Footnote 170:
A religious mendicant generally.
Footnote 171:
Very scandalous to Moslem "respectability": Mohammed said the house was accursed when the voices of women could be heard out of doors. Moreover the neighbours have a right to interfere and abate the scandal.
Footnote 172:
I need hardly say that these are both historical personages; they will often be mentioned, and Ja'afar will be noticed in the terminal Essay.
Footnote 173:
Arab. "Sama'an wa tá'atan;" a popular phrase of assent generally translated "to hear is to obey;" but this formula may be and must be greatly varied. In places it means "Hearing (the word of Allah) and obeying" (His prophet, viceregent, etc.)
Footnote 174:
Arab. "Sawáb"=reward in Heaven. This word for which we have no equivalent has been naturalised in all tongues (_e.g._ Hindostani) spoken by Moslems.
Footnote 175:
Wine-drinking, at all times forbidden to Moslems, vitiates the Pilgrimage-rite: the Pilgrim is vowed to a strict observance of the ceremonial law and many men date their "reformation" from the "Hajj." Pilgrimage, iii., 126.
Footnote 176:
Here some change has been necessary; as the original text confuses the three "ladies."
Footnote 177:
In Arab-the plural masc. is used by way of modesty when a girl addresses her lover; and for the same reason she speaks of herself as a man.
Footnote 178:
Arab. "Al-Na'im;" in full "Jannat al-Na'im"=the Garden of Delights, _i.e._ the fifth Heaven made of white silver. The generic name of Heaven (the place of reward) is "Jannat," lit. a garden; "Firdaus" being evidently derived from the Persian through the Greek παράδεισος, and meaning a chase, a hunting-park. Writers on this subject should bear in mind Mandeville's modesty, "Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there."
Footnote 179:
Arab. "Mikra'ah," the dried mid-rib of a date-frond used for many purposes, especially the bastinado.
Footnote 180:
According to Lane (i., 229) these and the immediately following verses are from an ode by Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili. They are in the Bul. Edit. not the Mac. Edit.
Footnote 181:
The original is full of conceits and plays on words which are not easily rendered in English.
Footnote 182:
Arab. "Tarjumán," same root as Chald. Targum (=a translation), the old "Truchman," and through the Ital. "tergomano" our "Dragoman;" here a messenger.
Footnote 183:
Lit. the "person of the eyes," our "babe of the eyes," a favourite poetical conceit in all tongues; much used by the Elizabethans, but now neglected as a silly kind of conceit. See Night ccix.
Footnote 184:
Arab. "Sár" (Thár) the revenge-right recognised by law and custom (Pilgrimage, iii., 69)
Footnote 185:
That is "We all swim in the same boat."
Footnote 186:
Ja'afar ever acts, on such occasions, the part of a wise and sensible man compelled to join in a foolish frolic. He contrasts strongly with the Caliph, a headstrong despot who will not be gainsaid, whatever be the whim of the moment. But Easterns would look upon this as a proof of his "kingliness."
Footnote 187:
Arab. "Wa'l-Salám" (pronounce Was-Salám); meaning "and here ends the matter." In our slang we say, "All right, and the child's name is Antony."
Footnote 188:
This is a favourite jingle; the play being upon "ibrat" (a needle-graver) and "'ibrat" (an example, a warning).
Footnote 189:
That is "make his bow;" as the English peasant pulls his forelock. Lane (i., 249) suggests, as an afterthought, that it means:—"Recover thy senses; in allusion to a person's drawing his hand over his head after sleep or a fit." But it occurs elsewhere in the sense of "cut thy stick."
Footnote 190:
This would be a separate building like our family tomb and probably domed, resembling that mentioned in "The King of the Black Islands." Europeans usually call it "a little Wali;" or, as they write it, "Wely;" the contained for the container; the "Santon" for the "Santon's tomb." I have noticed this curious confusion (which begins with Robinson, i. 322) in "Unexplored Syria," i. 161.
Footnote 191:
Arab. "Wiswás;"=diabolical temptation or suggestion. The "Wiswásí" is a man with scruples (scrupulus, a pebble in the shoe), _e.g._ one who fears that his ablutions were deficient, etc.
Footnote 192:
Arab. "Katf"=pinioning by tying the arms behind the back and shoulders (Kitf), a dire disgrace to freeborn men.
Footnote 193:
Arab. "Nafs."=Heb. Nephesh (Nafash)=soul, life; as opposed to "Ruach"=spirit and breath. In these places it is equivalent to "I said to myself." Another form of the root is "Nafas," breath, with an idea of inspiration: so "Sáhib Nafas" (=master of breath) is a minor saint who heals by expiration, a matter familiar to mesmerists (Pilgrimage, i. 86).
Footnote 194:
Arab. "Kaus al-Banduk;" the "pellet-bow" of modern India; with two strings joined by a bit of cloth which supports a ball of dry clay or stone. It is chiefly used for birding.
Footnote 195:
In the East blinding was a common practice, especially in the case of junior princes not required as heirs. A deep perpendicular incision was made down each corner of the eyes; the lids were lifted and the balls removed by cutting the optic nerve and the muscles. The later Caliphs blinded their victims by passing a red-hot sword blade close to the orbit or a needle over the eyeball. About the same time in Europe the operation was performed with a heated metal basin—the well-known _bacinare_ (used by Ariosto), as happened to Pier delle Vigne (Petrus de Vineâ), the "godfather of modern Italian."
Footnote 196:
Arab. "Khinzír" (by Europeans pronounced "Hanzír"), prop. a wild-boar; but popularly used like our "you pig!"
Footnote 197:
Striking with the shoe, the pipe-stick and similar articles is highly insulting, because they are not made, like whips and scourges, for such purpose. Here the East and the West differ diametrically. "Wounds which are given by instruments which are in one's hands by chance do not disgrace a man," says Cervantes (D. Q. i., chapt. 15), and goes on to prove that if a Zapatero (cobbler) cudgel another with his form or last, the latter must not consider himself cudgelled. The reverse in the East where a blow of a pipe-stick cost Mahommed Ali Pasna's son his life: Ishmail Pasha was burned to death by Malik Nimr, chief of Shendy (Pilgrimage, i., 203). Moreover, the actual wound is less considered in Moslem law than the instrument which caused it: so sticks and stones are venial weapons, whilst sword and dagger, gun and pistol are felonious. See _ibid._ (i., 336) for a note upon the weapons with which nations are policed.
Footnote 198:
Incest is now abominable everywhere except amongst the overcrowded poor of great and civilised cities. Yet such unions were common and lawful amongst ancient and highly cultivated peoples, as the Egyptians (Isis and Osiris), Assyrians and ancient Persians. Physiologically they are injurious only when the parents have constitutional defects: if both are sound, the issue, as amongst the so-called "lower animals," is viable and healthy.
Footnote 199:
Dwellers in the Northern Temperates can hardly imagine what a dust-storm is in sun-parched tropical lands. In Sind we were often obliged to use candles at midday, while above the dust was a sun that would roast an egg.
Footnote 200:
Arab. "'Urban," now always used of the wild people, whom the French have taught us to call _les Bedouins_; "Badw" being a waste or desert; and Badawi (fem. Badawíyah, plur. Badáwi and Bidwán), a man of the waste. Europeans have also learnt to miscall the Egyptians "Arabs": the difference is as great as between an Englishman and a Spaniard. Arabs proper divide their race into sundry successive families. "The Arab al-Arabá" (or al-Aribah, or al-Urubíyat) are the autochthones, prehistoric, proto-historic and extinct tribes; for instance, a few of the Adites who being at Meccah escaped the destruction of their wicked nation, but mingled with other classes. The "Arab al-Muta'arribah," (Arabised Arabs) are the first advenæ represented by such noble strains as the Koraysh (Koreish), some still surviving. The "Arab al-Musta'aribah," (insititious, naturalised or instituted Arabs, men who claim to be Arabs) are Arabs like the Sinaites, the Egyptians and the Maroccans descended by intermarriage with other races. Hence our "Mosarabians" and the "Marrabais" of Rabelais (not, "a word compounded of Maurus and Arabs"). Some genealogists, however, make the Muta'arribah descendants of Kahtan (possible the Joktan of Genesis x., a comparatively modern document, B.C. 700?); and the Musta'aribah those descended from Adnán the origin of Arab genealogy. And, lastly, are the "Arab al-Musta'ajimah," barbarised Arabs, like the present population of Meccah and Al-Medinah. Besides these there are other tribes whose origin is still unknown; such as the Mahrah tribes of Hazramaut, the "Akhdám" (=serviles) of Oman (Maskat); and the "Ebná" of Al-Yaman: Ibn Ishak supposes the latter to be descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan who expelled the Abyssinian invader from Southern Arabia. (Pilgrimage, iii., 31, etc.).