EASTERN INTERLUDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 4

EASTERN INTERLUDE

AN ENTERTAINING ANTHOLOGY “ Week End Caravan." By S. Hillelson. London: William Hodge. 11s. For a thousand and one nights Scheherazade amused a monarch with tales of men and women, in love and commerce and in war. The audience to which Mr Hillelson appeals may not be so capricious as that royal master, but it will be delighted with this potpourri of the Pastern muses. There are poems, songs, and discourses, both solemn and saucy, from Cairo to Samarkand. There is also history, “ natural and unnatural," as well as recipes to tempt the most jaded palate, and specific instructions for magicians who wish to conjure up jinns, to annihilate space, or to perform other wonders. A certain love spell, for instance, is to take some dust of the footprints of the desired one, a little hair from her head, and, wrapping these in a portion of her garment, recite the name of the moon seven thousand and seven times at the appropriate hour. Fumigate yoursell with incense and bury the bundle in the grave of an unknown person, and great love will (or should) be your sure reward. Also, if you place the eye of a hyena in vinegar for seven days and then put it under the stone in a ring it will rid an enchanted person of witchcraft. An item of natural history which is also little known is that an enormous fish, known as a whale or ambergris, has wings the size of bridges, and that when this monster appears hear a ship sailors beat on drums to frighten it away. The poems, tales, and narratives are splendid selections, and include extracts from well-known Arabian and Persian works. The decorations by Olga Lehmann are an added adornment to a highly-diverting book.