Note 277 — TALE OF KAMAR AL-ZAMAN,

Arab. "Tayf" = phantom, the nearest approach to our "ghost," that queer remnant of Fetishism imbedded in Christianity; the phantasma, the shade (not the soul) of the dead. Hence the accurate Niebuhr declares, "apparitions (i.e., of the departed) are unknown in Arabia." Haunted houses are there tenanted by Ghuls, Jinns and a host of supernatural creatures; but not by ghosts proper; and a man may live years in Arabia before he ever hears of the "Tayf." With the Hindus it is otherwise (Pilgrimage iii. 144.) Yet the ghost, the embodied fear of the dead and of death is common, in a greater or less degree, to all peoples; and, as modern Spiritualism proves, that ghost is not yet laid.