Oasis, from Wah; the Latins first Europeanised this word by substituting the o for the w, and adding a double s, calling zwah, oasis, the plural of which must necessarily be oasis's, thus giving that hissing sound to the articulation, which is so offensive to the ear of the Arab, and for which hissing, which they perceive in the European languages, they say that the articulation of [Ajemmy] Europeans resembles the whistling of birds. Tabor, Kettle-drum-the kettle-drum is originally of the Arabs, and has been used by them from time immemorial; it forms an indispensable part of their bands of music: they are made in Idaulit in the Southern Atlas, from the copper-mines of Teserlergt, and our military kettle-drums are exactly like them; they are made of the same size with those belonging to the regiment of cavalry (the Blues) of which the Duke of Wellington is Colonel. The 27th day of the first grass month, called by the Arabs Arrabea Ellule, is the Anniversary (among some tribes) of the feast or leathering of the kettle-drum, when every indi

vidual brings some present on the occasion. [b] tab'l, the

mutation of l to r, is easily accounted for-it is an oral differ

ence.

Visir, (grand visir, chief or prime minister,) the Turks, or the Europeans, have converted the b into v; the Arabic word is

بصر بصر

Biser, to see, one that sees, inspects, superintends, directs.

Whale, Alwala, a great fish.

Kore, from„ Kure, i. e. a ball, a kernel, the interior of the heart, the pupil of the eye.

Gibraltar, from Jibel and Tarik, i. e. the mountain of Tarik. - After the death of Roderick the last of the Goths, the march of the Moorish General Tarik was rapid and victorious: he ..embarked in the province of El Grarb,' on the opposite coast of Africa, and landing near the foot of the mountain of Gibraltar, which he therefore named after himself Jibel, i. e. the mountain, Tarik of Tarik, he proceeded through the Sierra Morina: among his various conquests, that of Medina Celi was the most splendid and lucrative, for among the spoils was the celebrated golden table, brought from the East

El Grarb is the most northern province of the present Empire, of Marocco; Tangier, Tetuan, and Ceuta, are towns in this province.

by the Goths, at the pillage of Rome, containing 360 feet of solid gold, adorned with emeralds and pearls, which he afterwards presented to the throne of Damascus. Europeans have taken this name from the Moors, who conquered Spain, and by an easy variation call it Gibraltar-a variation by no means extraordinary, when we consider how frequently they pervert Oriental and African names, even to the rendering them unintelligible. This is one etymology.

The Moors of West Barbary and of Suse have another, which is this: the celebrated Mograrbeen prince and geographer, Abadallah ben Edris, (commonly called the Nubian, geographer,) who florished in the 12th century of the Christian Æra, speaking

of [l] the Bahr Ashammi,' i.e. the Mediterranean Sea, says it was [] man, i. e. in ancient times, a lake enclosed on all sides like the Caspian Sea, and its waters had

الاندلس]

no connexion with the [llis:] Bah'r m'dollem, i. e. the Atlantic Ocean. The inhabitants of [] Suse, and [x] Andalusia, were incessantly at war till the time of Alexander, who coming to Andalusia, the people complained heavily to him of the [] i. e. the people of Africa. Alexander (the Great) then formed the plan of separating their countries by cutting a passage for the waters of the Mediterranean into the [Bahar mdoll'm], or Atlantic Ocean for this purpose he fixed upon Ezzokák, a hollow, near the mountain of Gibraltar; he then ordered the ground to be dug up between Tanjier and Ezzokat in Andalusia; he then built a mole on each side, one near Tanjier and one near Azzokak; he then continued the excavation till the water rushing in from the (Baharmdolm,) Atlantic Ocean, overflowed many towns, and rose above the moles (Ahadashra kama't) 11 fathoms. Edris relates that he himself saw the mole under water on the Andalusian side, and that the people of Algaziras called it the bridge; the centre of this building corresponds with the place where (Hajar el bilbil) the Camel's Rock hangs over the sea: in those days,

Palestine is called by the Arabs Bled Ashsham, and the Bahar Ashshammi, takes its name from this country.

At the period here alluded to by the Mograrbeen geographer, the kingdom of Suse extended from Sahara to the Straits of Gibraltar; by Suse therefore is meant Africa, and by Andalusia is meant Spain.

3 Algazira is the Arabic for an island; the Camel's Rock has been levelled for military operations, and is probably now the Battery on that Island.

Tariffa and Trafalgar were included in, or formed the northern part of Algrarb, and joined Andalusia. This being premised, I should observe, that after cutting the separation, the people of Elgrarb still called [ú),↓] Tariffa, the little piece,' q. d. the

13

little piece of Elgrarb and Trafalgar, they call [lb] trafelgrarb, i. e. the piece cut off from the grarb, that is from the province of Elgrarb now so called, in which Tanjier and Ceuta are situated: they also call Gibraltar [b]' jibbeltraf, i. e. the mountain of the piece of Elgrarb, or the mountain of Tariffa; this is the Mauritanian etymology of the word Gibraltar.,

OBSERVATIONS

On the Translation of an Arabic Paper relative to Mungo Park's Death.

THERE is a letter signed A. Salemé in the 3rd Number of the Annals of Oriental Literature, recently published, which contains various accusations against me-accusations which I am not conscious of deserving the letter alluded to has been, however, sufficiently answered by me in Cursory Observations, &c. inserted in the Classical Journal, No. XLII. p. 299.; and I really should not have thought this letter deserving a reply, if I had not reflected, that my silence on such an occasion might be interpreted into a conviction that I have actually misinterpreted this Arabic or Moorish document, supposed to contain an account of Mungo Park's death, inserted in Mr. Bowdich's account of a Mission to Ashantee.

The writer of this letter assumes, that my Cursory Observations in the 42nd Number of the Classical Journal, or in the 1st No. of Annals of Oriental Literature, were written for the purpose

Traf a piece, turiffa a little piece, Arabic.

of

2 The name of Ceuta among the Moors is Cibta, from Sebata jibbel, Arab. i. e. the seven hills or points of which the mountain of Cibta is composed.

3 Sb Ja jibbel-traf, q. d. Gibraltar, vide the Emperor Soliman's Arabic letter to our late revered Sovereign George the Third, in Jackson's enlarged account of Marocco, p. 322. L. 3rd and 4th,

injuring his reputation, not to investigate the inaccuracy of his translation, and that my observations were entirely destitute of any scientific elucidation.

To these positions, I answer, and solemnly declare before all the world, (as I have before done,) that 1 had no intention to injure Mr. Salemé's reputation; but I was urged to give Mr. Bowdich the decyplier, as well as the translation of the document concerning Mungo Park's death, solely from a desire to be of serrice to my country and to elicit the truth, Mr. Bowdich having informed me that his Book was nearly ready for publication, and that he had endeavoured, in vain, to get a decypher of the document. Afterwards, when Mr. Saleme's translation was confronted with mine in the Quarterly Review, without the original, it became a duty which I owed to myself, after the Quarterly Review (a book of extraordinary circulation) had asserted that Mr. Salemé's translation was preferable to mine, to investigate the matter. Accordingly, I asked several of my friends what they candidly thought of Mr. Salemé's translation; there was among them but one opinion, viz. that it was unintelligible; at the same time they observed that mine was perspicuous and intelligible, but no opinion could be given as to the accuracy of the translation. The observations in the Quarterly Review were calculated to cast a discredit in this country, the Continent, and in Africa, on my translation; so that if I had not presented to the world my Cursory Observations, in addition to the decypher of the document, my friends in all parts of the world would have thought, after reading the animadversions in the Quarterly Review, that I had forgotten the language of the Arabs, and could not translate it! I was unwilling that such an impression should go abroad and prevail in the minds of my learned and Oriental friends. The first attack on my translation was, however, made long before that in the Quarterly Review; it was contained in the Englishman (Newspaper) of Sunday, 2nd of May, 1819; and, according with the adage nemo me impune lacessit, I answered it in the following Number; therefore if Mr. Salemé is sore at my observations, he should recollect that the impetus was given to me by his own observations, in the paper above alluded to. I am now persuaded, from the measures taken in this matter by Mr. Salemé and his coadjutors, that if I had remained silent and had not replied to the insidious observations, first in the Englishman, and in the Times, and then in the Quarterly Review, the result of these suggestions, so widely circulated through these papers, would have impressed on the public mind an opinion, that I am a blunderer and a pretender only to a knowledge

of Arabic, and Mr. Salemé would have had the reputation (to my prejudice) of an accomplished Arabic scholar, among the majority of readers.

But there was a stimulus much stronger than these, which prompted me thus to appear before the public with my Cursory Observations, which was a fear that the Arabic professors on the Continent might think, not only that I had forgotten the language, but that there was no one in Great Britain that understood it; and a reference to the original document in Mr. Bowdich's Account of a Mission to Ashantee, confronted with Mr. Salemé's translation, would unquestionably have confirmed this opinion. I now declare, that Mr. Salemé's accusation, that I have substituted in this decypher, the letter દ

for ع خ for ض وص for

and so on, is without foundation; for a confirmation of this declaration I confidently refer the inquisitive reader to the original manuscript, in the possession of the African Company. I moreover declare, that I paid all possible attention to the decypher, insomuch that I consider it equal in the accuracy of the copy to, and more intelligible than, a fac-simile could have been; and I confidently declare, that I do not think a word, a letter, a line, or a point, is either added or omitted, except that the Oriental punctuation was necessarily substituted for the Occidental, because Mr. Bulmer, the proprietor of the Shakspear press, had not an Arabic type with the Occidental punctuation.

With respect to the scientific elucidation on the Arab language, alluded to in the 3rd Number of the Annals of Oriental Literature, p. 508, the absence of which is regretted by Mr. Salemé, I have only to remark, that an illiterate, ungrammatical, doggerel writing, like that decyphered by me, did not require a scientific elucidation; a scientific dissertation on such a composition would have been an absurdity.

Mr. Salemé discovers his irritation at my calling the transcrip tion of the supposed account of Mr. Park's death a decypher, and he says Mr. Jackson was not ashamed to call it a decypher. Certainly I was not, and I maintain that the apt and correct name or appellation of a paper which could not be printed without an elucidation, is, to all intents and purposes, a decypher-no printer could have printed it without a decypher, which Mr. Bowdich himself informed me he had in vain endeavoured to procure until I gave him mine.

Mr. Salemé goes on to say,

that the Barbarians of Marocco,'

* If the Barbarians of Marocco were not a polished race, compared to