Part 47

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

[FN#435] Meaning especially the drink prepared of the young leaves and florets of Cannabis Sativa. The word literally means "day grass" or "herbage." This intoxicant was much used by magicians to produce ecstasy and thus to "deify themselves and receive the homage of the genii and spirits of nature."

[FN#436] Torrens, being an Irishman, translates "and woke in the morning sleeping at Damascus."

[FN#437] Arab. "Labbayka," the cry technically called "Talbiyah" and used by those entering Meccah (Pilgrimage iii. 125-232). I shall also translate it by "Adsum." The full cry is:—

Here am I, O Allah, here am I! No partner hast Thou, here am I: Verily the praise and the grace and the kingdom are thine: No partner hast Thou: here am I!

A single Talbiyah is a "Shart" or positive condition: and its repetition is a Sunnat or Custom of the Prophet. See Night xci.

[FN#438] The staple abuse of the vulgar is cursing parents and relatives, especially feminine, with specific allusions to their "shame." And when dames of high degree are angry, Nature, in the East as in the West, sometimes speaks out clearly enough, despite Mistress Chapone and all artificial restrictions.

[FN#439] A great beauty in Arabia and the reverse in Denmark, Germany and Slav-land, where it is a sign of being a were-wolf or a vampire. In Greece also it denotes a "Brukolak" or vampire.

[FN#440] This is not physiologically true: a bride rarely conceives the first night, and certainly would not know that she had conceived. Moreover the number of courses furnished by the bridegroom would be against conception. It is popularly said that a young couple often undoes in the morning what it has done during the night.

[FN#441] Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes "Fleisher" upon the word "Ghamghama" (Diss. Crit. De Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares with "Dumduma" and Humbuma," determining them to be onomatopoeics, "an incomplete and an obscure murmur of a sentence as it were lingering between the teeth and lips and therefore difficult to be understood." Of this family is "Taghúm"; not used in modern days. In my Pilgrimage (i. 313) I have noticed another, "Khyas', Khyas'!" occurring in a Hizb al-Bahr (Spell of the Sea). Herklots gives a host of them; and their sole characteristics are harshness and strangeness of sound, uniting consonants which are not joined in Arabic. The old Egyptians and Chaldeans had many such words composed at will for theurgic operations.

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

[FN#443] To the English reader these lines would appear the reverse of apposite; but Orientals have their own ways of application, and all allusions to Badawi partings are effective and affecting. The civilised poets of Arab cities throw the charm of the Desert over their verse by images borrowed from its scenery, the dromedary, the mirage and the well as naturally as certain of our bards who hated the country, babbled of purling rills, etc. thoroughly to feel Arabic poetry one must know the Desert (Pilgrimage iii., 63).

[FN#444] In those days the Arabs and the Portuguese recorded everything which struck them, as the Chinese and Japanese in our times. And yet we complain of the amount of our modern writing!

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

[FN#446] Arab. "Kahramánát" from Kahramán, an old Persian hero who conversed with the Simurgh-Griffon. Usually the word is applied to women-at-arms who defend the Harem, like the Urdu-begani of India, whose services were lately offered to England (1885), or the "Amazons" of Dahome.

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

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

[FN#449] Arab. "Ibn harám," a common term of abuse; and not a factual reflection on the parent. I have heard a mother apply the term to her own son.

[FN#450] Arab. "Khanjar" from the Persian, a syn. with the Arab. "Jambiyah." It is noticed in my Pilgrimage iii., pp. 72,75. To "silver the dagger" means to become a rich man. From "Khanjar," not from its fringed loop or strap, I derive our silly word "hanger." Dr. Steingass would connect it with Germ. Fänger, e.g. Hirschfänger.

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

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

[FN#453] Arab. "Al-Ghadir," lit. a place where water sinks, a lowland: here the drainage-lakes east of Damascus into which the Baradah (Abana?) discharges. The higher eastern plain is "Al-Ghutah" before noticed.

[FN#454] The "Plain of Pebbles" still so termed at Damascus; an open space west of the city.

[FN#455] Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter's "Murray," gives a long account of this Christian Church 'verted to a Mosque.

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

[FN#457] The Bres. Edit. says, "would have knocked him into Al-Yaman," (Southern Arabia), something like our slang phrase "into the middle of next week."

[FN#458] Arab. "Khádim": lit. a servant, politely applied (like Aghá = master) to a castrato. These gentry wax furious if baldly called "Tawáshi" = Eunuch. A mauvais plaisant in Egypt used to call me The Agha because a friend had placed his wife under my charge.

[FN#459] This sounds absurd enough in English, but Easterns always put themselves first for respect.

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

[FN#461] Arab. "Sáhib" = lit. a companion; also a friend and especially applied to the Companions of Mohammed. Hence the Sunnis claim for them the honour of "friendship" with the Apostle; but the Shia'hs reply that the Arab says "Sahaba-hu'l-himár" (the Ass was his Sahib or companion). In the text it is a Wazirial title, in modern India it is = gentleman, e.g. "Sahib log" (the Sahib people) means their white conquerors, who, by the by, mostly mispronounce the word "Sáb."

[FN#462] Arab. "Suwán," prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but applied to flint and any hard stone.

[FN#463] It was famous in the middle ages, and even now it is, perhaps, the most interesting to travellers after that "Sentina Gentium," the "Bhendi Bazar" of unromantic Bombay.

[FN#464] "The Gate of the Gardens," in the northern wall, a Roman archway of the usual solid construction shaming not only our modern shams, but our finest masonry.

[FN#465] Arab. "Al-Asr," which may mean either the hour or the prayer. It is also the moment at which the Guardian Angels relieve each other (Sale's Koran, chapt. v.).

[FN#466] Arab. "Ya házá" = O this (one)! a somewhat slighting address equivalent to "Heus tu! O thou, whoever thou art." Another form is "Yá hú" = O he! Can this have originated Swift's "Yahoo"?

[FN#467] Alluding to the τήρατα ("minor miracles which cause surprise") performed by Saints' tombs, the mildest form of thaumaturgy. One of them gravely recorded in the Dabistan (ii. 226) is that of the holy Jamen, who opened the Sámran or bead- bracelet from the arm of the beautiful Chistápá with member erect, "thus evincing his manly strength and his command over himself"(!)

[FN#468] The River of Paradise, a lieu commun of poets (Koran, chapt. cviii.): the water is whiter than milk or silver, sweeter than honey, smoother than cream, more odorous than musk; its banks are of chrysolite and it is drunk out of silver cups set around it thick as stars. Two pipes conduct it to the Prophet's Pond which is an exact square, one month's journey in compass. Kausar is spirituous like wine; Salsabil sweet like clarified honey; the Fount of Mildness is like milk and the Fount of Mercy like liquid crystal.

[FN#469] The Moslem does not use the European basin because water which has touched an impure skin becomes impure. Hence it is poured out from a ewer ("ibrík" Pers. Abríz) upon the hands and falls into a basin ("tisht") with an open-worked cover.

[FN#470] Arab. "Wahsh," a word of many meanings; nasty, insipid, savage, etc. The offside of a horse is called Wahshi opposed to Insi, the near side. The Amir Taymur ("Lord Iron") whom Europeans unwittingly call after his Persian enemies' nickname, "Tamerlane," i.e. Taymur-I-lang, or limping Taymur, is still known as "Al-Wahsh" (the wild beast) at Damascus, where his Tartars used to bury men up to their necks and play at bowls with their heads for ninepins.

[FN#471] For "grandson" as being more affectionate. Easterns have not yet learned that clever Western saying:—The enemies of our enemies are our friends.

[FN#472] This was a simple bastinado on the back, not the more ceremonious affair of beating the feet-soles. But it is surprising what the Egyptians can bear; some of the rods used in the time of the Mameluke Beys are nearly as thick as a man's wrist.

[FN#473] The woman-like spite of the eunuch intended to hurt the grandmother's feelings.

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

[FN#475] A necessary precaution against poison (Pilgrimage i. 84, and iii. 43).

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

[FN#477] The Bul. Edit. gives by mistake of diacritical points, "Zabdaniyah:" Raydaniyah is or rather was a camping ground to the North of Cairo.

[FN#478] Arab. "La'abat" = a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane (i. 326) conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a man with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas of mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and ignominious punishment. (Koran, chapt. vii.).

[FN#479] Here good blood, driven to bay, speaks out boldly. But, as a rule, the humblest and mildest Eastern when in despair turns round upon his oppressors like a wild cat. Some of the criminals whom Fath Ali Shah of Persia put to death by chopping down the fork, beginning at the scrotum, abused his mother till the knife reached their vitals and they could no longer speak.

[FN#480] These repeated "laughs" prove the trouble of his spirit. Noble Arabs "show their back-teeth" so rarely that their laughter is held worthy of being recorded by their biographers.

[FN#481] A popular phrase, derived from the Koranic "Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance" (chapt. xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41, "Magna est veritas et prævalebit." But the great question still remains, What is Truth?

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

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

[FN#484] Alluding to the phrase "Al-safar zafar" = voyaging is victory (Pilgrimage i., 127).

[FN#485] Arab. "Habb;" alluding to the black drop in the human heart which the Archangel Gabriel removed from Mohammed by opening his breast.

[FN#486] This phrase, I have said, often occurs: it alludes to the horripilation (Arab. Kush'arírah), horror or gooseflesh which, in Arab as in Hindu fables, is a symptom of great joy. So Boccaccio's "pelo arriciato" v., 8: Germ. Gänsehaut.

[FN#487] Arab. "Hasanta ya Hasan" = Bene detto, Benedetto! the usual word-play vulgarly called "pun": Hasan (not Hassan, as we will write it) meaning "beautiful."

[FN#488] Arab. "Loghah" also = a vocabulary, a dictionary; the Arabs had them by camel-loads.

[FN#489] The seventh of the sixteen "Bahr" (metres) in Arabic prosody; the easiest because allowing the most license and, consequently, a favourite for didactic, homiletic and gnomic themes. It means literally "agitated" and was originally applied to the rude song of the Cameleer. De Sacy calls this doggrel "the poet's ass" (Torrens, Notes xxvi.). It was the only metre in which Mohammed the Apostle ever spoke: he was no poet (Koran xxxvi., 69) but he occasionally recited a verse and recited it wrongly (Dabistan iii., 212). In Persian prosody Rajaz is the seventh of nineteen and has six distinct varieties (pp. 79-81), "Gladwin's Dissertations on Rhetoric," etc. Calcutta, 1801). I shall have more to say about it in the Terminal Essay.

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

[FN#491] A worthy who was Kazi of Kufah (Cufa) in the seventh century. Al-Najaf, generally entitled "Najaf al-Ashraf" (the Venerand) is the place where Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, lies or is supposed to lie buried, and has ever been a holy place to the Shi'ahs. I am not certain whether to translate "Sa'alab" by fox or jackal; the Arabs make scant distinction between them. "Abu Hosayn" (Father of the Fortlet) is certainly the fox, and as certainly "Sha'arhar" is the jackal from the Pehlevi Shagál or Shaghál.

[FN#492] Usually by all manner of extortions and robbery, corruption and bribery, the ruler's motto being

Fiat injustitia ruat Coelum.

There is no more honest man than the Turkish peasant or the private soldier; but the process of deterioration begins when he is made a corporal and culminates in the Pasha. Moreover official dishonesty is permitted by public opinion, because it belongs to the condition of society. A man buys a place (as in England two centuries ago) and retains it by presents to the heads of offices. Consequently he must recoup himself in some way, and he mostly does so by grinding the faces of the poor and by spoiling the widow and the orphan. The radical cure is high pay; but that phase of society refuses to afford it.

[FN#493] Arab. "Malik" (King) and "Malak" (angel) the words being written the same when lacking vowels and justifying the jingle.

[FN #494] Arab. "Hurr"; the Latin "ingenuus," lit. freeborn; metaph. noble as opp. to a slave who is not expected to do great or good deeds. In pop. use it corresponds, like "Fatá," with our "gentleman."

[FN#495] This is one of the best tales for humour and movement, and Douce and Madden show what a rich crop of fabliaux, whose leading incident was the disposal of a dead body, it produced.

[FN#496] Other editions read, "at Bassorah" and the Bresl. (ii. 123) "at Bassorah and Kájkár" (Káshghár): somewhat like in Dover and Sebastopol. I prefer China because further off and making the improbabilities more notable.

[FN#497] Arab. "Judri," lit. "small stones" from the hard gravelly feeling of the pustules (Rodwell, p. 20). The disease is generally supposed to be the growth of Central Africa where it is still a plague and passed over to Arabia about the birth-time of Mohammed. Thus is usually explained the "war of the elephant" (Koran, chapt. cv.) when the Abyssinian army of Abrahah, the Christian, was destroyed by swallows (Abábíl which Major Price makes the plural of Abilah = a vesicle) which dropped upon them "stones of baked clay," like vetches (Pilgrimage ii. 175). See for details Sale (in loco) who seems to accept the miraculous defence of the Ka'abah. For the horrors of small-pox in Central Intertropical Africa the inoculation, known also to the Badawin of Al-Hijáz and other details, readers will consult "The Lake Regions of Central Africa" (ii. 318). The Hindus "take the bull by the horns" and boldly make "Sítlá" (small-pox) a goddess, an incarnation of Bhawáni, deëss of destruction-reproduction. In China small-pox is believed to date from B.C. 1200; but the chronology of the Middle Kingdom still awaits the sceptic.

[FN#498] In Europe we should add "and all fled, especially the women." But the fatalism inherent in the Eastern mind makes the great difference.

[FN#499] Arab. "Uzayr." Esdras was a manner of Ripp van Winkle. He was riding over the ruins of Jerusalem when it had been destroyed by the Chaldeans and he doubted by what means Allah would restore it; whereupon he died and at the end of a hundred years he revived. He found his basket of figs and cruse of wine as they were; but of his ass only the bones remained. These were raised to life as Ezra looked on and the ass began at once to bray. Which was a lesson to Esdras. (Koran, chapt. ii.) The oath by the ass's hoofs is to ridicule the Jew. Mohammed seems to have had an idée fixe that "the Jews say, Ezra is the son of God" (Koran ix.); it may have arisen from the heterodox Jewish belief that Ezra, when the Law was utterly lost, dictated the whole anew to the scribes of his own memory. His tomb with the huge green dome is still visited by the Jews of Baghdad.

[FN#500] Arab. "Bádhanj," the Pers. Bád. (wind) -gír (catcher): a wooden pent-house on the terrace-roof universal in the nearer East.

[FN#501] The hunchback, in Arabia as in Southern Europe, is looked upon by the vulgar with fear and aversion. The reason is that he is usually sharper-witted than his neighbours.

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

[FN#503] Arab. "Nasráni," a follower of Him of Nazareth and an older name than "Christian" which (Acts xi., 26) was first given at Antioch about A.D. 43. The cry in Alexandria used to be "Ya Nasráni, Kalb awáni!"=O Nazarene! O dog obscene! (Pilgrimage i., 160).). "Christian" in Arabic can be expressed only by "Masíhi" = follower of the Messiah.

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

[FN#505] In the East women stand on minor occasions while men squat on their hunkers in a way hardly possible to an untrained European. The custom is old. Herodotus (ii., 35) says, "The women stand up when they make water, but the men sit down." Will it be believed that Canon Rawlinson was too modest to leave this passage in his translation? The custom was perpetuated by Al-Islam because the position prevents the ejection touching the clothes and making them ceremonially impure; possibly they borrowed it from the Guebres. Dabistan, Gate xvi. says, "It is improper, whilst in an erect posture, to make water, it is therefore necessary to sit at squat and force it to some distance, repeating the Avesta mentally."

[FN#506] This is still a popular form of the "Kinchin lay," and as the turbands are often of fine stuff, the petite industrie pays well.

[FN#507]Arab. "Wali" = Governor; the term still in use for the Governor General of a Province as opposed to the "Muháfiz," or district-governor. In Eastern Arabia the Wali is the Civil Governor opposed to the Amir or Military Commandant. Under the Caliphate the Wali acted also as Prefect of Police (the Indian Faujdár), who is now called "Zábit." The older name for the latter was "Sáhib al-Shartah" (= chief of the watch) or "Mutawalli"; and it was his duty to go the rounds in person. The old "Charley," with his lantern and cudgel, still guards the bazars in Damascus.

[FN#508] Arab. "Al-Mashá ilí" = the bearer of a cresset (Mash'al) who was also Jack Ketch. In Anglo-India the name is given to a lower body-servant. The "Mash'al" which Lane (M. E., chapt. vi.) calls "Mesh'al" and illustrates, must not be confounded with its congener the "Sha'ilah" or link (also lamp, wick, etc.).

[FN#509] I need hardly say that the civilised "drop" is unknown to the East where men are strung up as to a yardarm. This greatly prolongs the suffering.

[FN#510] Arab. "Lukmah"; = a mouthful. It is still the fashion amongst Easterns of primitive manners to take up a handful of rice, etc., ball it and put it into a friend's mouth honoris causâ. When the friend is a European the expression of his face is generally a study.

[FN#511] I need hardly note that this is an old Biblical practice. The ass is used for city-work as the horse for fighting and travelling, the mule for burdens and the dromedary for the desert. But the Badawi, like the Indian, despises the monture and sings:—

The back of the steed is a noble place But the mule's dishonour, the ass disgrace!

The fine white asses, often thirteen hands high, sold by the Banu Salíb and other Badawi tribes, will fetch £100, and more. I rode a little brute from Meccah to Jedda (42 miles) in one night and it came in with me cantering.

[FN#512] A dry measure of about five bushels (Cairo). The classical pronunciation is Irdabb and it measured 24 sa'a (gallons) each filling four outstretched hands.

[FN#513] "Al-Jawáli" should be Al-Jáwali (Al-Makrizi) and the Bab al-Nasr (Gate of Victory) is that leading to Suez. I lived in that quarter as shown by my Pilgrimage (i. 62).

[FN#514] Arab. "Al-'ajalah," referring to a saying in every Moslem mouth, "Patience is from the Protector (Allah): Hurry is from Hell." That and "Inshallah bukra!" (Please God tomorrow.) are the traveller's bêtes noires.

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

[FN#516] The left hand is used throughout the East for purposes of ablution and is considered unclean. To offer the left hand would be most insulting and no man ever strokes his beard with it or eats with it: hence, probably, one never sees a left handed man throughout the Moslem east. In the Brazil for the same reason old-fashioned people will not take snuff with the right hand. And it is related of the Khataians that they prefer the left hand, "Because the heart, which is the Sultan of the city of the Body, hath his mansion on that side" (Rauzat al-Safá).

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

[FN#518] It was near the Caliph's two Palaces (Al Kasrayn); and was famous in the 15th century A. D. The Kazi's Mahkamah (Court house) now occupies the place of the Two Palaces

[FN#519] A Kaysariah is a superior kind of bazar, a "bezestein." That in the text stood to the east of the principal street in Cairo and was built in A. H. 502 (=1108-9) by a Circassian Emir, known as Fakhr al-Din Jahárkas, a corruption of the Persian "Chehárkas" = four persons (Lane, i. 422, from Al-Makrizi and Ibn Khallikan). For Jahárkas the Mac. Edit. has Jirjís (George) a common Christian name. I once lodged in a 'Wakálah (the modern Khan) Jirjis." Pilgrimage, i. 255.

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

[FN#521] Readers who wish to know how a traveller is lodged in a Wakálah, Khan, or Caravanserai, will consult my Pilgrimage, i. 60.

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

[FN#523] The usual "chaff" or banter allowed even to modest women when shopping, and—many a true word is spoken in jest.

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

[FN#525] This is a somewhat cavalier style of advance; but Easterns under such circumstances go straight to the point, hating to filer the parfait amour.

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

[FN#527] This would be our Thursday night, preceding the day of public prayers which can be performed only when in a state of ceremonial purity. Hence many Moslems go to the Hammam on Thursday and have no connection with their wives till Friday night.

[FN#528] Lane (i. 423) gives ample details concerning the Habbániyah, or grain-sellers' quarter in the southern part of Cairo; and shows that when this tale was written (or transcribed?) the city was almost as extensive as it is now.

[FN#529] Nakíb is a caravan-leader, a chief, a syndic; and "Abú Shámah"= Father of a cheek mole, while "Abú Shámmah" = Father of a smeller, a nose, a snout. The "Kuniyah," bye-name, patronymic or matronymic, is necessary amongst Moslems whose list of names, all connected more or less with religion, is so scanty. Hence Buckingham the traveller was known as Abu Kidr, the Father of a Cooking-pot and Hajj Abdullah as Abu Shawárib, Father of Mustachios (Pilgrimage, iii., 263).