Note 7 — OMAR KHAYYAM

The Rashness of the Words, according to D'Herbelot, consisted in being so opposed to those in the Koran: «No Man knows where he shall die.»—This story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally—and when one remembers how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed—so pathetically told by Captain Cook—not by Doctor Hawkesworth—in his Second Voyage (i. 374). When leaving Ulietea, «Oreo's last request was for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain that promise, he asked the name of my Marai (burying-place). As strange a question as this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell him ‹Stepney›; the parish in which I live when in London. I was made to repeat it several times over till they could pronounce it; and then ‹Stepney Marai no Toote› was echoed through an hundred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, ‹No man who used the sea could say where he should be buried.›»