Note 513 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 6)

Probably fermented to a kind of wine. The insipid fruit (Unnáb) which looks like an apple in miniature, is much used in stews, etc. It is the fruit (Nabak classically Nabik) of Rhamnus Nabeca (or Sidrat) also termed Zizyphus Jujuba, seu Spina Christi because fabled to have formed the crown of thorns: in the English market this plum is called Chinese Japonica. I have described it in Pilgrimage ii. 205, and have noticed the infusion of the leaves for washing the dead (ibid. ii. 105): this is especially the use of the "Ber" in India, where the leaves are superstitiously held peculiarly pure. Our dictionaries translate "Sidr" by "Lote-tree"; and no wonder that believers in Homeric writ feel their bile aroused by so poor a realisation of the glorious myth. The Homerids probably alluded to Hashish or Bhang.