The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled
with a crown. The splendid little bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo
Sultaun, found at Seringapatam in 1799, was intended to represent this
poetical fancy."
[140] "To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions,
figures, etc., on those rocks, which have from thence acquired the name of
the Written Mountain."--_Volney_.
M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to attach some mysterious
and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as
Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the
travellers to Mount Sinai, "who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished
rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of
their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but
little skilled in the arts."--_Niebuhr_.
[141] The Story of Sinbad.
[142] "The Camalata (called by Linnaeus, Ipomaea) is the most beautiful of
its order, both in the color and form of its leaves and flowers; its
elegant blossoms are 'celestial rosy red, Love's proper hue,' and have
justly procured is the name of Camalata, or Love's creeper."--_Sir W.
Jones_.
[143] "According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the
mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as
the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself
encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end
of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself.
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