372. Arab. "Zarzariyah"=the Colour of a Stare or Starling (Zurzúr).
372. Arab. "Zarzariyah"=the colour of a stare or starling (Zurzúr).
373. Now a Railway Station on the Alexandria-Cairo line.
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.
375. This is the popular pronunciation: Yákút calls it "Bilbís."
376. An outlying village on the "Long Desert," between Cairo and Palestine.
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 Jüden" are proverbial and nothing can be meaner than the Christians while the Moslems are famed for treachery.
378. Arab. "Shamm al-hawá." 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-Nasím" (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 "Khammasín" or "Mirisi" (hot desert winds). On awaking, 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 "búri"=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 Égyptien, 2nd series, No. 4, Cairo, 1884. I have noticed the Mirisi (Southwester) and other winds in the Land of Midian, i., 23.
379. So in the days of the "Mameluke Beys" in Egypt a man of rank would not cross the street on foot.
380. Arab. Basrah. The city 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 Kúfah. But already in Al-Hariri's day (nat. A.H. 446=A.D. 1030) Baghdad had drawn off much of its population.
381. This fumigation (Bukhúr) is still used. A little incense or perfumed wood is burnt upon an open censer (Mibkharah) of earthenware or metal, and passed round, each guest holding it for a few moments under his beard. In the Somali Country, 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.
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 Boccaccio (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.
383. These lines in the Calc. and Bul. Edit. 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 "Shakík"=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.
384. Such an address to a royalty (Eastern) even in the present day, would be a passport to future favours.
385. In England the man marries and the woman is married: there is no such distinction in Arabia.
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-Wásik who has been noticed) formally created these Sultans as their regents. Al-Tá'i bi'llah (regn. A.H. 363=974), invested the famous Sabuktagin with the office; and, as Alexander-Sikandar was wont to do, fastened 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 Mahmúd 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.
387. i.e. he was a "Háfiz," 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.
388. Here again the Cairo Edit. repeats the six couplets already given in Night xvii. I take them from Torrens (p. 163).
389. This naïve admiration of beauty in either sex characterised our chivalrous times. Now it is mostly confined to "professional beauties" of 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.
390. Arab. "Shásh" (in Pers. urine), a light turband generally of muslin.
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."
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.
393. Arab. "Nabíz"=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 (fermented from the fruit, not the Tádi, 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).
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 yahdík"=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.
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).
396. Arab. "Farajíyah," a long-sleeved robe worn by the learned (Lane, M. E., chapt. i.)
397. Arab. "Sarráf" (vulg. Sayrafi), whence the Anglo-Indian "Shroff," a familiar corruption.
398. Arab. "Yahúdí" which is less polite than "Banú Isráíl"=Children of Israel. So in Christendom "Israelite" when in favour and "Jew" (with an adjective or a participle) when nothing is wanted of him.
399. Also called "Ghilmán"=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 Tristram 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 Paille a hint that the use of boys, like that of wine, here forbidden, will be permitted in Paradise.
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.
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).
402. Arab. "Bárid," lit. cold: metaph. vain, foolish, insipid.
403. Not to "spite thee" but "in spite of thee." The phrase is still used by high and low.
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.
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 Ghawází are mostly Gypsies who pretend to be Moslems; and they have been confused with the Almahs or Moslem dancing-girls proper (Awálim, plur. of Alimah, a learned feminine) by a host of travellers. They call themselves Barámikah 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 (1 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 (Phœnician) 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.
406. I need hardly describe the Tarbúsh, a corruption of the Pers. "Sar-púsh" (head-cover) 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 from scalp-perspiration by an "Arakiyah" (Pers. Arak-chín), a white skull-cap. Now it is worn without either and as a head-dress nothing can be worse (Pilgrimage ii. 275.)
407. Arab. "Tár.": the custom still prevails. Lane (M. E., chapt. xviii.) describes and figures this hoop-drum.
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.
409. This is a solemn "chaff;" such liberties being permitted at weddings and festive occasions.
410. The pre-Islamític 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'á, 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 Himyar-land=the Great or the Chief.
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.
412. i.e. he was full of rage which he concealed.
413. The Hindus (as the Katha shows) compare this swimming gait with an elephant's roll.
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).
415. Lit. burst the "gall-bladder:" In this and in the "liver" allusions I dare not be baldly literal.
416. Arab. "Usfur" the seeds of Carthamus tinctorius=Safflower (Forskål, 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 dyeing in Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa.
417. On such occasions Miss Modesty shuts her eyes and looks as if about to faint.
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 Europeans draught-houses, by way of opprobrium, "Kághaz-khánah"=paper closets. Most old Anglo-Indians, however, learn to use water.
419. "Miao" or "Mau" is the generic name of the cat in the Egyptian of the hieroglyphs.
420. Arab. "Ya Mash'úm" addressed to an evil spirit.
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 páo" (John cut wood); so differently do they hear the same notes.
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.
423. This again is chaff as she addresses the Hunchback. The Bul. Edit. has "O Abu Shiháb" (Father of the shooting-star=evil spirit); the Bresl. Edit. "O son of a heap! O son of a Something!" (al-Aísh, a vulgarism).
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.
425. Arab. "Saráwil" a corruption of the Pers. "Sharwál"; popularly called "libás" 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 "libás," "sarwál" and its variants the curious reader will consult Dr. Dozy's "Dictionnaire Détaillé des Noms des Vêtements chez les Arabes," a most valuable work.
426. The turban out of respect is not put upon the ground (Lane, M. E., chapt. i.).
427. Arab. "Madfa'" showing the modern date or the modernization of the tale. In Lebid "Madáfi'" (plur. of Madfa') means water-courses or leats.
428. In Arab, the "he" is a "she;" and Habíb ("friend") is the Attic φίλος, a euphemism for lover. This will occur throughout The Nights. So the Arabs use a phrase corresponding with the Stoic φιλε~ι i.e. is wont, is fain.
429. Part of the Azán, or call to prayer.
430. Arab. "Shiháb," these meteors 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 them and called those of August the "fiery tears of Saint Lawrence," whose festival was on August 10.
431. Arab. "Tákiyah"=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.
432. Often the effect of cold air after a heated room.
433. i.e. He was not a Eunuch, as the people guessed.
434. In Arab, "this night" for the reason before given.
435. Meaning especially the drink prepared of the young leaves and florets of Cannabis Sativa. The word literally means "dry grass" or "herbage." This intoxicant was much used by magicians to produce ecstacy and thus to "deify themselves and receive the homage of the genii and spirits of nature."
436. Torrens, being an Irishman, translates "and woke in the morning sleeping at Damascus."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
442. This may mean either "it is of Mosul fashion" or, it is of muslin.
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).
444. In those days the Arabs and the Portuguese recorded everything which struck them, as the Chinese and Japanese do in our times. And yet we complain of the amount of our modern writing!
445. This is mentioned because it is the act preliminary to naming the babe.
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.
447. Meaning he grew as fast in one day as other children in a month.
448. Arab. Al-Aríf; the tutor, the assistant-master.
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.
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.
451. Again we have "Dastur" for "Izn."
452. Arab. "Iklím"; the seven climates of Ptolemy.
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.
454. The "Plain of Pebbles" still so termed at Damascus; an open space west of the city.
455. Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter's "Murray," gives a long account of this Christian Church 'verted to a Mosque.
456. Arab. "Nabút"; Pilgrimage i. 336.
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."
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.
459. This sounds absurd enough in English, but Easterns always put themselves first for respect.
460. In Arabic the World is feminine.
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."
462. Arab. "Suwán," prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but applied to flint and any hard stone.
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.
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.
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.).
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?"
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"(!)