Note 106 — SIR RICHARD F. BURTON

I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the strange error that "apparitions are unknown in Arabia." Arabs fear to sleep alone, to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during dark, and to sit amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions. And Arabia, together with Persia, has supplied half the Western World—Southern Europe—with its ghost stories and tales of angels, demons, and fairies. To quote Milton, the land is struck "with superstition as with a planet." [106]