hristian communion. He was named Monzaida.

[460] _The sacred pledge of eastern faith._--To eat together was, and
still is, in the east looked upon as the inviolable pledge of
protection. As a Persian nobleman was one day walking in his garden, a
wretch in the utmost terror prostrated himself before him, and implored
to be protected from the rage of a multitude who were in pursuit of him,
to take his life. The nobleman took a peach, eat part of it, and gave
the rest to the fugitive, assuring him of safety. As they approached the
house, they met a crowd who carried the murdered corpse of the
nobleman's beloved son. The incensed populace demanded the murderer, who
stood beside him, to be delivered to their fury. The father, though
overwhelmed with grief and anger, replied, "We have eaten together, and
I will not betray him." He protected the murderer of his son from the
fury of his domestics and neighbours, and in the night facilitated his
escape.

[461] _i.e._ crescent-shaped.--_Ed._

[462] _In Rhodope._--The beautiful fable of the descent of Orpheus to
hell, for the recovery of his beloved wife, Eurydice, will be found in
Virgil's Georgics, bk. iv., lines 460-80.--_Ed._

[463]

(_For now the banquet on the tented plain,
And sylvan chase his careless hours employ_).--

The great Mogul, and other eastern sovereigns, attended by their
courtiers, spend annually some months of the finest season in
encampments in the field, in hunting parties, and military amusements.

[464] _Th' enormous mountain._--The Himalaya range, which is a
continuation of an immense chain of mountains girdling the northern
regions of the earth and known by various names, as Caucasus, Homodus,
Paropamissus, Imaus, etc., and from Imaus extended through Tartary to
the sea of Kamschatka. Not the range of mountains so called in Asia
Minor.--_Ed._

[465] _As wild traditions tell._--Pliny, imposed upon by some Greeks,
who pretended to have been in India, relates this fable.--Vide Nat.
Hist. lib. 12.

[466] _Is fondly plac'd in Ganges' holy wave._--Almost all the Indian
nations attribute to the Ganges the virtue of cleansing the soul from
the stains of sin. They have such veneration for this river, that if any
one in their presence were to throw any filth into the stream, an
instant death would punish his audacity.

[467] Cambaya, the ancient Camanes of Ptolemy, gives name to the gulf of
that name at the head of which it is situated. It i