Note 190 — THE MOCK CALIPH.

Arab. “Túfán” (from the root tauf, going round) a storm, a circular gale, a cyclone; the term universally applied in Al-Islam to the “Deluge,” the “Flood” of Noah. The word is purely Arabic; with a quaint likeness to the Gr. τυφῶν, in Pliny typhon, whirlwind, a giant (Typhœus) whence “Typhon” applied to the great Egyptian god “Set.” The Arab word extended to China and was given to the hurricanes which the people call “Tae-foong,” great winds, a second whimsical resemblance. But Sir John Davis (ii. 383) is hardly correct when he says, “the name typhoon, in itself a corruption of the Chinese term, bears a singular (though we must suppose an accidental) resemblance to the Greek τυφῶν.”