Footnote 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.
Footnote 265:
These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should apply to women.
Footnote 266:
The Bul. 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.
Footnote 267:
Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the fœtus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).
Footnote 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 practises held in honour. Turning westwards we have:
Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto; Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est; Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.
Footnote 269:
He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects his dawn prayers.
Footnote 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).
Footnote 271:
Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.
Footnote 272:
We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."
Footnote 273:
The bath first taken after sickness.
Footnote 274:
Arab. "Dikák" 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.
Footnote 275:
Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency.
Footnote 276:
This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagké," 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.
Footnote 277:
Having lately been moved by Ajib.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 279:
Anglicè "him."
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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-Ahkáf" ("Unexplored Syria").
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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 Kawús (B.C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyáwush. 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 "Hidád"), 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 stain their faces black or blacker.
Footnote 284:
The older Roc, of which more in the Tale of Sindbad. Meanwhile the reader curious about the Persian Símurgh (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 Humá (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 "phœnix."
Footnote 285:
Probably the _Haledj_ of Forskal (p. xcvi. Flor. Ægypt. Arab.), "lignum tenax, durum, obscuri generis." The Bres. Edit, has "ákúl"=teak wood, vulg. "Sáj."
Footnote 286:
The knocker ring is an invention well known to the Romans.
Footnote 287:
Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut" (Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.
Footnote 288:
Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhabá," the words still popularly addressed to a guest.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 290:
A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is considered a beauty by Arabs; why it is hard to say except for the racial love of variety. "Sughr" (Thugr) in the text means, primarily, the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.
Footnote 291:
_i.e._ makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the gall-bladder" (Marárah) being our "breaking the heart."
Footnote 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."
Footnote 293:
Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix., 30).
Footnote 294:
Arab. "Al-Barkúk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is "Burkúk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishmish," and it also denotes a small plum or damson. In Syria the "side next the sun" shows a glowing red flush.
Footnote 295:
Arab. "Hazáṙ" (in Persian, a thousand)=a kind of mocking bird.
Footnote 296:
Some Edit. 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.
Footnote 297:
Arab. "Májúr": hence possibly our "mazer," which is popularly derived from Masarn, a maple.
Footnote 298:
A compound scent of ambergris, musk and aloes.
Footnote 299:
The ends of the bridle-reins forming the whip
Footnote 300:
The flying horse is Pegasus which is a Greek travesty of an Egyptian myth developed in India.
Footnote 301:
The Bres. Edit. wrongly says "the seventh."
Footnote 302:
Arab. "Sharmutah" (plur. Sharámít) from the root Sharmat, to shred, a favourite Egyptian word also applied in vulgar speech to a strumpet, a punk, a piece. It is also the popular term for strips of jerked or boucaned meat hung up in the sun to dry, and classically called "Kadíd."
Footnote 303:
Arab. "Izár," the man's waist-cloth opposed to the Ridá or shoulder-cloth, is also the sheet of white calico worn by the poorer Egyptian women out of doors and covering head and hands. See Lane (M. E., chapt. i). The rich prefer a "Habárah" of black silk, and the poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.
Footnote 304:
_i.e._ "My dears."
Footnote 305:
Arab. "Lá tawákhizná:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;" the pop. expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."