The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume I Part 31

[FN#551] Without which the marriage was not valid. The minimum is ten dirhams (drachmas) now valued at about five francs to s.h.i.+llings; 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. "Zirbajah" = meat dressed with vinegar, c.u.min-seed (Pers. Zir) 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'ud," an Alpinia with pungent rhizome like ginger; here used as a counter-odour.

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

[FN#557] ie. 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.

[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 fas.h.i.+on, with humanity, they are brave, fierce and capable of any villainy 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 hoa.r.s.e, thick voice, which apparently does not break, as in the European "Cappone," invests him with all the circ.u.mstance 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 "lofty." 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-Salamah" = 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] Was.h.i.+ng during sickness is held dangerous by Arabs; and "going to the Hammam" is, I have said, equivalent to convalescence.

[FN#574] Arab. "Maristan" (p.r.o.nounced Muristan) a corruption of the Pers. "Bimaristan" = 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 "Manakiyush;" 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] "Nil" 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-s.h.i.+ta (winter), Al-Sayf (summer) and Al-Nil (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#587] 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-Wafa," 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.

chaps. xxvi--a work which would be much improved by a better index).

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

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

[FN#583] A favourite simile, suggested by the broken glitter and s.h.i.+mmer 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 cla.s.sics knew it as {Greek Letters}, Beroca, written with variants.

[FN#585] Arab. "Ka'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. "Kamis" from low Lat. "Camicia," first found in St. Jerome:-- "Solent militantes habere lineas, quas Camicias vocant." Our s.h.i.+rt, chemise, chemisette, etc., was unknown to the Ancients of Europe.

[FN#588] Arab. "Narjis." 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 cus.h.i.+ons (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 Brocquiere and which culminated in the ma.s.sacre 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 Bas.h.i.+-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. "Rukham," 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 Moliere has left such a witty specimen.