[FN#233] The copying and transcribing hand which is either Arabi or Ajami. A great discovery has been lately made which upsets all our old ideas of Cufic, etc. Mr. Loeytved of Bayrut has found, amongst the Hauranic inscriptions, one in pure Naskhi, dating A. D. 568, or fifty years before the Hijrah; and it is accepted as authentic by my learned friend M. Ch. Clermont-Ganneau (p. 193, Pal. Explor. Fund. July 1884). In D'Herbelot and Sale's day the Koran was supposed to have been written in rude characters, like those subsequently called "Cufic," invented shortly before Mohammed's birth by Muramir ibn Murrah of Anbar in Irak, introduced into Meccah by Bashar the Kindian, and perfected by Ibn Muklah (Al-Wazir, ob. A. H. 328=940). We must now change all that. See Catalogue of Oriental Caligraphs, etc., by G. P, Badger, London, Whiteley, 1885.

[FN#234] Capital and uncial letters; the hand in which the Ka'abah veil is inscribed (Pilgrimage iii. 299, 300).

[FN#235] A "Court hand" says Mr. Payne (i. 112): I know nothing of it. Other hands are: the Ta'alik; hanging or oblique, used for finer MSS. and having, according to Richardson, "the same analogy to the Naskhi as our Italic has to the Roman." The Nasta' lik (not Naskh-Ta'alik) much used in India, is, as the name suggests, a mixture of the Naskhi (writing of transactions) and the Ta'alik. The Shikastah (broken hand) everywhere represents our running hand and becomes a hard task to the reader. The Kirma is another cursive character, mostly confined to the receipts and disbursements of the Turkish treasury. The Divani, or Court (of Justice) is the official hand, bold and round. a business character, the lines often rising with a sweep or curve towards the (left) end. The Jali or polished has a variety, the Jali-Ta'alik: the Sulsi (known in many books) is adopted for titles of volumes, royal edicts, diplomas and so forth; "answering much the same purpose as capitals with us, or the flourished letters in illuminated manuscripts" (Richardson) The Tughrai is that of the Tughra, the Prince's cypher or flourishing signature in ceremonial writings, and containing some such sentence as: Let this be executed. There are others e. g. Yakuti and Sirenkil known only by name. Finally the Maghribi (Moorish) hand differs in form and diacritical points from the characters used further east almost as much as German running hand does from English. It is curious that Richardson omits the Jali (intricate and convoluted) and the divisions of the Sulusi, Sulsi or Sulus (Thuluth) character, the Sulus al-Khafif, etc.

[FN#236] Arab. "Baghlah"; the male (Bagful) is used only for loads. This is everywhere the rule: nothing is more unmanageable than a restive "Macho", and he knows that he can always get you off his back when so minded. From "Baghlah" is derived the name of the native craft Anglo-Indice a "Buggalow."

[FN#237] In Heb. ""Ben-Adam" is any man opp. to "Beni ish" (Psalm iv. 3) =filii viri, not homines.

[FN#238] This posture is terribly trying to European legs; and few white men (unless brought up to it) can squat for any time on their heels. The "tailor-fashion," with crossed legs, is held to be free and easy.

[FN#239] Arab. "Kata"=Pterocles Alchata, the well-known sand-grouse of the desert. It is very poor white flesh.

[FN#240] Arab. "Khubz" which I do not translate "cake" or "bread,'' as thee would suggest the idea of our loaf. The staff of life in the East is a thin flat circle of dough baked in the oven or on the griddle, and corresponding with the Scotch "scone," the Spanish tortilla and the Australian "flap-jack."

[FN#241] Arab. "Harisah," a favourite dish of wheat (or rice) boiled and reduced to a paste with shredded meat, spices and condiments. The "bangles" is a pretty girl eating with him.

[FN#242] These lines are repeated with a difference in Night cccxxx. They affect Rims cars, out of the way, heavy rhymes: e. g. here Sakarij (plur. of Sakruj, platters, porringers); Tayahij (plur. of Tayhuj, the smaller caccabis-partridge); Tabahij (Persian Tabahjah, an me et or a stew of meat, onions, eggs, etc.) Ma'arij ("in stepped piles" like the pyramids Lane ii 495, renders "on the stairs"); Makarij (plur. of Makraj, a small pot); Damalij (plur. of dumluj, a bracelet, a bangle); Dayabij (brocades) and Tafarij (openings, enjoyments). In Night cccxxx. we find also Sikabij (plur. of Sikbaj, marinated meat elsewhere explained); Fararij (plur. of farruj, a chicken, vulg. farkh) and Dakakij (plur. of Gr. dakujah,, a small Jar). In the first line we have also (though not a rhyme) Gharanik Gr. , a crane, preserved in Romaic. The weeping and wailing are caused by the remembrance that all these delicacies have been demolished like a Badawi camp.

[FN#243] This is the vinum coctum, the boiled wine, still a favourite in Southern Italy and Greece.

[FN#244] Eastern topers delight in drinking at dawn: upon this subject I shall have more to say in other Nights.

[FN#245] Arab. "Adab," a crux to translators, meaning anything between good education and good manners. In mod. Turk. "Edibiyyet" (Adabiyat) = belles lettres and "Edebi' or "Edib" = a litterateur.

[FN#246] The Caliph Al-Maamun, who was a bad player, used to say, "I have the administration of the world and am equal to it, whereas I am straitened in the ordering of a space of two spans by two spans." The "board" was then "a square field of well-dressed leather."

[FN#247] The Rabbis (after Matth. xix. 12) count three kinds of Eunuchs; (1) Seris chammah=of the sun, i.e. natural, (2) Seris Adam=manufactured per homines; and (3) Seris Chammayim—of God (i.e.. religious abstainer). Seris (castrated) or Abd (slave) is the general Hebrew name.

[FN#248] The "Lady of Beauty."

[FN#249] "Kaf" has been noticed as the mountain which surrounds earth as a ring does the finger:: it is popularly used like our Alp and Alpine. The "circumambient Ocean" (Bahr al-muhit) is the Homeric Ocean-stream.

[FN#250] The pomegranate is probably chosen here because each fruit is supposed to contain one seed from Eden-garden. Hence a host of superstitions (Pilgrimage iii., 104) possibly connected with the Chaldaic-Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramanu. Hence Persephone or Ishtar tasted the "rich pomegranate's seed." Lenormant, loc. cit. pp. 166, 182.

[FN#251] i.e. for the love of God—a favourite Moslem phrase.

[FN#252] Arab. "Bab," also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.), corresponding with the Persian "Dar" as in Sad-dar, the Hundred Doors. Here, however, it is figurative "I tried a new mode." This scene is in the Mabinogion.

[FN#253] I use this Irish term = crying for the dead, as English wants the word for the praefica, or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, ; "Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living, i.e. punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt, and the people have there developed a curious system in the "weeping-song" I have noted this in "The Lake Regions of Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chaps. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.

[FN#254] These lines are hardly translatable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience" as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to Burckhardt, is planted in graveyards as a lesson of patience: it is also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house doors to prevent evil spirits entering: "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane (M.E., chaps. xi.), "it will live for several years and even blossom. Hence (?) it is called Sabr, which signifies patience. But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long sufferance." I hold the practice to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens of Wak, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350.)

[FN#255] Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the "River of Peace (or Security)."

[FN#256] This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chaps. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden Wire."

[FN#257] The fable is probably based on the currents which, as in Eastern Africa, will carry a ship fifty miles a day out of her course. We first find it in Ptolemy (vii. 2) whose Maniolai Islands, of India extra Gangem, cause iron nails to fly out of ships, the effect of the Lapis Herculeus (Loadstone). Rabelais (v. c. 37) alludes to it and to the vulgar idea of magnetism being counteracted by Skordon (Scordon or garlic). Hence too the Adamant (Loadstone) Mountains of Mandeville (chaps. xxvii.) and the "Magnetic Rock" in Mr Puttock's clever "Peter Wilkins." I presume that the myth also arose from seeing craft built, as on the East African Coast, without iron nails. We shall meet with the legend again. The word Jabal ("Jebel" in Egypt) often occurs in these pages. The Arabs apply it to any rising ground or heap of rocks; so it is not always = our mountain. It has found its way to Europe e. g. Gibraltar and Monte Gibello (or Mongibel in poetry) "Mt. Ethne that men clepen Mounte Gybelle." Other special senses of Jabal will occur.

[FN#258] As we learn from the Nubian Geographer the Arabs in early ages explored the Fortunate Islands (Jazirat al-Khalidat=Eternal Isles), or Canaries, on one of which were reported a horse and horseman in bronze with his spear pointing west. Ibn al-Ward) notes two images of hard stone, each an hundred cubits high, and upon the top of each a figure of copper pointing with its hand backwards, as though it would say:—Return for there is nothing behind me!" But this legend attaches to older doings. The 23rd Tobba (who succeeded Bilkis), Malik bin Sharhabil, (or Sharabil or Sharahil) surnamed Nashir al-Ni'am=scatterer of blessings, lost an army in attempting the Western sands and set up a statue of copper upon whose breast was inscribed in antique characters:—

There is no access behind me, Nothing beyond, (Saith) The Son of Sharabil.

[FN#259] i.e. I exclaimed "Bismillah!"

[FN#260] The lesser ablution of hands, face and feet; a kind of "washing the points." More in Night ccccxl.

[FN#261] Arab. "Ruka'tayn"; the number of these bows which are followed by the prostrations distinguishes the five daily prayers.

[FN#262] The "Beth Kol" of the Hebrews; also called by the Moslems "Hatif"; for which ask the Spiritualists. It is the Hindu "voice divine" or "voice from heaven."

[FN#263] These formulae are technically called Tasmiyah, Tahlil (before noted) and Takbir: i.e. "testifying" is Tashhid.

[FN#264] Arab. "Samn," (Pers. "Raughan" Hind. "Ghi") the "single sauce" of the East; fresh butter set upon the fire, skimmed and kept (for a century if required) in leather bottles and demijohns. Then it becomes a hard black mass, considered a panacea for wounds and diseases. It is very "filling": you say jocosely to an Eastern threatened with a sudden inroad of guests, "Go, swamp thy rice with Raughan." I once tried training, like a Hindu Pahlawan or athlete, on Gur (raw sugar), milk and Ghi; and the result was being blinded by bile before the week ended.

[FN#265] These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should apply to women.

[FN#266] The Bull Edit. (i. 43) reads otherwise:—I found a garden and a second and a third and so on till they numbered thirty and nine; and, in each garden, I saw what praise will not express, of trees and rills and fruits and treasures. At the end of the last I sighted a door and said to myself, "What may be in this place?; needs must I open it and look in!" I did so accordingly and saw a courser ready saddled and bridled and picketed; so I loosed and mounted him, and he flew with me like a bird till he set me down on a terrace-roof; and, having landed me, he struck me a whisk with his tail and put out mine eye and fled from me. Thereupon I descended from the roof and found ten youths all blind of one eye who, when they saw me exclaimed, "No welcome to thee, and no good cheer!" I asked them, "Do ye admit me to your home and society?" and they answered, "No, by Allah' thou shalt not live amongst us." So I went forth with weeping eyes and grieving heart, but Allah had written my safety on the Guarded Tablet so I reached Baghdad in safety, etc. This is a fair specimen of how the work has been curtailed in that issue.

[FN#267] Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the foetus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).

[FN#268] This is contrary to the commands of Al-Islam, Mohammed expressly said "The Astrologers are liars, by the Lord of the Ka'abah!"; and his saying is known to almost all Moslems, lettered or unlettered. Yet, the further we go East (Indiawards) the more we find these practices held in honour. Turning westwards we have:

Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto: Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est; Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.

[FN#269] He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects his dawn prayers.

[FN#270] For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games. Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding "Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants).

[FN#271] Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.

[FN#272] We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."

[FN#273] The bath first taken after sickness.

[FN#274] Arab. "Dikak" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="Revalenta Arabica," which costs a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England.

[FN#275] Arab. "Sukkar-nabat." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency.

[FN#276] This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagke," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the Terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama.

[FN#277] Having lately been moved by Ajib.

[FN#278] Mr. Payne (i. 131) omits these lines which appear out of place; but this mode of inappropriate quotation is a characteristic of Eastern tales.

[FN#279] Anglice "him."

[FN#280] This march of the tribe is a lieu commun of Arab verse e.g. the poet Labid's noble elegy on the "Deserted Camp." We shall find scores of instances in The Nights.

[FN#281] I have heard of such sands in the Desert east of Damascus which can be crossed only on boards or camel furniture; and the same is reported of the infamous Region "Al-Ahklaf" ("Unexplored Syria").

[FN#282] Hence the Arab. saying "The bark of a dog and not the gleam of a fire;" the tired traveller knows from the former that the camp is near, whereas the latter shows from great distances.

[FN#283] Dark blue is the colour of mourning in Egypt as it was of the Roman Republic. The Persians hold that this tint was introduced by Kay Kawus (B. C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyawush. It was continued till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month, then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black. As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called "Hidad") looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile women dye their hands with indigo and stair. their faces black or blacker.

[FN#284] The older Roc, of which more in the Tale of Sindbad. Meanwhile the reader curious about the Persian Simurgh (thirty bird) will consult the Dabistan, i., 55,191 and iii., 237, and Richardson's Diss. p. xlviii. For the Anka (Enka or Unka—long necked bird) see Dab. iii., 249 and for the Huma (bird of Paradise) Richardson lxix. We still lack details concerning the Ben or Bennu (nycticorax) of Egypt which with the Article pi gave rise to the Greek "phoenix."

[FN#285] Probably the Haledj of Forskal (p. xcvi. Flor. AEgypt. Arab.), "lignum tenax, durum, obscuri generic." The Bres. Edit. has "akul"=teak wood, vulg. "Saj."

[FN#286] The knocker ring is an invention well known to the Romans.

[FN#287] Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut" (Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.

[FN#288] Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhaba," the words still popularly addressed to a guest.

[FN#289] This may mean "liquid black eyes"; but also, as I have noticed, that the lashes were long and thick enough to make the eyelids appear as if Kohl-powder had been applied to the inner rims.

[FN#290] A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is considered a beauty by Arabs; why it as hard to say except for the racial love of variety. "Sugar" (Thug) in the text means, primarily, the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.

[FN#291] i.e. makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the gall-bladder" (Mararah) being our "breaking the heart."

[FN#292] Almost needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a lieu-commun in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard."

[FN#293] Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix. 30).

[FN#294] Arab. "Al-Barkuk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is "Burkuk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishrnish," and it also denotes a small plum or damson. In Syria the side next the sun" shows a glowing red flush.

[FN#295] Arab. "Hazar" (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. "Majur": 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. Sharamit) 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 "Kadid."

[FN#303] Arab. "Izar," the man's waistcloth opposed to the Rida 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., chaps. i.). The rich prefer a "Habarah" of black silk, and the poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.

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

[FN#305] Arab. "La tawakhizna:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;" the pop. expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."

[FN#306] Arab. "Maskhut," 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 Hauran and the Roman ruins in Northern Africa will readily detect the bests 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 gynaeceum, Pers. Zenanah, Serraglio): Harim 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. "Mihrab" = 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 Imam, artistes 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 Lunae, 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-Kuran" (respect due to Holy Writ) gives great scandal.

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

[FN#314] The Persian poets have a thousand conceits in praise of the "mole," (Khal or Shamah) 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. "Suha" a star in the Great Bear introduced only to balance "wushat" = 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-caeurs, 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. "Faraiz"; 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 "Wajib" 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 "Tughyan" or rebellion against the Lord. The "terrible sound" is taken from the legend of the prophet Salih and the proto-historic tribe of Thamud 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-columned 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"

[FN#323] Arab. "Shuhada"; 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'uban:" the Badawin give the name to a variety of serpents all held to be venomous; but m tales the word, like "Tannin," 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 Brocquiere 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. "Jila" (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. "Isha"= 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. "Shakaik al-Nu'uman," lit. the fissures of Nu'uman, the beautiful anemone, which a tyrannical King of Hirah, Nu'uman 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 hai?) 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. "Simat" (prop. "Sumat"); the "dinner-table," composed of a round wooden stool supporting a large metal tray, the two being called "Sufrah" (or "Simat"): thus "Sufrah hazirah!" means dinner is on the table. After the meal they are at once removed.

[FN#340] In the text "Dastur," 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. "Azim": 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 etre 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. "Sar," 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-mantle, a waist-shawl and a gold neck-chain and shoe-buckles.

[FN#364] Arab. "Iza," 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. "Jizah," = 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 it into Va-t'en!

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

[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: Yakut calls it "Bilbis."

[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 Jueden" are proverbial and nothing can be meaner than the Christians while the Moslems are famed for treachery.

[FN#378] Arab. "Shamm al-hawa." 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-Nasim" (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 "Khammasin" or "Mirisi" (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 "buri" = 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 Egyptien, 2nd series, No. 4, Cairo, 1884. I have noticed the Mirisi (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-Hariri, 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 Kufah. 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 (Bukhur) 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 County, 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 "Shakik" = 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-Wasik who has been noticed) formally created these Sultans as their regents. Al-Ta'i bi'llah (regn. A.H. 363 = 974), invested the famous Sabuktagin with the office; and as Alexander-Sikander 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 Mahmud 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 "Hafiz," 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 naive 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. "Shash" (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. "Nabiz" = 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 (ferment from the fruit, not the Tadi, 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- yahdik" = 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. "Farajiyah," a long-sleeved robe worn by the learned (Lane, M.E., chapt. i.).

[FN#397] Arab. "Sarraf" (vulg. Sayrafi), whence the Anglo-Indian "Shroff," a familiar corruption.

[FN#398] Arab. "Yahudi" which is less polite than "Banu Israil" = 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 "Ghilman" = 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 Pallie 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. "Barid," 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 Ghawazi are mostly Gypsies who pretend to be Moslems; and they have been confused with the Almahs or Moslem dancing- girls proper (Awalim, plur. of Alimah, a learned feminine) by a host of travellers. They call themselves Baramikah 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 tarbush, a corruption of the Per. "Sar-push" (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 by 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. "Tar.": 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-Islamitic 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'a, 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 Himvarland = 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, "Kaghaz-khanah" = 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 Mah'um" 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 pao" (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 Shihab" (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. "Sarawil" a corruption of the Pers. "Sharwal"; popularly called "libas" 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 "libas," "sarwal" and its variants the curious reader will consult Dr. Dozy's "Dictionnaire Detaille des Noms des Vetements 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 "Madafi" (plur. of Madfa') means water-courses or leats.

[FN#428] In Arab. the "he" is a "she;" and Habib ("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 Azan, or call to prayer.

[FN#430] Arab. "Shihab," these mentors 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. "Takiyah" = 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 curing 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 "Dumbuma" 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 "Taghum"; 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. "Kahramanat" from Kahraman, 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-Arif; the tutor, the assistant-master.

[FN#449] Arab. "Ibn haram," 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 noted 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. Faenger, e.g. Hirschfaenger.

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

[FN#452] Arab. "Iklim"; 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. "Nabut"; 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. "Khadim": lit. a servant, politely applied (like Agha = master) to a castrato. These gentry wax furious if baldly called "Tawashi" = 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. "Sahib" = 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- himar" (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 "Sab."

[FN#462] Arab. "Suwan," 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 haza" = O this (one)! a somewhat slighting address equivalent to "Heus tu! O thou, whoever thou art." Another form is "Ya hu" = O he! Can this have originated Swift's "Yahoo"?

[FN#467] Alluding to the {Greek Letters} ("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 Samran or bead- bracelet from the arm of the beautiful Chistapa 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 ("ibrik" Pers. Abriz) 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 mediaeval 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 praevalebit." 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'arirah), horror or gooseflesh which, in Arab as in Hindu fables, is a symptom of great joy. So Boccaccio's "pelo arriciato" v., 8: Germ. Gaensehaut.

[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 Shagal or Shaghal.

[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 "Fata," 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 Kajkar" (Kashghar): 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, chaps. cv.) when the Abyssinian army of Abrahah, the Christian, was destroyed by swallows (Ababil 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-Hijaz 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 "Sitla" (small-pox) a goddess, an incarnation of Bhawani, deess 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, chaps. ii.) The oath by the ass's hoofs is to ridicule the Jew. Mohammed seems to have had an idee 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. "Badhanj," the Pers. Bad. (wind) -gir (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. "Ya Sattar" = Thou who veilest the discreditable secrets of Thy creatures.

[FN#503] Arab. "Nasrani," 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 Nasrani, Kalb awani!"=O Nazarene! O dog obscene! (Pilgrimage i., 160).). "Christian" in Arabic can be expressed only by "Masihi" = follower of the Messiah.

[FN#504] Arab. "Tasbih," = 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 "Muhafiz," 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 Fanjdar), who is now called "Zabit." The older name for the latter was "Sahib 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 bazaars in Damascus.

[FN#508] Arab. "Al-Masha ili" = the bearer of a cresses (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., chaps. 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 causa. 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 Salib and other Badawi tribes, will fetch L100, 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-Jawali" should be Al-Jawali (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 betes 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-Safa).

[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 bazaar, 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 Jaharkas, a corruption of the Persian "Cheharkas" = four persons (Lane, i. 422, from Al-Makrizi and Ibn Khallikan). For Jaharkas the Mac. Edit. has Jirjis (George) a common Christian name. I once lodged in a 'Wakalah (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 Wakalah, 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 adamnak" = 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.

[FN#528] Lane (i. 423) gives ample details concerning the Habbaniyah, 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] Nakib is a caravan-leader, a chief, a syndic; and "Abu Shamah"= Father of a cheek mole, while "Abu Shammah" = 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 Haj Abdullah as Abu Shawarib, 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., Deuxieme Serie, 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. "Bayaz al-Sultani," 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 Iklil, 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 fourree: 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 lappings 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. "Kulkasa," 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 employes 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 (chaps. 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 Bal-tor.

[FN#550] He intended to bury it decently, a respect which Moslems always show even to the exuviae 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. "Zirbajah" = meat dressed with vinegar, cumin-seed (Pers. Zir) 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'ud," an Alpinia with pungent rhizome like ginger; here used as a counter-odour.

[FN#556] Arab. "Ta'ih" = lost in the "Tih," a desert wherein man may lose himself, translated in our maps 'The Desert of the Wanderings," scil. of the children of Israel. "Credat Judaeus."

[FN#557] i e. L125 and L500.

[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.

[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 villainy 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 "Cappone," 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 "lofty." 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-Salamah" = 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. "Maristan" (pronounced Muristan) a corruption of the Pers. "Bimaristan" = 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 "Manakiyush;" 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] "Nil" 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-Shita (winter), Al-Sayf (summer) and Al-Nil (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#587] 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-Wafa," 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. chaps. xxvi—a work which would be much improved by a better index).

[FN#581] i.e., admiration will be complete.

[FN#582] Arab. "Sahil 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. "Ka'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. "Kamis" 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. "Narjis." 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 Brocquiere 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. "Rukham," 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 Moliere 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 (chaps. 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 (chaps. 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 "bakhshish." 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 bazaar 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 Kabul-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 hazri" (petit dejeuner) 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. end 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. "Ya Khalati" =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-Khal!" = 0 thou nephew of a good uncle. I have noted that physically this is often fact.

[FN#608] "Ay w' Allahi," 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 confrere 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.