Note 40 — THE TALE OF ZAYN AL-ASNAM. (ARABIC.)

Lit. = the Day of Assembly, “Yaum al-Mahshar.” These lines were translated at Cannes on Feb. 22nd, 1886, the day before the earthquake which brought desolation upon the Riviera. It was a second curious coincidence. On Thursday, July 10th, 1863—the morning when the great earthquake at Accra laid in ruins the town and the stout old fort built in the days of James II—I had been reading the Koranic chapter entitled “Earthquakes” (No. XCIX) to some Moslem friends who had visited my quarters. Upwards of a decade afterwards I described the accident in “Ocean Highways,” (New Series, No. II., Vol. I. pp. 448–461), owned by Trübner & Co., and edited by my friend Clements Markham, and I only regret that this able Magazine has been extinguished by that dullest of Journals, “Proceedings of the R. S. S. and monthly record of Geography.”