iv., 1824).
[6] In another Arabian version, the man desires his wife to moisten some
stale bread she has set before him for supper, and she refuses. After an
altercation it is agreed that the one who speaks first shall get up and
moisten the bread. A neighbour comes in, and, to his surprise, finds
the couple dumb; he kisses the wife, but the man says nothing; he gives
the man a blow, but still he says nothing; he has the man taken before
the kazi, but even yet he says nothing; the kazi orders him to be
hanged, and he is led off to execution, when the wife rushes up and
cries out, "Oh, save my poor husband!" "You wretch," says the man, "go
home and moisten the bread!"
[7] Bang is a preparation of hemp and coarse opium.
[8] From Mr. E.J.W. Gibb's translation of the _Forty Vazirs_
(London: 1886).
[9] Knowles' _Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings_, pp.
197-8. The article bought by the five men is called a _hir_, which
Mr. Knowles says "is the head of any animal used for food," and a
_sheep's_ head were surely fitting food for such noodles. Mr.
Knowles makes it appear that the whole affair of keeping silence was a
mere jest, but we have before seen that it is decidedly meant for a
noodle-story.
[10] _The Orientalist_, 1884, p. 136.
[11] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 284-5.
[12] A separate work from the _Apologie pour Herodote_ Such was the
exasperation of the French clerics at the bitter truths set forth in it,
that the author had to flee the country.
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