Part 48

[FN#530] More correctly Bab Zawilah from the name of a tribe in Northern Africa. This gate dates from the same age as the Eastern or Desert gate, Bab al-Nasr (A.D. 1087) and is still much admired. M. Jomard describes it (Description, etc., ii. 670) and lately my good friend Yacoub Artin Pasha has drawn attention to it in the Bulletin de l'Inst. Egypt., Deuxième Série, No. 4, 1883.

[FN#531] This ornament is still seen in the older saloons of Damascus: the inscriptions are usually religious sentences, extracts from the Koran, etc., in uncial characters. They take the place of our frescos; and, as a work of art, are generally far superior.

[FN#532] Arab. "Bayáz al-Sultání," the best kind of gypsum which shines like polished marble. The stucco on the walls of Alexandria, built by Alexander of the two Horns, was so exquisitely tempered and beautifully polished that men had to wear masks for fear of blindness.

[FN#533] This Iklíl, a complicated affair, is now obsolete, its place having been taken by the "Kurs," a gold plate, some five inches in diameter, set with jewels, etc. Lane (M. E. Appendix A) figures it.

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

[FN#535] "Kissing with th' inner lip," as Shakespeare calls it; the French _langue fourrée:_ and Sanskrit "Samputa." The subject of kissing is extensive in the East. Ten different varieties are duly enumerated in the "Ananga-Ranga;" or, The Hindu Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica) translated from the Sanskrit, and annotated by A. F. F. and B. F. R It is also connected with unguiculation, or impressing the nails, of which there are seven kinds; morsication (seven kinds); handling the hair and tappings or pattings with the fingers and palm (eight kinds).

[FN#536] Arab. "asal-nahl," to distinguish it from "honey" i.e. syrup of sugar-cane and fruits

[FN#537] The lines have occurred in Night xii. By way of variety I give Torrens' version p. 273.

[FN#538] The way of carrying money in the corner of a pocket-handkerchief is still common.

[FN#539] He sent the provisions not to be under an obligation to her in this matter. And she received them to judge thereby of his liberality

[FN#540] Those who have seen the process of wine-making in the Libanus will readily understand why it is always strained.

[FN#541] Arab. "Kulkasá," a kind of arum or yam, eaten boiled like our potatoes.

[FN#542]At first he slipped the money into the bed-clothes: now he gives it openly and she accepts it for a reason.

[FN#543] Arab. Al-Zalamah lit. = tyrants, oppressors, applied to the police and generally to employés of Government. It is a word which tells a history.

[FN#544] Moslem law is never completely satisfied till the criminal confess. It also utterly ignores circumstantial evidence and for the best of reasons: amongst so sharp-witted a people the admission would lead to endless abuses. I greatly surprised a certain Governor-General of India by giving him this simple information

[FN#545] Cutting off the right hand is the Koranic punishment (chapt. v.) for one who robs an article worth four dinars, about forty francs to shillings. The left foot is to be cut off at the ankle for a second offence and so on; but death is reserved for a hardened criminal. The practice is now obsolete and theft is punished by the bastinado, fine or imprisonment. The old Guebres were as severe. For stealing one dirham's worth they took a fine of two, cut off the ear-lobes, gave ten stick-blows and dismissed the criminal who had been subjected to an hour's imprisonment. A second theft caused the penalties to be doubled; and after that the right hand was cut off or death was inflicted according to the proportion stolen.

[FN#546] Koran viii. 17.

[FN#547] A universal custom in the East, the object being originally to show that the draught was not poisoned.

[FN#548] Out of paste or pudding.

[FN#549] Boils and pimples are supposed to be caused by broken hair-roots and in Hindostani are called Bál-tor.

[FN#550] He intended to bury it decently, a respect which Moslems always show even to the exuviæ of the body, as hair and nail parings. Amongst Guebres the latter were collected and carried to some mountain. The practice was intensified by fear of demons or wizards getting possession of the spoils.

[FN#551] Without which the marriage was not valid. The minimum is ten dirhams (drachmas) now valued at about five francs to shillings; and if a man marry without naming the sum, the woman, after consummation, can compel him to pay this minimum.

[FN#552] Arab. "Khatmah" = reading or reciting the whole Koran, by one or more persons, usually in the house, not over the tomb. Like the "Zikr," Litany or Rogation, it is a pious act confined to certain occasions.

[FN#553] Arab. "Zirbájah" = meat dressed with vinegar, cumin-seed (Pers. Zír) and hot spices. More of it in the sequel of the tale.

[FN#554] A saying not uncommon meaning, let each man do as he seems fit; also = "age quad agis": and at times corresponding with our saw about the cap fitting.

[FN#555] Arab. "Su'úd," an Alpinia with pungent rhizome like ginger; here used as a counter-odour.

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

[FN#557] _i.e._ £125 and £500.

[FN#558] A large sum was weighed by a professional instead of being counted, the reason being that the coin is mostly old and worn: hence our words "pound" and "pension" (or what is weighed out).

[FN#559] The eunuch is the best possible go-between on account of his almost unlimited power over the Harem.

[FN#560] i.e., a slave-girl brought up in the house and never sold except for some especial reason, as habitual drunkenness, etc.

[FN#561] Smuggling men into the Harem is a stock "topic" of eastern tales. "By means of their female attendants, the ladies of the royal harem generally get men into their apartments in the disguise of women," says Vatsyayana in The Kama Sutra, Part V. London: Printed for the Hindoo Kamashastra Society. 1883. For private circulation only.

[FN#562] These tears are shed over past separation. So the "Indians" of the New World never meet after long parting without beweeping mutual friends they have lost.

[FN#563] A most important Jack in office whom one can see with his smooth chin and blubber lips, starting up from his lazy snooze in the shade and delivering his orders more peremptorily than any Dogberry. These epicenes are as curious and exceptional in character as in external conformation. Disconnected, after a fashion, with humanity, they are brave, fierce and capable of any villany or barbarity (as Agha Mohammed Khan in Persia 1795-98). The frame is unnaturally long and lean, especially the arms and legs; with high, flat, thin shoulders, big protruding joints and a face by contrast extraordinarily large, a veritable mask; the Castrato is expert in the use of weapons and sits his horse admirably, riding well "home" in the saddle for the best of reasons; and his hoarse, thick voice, which apparently does not break, as in the European "Cáppone," invests him with all the circumstance of command.

[FN#564] From the Meccan well used by Moslems much like Eau de Lourdes by Christians: the water is saltish, hence the touch of Arab humour (Pilgrimage iii., 201-202).

[FN#565] Such articles would be sacred from Moslem eyes.

[FN#566] Physiologically true, but not generally mentioned in describing the emotions.

[FN#567] Properly "Uta," the different rooms, each "Odalisque," or concubine, having her own.

[FN#568] Showing that her monthly ailment was over.

[FN#569] Arab "Muhammarah" = either browned before the fire or artificially reddened.

[FN#570] The insolence and licence of these palace-girls was (and is) unlimited, especially when, as in the present case, they have to deal with a "softy." On this subject numberless stories are current throughout the East.

[FN#571] i.e., blackened by the fires of Jehannam.

[FN#572] Arab. "Bi'l-Salámah" = in safety (to avert the evil eye). When visiting the sick it is usual to say something civil; "The Lord heal thee! No evil befall thee!" etc.

[FN#573] Washing during sickness is held dangerous by Arabs; and "going to the Hammam" is, I have said, equivalent to convalescence.

[FN#574] Arab. "Máristán" (pronounced Múristan) a corruption of the Pers. "Bímáristán" = place of sickness, a hospital much affected by the old Guebres (Dabistan, i., 165, 166). That of Damascus was the first Moslem hospital, founded by Al-Walid Son of Abd al-Malik the Ommiade in A. H. 88 = 706-7. Benjamin of Tudela (A. D. 1164) calls it "Dar-al Maraphtan" which his latest Editor explains by "Dar-al-Morabittan" (abode of those who require being chained). Al-Makrizi (Khitat) ascribes the invention of "Spitals" to Hippocrates; another historian to an early Pharaoh "Manákiyush;" thus ignoring the Persian Kings, Saint Ephrem (or Ephraim), Syru, etc. In modern parlance "Maristan" is a madhouse where the maniacs are treated with all the horrors which were universal in Europe till within a few years and of which occasional traces occur to this day. In A.D. 1399 Katherine de la Court held a "hospital in the Court called Robert de Paris," but the first madhouse in Christendom was built by the legate Ortiz in Toledo A. D. 1483, and was therefore called Casa del Nuncio. The Damascus "Maristan" was described by every traveller of the last century: and it showed a curious contrast between the treatment of the maniac and the idiot or omadhaun, who is humanely allowed to wander about unharmed, if not held a Saint. When I saw it last (1870) it was all but empty and mostly in ruins. As far as my experience goes, the United States is the only country where the insane are rationally treated by the sane.

[FN#575] Hence the trite saying "Whoso drinks the water of the Nile will ever long to drink it again." "Light" means easily digested water; and the great test is being able to drink it at night between the sleeps, without indigestion

[FN#576] "Níl" in popular parlance is the Nile in flood; although also used for the River as a proper name. Egyptians (modern as well as ancient) have three seasons, Al-Shitá (winter), Al-Sayf (summer) and Al-Níl (the Nile i.e. flood season' our mid-summer); corresponding with the Growth months; Housing (or granary)-months and Flood-months of the older race.

[FN#577] These lines are in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#578] Arab. "Birkat al-Habash," a tank formerly existing in Southern Cairo: Galland (Night 128) says "en remontant vers l'Ethiopie."

[FN#579] The Bres. Edit. (ii., 190), from which I borrow this description, here alludes to the well-known Island, Al-Rauzah (Rodah) = The Garden.

[FN#580] Arab. "Laylat al-Wafá," the night of the completion or abundance of the Nile (-flood), usually between August 6th and 16th, when the government proclaims that the Nilometer shows a rise of 16 cubits. Of course it is a great festival and a high ceremony, for Egypt is still the gift of the Nile (Lane M. E. chapt. xxvi—a work which would be much improved by a better index).

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

[FN#582] Arab. "Sáhil Masr" (Misr): hence I suppose Galland's villes maritimes.

[FN#583] A favourite simile, suggested by the broken glitter and shimmer of the stream under the level rays and the breeze of eventide.

[FN#584] Arab. "Halab," derived by Moslems from "He (Abraham) milked (halaba) the white and dun cow." But the name of the city occurs in the Cuneiforms as Halbun or Khalbun, and the classics knew it as {Greek Letters}, Beroca, written with variants.

[FN#585] Arab. "Ká'ah," usually a saloon; but also applied to a fine house here and elsewhere in The Nights.

[FN#586] Arab. "Ghamz" = winking, signing with the eye which, amongst Moslems, is not held "vulgar."

[FN#587] Arab. "Kamís" from low Lat. "Camicia," first found in St. Jerome:— "Solent militantes habere lineas, quas Camicias vocant." Our shirt, chemise, chemisette, etc., was unknown to the Ancients of Europe.

[FN#588] Arab. "Narjís." The Arabs borrowed nothing, but the Persians much, from Greek Mythology. Hence the eye of Narcissus, an idea hardly suggested by the look of the daffodil (or asphodel)-flower, is at times the glance of a spy and at times the die-away look of a mistress. Some scholars explain it by the form of the flower, the internal calyx resembling the iris, and the stalk being bent just below the petals suggesting drooping eyelids and languid eyes. Hence a poet addresses the Narcissus:—

O Narjis, look away! Before those eyes * I may not kiss her as a-breast she lies. What! Shall the lover close his eyes in sleep * While thine watch all things between earth and skies?

The fashionable lover in the East must affect a frantic jealousy if he does not feel it.

[FN#589] In Egypt there are neither bedsteads nor bedrooms: the carpets and mattresses, pillows and cushions (sheets being unknown), are spread out when wanted, and during the day are put into chests or cupboards, or only rolled up in a corner of the room (Pilgrimage i. 53).

[FN#590] The women of Damascus have always been famed for the sanguinary jealousy with which European story-books and novels credit the "Spanish lady." The men were as celebrated for intolerance and fanaticism, which we first read of in the days of Bertrandon de la Brocquière and which culminated in the massacre of 1860. Yet they are a notoriously timid race and make, physically and morally, the worst of soldiers: we proved that under my late friend Fred. Walpole in the Bashi-Buzuks during the old Crimean war. The men looked very fine fellows and after a month in camp fell off to the condition of old women.

[FN#591] Arab. "Rukhám," properly = alabaster and "Marmar" = marble; but the two are often confounded.

[FN#592] He was ceremonially impure after touching a corpse.

[FN#593] The phrase is perfectly appropriate: Cairo without "her Nile" would be nothing.

[FN#594] "The market was hot" say the Hindustanis. This would begin between 7 and 8 a.m.

[FN#595] Arab. Al-Faranj, Europeans generally. It is derived from "Gens Francorum," and dates from Crusading days when the French played the leading part. Hence the Lingua Franca, the Levantine jargon, of which Molière has left such a witty specimen.

[FN#596] A process familiar to European surgery of the same date.

[FN#597] In sign of disappointment, regret, vexation; a gesture still common amongst Moslems and corresponding in significance to a certain extent with our stamping, wringing the hands and so forth. It is not mentioned in the Koran where, however, we find "biting fingers' ends out of wrath" against a man (chapt. iii.).

[FN#598] This is no unmerited scandal. The Cairenes, especially the feminine half (for reasons elsewhere given), have always been held exceedingly debauched. Even the modest Lane gives a "shocking" story of a woman enjoying her lover under the nose of her husband and confining the latter in a madhouse (chapt. xiii.). With civilisation, which objects to the good old remedy, the sword, they become worse: and the Kazi's court is crowded with would-be divorcees. Under English rule the evil has reached its acme because it goes unpunished: in the avenues of the new Isma'iliyah Quarter, inhabited by Europeans, women, even young women, will threaten to expose their persons unless they receive "bakhshísh." It was the same in Sind when husbands were assured that they would be hanged for cutting down adulterous wives: at once after its conquest the women broke loose; and in 1843-50, if a young officer sent to the bazar for a girl, half-a-dozen would troop to his quarters. Indeed more than once the professional prostitutes threatened to memorialise Sir Charles Napier because the "modest women," the "ladies" were taking the bread out of their mouths. The same was the case at Kabul (Caboul) of Afghanistan in the old war of 1840; and here the women had more excuse, the husbands being notable sodomites as the song has it.

The worth of slit the Afghan knows; The worth of hole the Kábul-man.

[FN#599] So that he might not have to do with three sisters-german. Moreover amongst Moslems a girl's conduct is presaged by that of her mother; and if one sister go wrong, the other is expected to follow suit. Practically the rule applies everywhere, "like mother like daughter."

[FN#600] In sign of dissent; as opposed to nodding the head which signifies assent. These are two items, apparently instinctive and universal, of man's gesture-language which has been so highly cultivated by sundry North American tribes and by the surdo-mute establishments of Europe.

[FN#601] This "Futur" is the real "breakfast" of the East, the "Chhoti házri" (petit déjeûner) of India, a bit of bread, a cup of coffee or tea and a pipe on rising. In the text, however, it is a ceremonious affair.

[FN#602] Arab. "Nahs," a word of many meanings; a sinister aspect of the stars (as in Hebr. and Aram.) or, adjectivally, sinister, of ill-omen. Vulgarly it is used as the reverse of nice and corresponds, after a fashion, with our "nasty."

[FN#603] "Window-gardening," new in England, is an old practice in the East.

[FN#604] Her pimping instinct at once revealed the case to her.

[FN#605] The usual "pander-dodge" to get more money.

[FN#606] The writer means that the old woman's account was all false, to increase apparent difficulties and pour se faire valoir.

[FN#607] Arab. "Yá Khálati" =mother's sister; a familiar address to the old, as uncle or nuncle (father's brother) to a man. The Arabs also hold that as a girl resembles her mother so a boy follows his uncle (mother's brother): hence the address "Ya tayyib al-Khál!" = O thou nephew of a good uncle. I have noted that physically this is often fact.

[FN#608] "Ay w' Alláhi," contracted popularly to Aywa, a word in every Moslem mouth and shunned by Christians because against orders Hebrew and Christian. The better educated Turks now eschew that eternal reference to Allah which appears in The Nights and which is still the custom of the vulgar throughout the world of Al-Islam.

[FN#609] The "Muzayyin" or barber in the East brings his basin and budget under his arm: he is not content only to shave, he must scrape the forehead, trim the eyebrows, pass the blade lightly over the nose and correct the upper and lower lines of the mustachios, opening the central parting and so forth. He is not a whit less a tattler and a scandal monger than the old Roman tonsor or Figaro, his confrère in Southern Europe. The whole scene of the Barber is admirable, an excellent specimen of Arab humour and not over-caricatured. We all have met him.

[FN#610] Abdullah ibn Abbas was a cousin and a companion of the Apostle, also a well known Commentator on the Koran and conserver of the traditions of Mohammed.

[FN#611] I have noticed the antiquity of this father of our sextant, a fragment of which was found in the Palace of Sennacherib. More concerning the "Arstable" (as Chaucer calls it) is given in my "Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads," p. 381.

[FN#612] Arab. "Simiyá" to rhyme with Kímiyá (alchemy proper). It is a subordinate branch of the Ilm al-Ruháni which I would translate "Spiritualism," and which is divided into two great branches, "Ilwí or Rahmáni" (the high or related to the Deity) and Siflí or Shaytáni (low, Satanic). To the latter belongs Al-Sahr, magic or the black art proper, gramarye, egromancy, while Al-Simiyá is white magic, electro-biology, a kind of natural and deceptive magic, in which drugs and perfumes exercise an important action. One of its principal branches is the Darb al-Mandal or magic mirror, of which more in a future page. See Boccaccio's Day x. Novel 5.

[FN#613] Chap. iii., 128. See Sale (in loco) for the noble application of this text by the Imam Hasan, son of the Caliph Ali.

[FN#614] These proverbs at once remind us of our old friend Sancho Panza and are equally true to nature in the mouth of the Arab and of the Spaniard.

[FN#615] Our nurses always carry in the arms: Arabs place the children astraddle upon the hip and when older on the shoulder.

[FN#616] Eastern clothes allow this biblical display of sorrow and vexation, which with our European garb would look absurd: we must satisfy ourselves with maltreating our hats

[FN#617] Koran xlviii., 8. It may be observed that according to the Ahádis (sayings of the Prophet) and the Sunnat (sayings and doings of Mahommed), all the hair should be allowed to grow or the whole head be clean shaven. Hence the "Shúshah," or topknot, supposed to be left as a handle for drawing the wearer into Paradise, and the Zulf, or side-locks, somewhat like the ringlets of the Polish Jews, are both vain "Bida'at," or innovations, and therefore technically termed "Makrúh," a practice not laudable, neither "Halál" (perfectly lawful) nor "Harám" (forbidden by the law). When boys are first shaved generally in the second or third year, a tuft is left on the crown and another over the forehead; but this is not the fashion amongst adults. Abu Hanifah, if I am rightly informed, wrote a treatise on the Shushah or long lock growing from the Násiyah (head-poll) which is also a precaution lest the decapitated Moslem's mouth be defiled by an impure hand; and thus it would resemble the chivalry lock by which the Redskin brave (and even the "cowboy" of better times) facilitated the removal of his own scalp. Possibly the Turks had learned the practice from the Chinese and introduced it into Baghdad (Pilgrimage i., 240). The Badawi plait their locks in Kurún (horns) or Jadáil (ringlets) which are undone only to be washed with the water of the she-camel. The wild Sherifs wear Haffah, long elf-locks hanging down both sides of the throat, and shaved away about a finger's breadth round the forehead and behind the neck (Pilgrimage iii., 35-36). I have elsewhere noted the accroche-coeurs, the "idiot fringe," etc.

[FN#618] Meats are rarely coloured in modern days; but Persian cooks are great adepts in staining rice for the "Puláo (which we call after its Turkish corruption "pilaff"): it sometimes appears in rainbow-colours, red, yellow and blue; and in India is covered with gold and silver leaf. Europe retains the practice in tinting Pasch (Easter) eggs, the survival of the mundane ovum which was hatched at Easter-tide; and they are dyed red in allusion to the Blood of Redemption.

[FN#619] As I have noticed, this is a mixture.

[FN#620] We say:—

Tis rare the father in the son we see: He sometimes rises in the third degree.

[FN#621] Arab. "Ballán" i.e. the body-servant: "Ballánah" is a tire-woman.

[FN#622] Arab. "Darabukkah" a drum made of wood or earthen-ware (Lane, M. E., xviii.), and used by all in Egypt.

[FN#623] Arab. "Naihah" more generally "Naddábah" Lat. præfica or carina, a hired mourner, the Irish "Keener" at the conclamatio or coronach, where the Hullabaloo, Hulululu or Ululoo showed the survivors' sorrow.

[FN#624] These doggerels, which are like our street melodies, are now forgotten and others have taken their place. A few years ago one often heard, "Dus ya lalli" (Tread, O my joy) and "Názil il'al-Ganínah" (Down into the garden) and these in due turn became obsolete. Lane (M. E. chapt. xviii.) gives the former e.g.

Tread, O my joy! Tread, O my joy! Love of my love brings sore annoy,

A chorus to such stanzas as:—

Alexandrian damsels rare! * Daintily o'er the floor ye fare: Your lips are sweet, are sugar-sweet, * And purfled Cashmere shawls ye wear!