams, were fashionable studies with men of rank ;
and they in general carried with them, wherever
they went, pocket astronomical tables, which they
consulted, as well as astrologers, on every affair
of moment.— Amrii y one of the greatest and most
penetrating of the Arabian generals, after having
subdued part of Egypt, and other countries, sat
down before Jerusalem ; and had almost reduced
it to a surrender, when he was told by an astrolo
ger, that the predicted conqueror of the Holy City
had only three letters in his name. Struck with
this, Amru, suspended his operations, and sent a
messenger immediately to his master, the Caliph
Omar, whose name in Arabic consists only of three
letters ; and upon his arrival in the camp, the town
instantly capitulated. Tamerlane seldom marched
till the astrologers fixed the lucky hour; and an
idiot having once thrown a breast of mutton at
him, precisely at the time he was meditating the
conquest of Kh'arazm, sometimes called the breast
of the world, he interpreted it, before all his army,
as an infallible omen of his success. Much good
policy, as well as superstition, may possibly, in
deed, have been at the bottom of Tamerlane^ con
duct ; as it must have highly animated his troops,
who were constitutionally impressed with the most
powerful ideas of omens, spells, and every species
of supernatural belief: a most cruel proof of
which their ancestors had given, when they over-
lan the Caliphat in the thirteenth century: for
many of the Muhammadans having a custom of
carrying about them verses or chapters of the
Kur an, by way of preservatives or charms, the
Tartars considered all they met, with such papers,
as enchanters, and put them to death without
mercy. The Tartars have ever, indeed, been so
strongly impressed with the idea of enchantments,
that we meet with strange details in some of their
most authentic writers. Abtflghazt, king of Kha-
razm, who writes a genealogical history of the Tar
tars, very gravely tells us, that Tull, one of the sons
of Changlz Khan, having been surrounded by the
Kathay or Chinese army, would have been cut to
pieces, had he not ordered one of his magicians to
turn summer into winter. The conjurer accord
ingly began his operations, and continued them
for three days, when he brought down such a
storm of hail and snow, that the Khan of Kathay’s
army, clothed in silken garments and thin stuffs,
being unable to move, were slaughtered without
resistance. 100
Chivalry, or knight-errantry, has ever been so
intimately connected with enchantment, that be
fore we leave this subject, it may not be improper
to make a few remarks on such traces of it as may
be discovered in the East. The peculiar ideas
and habits of a people, as I have often had occa
sion to observe, may be seen in their poems and
romances, with a precision not inferior to their more
serious and moral writings; as a poet of true genius,
though he may ascribe to his heroes more virtues
and fewer faults than are to be found in the im
perfect nature of man, will, at the same time,
ever copy the living manners of the present or
former times.—Single combats in the Shah namah,
and other Eastern works of fancy, are innumera
ble.—Asfandiyar was one of the most famous war
riors in ancient Persia: he challenges, fights, and
kills Arjasb, the son of Afrasiab, king of Turan ;
but being sent by his father against the famous
Rustam, after a single combat, which lasts two
days, he is killed by the blow of a mace ; Rustam
having discovered that he had a charm which ren
dered him invulnerable to spear, sword, or arrow.
—Rustam has several duels with his own son Suh-
rab, whom he did not know : in the last of which he
unfortunately kills him.—Those heroes are armed
with complete coats of mail, plumed helmets,
spears, swords, maces, and shields, with daggers,
hows, and arrows. Their armour, and the trap
pings of their horses, are uncommonly splendid ;
and their mode of attack seems in every shape to
have been exactly similar to the tiltings of knight-
errantry ; excepting in the circumstance of the
bow and arrow, which appears to have been chiefly