'
The cramped staircases criticized by Sleeman are those ascending from
the pavement to the roof, one on the north-west, and the other on the
north-east side of the gate. Each flight has 123 steep steps.
13. See the 105th chapter of the Koran. 'Hast thou not seen how thy
Lord dealt with the masters of the elephant? Did he not make their
treacherous design an occasion of drawing them into error; and send
against them flocks of _swallows_ which cast down upon them stones of
baked clay, and rendered them like the leaves of corn eaten by
cattle?' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from Sale's translation, but
Sale uses the word 'birds', and not '_swallows_'. In his note, where
he tells the whole story, he speaks of 'a large flock of birds like
swallows'. The Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani dictionaries give no
other word than 'ababil' for swallow. The word 'partadil' (purtadeel)
occurs in none of them. According to Oates, _Fauna of British India_
(London, 1890), the 'ababil' is the common swallow, _Hirundo
rustica_; and the 'mosque-swallow' ('masjid-ababil'), otherwise
called 'Sykes's striated swallow', is the _H.
Pages:
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790