Dacca

“ This is, indeed, sometimes done; but such entire rings are very scarce, and are usually preserved in their original pure whiteness with much assiduity. The city of Dacca, so famous for its muslins, carries on a large intercourse with Chittagong, and the coast of Aracan, for conchs, which are used for beetling the finer cloths, manufactured in that populous and rich emporium of cotton fabrics. The noise made by chanking the cloths, which, being laid many folds thick 427upon a large board, are beat with conchs, wherein handles are inserted, is peculiarly distressing to an unaccustomed ear ”

“ I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw thee falling down hill under the idolater—at one time, in one place, in my soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside, shouting in its ear. Then my soul was all alone, and I saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. And I meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried: "What shall come to the boy if thou art dead?" ”

“ The whole gang being taken by some cruiser or other at sea, however, too far off to leave any clue to their harbourage hereabouts, they were all hanged, and the place lost sight of; till a good many years after, a country Arab craft, bound for Dacca up the Ganges, was driven in a gale upon the reefs some way off, without seeing the island at all till the sea went down, and she was going to pieces. ”

“ The district is for the most part level and open, covered with well-cultivated fields, and intersected by numerous rivers. The Madhupur jungle is a slightly elevated tract, extending from the north of Dacca district into the heart of Mymensingh; its average height is about 60 ft. above the level of the surrounding country, and it nowhere exceeds 100 ft. The jungle contains abundance of sāl, valuable both as timber and for charcoal. The only other elevated tract in the district is on the southern border, where the Susang hills rise. ”

“ While the Dayak women and children never showed any fear of me in the house, whenever I met them out in the woods or jungle they would run from me as if I were some kind of wild animal.
I saw several Dayak dances. The men put on their war-plumes and with shield and “parang” (mentioned above) twirl round and round and cut with their “parangs” at an imaginary foe, the women all the time accompanying them with the beating of gongs. Dubi one night showed them a Malay dance, which consisted of a sort of gliding motion and a graceful waving of the hands, quite the reverse of the Dayak dance. ”

“ It is quite certain, signore. He has murdered several obstinate people since I have been here, and the outside world will never know their fate. It is folly to oppose the king. Were you not rich you would not be here. Il Duca knows the exact wealth of every American who travels abroad and is likely to visit Sicily. Many escape him, but a few wander into his toils, for he is wonderfully sagacious. Mark you: he does not demand your all; he merely takes tribute, leaving his victims sufficient to render life desirable to them. ”

“ As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees, stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun. ”

“ Male figures, with a horned cap on the head, and ending in a fish, and priests with fishskins hung above them, are often found on the monuments of Nineveh. As the word Dag means "fish," we may with confidence find in the god Dakan the fish-god of the Babylonians; the god who out of moisture gives plenty, fertility, and increase. That the Canaanites also worshipped Dagon is proved by the names Beth-Dagon and Kaphar-Dagon, which occur near Joppa and Sichem. The Philistines also on the coast of the Mediterranean invoked the same god. ”

“ Dakianos, whose pride this flattered, and who had nothing more to desire of human greatness, promised him to consent to everything.
"Let your throne be placed upon the shore of the sea," pursued the old man.
What he desired was executed. And when Dakianos was placed there, "Prince," said the genie to him, "there is at the bottom of the sea a fish, the bigness of which is known only to Allah, and which every day comes to land. It remains there till noon to adore the Almighty. No person interrupts its prayers: when they are finished, it plunges again to the bottom of the sea." ”

“ Dr. Dakin tells the story that, hearing a terrible noise and disturbance while he was praying in a church in Quincy, he felt constrained to open his eyes to ascertain the cause thereof; and he beheld a red-haired boy firmly clutching the railing on the front edge of the gallery, while a venerable deacon as firmly clutched the boy. The young rebel held fast, and the correcting deacon held fast also, until at last the balustrade gave way, and boy, deacon, and railing fell together with a resounding crash. ”

“ My first real acquaintance with the Sea Dayak was in the long bazaar at Sibu, and I was by no means disappointed in my first impressions, as I found him a most picturesque and interesting individual. The men usually have long black hair hanging down their backs, often with a long fringe on their foreheads. Their skin is brown, they have snub noses but resolute eyes, and they are of fine proportions, though they rarely exceed five feet five inches in height. ”

“ Now, here re-appears the term Daci; so that we must recognise the important fact, that east of the Jazyges there are the Dacians (and Getæ) of the Lower, and west of the Jazyges the Daci of the Upper Danube. These must be placed in the same category, both being equally either Slavonic or non-Slavonic.
a. Of these alternatives, the first involves the following real or apparent difficulty, i. e. that, if the Getæ are what the Daci are, the Thracians are what the Getæ are. ”

“ We stayed in the house nearly the whole day, as the Dayaks wished to dance and feast in our presence. The gongs were kept going, the drums beaten, and all within five yards of us, until our heads were dizzy. Occasionally, from sheer weariness, or from anxiety to partake of the good things produced for the feast, this din would cease, and then we could enter into conversation with the elders.
The dress of the Dayaks is very simple; the men wear the chawat, a strip of cloth round their loins; a jacket and head-dress, the last sometimes of bark, and fantastically put on ”

“ I had known Dacre in England, for my researches in the Assyrian Room of the British Museum had been conducted at the time when he was endeavoring to establish a mystic and esoteric meaning in the Babylonian tablets, and this community of interests had brought us together. Chance remarks had led to daily conversation, and that to something verging upon friendship. I had promised him that on my next visit to Paris I would call upon him. ”

“ When any one dreams of a distant land, as we exiles often do, the Dayaks think that our souls have annihilated space, and paid a flying visit to Europe during the night. Elders and priestesses often assert that in their dreams they have visited the mansion of Tapa, and seen the Creator dwelling in a house like that of a Malay, the interior [190] of which was adorned with guns and gongs and jars innumerable, Himself being clothed like a Dayak.
A dream of sickness to any member of a family always ensures a ceremony ”

“ As the old husbandman passed close by this, an arm was thrust forth from amid the creepers, and the hand thereof grasped him by the shoulder. Tucca, startled out of his comatose state, gave vent to a yelp of surprise, very largely mixed with fear, but it was lost within the gloom of the arbour whither he was dragged.
‘Good morrow, Tucca; you are out betimes; you deserve to be as rich as people say you are.’
Tucca gazed at his captor ”

“ Dacia. From the 6th to the 12th century, wave after wave of barbarian conquerors, Goths, Tatars, Slavs and others, passed over the country, and, according to one school of historians, almost obliterated its original Daco-Roman population; the modern Vlachs, on this theory, representing a later body of immigrants from Transdanubian territory. According to others, the ancient inhabitants were, at worst, only submerged for a time, and their direct descendants are the Rumans of to-day. Each of these conflicting views is supported by strong evidence ”

“ The country generally is flat; there are a few hills down by the Zimboya and Lutuisi rivers to Wankie’s, on the river, conical and flat-topped. But this part is out of Khama’s territory. All east of Panda-ma-Tenka now belongs to the Matabele king. Wankie’s people and town are now on the north side of the Zambese. To the west of that station is the Lechuma Valley. South of Daka the land rises gradually from the Victoria Falls, the falls being 2580 feet above sea-level, and the land south of Daka is 3900 feet at the highest point. ”

“ The Dayaks are almost as dirty as the Negritos in the Philippines, and yet they are both certainly the merriest people I have ever met with. The heartiest and most unaffected laughter I have ever heard proceeded from the throats of Dayaks and Negritos. It almost seems as if dirt in some cases constitutes true happiness. ”

“ The former seems to be resident in Dakhla all the year round; but the latter are migrants, coming into the oasis in March and returning in the autumn after the date harvest. They take somewhat the place in Dakhla that the cuckoo does in England, their advent being regarded as a sign that the winter is past and the summer close at hand. The palm groves of the oasis, [285] when the hot weather comes on, swarm with these pretty little birds, whose soft cooing as they sit swaying in the palm tops is a most melodious sound—extremely pleasant and soothing after a long hot desert journey. ”

“ When all are dead, the proud Dayaks, proceed to hack off the heads of their victims and bind them round with rattan strings with which to carry them, and then, returning in triumph, are hailed with shouts of delight by their envious fellow-villagers, for this means wives, a Dayak maiden thinking as much of heads as a white girl would of jewellery. ”

“ The villages of ancient Dacia were romanized by the natural advance of the Romans, as in the Balkans they assumed the same Roman elements: in their private lives, however, very little can have been changed. We know nothing of the organisation of the Dacian rural community, but it is probable that the «davas» in Dacia and the « paras» in the Balkans were ruled by local chiefs who were in their turn the vassals of valley-princes, the supreme leader being a king of the type of Decebalus:. ”

“ DAKAR, a seaport of Senegal, and capital of French West Africa, in 14° 40′ N., 17° 24′ W. The town, which is strongly fortified, holds a commanding strategic position on the route between western Europe and Brazil and South Africa, being situated in the Gulf of Goree on the eastern side of the peninsula of Cape Verde, the most westerly point of Africa. It is the only port of Senegal affording safe anchorage for the largest ships. ”

“ It proved to be carried by the ancient husbandman himself, attended by her faithful slave, a woman of middle age. Tucca held the lantern as much under the shelter of his sackcloth storm-cloak as was possible, in order to save its feeble flame from the wind; and as it barely gave light to their feet, and their senses were pre-occupied with the bluster of the elements, they failed to perceive the form of Plautia standing motionless in the path awaiting them. ”

“ I replied; “for they are both most estimable people.”
Two days afterwards, I called upon Father Georgi, and he told me, with an air of sorrow, that the great news of the day in Rome was the failure of the attempt to carry off Dalacqua’s daughter, and that all the honour of the intrigue was given to me, which displeased him much. I told him what I had already told Gama, and he appeared to believe me, but he added that in Rome people did not want to know things as they truly were, but only as they wished them to be. ”

“ For a long time I could extract no information from any of them, and it was not till I got to Rashida, and happened to ask the ’omda whether he knew anything about the oasis of Zerzura, that I got any information at all. There is no stopping a native of Dakhla when he gets on that subject, and one begins dimly to realise how very little the East has changed since the days when the “Arabian Nights” were written.
Many of the wealthier natives of the oases, and also, I believe, of the Nile Valley, spend an appreciable portion of their time in hunting for buried treasure. ”

“ Each one will worship some of these divinities and neglect and despise others; but the great object of all their worship, whatever its chosen medium, is the TA-KOO [Pg 433] WAH-KON, which is the supernatural and mysterious. No one term can express the full meaning of the Dakota’s Wakan. It comprehends all mystery, secret power, and divinity. * * * All life is Wakan. So also is everything which exhibits power, whether in action, as the winds and drifting clouds, or in passive endurance, as the bowlder by the wayside. ”

“ News as to the doings of the leaders amongst the Senussia living in the wilds of the Libyan Desert has always been very difficult to obtain; but at that time they were reported in Dakhla to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tibesti, which lay to the south-west of Dakhla Oasis, in [110] the direction of the road we had been following, and it seemed likely, if they were really contemplating a descent upon Egypt, that they might attempt, if water existed upon this road, to make their way along it into Dakhla, and so on to the Nile Valley. ”