THE EMBOLISM AL DAYS. 



173 



and after the East has kept this most venerable 

 festival for 3000 years, we still unconsciously 

 celebrate the death and resurrection of the 

 eternal sun-god. The Beal-tinne is not yet for- 

 gotten in Leinster, nor is the maypole wholly 

 obsolete in England. As early as the days of 

 the Kuraysh, there was an attempt to reconcile 

 the lunar with the solar year, and the Nau-roz, 

 though palpably of Pagan origin, has been 

 adopted by all the maritime peoples professing 

 El Islam. Even the heathen-hating Arab bor- 

 rowed it for his convenience from the Dualists 

 and Trinitarians of Ears and Hindustan. Hence 

 the seras called Kadmi and Jelali. In this 

 second solar sera the Nau-roz was transferred by 

 the new calendar from the vernal equinox to 

 Sept. 14, a.d. 1079, and was called Nau-roz i 

 Mizan (j^j^y)- Amongst the Wasawahili it 

 is known as Siku Khu ya Mwaka, the Great 

 Day of the year. 



Eor the purpose of a stable date, necessary 

 both to agriculture and to navigation, and also 

 for the determination of the monsoons, the 

 people who ignore the embolismal month, and 

 who have no months for the solar year, add, I 

 have said, 10 to 12 days to each lunar year, the 

 true difference being 16 days 9 hrs. min. and 



