[FN#295] Arab. "Hazár" (in Persian, a thousand) = a kind of mocking

bird.

[FN#296] Some Edits. make the doors number a hundred, but the

Princesses were forty and these coincidences, which seem to have

significance and have none save for Arab symmetromania, are common in

Arab stories.

[FN#297] Arab. "Májur": hence possibly our "mazer," which is popularly

derived from Masarn, a maple.

[FN#298] A compound scent of ambergris, musk and aloes.

[FN#299] The ends of the bridle-reins forming the whip.

[FN#300] The flying horse is Pegasus which is a Greek travesty of an

Egyptian myth developed India.

[FN#301] The Bres. Edit. wrongly says "the seventh."

[FN#302] Arab. "Sharmutah" (plur. Sharámít) from the root Sharmat, to

shred, a favourite Egyptian word also applied in vulgar speech to a

strumpet, a punk, a piece. It is also the popular term for strips of

jerked or boucaned meat hung up m the sun to dry, and classically

called "Kadíd."

[FN#303] Arab. "Izár," the man's waistcloth opposed to the Ridá or

shoulder-cloth, is also the sheet of white calico worn by the poorer

Egyptian women out of doors and covering head and hands. See Lane (M.

E., chapt. i.). The rich prefer a "Habárah" of black silk, and the

poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.

[FN#304] i.e. "My dears."

[FN#305] Arab. "Lá tawákhizná:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;"

the pop. expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."

[FN#306] Arab. "Maskhút," mostly applied to change of shape as man

enchanted to monkey, and in vulgar parlance applied to a statue (of

stone, etc.). The list of metamorphoses in Al-Islam is longer than that

known to Ovid. Those who have seen Petra, the Greek town of the Haurán

and the Roman ruins in Northern Africa will readily detect the basis

upon which these stories are built. I shall return to this subject in

The City of Iram (Night cclxxvi.) and The City of Brass (dlxvii.).

[FN#307] A picturesque phrase enough to express a deserted site, a

spectacle familiar to the Nomades and always abounding in pathos to the

citizens.

[FN#308] The olden "Harem" (or gynæceum, Pers. Zenanah, Serraglio):

Harím is also used by synecdoche for the inmates; especially the wife.

[FN#309] The pearl is supposed in the East to lose 1% per ann. of its

splendour and value.

[FN#310] Arab. "Fass," properly the bezel of a ring; also a gem cut en

cabochon and generally the contenant for the contenu.

[FN#311] Arab. "Mihráb" = the arch-headed niche in the Mosque-wall

facing Meccah-wards. Here, with his back to the people and fronting the

Ka'abah or Square House of Meccah (hence called the "Kiblah" =

direction of prayer), stations himself the Imám, antistes or fugleman,

lit. "one who stands before others;" and his bows and prostrations give

the time to the congregation. I have derived the Mihrab from the niche

in which the Egyptian God was shrined: the Jews ignored it, but the

Christians preserved it for their statues and altars. Maundrell

suggests that the empty niche denotes an invisible God. As the niche

(symbol of Venus) and the minaret (symbol of Priapus) date only from

the days of the tenth Caliph, Al-Walid (A.H. 86-96=105-115), the Hindus

charge the Moslems with having borrowed the two from their favourite

idols—The Linga-Yoni or Cunnus phallus (Pilgrimage ii. 140), and

plainly call the Mihrab a Bhaga= Cunnus (Dabistan ii. 152). The Guebres

further term Meccah "Mah-gah," locus Lunæ, and Al-Medinah, "Mahdinah,"

= Moon of religion. See Dabistan i., 49, etc.

[FN#312] Arab "Kursi," a stool of palm-fronds, etc., X-shaped (see

Lane's illustration, Nights i., 197), before which the reader sits.

Good Moslems will not hold the Holy Volume below the waist nor open it

except when ceremonially pure. Englishmen in the East should remember

this, for to neglect the "Adab al-Kúran" (respect due to Holy Writ)

gives great scandal.

[FN#313] Mr. Payne (i. 148) quotes the German Zuckerpüppchen.

[FN#314] The Persian poets have a thousand conceits in praise of the

"mole," (Khál or Shámah) for which Hafiz offered "Samarkand and

Bokhara" (they not being his, as his friends remarked). Another "topic"

is the flight of arrows shot by eyelashes.

[FN#315] Arab. "Suhá" a star in the Great Bear introduced only to

balance "wushát" = spies, enviers, enemies, whose "evil eye" it will

ward off.

[FN#316] In Arab tales beauty is always "soft-sided," and a smooth skin

is valued in proportion to its rarity.

[FN#317] The myrtle is the young hair upon the side face

[FN#318] In other copies of these verses the fourth couplet swears "by

the scorpions of his brow" _i.e._ the _accroche-cœurs_, the

beau-catchers, bell-ropes or aggravators," as the B.P. calls them. In

couplet eight the poet alludes to his love's "Unsur," or element his

nature made up of the four classicals, and in the last couplet he makes

the nail paring refer to the moon not the sun.

[FN#319] This is regular formula when speaking of Guebres.

[FN#320] Arab. "Faráiz"; the orders expressly given in the Koran which

the reader will remember, is Uncreate and Eternal. In India "Farz" is

applied to injunctions thrice repeated; and "Wájíb" to those given

twice over. Elsewhere scanty difference is made between them.

[FN#321] Arab. "Kufr" = rejecting the True Religion, i.e. Al-Islam,

such rejection being "Tughyán" or rebellion against the Lord. The

"terrible sound" is taken from the legend of the prophet Sálih and the

proto-historic tribe of Thámúd which for its impiety was struck dead by

an earthquake and a noise from heaven. The latter, according to some

commentators, was the voice of the Archangel Gabriel crying "Die all of

you" (Koran, chapts. vii., xviii., etc.). We shall hear more of it in

the "City of many-coloured Iram." According to some, Salih, a

mysterious Badawi prophet, is buried in the Wady al-Shaykh of the

so-called Sinaitic Peninsula.

[FN#322] Yet they kept the semblance of man, showing that the idea

arose from the basaltic statues found in Hauranic ruins. Mohammed in

his various marches to Syria must have seen remnants of Greek and Roman

settlements; and as has been noticed "Sesostris" left his mark near

Meccah. (Pilgrimage iii. 137).

[FN#323] Arab. "Shuhadá"; highly respected by Moslems as by other

religionists; although their principal if not only merit seems as a

rule to have been intense obstinacy and devotion to one idea for which

they were ready to sacrifice even life. The Martyrs-category is

extensive including those killed by falling walls; victims to the

plague, pleurisy and pregnancy, travellers drowned or otherwise lost

when journeying honestly, and chaste lovers who die of "broken hearts"

i.e. impaired digestion. Their souls are at once stowed away in the

crops of green birds where they remain till Resurrection Day, "eating

of the fruits and drinking of the streams of Paradise," a place

however, whose topography is wholly uncertain. Thus the young Prince

was rewarded with a manner of anti-Purgatory, a preparatory heaven.

[FN#324] Arab. "Su'ubán:" the Badawin give the name to a variety of

serpents all held to be venomous; but in tales the word, like "Tannín,"

expresses our "dragon" or "cockatrice."

[FN#325] She was ashamed to see the lady doing servile duty by rubbing

her feet. This massage, which B. de la Brocquière describes in 1452 as

"kneading and pinching," has already been noticed. The French term is

apparently derived from the Arab. "Mas-h."

[FN#326] Alluding to the Most High Name, the hundredth name of God, the

Heb. Shem hamphorash, unknown save to a favoured few who by using it

perform all manner of miracles.

[FN#327] i e. the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

[FN#328] i.e. Settled by the Koran.

[FN#329] The uglier the old woman the better procuress she is supposed

to make. See the Santa Verdiana in Boccaccio v., 10. In Arab. "Ajuz"

(old woman) is highly insulting and if addressed to an Egyptian,

whatever be her age she will turn fiercely and resent it. The polite

term is Shaybah (Pilgrimage hi., 200).

[FN#330] The four ages of woman, considered after Demosthenes in her

three-fold character, prostitute for pleasure, concubine for service

and wife for breeding.

[FN#331] Arab. "Jilá" (the Hindostani Julwa) = the displaying of the

bride before the bridegroom for the first time, in different dresses,

to the number of seven which are often borrowed for the occasion. The

happy man must pay a fee called "the tax of face-unveiling" before he

can see her features. Amongst Syrian Christians he sometimes tries to

lift the veil by a sharp movement of the sword which is parried by the

women present, and the blade remains entangled in the cloth. At last he

succeeds, the bride sinks to the ground covering her face with her

hands and the robes of her friends: presently she is raised up, her

veil is readjusted and her face is left bare.

[FN#332] Arab. "Ishá"= the first watch of the night, twilight,

supper-time, supper. Moslems have borrowed the four watches of the

Romans from 6 (a.m. or p.m.) to 6, and ignore the three original

watches of the Jews, even, midnight and cockcrow (Sam. ii. 19, Judges

vii. 19, and Exodus xiv. 24).

[FN#333] A popular Arab hyperbole.

[FN#334] Arab. "Shakáik al-Nu'uman," lit. the fissures of Nu'uman, the

beautiful anemone, which a tyrannical King of Hirah, Nu'uman ibn

Al-Munzir, a contemporary of Mohammed, attempted to monopolize.

[FN#335] Arab. "Andam"=here the gum called dragon's blood; in other

places the dye-wood known as brazil.

[FN#336] I need hardly say that in the East, where bells are unused,

clapping the hands summons the servants. In India men cry "Quy hye"

(Koi hái?) and in Brazil whistle "Pst!" after the fashion of Spain and

Portugal.

[FN#337] The moles are here compared with pearls; a simile by no means

common or appropriate.

[FN#338] A parody on the testification of Allah's Unity.

[FN#339] Arab. "Simát" (prop. "Sumát"); the "dinner-table," composed of

a round wooden stool supporting a large metal tray, the two being

called "Sufrah" (or "Simat"): thus "Sufrah házirah!" means dinner is on

the table. After the meal they are at once removed.

[FN#340] In the text "Dastúr," the Persian word before noticed; "Izn"

would be the proper Arabic equivalent.

[FN#341] In the Moslem East a young woman, single or married, is not

allowed to appear alone in the streets; and the police have a right to

arrest delinquents. As a preventive of intrigues the precaution is

excellent. During the Crimean war hundreds of officers, English, French

and Italian, became familiar with Constantinople; and not a few

flattered themselves on their success with Turkish women. I do not

believe that a single bona fide case occurred: the "conquests" were all

Greeks, Wallachians, Armenians or Jewesses.

[FN#342] Arab. "Azím": translators do not seem to know that this word

in The Nights often bears its Egyptian and slang sense, somewhat

equivalent to our "deuced" or "mighty" or "awfully fine."

[FN#343] This is a very serious thing amongst Moslems and scrupulous

men often make great sacrifices to avoid taking an oath.

[FN#344] We should say "into the noose."

[FN#345] The man had fallen in love with her and determined to mark her

so that she might be his.

[FN#346] Arab. "Dajlah," in which we find the Heb. Hid-dekel.

[FN#347] Such an execution would be contrary to Moslem law: but people

would look leniently upon the peccadillo of beheading or sacking a

faithless wife. Moreover the youth was of the blood royal and _A quoi

bon être prince?_ as was said by a boy of viceroyal family in Egypt to

his tutor who reproached him for unnecessarily shooting down a poor old

man.

[FN#348] Arab. "Shirk," partnership, evening or associating gods with

God; polytheism: especially levelled at the Hindu triadism, Guebre

dualism and Christian Trinitarianism.

[FN#349] Arab. "Shatm"—abuse, generally couched in foulest language

with especial reference to the privy parts of female relatives.

[FN#350] When a woman is bastinadoed in the East they leave her some

portion of dress and pour over her sundry buckets of water for a

delicate consideration. When the hands are beaten they are passed

through holes in the curtain separating the sufferer from mankind, and

made fast to a "falakah" or pole.

[FN#351] Arab. "Khalifah," Caliph. The word is also used for the

successor of a Santon or holy man.

[FN#352] Arab. "Sár," here the Koranic word for carrying out the

venerable and undying lex talionis the original basis of all criminal

jurisprudence. Its main fault is that justice repeats the offence.

[FN#353] Both these sons of Harun became Caliphs, as we shall see in

The Nights.

[FN#354] "Dog" and "hog" are still highly popular terms of abuse. The

Rabbis will not defile their lips with "pig;" but say "Dabhar

akhir"="another thing."

[FN#355] The "hero eponymus" of the Abbaside dynasty, Abbas having been

the brother of Abdullah the father of Mohammed. He is a famous

personage in AI-Islam (D'Herbelot).

[FN#356] Europe translates the word "Barmecides. It is Persian from bar

(up) and makidan (to suck). The vulgar legend is that Ja'afar, the

first of the name, appeared before the Caliph Abd al-Malik with a ring

poisoned for his own need; and that the Caliph, warned of it by the

clapping of two stones which he wore ad hoc, charged the visitor with

intention to murder him. He excused himself and in his speech occurred

the Persian word "Barmakam," which may mean "I shall sup it up," or "I

am a Barmak," that is, a high priest among the Guebres. See D'Herbelot

s.v.

[FN#357] Arab."Zulm," the deadliest of monarch's sins. One of the

sayings of Mohammed, popularly quoted, is, "Kingdom endureth with Kufr

or infidelity (i. e. without accepting AI-Islam) but endureth not with

Zulm or injustice." Hence the good Moslem will not complain of the rule

of Kafirs or Unbelievers, like the English, so long as they rule him

righteously and according to his own law.]

[FN#358] All this aggravates his crime: had she been a widow she would

not have had upon him "the claims of maidenhead," the premio della

verginita of Boccaccio, x. 10.

[FN#359] It is supposed that slaves cannot help telling these fatal

lies. Arab story-books are full of ancient and modern instances and

some have become "Joe Millers." Moreover it is held unworthy of a

free-born man to take over-notice of these servile villanies; hence the

scoundrel in the story escapes unpunished. I have already noticed the

predilection of debauched women for these "skunks of the human race;"

and the young man in the text evidently suspected that his wife had

passed herself this "little caprice." The excuse which the Caliph would

find for him is the pundonor shown in killing one he loved so fondly.

[FN#360] The Arab equivalent of our pitcher and well.

[FN#361] i.e. Where the dress sits loosely about the bust.

[FN#362] He had trusted in Allah and his trust was justified.

[FN#363] Arab. "Khila'ah" prop. what a man strips from his person: gen.

an honorary gift. It is something more than the "robe of honour" of our

chivalrous romances, as it includes a horse, a sword (often

gold-hilted), a black turban (amongst the Abbasides) embroidered with

gold, a violet-coloured mantle, a waist-shawl and a gold neck-chain and

shoe-buckles.

[FN#364] Arab. "Izá," i.e. the visits of condolence and so forth which

are long and terribly wearisome in the Moslem East.

[FN#365] Arab. "Mahr," the money settled by the man before marriage on

the woman and without which the contract is not valid. Usually half of

it is paid down on the marriage-day and the other half when the husband

dies or divorces his wife. But if she take a divorce she forfeits her

right to it, and obscene fellows, especially Persians, often compel her

to demand divorce by unnatural and preposterous use of her person.

[FN#366] Bismillah here means "Thou art welcome to it."

[FN#367] Arab. "Bassak," half Pers. (bas = enough) and—ak = thou; for

thee. "Bas" sounds like our "buss" (to kiss) and there are sundry good

old Anglo-Indian jokes of feminine mistakes on the subject.

[FN#368] This saving clause makes the threat worse. The scene between

the two brothers is written with characteristic Arab humour; and it is

true to nature. In England we have heard of a man who separated from

his wife because he wished to dine at six and she preferred half-past

six.

[FN#369] Arab. "Misr." (vulg. Masr). The word, which comes of a very

ancient house, was applied to the present capital about the time of its

conquest by the Osmanli Turks A.H. 923 = 1517.

[FN#370] The Arab. "Jízah," = skirt, edge; the modern village is the

site of an ancient Egyptian city, as the "Ghizah inscription" proves

(Brugsch, History of Egypt, ii. 415)

[FN#371] Arab. "Watan" literally meaning "birth-place" but also used

for "patria, native country"; thus "Hubb al-Watan" = patriotism. The

Turks pronounce it "Vatan," which the French have turned into Va-t'en!

[FN#372] Arab. "Zarzariyah" = the colour of a stare or starling

(Zurzúr).

[FN#373] Now a Railway Station on the Alexandria-Cairo line.

[FN#374] Even as late as 1852, when I first saw Cairo, the city was

girt by waste lands and the climate was excellent. Now cultivation

comes up to the house walls; while the Mahmudiyah Canal, the planting

the streets with avenues and over-watering have seriously injured it;

those who want the air of former Cairo must go to Thebes. Gout,

rheumatism and hydrophobia (before unknown) have become common of late

years.

[FN#375] This is the popular pronunciation: Yakút calls it "Bilbís."

[FN#376] An outlying village on the "Long Desert," between Cairo and

Palestine.

[FN#377] Arab. "Al-Kuds" = holiness. There are few cities which in our

day have less claim to this title than Jerusalem; and, curious to say,

the "Holy Land" shows Jews, Christians and Moslems all in their worst

form. The only religion (if it can be called one) which produces men in

Syria is the Druse. "Heiligen-landes Jüden" are proverbial and nothing

can be meaner than the Christians while the Moslems are famed for

treachery.

[FN#378] Arab. "Shamm al-hawá." In vulgar parlance to "smell the air"

is to take a walk, especially out of town. There is a peculiar Egyptian

festival called "Shamm al-Nasím" (smelling the Zephyr) which begins on

Easter-Monday (O.S.), thus corresponding with the Persian Nau-roz,

vernal equinox and introducing the fifty days of "Khammasín" or

"Mirísi" (hot desert winds). On awakening, the people smell and bathe

their temples with vinegar in which an onion has been soaked and break

their fast with a "fisikh" or dried "búri" = mullet from Lake Menzalah:

the late Hekekiyan Bey had the fish-heads counted in one public garden

and found 70,000. The rest of the day is spent out of doors "Gypsying,"

and families greatly enjoy themselves on these occasions. For a longer

description, see a paper by my excellent friend Yacoub Artin Pasha, in

the Bulletin de l'Institut Égyptien, 2nd series, No. 4, Cairo, 1884. I

have noticed the Mirísi (south-wester) and other winds in the Land of

Midian, i., 23.

[FN#379] So in the days of the "Mameluke Beys" in Egypt a man of rank

would not cross the street on foot.

[FN#380] Arab. Basrah. The city is now in decay and not to flourish

again till the advent of the Euphrates Valley R.R., is a modern place,

founded in A.H. 15, by the Caliph Omar upon the Aylah, a feeder of the

Tigris. Here, according to Al-Haríri, the "whales and the lizards

meet," and, as the tide affects the river,

Its stream shows prodigy, ebbing and flowing.

In its far-famed market-place, Al-Marbad, poems used to be recited; and

the city was famous for its mosques and Saint-shrines, fair women and

school of Grammar which rivalled that of Kúfah. But already in

Al-Hariri's day (nat. A.H. 446 = A.D. 1030) Baghdad had drawn off much

of its population.

[FN#381] This fumigation (Bukhúr) is still used. A little incense or

perfumed wood is burnt upon an open censor (Mibkharah) of earthenware

or metal, and passed round, each guest holding it for a few moments

under his beard. In the Somali Country, the very home of incense, both

sexes fumigate the whole person after carnal intercourse. Lane (Mod.

Egypt, chapt. viii) gives an illustration of the Mibkharah.

[FN#382] The reader of The Nights will remark that the merchant is

often a merchant-prince, consorting and mating with the highest

dignitaries. Even amongst the Romans, a race of soldiers, statesmen and

lawyers, "mercatura" on a large scale was "not to be vituperated." In

Boccacio (x. 19) they are netti e delicati uomini. England is perhaps

the only country which has made her fortune by trade, and much of it

illicit trade, like that in slaves which built Liverpool and Bristol,

and which yet disdains or affects to disdain the trader. But the

unworthy prejudice is disappearing with the last generation, and men

who formerly would have half starved as curates and ensigns, barristers

and carabins are now only too glad to become merchants.

[FN#383] These lines in the Calc. and Bul. Edits. Have already occurred

(Night vii.) but such carelessness is characteristic despite the

proverb, "In repetition is no fruition." I quote Torrens (p. 60) by way

of variety. As regards the anemone (here called a tulip) being named

"Shakík" = fissure, I would conjecture that it derives from the flower

often forming long lines of red like stripes of blood in the landscape.

Travellers in Syria always observe this.

[FN#384] Such an address to a royalty (Eastern) even in the present

day, would be a passport to future favours.

[FN#385] In England the man marries and the woman is married: there is

no such distinction in Arabia.

[FN#386] "Sultan" (and its corruption "Soldan") etymologically means

lord, victorious, ruler, ruling over. In Arabia it is a not uncommon

proper name; and as a title it is taken by a host of petty kinglets.

The Abbaside Caliphs (as Al-Wásik who has been noticed) formally

created these Sultans as their regents. Al-Tá'i bi'llah (regn. A.H. 363

= 974), invested the famous Sabuktagin with the office; and as

Alexander-Sikandar was wont to do, fashioned for him two flags, one of

silver, after the fashion of nobles, and the other of gold, as

Viceroy-designate. Sabuktagin's son, the famous Mahmúd of the

Ghaznavite dynasty in A.H. 393 = 1002, was the first to adopt "Sultan"

as an independent title some two hundred years after the death of Harun

al-Rashid. In old writers we have the Soldan of Egypt, the Soudan of

Persia, and the Sowdan of Babylon; three modifications of one word.

[FN#387] i.e. he was a "Háfiz," one who commits to memory the whole of

the Koran. It is a serious task and must be begun early. I learnt by

rote the last "Juzw" (or thirtieth part) and found that quite enough.

This is the vulgar use of "Hafiz": technically and theologically it

means the third order of Traditionists (the total being five) who know

by heart 300,000 traditions of the Prophet with their ascriptions. A

curious "spiritualist" book calls itself "Hafed, Prince of Persia,"

proving by the very title that the Spirits are equally ignorant of

Arabic and Persian.

[FN#388] Here again the Cairo Edit. repeats the six couplets already

given in Night xvii. I take them from Torrens (p. 163).

[FN#389] This naïve admiration of beauty in either sex characterised

our chivalrous times. Now it is mostly confined to "professional

beauties" or what is conventionally called the "fair sex"; as if there

could be any comparison between the beauty of man and the beauty of

woman, the Apollo Belvidere with the Venus de Medici.

[FN#390] Arab. "Shásh" (in Pers. urine) a light turband generally of

muslin.

[FN#391] This is a _lieu commun_ of Eastern worldly wisdom. Quite true!

Very unadvisable to dive below the surface of one's acquaintances, but

such intimacy is like marriage of which Johnson said, "Without it there

is no pleasure in life."

[FN#392] The lines are attributed to the famous Al-Mutanabbi = the

claimant to "Prophecy," of whom I have given a few details in my

Pilgrimage iii. 60, 62. He led the life of a true poet, somewhat

Chauvinistic withal; and, rather than run away, was killed in A.H. 354

= 965.

[FN#393] Arab. "Nabíz" = wine of raisins or dates; any fermented

liquor; from a root to "press out" in Syriac, like the word "Talmiz"

(or Tilmiz says the Kashf al-Ghurrah) a pupil, student. Date-wine

(fermented from the fruit, not the Tádi, or juice of the stem, our

"toddy") is called Fazikh. Hence the Masjid al-Fazikh at Al-Medinah

where the Ansar or Auxiliaries of that city were sitting cup in hand

when they heard of the revelation forbidding inebriants and poured the

liquor upon the ground (Pilgrimage ii. 322).

[FN#394] Arab. "Huda" = direction (to the right way), salvation, a word

occurring in the Opening Chapter of the Koran. Hence to a Kafir who

offers the Salam-salutation many Moslems reply "Allah-yahdík" = Allah

direct thee! (i.e. make thee a Moslem), instead of Allah yusallimak =

Allah lead thee to salvation. It is the root word of the Mahdi and

Mohdi.

[FN#395] These lines have already occurred in The First Kalandar's

Story (Night xi.) I quote by way of change and with permission Mr.

Payne's version (i. 93).

[FN#396] Arab. "Farajíyah," a long-sleeved robe worn by the learned

(Lane, M.E., chapt. i.).

[FN#397] Arab. "Sarráf" (vulg. Sayrafi), whence the Anglo-Indian

"Shroff," a familiar corruption.

[FN#398] Arab. "Yahúdi" which is less polite than "Banú Isráil" =

Children of Israel. So in Christendom "Israelite" when in favour and

"Jew" (with an adjective or a participle) when nothing is wanted of

him.

[FN#399] Also called "Ghilmán" = the beautiful youths appointed to

serve the True Believers in Paradise. The Koran says (chapt. lvi. 9

etc.) "Youths, which shall continue in their bloom for ever, shall go

round about to attend them, with goblets, and beakers, and a cup of

flowing wine," etc. Mohammed was an Arab (not a Persian, a born

pederast) and he was too fond of women to be charged with love of boys:

even Tristam Shandy (vol. vii. chapt. 7; "No, quoth a third; the

gentleman has been committing——") knew that the two tastes are

incompatibles. But this and other passages in the Koran have given the

Chevaliers de la Paille a hint that the use of boys, like that of wine,

here forbidden, will be permitted in Paradise.

[FN#400] Which, by the by, is the age of an oldish old maid in Egypt. I

much doubt puberty being there earlier than in England where our

grandmothers married at fourteen. But Orientals are aware that the

period of especial feminine devilry is between the first menstruation

and twenty when, according to some, every girl is a "possible

murderess." So they wisely marry her and get rid of what is called the

"lump of grief," the "domestic calamity"—a daughter. Amongst them we

never hear of the abominable egotism and cruelty of the English mother,

who disappoints her daughter's womanly cravings in order to keep her at

home for her own comfort; and an "old maid" in the house, especially a

stout, plump old maid, is considered not "respectable." The ancient

virgin is known by being lean and scraggy; and perhaps this diagnosis

is correct.

[FN#401] This prognostication of destiny by the stars and a host of

follies that end in -mancy is an intricate and extensive subject. Those

who would study it are referred to chapt. xiv. of the "Qanoon-e-Islam,

or the Customs of the Mussulmans of India; etc., etc., by Jaffur

Shurreeff and translated by G. A. Herklots, M. D. of Madras." This

excellent work first appeared in 1832 (Allen and Co., London) and thus

it showed the way to Lane's "Modern Egyptians" (1833-35). The name was

unfortunate as "Kuzzilbash" (which rhymed to guzzle and hash), and kept

the book back till a second edition appeared in 1863 (Madras: J.

Higginbotham).

[FN#402] Arab. "Bárid," lit. cold: metaph. vain, foolish, insipid.

[FN#403] Not to "spite thee" but "in spite of thee." The phrase is

still used by high and low.

[FN#404] Arab. "Ahdab," the common hunchback; in classical language the

Gobbo in the text would be termed "Ak'as" from "Ka'as," one with

protruding back and breast; sometimes used for hollow back and

protruding breast.

[FN#405] This is the custom with such gentry, who, when they see a

likely man sitting, are allowed by custom to ride astraddle upon his

knees with most suggestive movements, till he buys them off. These

Ghawázi are mostly Gypsies who pretend to be Moslems; and they have

been confused with the Almahs or Moslem dancing-girls proper (Awálim,

plur. of Alimah, a learned feminine) by a host of travellers. They call

themselves Barámikah or Barmecides only to affect Persian origin. Under

native rule they were perpetually being banished from and returning to

Cairo (Pilgrimage i., 202). Lane (M.E., chapts. xviii. and xix.)

discusses the subject, and would derive Al'mah, often so pronounced,

from Heb. Almah, girl, virgin, singing-girl, hence he would translate

Al-Alamoth shir (Psalm xlvi.) and Nebalim al-alamoth (I. Chron., xv.

20) by a "song for singing-girls" and "harps for singing-girls." He

quotes also St. Jerome as authority that Alma in Punic (Phoenician)

signified a virgin, not a common article, I may observe, amongst

singing-girls. I shall notice in a future page Burckhardt's description

of the Ghawazi, p. 173, "Arabic Proverbs;" etc., etc. Second Edition.

London: Quaritch, 1875.

[FN#406] I need hardly describe the tarbúsh, a corruption of the Per.

"Sar-púsh" (headcover) also called "Fez" from its old home; and

"tarbrush" by the travelling Briton. In old days it was a calotte worn

under the turban; and it was protected from scalp-perspiration by an

"Arakiyah" (Pers. Arak-chin) a white skull-cap. Now it is worn without

either and as a head-dress nothing can be worse (Pilgrimage ii. 275).

[FN#407] Arab. "Tár.": the custom still prevails. Lane (M.E., chapt.

xviii.) describes and figures this hoop-drum.

[FN#408] The couch on which she sits while being displayed. It is her

throne, for she is the Queen of the occasion, with all the Majesty of

Virginity.

[FN#409] This is a solemn "chaff;" such liberties being permitted at

weddings and festive occasions.

[FN#410] The pre-Islamític dynasty of Al-Yaman in Arabia Felix, a

region formerly famed for wealth and luxury. Hence the mention of

Yamani work. The caravans from Sana'á, the capital, used to carry

patterns of vases to be made in China and bring back the porcelains at

the end of the third year: these are the Arabic inscriptions which have

puzzled so many collectors. The Tobba, or Successors, were the old

Himyarite Kings, a dynastic name like Pharaoh, Kisra (Persia), Negush

(Abyssinia), Khakan or Khan (Tartary), etc., who claimed to have

extended their conquests to Samarcand and made war on China. Any

history of Arabia (as Crichton I., chapt. iv.) may be consulted for

their names and annals. I have been told by Arabs that "Tobba" (or

Tubba) is still used in the old Himyar-land = the Great or the Chief.

[FN#411] Lane and Payne (as well as the Bres. Edit.) both render the

word "to kiss her," but this would be clean contrary to Moslem usage.

[FN#412] i.e. he was full of rage which he concealed.

[FN#413] The Hindus (as the Katha shows) compare this swimming gait

with an elephant's roll.

[FN#414] Arab. "Fitnah," a word almost as troublesome as "Adab."

Primarily, revolt, seduction, mischief: then a beautiful girl (or boy),

and lastly a certain aphrodisiac perfume extracted from mimosa-flowers

(Pilgrimage i., 118).

[FN#415] Lit. burst the "gall-bladder:" In this and in the "liver"

allusions I dare not be baldly literal.

[FN#416] Arab. "Usfur" the seeds of Carthamus tinctorius = Safflower

(Forskal, Flora, etc. lv.). The seeds are crushed for oil and the

flowers, which must be gathered by virgins or the colour will fail, are

extensively used for dying in Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa.

[FN#417] On such occasions Miss Modesty shuts her eye and looks as if

about to faint.

[FN#418] After either evacuation the Moslem is bound to wash or sand

the part; first however he should apply three pebbles, or potsherds or

clods of earth. Hence the allusion in the Koran (chapt. ix), "men who

love to be purified." When the Prophet was questioning the men of Kuba,

where he founded a mosque (Pilgrimage ii., 215), he asked them about

their legal ablutions, especially after evacuation; and they told him

that they used three stones before washing. Moslems and Hindus (who

prefer water mixed with earth) abhor the unclean and unhealthy use of

paper without ablution; and the people of India call European

draught-houses, by way of opprobrium, "Kághaz-khánah" = paper closets.

Most old Anglo-Indians, however, learn to use water.

[FN#419] "Miao" or "Mau" is the generic name of the cat in the Egyptian

of the hieroglyphs.

[FN#420] Arab. "Ya Mash'úm" addressed to an evil spirit.

[FN#421] "Heehaw!" as we should say. The Bresl. Edit. makes the cat cry

"Nauh! Nauh!" and the ass-colt "Manu! Manu!" I leave these

onomatopoeics as they are in Arabic; they are curious, showing the

unity in variety of hearing inarticulate sounds. The bird which is

called "Whip poor Will" in the U.S. is known to the Brazilians as "Joam

corta páo" (John cut wood); so differently do they hear the same notes.

[FN#422] It is usually a slab of marble with a long slit in front and a

round hole behind. The text speaks of a Kursi (= stool); but this is

now unknown to native houses which have not adopted European fashions.

[FN#423] This again is chaff as she addresses the Hunchback. The Bul.

Edit. has "O Abu Shiháb" (Father of the shooting-star = evil spirit);

the Bresl. Edit. "O son of a heap! O son of a Something!" (al-afsh, a

vulgarism).

[FN#424] As the reader will see, Arab ideas of "fun" and practical

jokes are of the largest, putting the Hibernian to utter rout, and

comparing favourably with those recorded in Don Quixote.

[FN#425] Arab. "Saráwil" a corruption of the Pers. "Sharwál"; popularly

called "libás" which, however, may also mean clothing in general and

especially outer-clothing. I translate "bag-trousers" and

"petticoat-trousers," the latter being the divided skirt of our future.

In the East, where Common Sense, not Fashion, rules dress, men, who

have a protuberance to be concealed, wear petticoats and women wear

trousers. The feminine article is mostly baggy but sometimes, as in

India, collant-tight. A quasi-sacred part of it is the inkle, tape or

string, often a most magnificent affair, with tassels of pearl and

precious stones; and "laxity in the trouser-string" is equivalent to

the loosest conduct. Upon the subject of "libás," "sarwál" and its

variants the curious reader will consult Dr. Dozy's "Dictionnaire

Détaillé des Noms des Vêtements chez les Arabes," a most valuable work.

[FN#426] The turban out of respect is not put upon the ground (Lane, M.

E., chapt. i.).

[FN#427] Arab. "Madfa" showing the modern date or the modernization of

the tale. In Lebid "Madáfi" (plur. of Madfa') means water-courses or

leats.

[FN#428] In Arab. the "he" is a "she;" and Habíb ("friend") is the

Attic {Greek Letters}, a euphemism for lover. This will occur

throughout The Nights. So the Arabs use a phrase corresponding with the

Stoic {Greek Letters}, i.e. is wont, is fain.

[FN#429] Part of the Azán, or call to prayer.

[FN#430] Arab. "Shiháb," these meteors being the flying shafts shot at

evil spirits who approach too near heaven. The idea doubtless arose

from the showers of August and November meteors (The Perseides and

Taurides) which suggest a battle raging in upper air. Christendom also

has its superstition concerning these and called those of August the

"fiery tears of Saint Lawrence," whose festival was on August 10.

[FN#431] Arab. "Tákiyah" = Pers. Arak-chin; the calotte worn under the

Fez. It is, I have said, now obsolete and the red woollen cap (mostly

made in Europe) is worn over the hair; an unclean practice.

[FN#432] Often the effect of cold air after a heated room.

[FN#433] i.e. He was not a Eunuch, as the people guessed.

[FN#434] In Arab. "this night" for the reason before given.

[FN#435] Meaning especially the drink prepared of the young leaves and

florets of Cannabis Sativa. The word literally means "day grass" or

"herbage." This intoxicant was much used by magicians to produce

ecstasy and thus to "deify themselves and receive the homage of the

genii and spirits of nature."

[FN#436] Torrens, being an Irishman, translates "and woke in the

morning sleeping at Damascus."

[FN#437] Arab. "Labbayka," the cry technically called "Talbiyah" and

used by those entering Meccah (Pilgrimage iii. 125-232). I shall also

translate it by "Adsum." The full cry is:—

Here am I, O Allah, here am I!

No partner hast Thou, here am I:

Verily the praise and the grace and the kingdom are thine:

No partner hast Thou: here am I!

A single Talbiyah is a "Shart" or positive condition: and its

repetition is a Sunnat or Custom of the Prophet. See Night xci.

[FN#438] The staple abuse of the vulgar is cursing parents and

relatives, especially feminine, with specific allusions to their

"shame." And when dames of high degree are angry, Nature, in the East

as in the West, sometimes speaks out clearly enough, despite Mistress

Chapone and all artificial restrictions.

[FN#439] A great beauty in Arabia and the reverse in Denmark, Germany

and Slav-land, where it is a sign of being a were-wolf or a vampire. In

Greece also it denotes a "Brukolak" or vampire.

[FN#440] This is not physiologically true: a bride rarely conceives the

first night, and certainly would not know that she had conceived.

Moreover the number of courses furnished by the bridegroom would be

against conception. It is popularly said that a young couple often

undoes in the morning what it has done during the night.

[FN#441] Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes "Fleisher" upon the word

"Ghamghama" (Diss. Crit. De Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares

with "Dumduma" and Humbuma," determining them to be onomatopoeics, "an

incomplete and an obscure murmur of a sentence as it were lingering

between the teeth and lips and therefore difficult to be understood."

Of this family is "Taghúm"; not used in modern days. In my Pilgrimage

(i. 313) I have noticed another, "Khyas', Khyas'!" occurring in a Hizb

al-Bahr (Spell of the Sea). Herklots gives a host of them; and their

sole characteristics are harshness and strangeness of sound, uniting

consonants which are not joined in Arabic. The old Egyptians and

Chaldeans had many such words composed at will for theurgic operations.

[FN#442] This may mean either "it is of Mosul fashion" or, it is of

muslin.

[FN#443] To the English reader these lines would appear the reverse of

apposite; but Orientals have their own ways of application, and all

allusions to Badawi partings are effective and affecting. The civilised

poets of Arab cities throw the charm of the Desert over their verse by

images borrowed from its scenery, the dromedary, the mirage and the

well as naturally as certain of our bards who hated the country,

babbled of purling rills, etc. thoroughly to feel Arabic poetry one

must know the Desert (Pilgrimage iii., 63).

[FN#444] In those days the Arabs and the Portuguese recorded everything

which struck them, as the Chinese and Japanese in our times. And yet we

complain of the amount of our modern writing!

[FN#445] This is mentioned because it is the act preliminary to naming

the babe.

[FN#446] Arab. "Kahramánát" from Kahramán, an old Persian hero who

conversed with the Simurgh-Griffon. Usually the word is applied to

women-at-arms who defend the Harem, like the Urdu-begani of India,

whose services were lately offered to England (1885), or the "Amazons"

of Dahome.

[FN#447] Meaning he grew as fast in one day as other children in a

month.

[FN#448] Arab. Al-Aríf; the tutor, the assistant-master.

[FN#449] Arab. "Ibn harám," a common term of abuse; and not a factual

reflection on the parent. I have heard a mother apply the term to her

own son.

[FN#450] Arab. "Khanjar" from the Persian, a syn. with the Arab.

"Jambiyah." It is noticed in my Pilgrimage iii., pp. 72,75. To "silver

the dagger" means to become a rich man. From "Khanjar," not from its

fringed loop or strap, I derive our silly word "hanger." Dr. Steingass

would connect it with Germ. Fänger, e.g. Hirschfänger.

[FN#451] Again we have "Dastur" for Izn."

[FN#452] Arab. "Iklím"; the seven climates of Ptolemy.

[FN#453] Arab. "Al-Ghadir," lit. a place where water sinks, a lowland:

here the drainage-lakes east of Damascus into which the Baradah

(Abana?) discharges. The higher eastern plain is "Al-Ghutah" before

noticed.

[FN#454] The "Plain of Pebbles" still so termed at Damascus; an open

space west of the city.

[FN#455] Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter's "Murray," gives a

long account of this Christian Church 'verted to a Mosque.

[FN#456] Arab. "Nabút"; Pilgrimage i. 336.

[FN#457] The Bres. Edit. says, "would have knocked him into Al-Yaman,"

(Southern Arabia), something like our slang phrase "into the middle of

next week."

[FN#458] Arab. "Khádim": lit. a servant, politely applied (like Aghá =

master) to a castrato. These gentry wax furious if baldly called

"Tawáshi" = Eunuch. A mauvais plaisant in Egypt used to call me The

Agha because a friend had placed his wife under my charge.

[FN#459] This sounds absurd enough in English, but Easterns always put

themselves first for respect.

[FN#460] In Arabic the World is feminine.

[FN#461] Arab. "Sáhib" = lit. a companion; also a friend and especially

applied to the Companions of Mohammed. Hence the Sunnis claim for them

the honour of "friendship" with the Apostle; but the Shia'hs reply that

the Arab says "Sahaba-hu'l-himár" (the Ass was his Sahib or companion).

In the text it is a Wazirial title, in modern India it is = gentleman,

e.g. "Sahib log" (the Sahib people) means their white conquerors, who,

by the by, mostly mispronounce the word "Sáb."

[FN#462] Arab. "Suwán," prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but

applied to flint and any hard stone.

[FN#463] It was famous in the middle ages, and even now it is, perhaps,

the most interesting to travellers after that "Sentina Gentium," the

"Bhendi Bazar" of unromantic Bombay.

[FN#464] "The Gate of the Gardens," in the northern wall, a Roman

archway of the usual solid construction shaming not only our modern

shams, but our finest masonry.

[FN#465] Arab. "Al-Asr," which may mean either the hour or the prayer.

It is also the moment at which the Guardian Angels relieve each other

(Sale's Koran, chapt. v.).

[FN#466] Arab. "Ya házá" = O this (one)! a somewhat slighting address

equivalent to "Heus tu! O thou, whoever thou art." Another form is "Yá

hú" = O he! Can this have originated Swift's "Yahoo"?

[FN#467] Alluding to the τήρατα ("minor miracles which cause surprise")

performed by Saints' tombs, the mildest form of thaumaturgy. One of

them gravely recorded in the Dabistan (ii. 226) is that of the holy

Jamen, who opened the Sámran or bead- bracelet from the arm of the

beautiful Chistápá with member erect, "thus evincing his manly strength

and his command over himself"(!)

[FN#468] The River of Paradise, a lieu commun of poets (Koran, chapt.

cviii.): the water is whiter than milk or silver, sweeter than honey,

smoother than cream, more odorous than musk; its banks are of

chrysolite and it is drunk out of silver cups set around it thick as

stars. Two pipes conduct it to the Prophet's Pond which is an exact

square, one month's journey in compass. Kausar is spirituous like wine;

Salsabil sweet like clarified honey; the Fount of Mildness is like milk

and the Fount of Mercy like liquid crystal.

[FN#469] The Moslem does not use the European basin because water which

has touched an impure skin becomes impure. Hence it is poured out from

a ewer ("ibrík" Pers. Abríz) upon the hands and falls into a basin

("tisht") with an open-worked cover.

[FN#470] Arab. "Wahsh," a word of many meanings; nasty, insipid,

savage, etc. The offside of a horse is called Wahshi opposed to Insi,

the near side. The Amir Taymur ("Lord Iron") whom Europeans unwittingly

call after his Persian enemies' nickname, "Tamerlane," i.e.

Taymur-I-lang, or limping Taymur, is still known as "Al-Wahsh" (the

wild beast) at Damascus, where his Tartars used to bury men up to their

necks and play at bowls with their heads for ninepins.

[FN#471] For "grandson" as being more affectionate. Easterns have not

yet learned that clever Western saying:—The enemies of our enemies are

our friends.

[FN#472] This was a simple bastinado on the back, not the more

ceremonious affair of beating the feet-soles. But it is surprising what

the Egyptians can bear; some of the rods used in the time of the

Mameluke Beys are nearly as thick as a man's wrist.

[FN#473] The woman-like spite of the eunuch intended to hurt the

grandmother's feelings.

[FN#474] The usual Cairene "chaff."

[FN#475] A necessary precaution against poison (Pilgrimage i. 84, and

iii. 43).

[FN#476] The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 108) describes the scene at greater

length.

[FN#477] The Bul. Edit. gives by mistake of diacritical points,

"Zabdaniyah:" Raydaniyah is or rather was a camping ground to the North

of Cairo.

[FN#478] Arab. "La'abat" = a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane

(i. 326) conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a

man with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas

of mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in

everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and

ignominious punishment. (Koran, chapt. vii.).

[FN#479] Here good blood, driven to bay, speaks out boldly. But, as a

rule, the humblest and mildest Eastern when in despair turns round upon

his oppressors like a wild cat. Some of the criminals whom Fath Ali

Shah of Persia put to death by chopping down the fork, beginning at the

scrotum, abused his mother till the knife reached their vitals and they

could no longer speak.

[FN#480] These repeated "laughs" prove the trouble of his spirit. Noble

Arabs "show their back-teeth" so rarely that their laughter is held

worthy of being recorded by their biographers.

[FN#481] A popular phrase, derived from the Koranic "Truth is come, and

falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance" (chapt.

xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41,

"Magna est veritas et prævalebit." But the great question still

remains, What is Truth?

[FN#482] In Night lxxv. these lines will occur with variants.

[FN#483] This is always mentioned: the nearer seat the higher the

honour.

[FN#484] Alluding to the phrase "Al-safar zafar" = voyaging is victory

(Pilgrimage i., 127).

[FN#485] Arab. "Habb;" alluding to the black drop in the human heart

which the Archangel Gabriel removed from Mohammed by opening his

breast.

[FN#486] This phrase, I have said, often occurs: it alludes to the

horripilation (Arab. Kush'arírah), horror or gooseflesh which, in Arab

as in Hindu fables, is a symptom of great joy. So Boccaccio's "pelo

arriciato" v., 8: Germ. Gänsehaut.

[FN#487] Arab. "Hasanta ya Hasan" = Bene detto, Benedetto! the usual

word-play vulgarly called "pun": Hasan (not Hassan, as we will write

it) meaning "beautiful."

[FN#488] Arab. "Loghah" also = a vocabulary, a dictionary; the Arabs

had them by camel-loads.

[FN#489] The seventh of the sixteen "Bahr" (metres) in Arabic prosody;

the easiest because allowing the most license and, consequently, a

favourite for didactic, homiletic and gnomic themes. It means literally

"agitated" and was originally applied to the rude song of the Cameleer.

De Sacy calls this doggrel "the poet's ass" (Torrens, Notes xxvi.). It

was the only metre in which Mohammed the Apostle ever spoke: he was no

poet (Koran xxxvi., 69) but he occasionally recited a verse and recited

it wrongly (Dabistan iii., 212). In Persian prosody Rajaz is the

seventh of nineteen and has six distinct varieties (pp. 79-81),

"Gladwin's Dissertations on Rhetoric," etc. Calcutta, 1801). I shall

have more to say about it in the Terminal Essay.

[FN#490] "Her stature tall—I hate a dumpy woman" (Don Juan).

[FN#491] A worthy who was Kazi of Kufah (Cufa) in the seventh century.

Al-Najaf, generally entitled "Najaf al-Ashraf" (the Venerand) is the

place where Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, lies or is supposed to lie

buried, and has ever been a holy place to the Shi'ahs. I am not certain

whether to translate "Sa'alab" by fox or jackal; the Arabs make scant

distinction between them. "Abu Hosayn" (Father of the Fortlet) is

certainly the fox, and as certainly "Sha'arhar" is the jackal from the

Pehlevi Shagál or Shaghál.

[FN#492] Usually by all manner of extortions and robbery, corruption

and bribery, the ruler's motto being

Fiat injustitia ruat Coelum.

There is no more honest man than the Turkish peasant or the private

soldier; but the process of deterioration begins when he is made a

corporal and culminates in the Pasha. Moreover official dishonesty is

permitted by public opinion, because it belongs to the condition of

society. A man buys a place (as in England two centuries ago) and

retains it by presents to the heads of offices. Consequently he must

recoup himself in some way, and he mostly does so by grinding the faces

of the poor and by spoiling the widow and the orphan. The radical cure

is high pay; but that phase of society refuses to afford it.

[FN#493] Arab. "Malik" (King) and "Malak" (angel) the words being

written the same when lacking vowels and justifying the jingle.

[FN #494] Arab. "Hurr"; the Latin "ingenuus," lit. freeborn; metaph.

noble as opp. to a slave who is not expected to do great or good deeds.

In pop. use it corresponds, like "Fatá," with our "gentleman."

[FN#495] This is one of the best tales for humour and movement, and

Douce and Madden show what a rich crop of fabliaux, whose leading

incident was the disposal of a dead body, it produced.

[FN#496] Other editions read, "at Bassorah" and the Bresl. (ii. 123)

"at Bassorah and Kájkár" (Káshghár): somewhat like in Dover and

Sebastopol. I prefer China because further off and making the

improbabilities more notable.

[FN#497] Arab. "Judri," lit. "small stones" from the hard gravelly

feeling of the pustules (Rodwell, p. 20). The disease is generally

supposed to be the growth of Central Africa where it is still a plague

and passed over to Arabia about the birth-time of Mohammed. Thus is

usually explained the "war of the elephant" (Koran, chapt. cv.) when

the Abyssinian army of Abrahah, the Christian, was destroyed by

swallows (Abábíl which Major Price makes the plural of Abilah = a

vesicle) which dropped upon them "stones of baked clay," like vetches

(Pilgrimage ii. 175). See for details Sale (in loco) who seems to

accept the miraculous defence of the Ka'abah. For the horrors of

small-pox in Central Intertropical Africa the inoculation, known also

to the Badawin of Al-Hijáz and other details, readers will consult "The

Lake Regions of Central Africa" (ii. 318). The Hindus "take the bull by

the horns" and boldly make "Sítlá" (small-pox) a goddess, an

incarnation of Bhawáni, deëss of destruction-reproduction. In China

small-pox is believed to date from B.C. 1200; but the chronology of the

Middle Kingdom still awaits the sceptic.

[FN#498] In Europe we should add "and all fled, especially the women."

But the fatalism inherent in the Eastern mind makes the great

difference.

[FN#499] Arab. "Uzayr." Esdras was a manner of Ripp van Winkle. He was

riding over the ruins of Jerusalem when it had been destroyed by the

Chaldeans and he doubted by what means Allah would restore it;

whereupon he died and at the end of a hundred years he revived. He

found his basket of figs and cruse of wine as they were; but of his ass

only the bones remained. These were raised to life as Ezra looked on

and the ass began at once to bray. Which was a lesson to Esdras.

(Koran, chapt. ii.) The oath by the ass's hoofs is to ridicule the Jew.

Mohammed seems to have had an idée fixe that "the Jews say, Ezra is the

son of God" (Koran ix.); it may have arisen from the heterodox Jewish

belief that Ezra, when the Law was utterly lost, dictated the whole

anew to the scribes of his own memory. His tomb with the huge green

dome is still visited by the Jews of Baghdad.

[FN#500] Arab. "Bádhanj," the Pers. Bád. (wind) -gír (catcher): a

wooden pent-house on the terrace-roof universal in the nearer East.

[FN#501] The hunchback, in Arabia as in Southern Europe, is looked upon

by the vulgar with fear and aversion. The reason is that he is usually

sharper-witted than his neighbours.

[FN#502]Arab. "Yá Sattár" = Thou who veilest the discreditable secrets

of Thy creatures.

[FN#503] Arab. "Nasráni," a follower of Him of Nazareth and an older

name than "Christian" which (Acts xi., 26) was first given at Antioch

about A.D. 43. The cry in Alexandria used to be "Ya Nasráni, Kalb

awáni!"=O Nazarene! O dog obscene! (Pilgrimage i., 160).). "Christian"

in Arabic can be expressed only by "Masíhi" = follower of the Messiah.

[FN#504] Arab. "Tasbíh," = Saluting in the Subh (morning).

[FN#505] In the East women stand on minor occasions while men squat on

their hunkers in a way hardly possible to an untrained European. The

custom is old. Herodotus (ii., 35) says, "The women stand up when they

make water, but the men sit down." Will it be believed that Canon

Rawlinson was too modest to leave this passage in his translation? The

custom was perpetuated by Al-Islam because the position prevents the

ejection touching the clothes and making them ceremonially impure;

possibly they borrowed it from the Guebres. Dabistan, Gate xvi. says,

"It is improper, whilst in an erect posture, to make water, it is

therefore necessary to sit at squat and force it to some distance,

repeating the Avesta mentally."

[FN#506] This is still a popular form of the "Kinchin lay," and as the

turbands are often of fine stuff, the petite industrie pays well.

[FN#507]Arab. "Wali" = Governor; the term still in use for the Governor

General of a Province as opposed to the "Muháfiz," or

district-governor. In Eastern Arabia the Wali is the Civil Governor

opposed to the Amir or Military Commandant. Under the Caliphate the

Wali acted also as Prefect of Police (the Indian Faujdár), who is now

called "Zábit." The older name for the latter was "Sáhib al-Shartah" (=

chief of the watch) or "Mutawalli"; and it was his duty to go the

rounds in person. The old "Charley," with his lantern and cudgel, still

guards the bazars in Damascus.

[FN#508] Arab. "Al-Mashá ilí" = the bearer of a cresset (Mash'al) who

was also Jack Ketch. In Anglo-India the name is given to a lower

body-servant. The "Mash'al" which Lane (M. E., chapt. vi.) calls

"Mesh'al" and illustrates, must not be confounded with its congener the

"Sha'ilah" or link (also lamp, wick, etc.).

[FN#509] I need hardly say that the civilised "drop" is unknown to the

East where men are strung up as to a yardarm. This greatly prolongs the

suffering.

[FN#510] Arab. "Lukmah"; = a mouthful. It is still the fashion amongst

Easterns of primitive manners to take up a handful of rice, etc., ball

it and put it into a friend's mouth honoris causâ. When the friend is a

European the expression of his face is generally a study.

[FN#511] I need hardly note that this is an old Biblical practice. The

ass is used for city-work as the horse for fighting and travelling, the

mule for burdens and the dromedary for the desert. But the Badawi, like

the Indian, despises the monture and sings:—

The back of the steed is a noble place

But the mule's dishonour, the ass disgrace!

The fine white asses, often thirteen hands high, sold by the Banu Salíb

and other Badawi tribes, will fetch £100, and more. I rode a little

brute from Meccah to Jedda (42 miles) in one night and it came in with

me cantering.

[FN#512] A dry measure of about five bushels (Cairo). The classical

pronunciation is Irdabb and it measured 24 sa'a (gallons) each filling

four outstretched hands.

[FN#513] "Al-Jawáli" should be Al-Jáwali (Al-Makrizi) and the Bab

al-Nasr (Gate of Victory) is that leading to Suez. I lived in that

quarter as shown by my Pilgrimage (i. 62).

[FN#514] Arab. "Al-'ajalah," referring to a saying in every Moslem

mouth, "Patience is from the Protector (Allah): Hurry is from Hell."

That and "Inshallah bukra!" (Please God tomorrow.) are the traveller's

bêtes noires.

[FN#515] Here it is a polite equivalent for "fall to!"

[FN#516] The left hand is used throughout the East for purposes of

ablution and is considered unclean. To offer the left hand would be

most insulting and no man ever strokes his beard with it or eats with

it: hence, probably, one never sees a left handed man throughout the

Moslem east. In the Brazil for the same reason old-fashioned people

will not take snuff with the right hand. And it is related of the

Khataians that they prefer the left hand, "Because the heart, which is

the Sultan of the city of the Body, hath his mansion on that side"

(Rauzat al-Safá).

[FN#517] Two feminine names as we might say Mary and Martha.

[FN#518] It was near the Caliph's two Palaces (Al Kasrayn); and was

famous in the 15th century A. D. The Kazi's Mahkamah (Court house) now

occupies the place of the Two Palaces

[FN#519] A Kaysariah is a superior kind of bazar, a "bezestein." That

in the text stood to the east of the principal street in Cairo and was

built in A. H. 502 (=1108-9) by a Circassian Emir, known as Fakhr

al-Din Jahárkas, a corruption of the Persian "Chehárkas" = four persons

(Lane, i. 422, from Al-Makrizi and Ibn Khallikan). For Jahárkas the

Mac. Edit. has Jirjís (George) a common Christian name. I once lodged

in a 'Wakálah (the modern Khan) Jirjis." Pilgrimage, i. 255.

[FN#520]Arab. "Second Day," i.e. after Saturday, the true Sabbath, so

marvellously ignored by Christendom.

[FN#521] Readers who wish to know how a traveller is lodged in a

Wakálah, Khan, or Caravanserai, will consult my Pilgrimage, i. 60.

[FN#522] The original occupation of the family had given it a name, as

amongst us.

[FN#523] The usual "chaff" or banter allowed even to modest women when

shopping, and—many a true word is spoken in jest.

[FN#524] "La adamnák" = Heaven deprive us not of thee, i.e. grant I see

thee often!

[FN#525] This is a somewhat cavalier style of advance; but Easterns

under such circumstances go straight to the point, hating to filer the

parfait amour.

[FN#526] The peremptory formula of a slave delivering such a message.

[FN#527] This would be our Thursday night, preceding the day of public

prayers which can be performed only when in a state of ceremonial

purity. Hence many Moslems go to the Hammam on Thursday and have no

connection with their wives till Friday night.

[FN#528] Lane (i. 423) gives ample details concerning the Habbániyah,

or grain-sellers' quarter in the southern part of Cairo; and shows that

when this tale was written (or transcribed?) the city was almost as

extensive as it is now.

[FN#529] Nakíb is a caravan-leader, a chief, a syndic; and "Abú

Shámah"= Father of a cheek mole, while "Abú Shámmah" = Father of a

smeller, a nose, a snout. The "Kuniyah," bye-name, patronymic or

matronymic, is necessary amongst Moslems whose list of names, all

connected more or less with religion, is so scanty. Hence Buckingham

the traveller was known as Abu Kidr, the Father of a Cooking-pot and

Hajj Abdullah as Abu Shawárib, Father of Mustachios (Pilgrimage, iii.,

263).

[FN#530] More correctly Bab Zawilah from the name of a tribe in

Northern Africa. This gate dates from the same age as the Eastern or

Desert gate, Bab al-Nasr (A.D. 1087) and is still much admired. M.

Jomard describes it (Description, etc., ii. 670) and lately my good

friend Yacoub Artin Pasha has drawn attention to it in the Bulletin de

l'Inst. Egypt., Deuxième Série, No. 4, 1883.

[FN#531] This ornament is still seen in the older saloons of Damascus:

the inscriptions are usually religious sentences, extracts from the

Koran, etc., in uncial characters. They take the place of our frescos;

and, as a work of art, are generally far superior.

[FN#532] Arab. "Bayáz al-Sultání," the best kind of gypsum which shines

like polished marble. The stucco on the walls of Alexandria, built by

Alexander of the two Horns, was so exquisitely tempered and beautifully

polished that men had to wear masks for fear of blindness.

[FN#533] This Iklíl, a complicated affair, is now obsolete, its place

having been taken by the "Kurs," a gold plate, some five inches in

diameter, set with jewels, etc. Lane (M. E. Appendix A) figures it.

[FN#534] The woman-artist who applies the dye is called "Munakkishah."

[FN#535] "Kissing with th' inner lip," as Shakespeare calls it; the

French _langue fourrée:_ and Sanskrit "Samputa." The subject of kissing

is extensive in the East. Ten different varieties are duly enumerated

in the "Ananga-Ranga;" or, The Hindu Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica)

translated from the Sanskrit, and annotated by A. F. F. and B. F. R It

is also connected with unguiculation, or impressing the nails, of which

there are seven kinds; morsication (seven kinds); handling the hair and

tappings or pattings with the fingers and palm (eight kinds).

[FN#536] Arab. "asal-nahl," to distinguish it from "honey" i.e. syrup

of sugar-cane and fruits

[FN#537] The lines have occurred in Night xii. By way of variety I give

Torrens' version p. 273.

[FN#538] The way of carrying money in the corner of a

pocket-handkerchief is still common.

[FN#539] He sent the provisions not to be under an obligation to her in

this matter. And she received them to judge thereby of his liberality

[FN#540] Those who have seen the process of wine-making in the Libanus

will readily understand why it is always strained.

[FN#541] Arab. "Kulkasá," a kind of arum or yam, eaten boiled like our

potatoes.

[FN#542]At first he slipped the money into the bed-clothes: now he

gives it openly and she accepts it for a reason.

[FN#543] Arab. Al-Zalamah lit. = tyrants, oppressors, applied to the

police and generally to employés of Government. It is a word which

tells a history.

[FN#544] Moslem law is never completely satisfied till the criminal

confess. It also utterly ignores circumstantial evidence and for the

best of reasons: amongst so sharp-witted a people the admission would

lead to endless abuses. I greatly surprised a certain Governor-General

of India by giving him this simple information

[FN#545] Cutting off the right hand is the Koranic punishment (chapt.

v.) for one who robs an article worth four dinars, about forty francs

to shillings. The left foot is to be cut off at the ankle for a second

offence and so on; but death is reserved for a hardened criminal. The

practice is now obsolete and theft is punished by the bastinado, fine

or imprisonment. The old Guebres were as severe. For stealing one

dirham's worth they took a fine of two, cut off the ear-lobes, gave ten

stick-blows and dismissed the criminal who had been subjected to an

hour's imprisonment. A second theft caused the penalties to be doubled;

and after that the right hand was cut off or death was inflicted

according to the proportion stolen.

[FN#546] Koran viii. 17.

[FN#547] A universal custom in the East, the object being originally to

show that the draught was not poisoned.

[FN#548] Out of paste or pudding.

[FN#549] Boils and pimples are supposed to be caused by broken

hair-roots and in Hindostani are called Bál-tor.

[FN#550] He intended to bury it decently, a respect which Moslems

always show even to the exuviæ of the body, as hair and nail parings.

Amongst Guebres the latter were collected and carried to some mountain.

The practice was intensified by fear of demons or wizards getting

possession of the spoils.

[FN#551] Without which the marriage was not valid. The minimum is ten

dirhams (drachmas) now valued at about five francs to shillings; and if

a man marry without naming the sum, the woman, after consummation, can

compel him to pay this minimum.

[FN#552] Arab. "Khatmah" = reading or reciting the whole Koran, by one

or more persons, usually in the house, not over the tomb. Like the

"Zikr," Litany or Rogation, it is a pious act confined to certain

occasions.

[FN#553] Arab. "Zirbájah" = meat dressed with vinegar, cumin-seed

(Pers. Zír) and hot spices. More of it in the sequel of the tale.

[FN#554] A saying not uncommon meaning, let each man do as he seems

fit; also = "age quad agis": and at times corresponding with our saw

about the cap fitting.

[FN#555] Arab. "Su'úd," an Alpinia with pungent rhizome like ginger;

here used as a counter-odour.

[FN#556] Arab. "Tá'ih" = lost in the "Tíh," a desert wherein man may

lose himself, translated in our maps 'The Desert of the Wanderings,"

scil. of the children of Israel. "Credat Judæus."

[FN#557] _i.e._ £125 and £500.

[FN#558] A large sum was weighed by a professional instead of being

counted, the reason being that the coin is mostly old and worn: hence

our words "pound" and "pension" (or what is weighed out).

[FN#559] The eunuch is the best possible go-between on account of his

almost unlimited power over the Harem.

[FN#560] i.e., a slave-girl brought up in the house and never sold

except for some especial reason, as habitual drunkenness, etc.

[FN#561] Smuggling men into the Harem is a stock "topic" of eastern

tales. "By means of their female attendants, the ladies of the royal

harem generally get men into their apartments in the disguise of

women," says Vatsyayana in The Kama Sutra, Part V. London: Printed for

the Hindoo Kamashastra Society. 1883. For private circulation only.

[FN#562] These tears are shed over past separation. So the "Indians" of

the New World never meet after long parting without beweeping mutual

friends they have lost.

[FN#563] A most important Jack in office whom one can see with his

smooth chin and blubber lips, starting up from his lazy snooze in the

shade and delivering his orders more peremptorily than any Dogberry.

These epicenes are as curious and exceptional in character as in

external conformation. Disconnected, after a fashion, with humanity,

they are brave, fierce and capable of any villany or barbarity (as Agha

Mohammed Khan in Persia 1795-98). The frame is unnaturally long and

lean, especially the arms and legs; with high, flat, thin shoulders,

big protruding joints and a face by contrast extraordinarily large, a

veritable mask; the Castrato is expert in the use of weapons and sits

his horse admirably, riding well "home" in the saddle for the best of

reasons; and his hoarse, thick voice, which apparently does not break,

as in the European "Cáppone," invests him with all the circumstance of

command.

[FN#564] From the Meccan well used by Moslems much like Eau de Lourdes

by Christians: the water is saltish, hence the touch of Arab humour

(Pilgrimage iii., 201-202).

[FN#565] Such articles would be sacred from Moslem eyes.

[FN#566] Physiologically true, but not generally mentioned in

describing the emotions.

[FN#567] Properly "Uta," the different rooms, each "Odalisque," or

concubine, having her own.

[FN#568] Showing that her monthly ailment was over.

[FN#569] Arab "Muhammarah" = either browned before the fire or

artificially reddened.

[FN#570] The insolence and licence of these palace-girls was (and is)

unlimited, especially when, as in the present case, they have to deal

with a "softy." On this subject numberless stories are current

throughout the East.

[FN#571] i.e., blackened by the fires of Jehannam.

[FN#572] Arab. "Bi'l-Salámah" = in safety (to avert the evil eye). When

visiting the sick it is usual to say something civil; "The Lord heal

thee! No evil befall thee!" etc.

[FN#573] Washing during sickness is held dangerous by Arabs; and "going

to the Hammam" is, I have said, equivalent to convalescence.

[FN#574] Arab. "Máristán" (pronounced Múristan) a corruption of the

Pers. "Bímáristán" = place of sickness, a hospital much affected by the

old Guebres (Dabistan, i., 165, 166). That of Damascus was the first

Moslem hospital, founded by Al-Walid Son of Abd al-Malik the Ommiade in

A. H. 88 = 706-7. Benjamin of Tudela (A. D. 1164) calls it "Dar-al

Maraphtan" which his latest Editor explains by "Dar-al-Morabittan"

(abode of those who require being chained). Al-Makrizi (Khitat)

ascribes the invention of "Spitals" to Hippocrates; another historian

to an early Pharaoh "Manákiyush;" thus ignoring the Persian Kings,

Saint Ephrem (or Ephraim), Syru, etc. In modern parlance "Maristan" is

a madhouse where the maniacs are treated with all the horrors which

were universal in Europe till within a few years and of which

occasional traces occur to this day. In A.D. 1399 Katherine de la Court

held a "hospital in the Court called Robert de Paris," but the first

madhouse in Christendom was built by the legate Ortiz in Toledo A. D.

1483, and was therefore called Casa del Nuncio. The Damascus "Maristan"

was described by every traveller of the last century: and it showed a

curious contrast between the treatment of the maniac and the idiot or

omadhaun, who is humanely allowed to wander about unharmed, if not held

a Saint. When I saw it last (1870) it was all but empty and mostly in

ruins. As far as my experience goes, the United States is the only

country where the insane are rationally treated by the sane.

[FN#575] Hence the trite saying "Whoso drinks the water of the Nile

will ever long to drink it again." "Light" means easily digested water;

and the great test is being able to drink it at night between the

sleeps, without indigestion

[FN#576] "Níl" in popular parlance is the Nile in flood; although also

used for the River as a proper name. Egyptians (modern as well as

ancient) have three seasons, Al-Shitá (winter), Al-Sayf (summer) and

Al-Níl (the Nile i.e. flood season' our mid-summer); corresponding with

the Growth months; Housing (or granary)-months and Flood-months of the

older race.

[FN#577] These lines are in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#578] Arab. "Birkat al-Habash," a tank formerly existing in Southern

Cairo: Galland (Night 128) says "en remontant vers l'Ethiopie."

[FN#579] The Bres. Edit. (ii., 190), from which I borrow this

description, here alludes to the well-known Island, Al-Rauzah (Rodah) =

The Garden.

[FN#580] Arab. "Laylat al-Wafá," the night of the completion or

abundance of the Nile (-flood), usually between August 6th and 16th,

when the government proclaims that the Nilometer shows a rise of 16

cubits. Of course it is a great festival and a high ceremony, for Egypt

is still the gift of the Nile (Lane M. E. chapt. xxvi—a work which

would be much improved by a better index).

[FN#581] i.e., admiration will be complete.

[FN#582] Arab. "Sáhil Masr" (Misr): hence I suppose Galland's villes

maritimes.

[FN#583] A favourite simile, suggested by the broken glitter and

shimmer of the stream under the level rays and the breeze of eventide.

[FN#584] Arab. "Halab," derived by Moslems from "He (Abraham) milked

(halaba) the white and dun cow." But the name of the city occurs in the

Cuneiforms as Halbun or Khalbun, and the classics knew it as {Greek

Letters}, Beroca, written with variants.

[FN#585] Arab. "Ká'ah," usually a saloon; but also applied to a fine

house here and elsewhere in The Nights.

[FN#586] Arab. "Ghamz" = winking, signing with the eye which, amongst

Moslems, is not held "vulgar."

[FN#587] Arab. "Kamís" from low Lat. "Camicia," first found in St.

Jerome:— "Solent militantes habere lineas, quas Camicias vocant." Our

shirt, chemise, chemisette, etc., was unknown to the Ancients of

Europe.

[FN#588] Arab. "Narjís." The Arabs borrowed nothing, but the Persians

much, from Greek Mythology. Hence the eye of Narcissus, an idea hardly

suggested by the look of the daffodil (or asphodel)-flower, is at times

the glance of a spy and at times the die-away look of a mistress. Some

scholars explain it by the form of the flower, the internal calyx

resembling the iris, and the stalk being bent just below the petals

suggesting drooping eyelids and languid eyes. Hence a poet addresses

the Narcissus:—

O Narjis, look away! Before those eyes * I may not kiss her as a-breast

she lies.

What! Shall the lover close his eyes in sleep * While thine watch all

things between earth and skies?

The fashionable lover in the East must affect a frantic jealousy if he

does not feel it.

[FN#589] In Egypt there are neither bedsteads nor bedrooms: the carpets

and mattresses, pillows and cushions (sheets being unknown), are spread

out when wanted, and during the day are put into chests or cupboards,

or only rolled up in a corner of the room (Pilgrimage i. 53).

[FN#590] The women of Damascus have always been famed for the

sanguinary jealousy with which European story-books and novels credit

the "Spanish lady." The men were as celebrated for intolerance and

fanaticism, which we first read of in the days of Bertrandon de la

Brocquière and which culminated in the massacre of 1860. Yet they are a

notoriously timid race and make, physically and morally, the worst of

soldiers: we proved that under my late friend Fred. Walpole in the

Bashi-Buzuks during the old Crimean war. The men looked very fine

fellows and after a month in camp fell off to the condition of old

women.

[FN#591] Arab. "Rukhám," properly = alabaster and "Marmar" = marble;

but the two are often confounded.

[FN#592] He was ceremonially impure after touching a corpse.

[FN#593] The phrase is perfectly appropriate: Cairo without "her Nile"

would be nothing.

[FN#594] "The market was hot" say the Hindustanis. This would begin

between 7 and 8 a.m.

[FN#595] Arab. Al-Faranj, Europeans generally. It is derived from "Gens

Francorum," and dates from Crusading days when the French played the

leading part. Hence the Lingua Franca, the Levantine jargon, of which

Molière has left such a witty specimen.

[FN#596] A process familiar to European surgery of the same date.

[FN#597] In sign of disappointment, regret, vexation; a gesture still

common amongst Moslems and corresponding in significance to a certain

extent with our stamping, wringing the hands and so forth. It is not

mentioned in the Koran where, however, we find "biting fingers' ends

out of wrath" against a man (chapt. iii.).

[FN#598] This is no unmerited scandal. The Cairenes, especially the

feminine half (for reasons elsewhere given), have always been held

exceedingly debauched. Even the modest Lane gives a "shocking" story of

a woman enjoying her lover under the nose of her husband and confining

the latter in a madhouse (chapt. xiii.). With civilisation, which

objects to the good old remedy, the sword, they become worse: and the

Kazi's court is crowded with would-be divorcees. Under English rule the

evil has reached its acme because it goes unpunished: in the avenues of

the new Isma'iliyah Quarter, inhabited by Europeans, women, even young

women, will threaten to expose their persons unless they receive

"bakhshísh." It was the same in Sind when husbands were assured that

they would be hanged for cutting down adulterous wives: at once after

its conquest the women broke loose; and in 1843-50, if a young officer

sent to the bazar for a girl, half-a-dozen would troop to his quarters.

Indeed more than once the professional prostitutes threatened to

memorialise Sir Charles Napier because the "modest women," the "ladies"

were taking the bread out of their mouths. The same was the case at

Kabul (Caboul) of Afghanistan in the old war of 1840; and here the

women had more excuse, the husbands being notable sodomites as the song

has it.

The worth of slit the Afghan knows;

The worth of hole the Kábul-man.

[FN#599] So that he might not have to do with three sisters-german.

Moreover amongst Moslems a girl's conduct is presaged by that of her

mother; and if one sister go wrong, the other is expected to follow

suit. Practically the rule applies everywhere, "like mother like

daughter."

[FN#600] In sign of dissent; as opposed to nodding the head which

signifies assent. These are two items, apparently instinctive and

universal, of man's gesture-language which has been so highly

cultivated by sundry North American tribes and by the surdo-mute

establishments of Europe.

[FN#601] This "Futur" is the real "breakfast" of the East, the "Chhoti

házri" (petit déjeûner) of India, a bit of bread, a cup of coffee or

tea and a pipe on rising. In the text, however, it is a ceremonious

affair.

[FN#602] Arab. "Nahs," a word of many meanings; a sinister aspect of

the stars (as in Hebr. and Aram.) or, adjectivally, sinister, of

ill-omen. Vulgarly it is used as the reverse of nice and corresponds,

after a fashion, with our "nasty."

[FN#603] "Window-gardening," new in England, is an old practice in the

East.

[FN#604] Her pimping instinct at once revealed the case to her.

[FN#605] The usual "pander-dodge" to get more money.

[FN#606] The writer means that the old woman's account was all false,

to increase apparent difficulties and pour se faire valoir.

[FN#607] Arab. "Yá Khálati" =mother's sister; a familiar address to the

old, as uncle or nuncle (father's brother) to a man. The Arabs also

hold that as a girl resembles her mother so a boy follows his uncle

(mother's brother): hence the address "Ya tayyib al-Khál!" = O thou

nephew of a good uncle. I have noted that physically this is often

fact.

[FN#608] "Ay w' Alláhi," contracted popularly to Aywa, a word in every

Moslem mouth and shunned by Christians because against orders Hebrew

and Christian. The better educated Turks now eschew that eternal

reference to Allah which appears in The Nights and which is still the

custom of the vulgar throughout the world of Al-Islam.

[FN#609] The "Muzayyin" or barber in the East brings his basin and

budget under his arm: he is not content only to shave, he must scrape

the forehead, trim the eyebrows, pass the blade lightly over the nose

and correct the upper and lower lines of the mustachios, opening the

central parting and so forth. He is not a whit less a tattler and a

scandal monger than the old Roman tonsor or Figaro, his confrère in

Southern Europe. The whole scene of the Barber is admirable, an

excellent specimen of Arab humour and not over-caricatured. We all have

met him.

[FN#610] Abdullah ibn Abbas was a cousin and a companion of the

Apostle, also a well known Commentator on the Koran and conserver of

the traditions of Mohammed.

[FN#611] I have noticed the antiquity of this father of our sextant, a

fragment of which was found in the Palace of Sennacherib. More

concerning the "Arstable" (as Chaucer calls it) is given in my

"Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads," p. 381.

[FN#612] Arab. "Simiyá" to rhyme with Kímiyá (alchemy proper). It is a

subordinate branch of the Ilm al-Ruháni which I would translate

"Spiritualism," and which is divided into two great branches, "Ilwí or

Rahmáni" (the high or related to the Deity) and Siflí or Shaytáni (low,

Satanic). To the latter belongs Al-Sahr, magic or the black art proper,

gramarye, egromancy, while Al-Simiyá is white magic, electro-biology, a

kind of natural and deceptive magic, in which drugs and perfumes

exercise an important action. One of its principal branches is the Darb

al-Mandal or magic mirror, of which more in a future page. See

Boccaccio's Day x. Novel 5.

[FN#613] Chap. iii., 128. See Sale (in loco) for the noble application

of this text by the Imam Hasan, son of the Caliph Ali.

[FN#614] These proverbs at once remind us of our old friend Sancho

Panza and are equally true to nature in the mouth of the Arab and of

the Spaniard.

[FN#615] Our nurses always carry in the arms: Arabs place the children

astraddle upon the hip and when older on the shoulder.

[FN#616] Eastern clothes allow this biblical display of sorrow and

vexation, which with our European garb would look absurd: we must

satisfy ourselves with maltreating our hats

[FN#617] Koran xlviii., 8. It may be observed that according to the

Ahádis (sayings of the Prophet) and the Sunnat (sayings and doings of

Mahommed), all the hair should be allowed to grow or the whole head be

clean shaven. Hence the "Shúshah," or topknot, supposed to be left as a

handle for drawing the wearer into Paradise, and the Zulf, or

side-locks, somewhat like the ringlets of the Polish Jews, are both

vain "Bida'at," or innovations, and therefore technically termed

"Makrúh," a practice not laudable, neither "Halál" (perfectly lawful)

nor "Harám" (forbidden by the law). When boys are first shaved

generally in the second or third year, a tuft is left on the crown and

another over the forehead; but this is not the fashion amongst adults.

Abu Hanifah, if I am rightly informed, wrote a treatise on the Shushah

or long lock growing from the Násiyah (head-poll) which is also a

precaution lest the decapitated Moslem's mouth be defiled by an impure

hand; and thus it would resemble the chivalry lock by which the Redskin

brave (and even the "cowboy" of better times) facilitated the removal

of his own scalp. Possibly the Turks had learned the practice from the

Chinese and introduced it into Baghdad (Pilgrimage i., 240). The Badawi

plait their locks in Kurún (horns) or Jadáil (ringlets) which are

undone only to be washed with the water of the she-camel. The wild

Sherifs wear Haffah, long elf-locks hanging down both sides of the

throat, and shaved away about a finger's breadth round the forehead and

behind the neck (Pilgrimage iii., 35-36). I have elsewhere noted the

accroche-coeurs, the "idiot fringe," etc.

[FN#618] Meats are rarely coloured in modern days; but Persian cooks

are great adepts in staining rice for the "Puláo (which we call after

its Turkish corruption "pilaff"): it sometimes appears in

rainbow-colours, red, yellow and blue; and in India is covered with

gold and silver leaf. Europe retains the practice in tinting Pasch

(Easter) eggs, the survival of the mundane ovum which was hatched at

Easter-tide; and they are dyed red in allusion to the Blood of

Redemption.

[FN#619] As I have noticed, this is a mixture.

[FN#620] We say:—

Tis rare the father in the son we see:

He sometimes rises in the third degree.

[FN#621] Arab. "Ballán" i.e. the body-servant: "Ballánah" is a

tire-woman.

[FN#622] Arab. "Darabukkah" a drum made of wood or earthen-ware (Lane,

M. E., xviii.), and used by all in Egypt.

[FN#623] Arab. "Naihah" more generally "Naddábah" Lat. præfica or

carina, a hired mourner, the Irish "Keener" at the conclamatio or

coronach, where the Hullabaloo, Hulululu or Ululoo showed the

survivors' sorrow.

[FN#624] These doggerels, which are like our street melodies, are now

forgotten and others have taken their place. A few years ago one often

heard, "Dus ya lalli" (Tread, O my joy) and "Názil il'al-Ganínah" (Down

into the garden) and these in due turn became obsolete. Lane (M. E.

chapt. xviii.) gives the former e.g.

Tread, O my joy! Tread, O my joy!

Love of my love brings sore annoy,