he mountainous tract, south of the Caspian sea;
and it was from this mountain home he obtained that evil
celebrity among the Crusaders, as the OLD MAN OF THE
MOUNTAINS, and spread terror through the Mohammedan world; and
it is yet disputed whether the word _Assassin_, which they
have left in the language of modern Europe as their dark
memorial, is derived from the _hashish_, or opiate of
hemp-leaves (the Indian _bhang_), with which they maddened
themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental desperation, or
from the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom we have seen
in his quiet collegiate days, at Naishapur. One of the
countless victims of the Assassin's dagger was Nizam al Mulk
himself, the old school-boy friend.

"Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier to claim his share; but
not to ask for title or office. 'The greatest boon you can
confer on me,' he said, 'is to let me live in a corner under
the shadow of your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of
Science, and pray for your long life and prosperity.' The
Vizier tells us, that when he found Omar was really sincere
in his refusal, he pressed him no further, but granted him a
yearly pension of 1,200 _mithkals_ of gold from the treasury
of Naishapur.

"At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, 'busied,' adds
the Vizier, 'in winning knowledge of every kind, and
especially in Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high
pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to
Merv, and obtained great praise for his proficiency in
science, and the Sultan showered favours upon him.'

"When Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, Omar was
one of the eight learned men employed to do it; the result was
the _Jalali_ era (so-called from _Jalal-ul-Din_, one of the
king's names)--'a computation of time,' says Gibbon, 'which
surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the
Gregorian style.' He is also the author of some astronomical
tables, entitled 'Ziji-Malikshahi,' and the French have lately
republished and translated an Arabic treatise of his on
Algebra.

"These severe Studies, and his verses, which, though happily
fewer than any Persian Poet's, and, though perhaps fugitively
composed, the Result of no fugitive Emotion or Thought, are
probably the Work and Event of his Life, leaving little