The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume I Part 34

[FN#682] A nave proposal to share the plunder.

[FN#683] In popular literature "Schacabac.", And from this tale comes our saying "A Barmecide's Feast," i.e., an illusion.

[FN#684] The Castrato at the door is still (I have said) the fas.h.i.+on of Cairo and he acts "Suisse" with a witness.

[FN#685] As usual in the East, the mansion was a hollow square surrounding what in Spain is called Patio: the outer entrance was far from the inner, showing the extent of the grounds.

[FN#686] "Nahnu malihin" = we are on terms of salt, said and say the Arabs. But the traveller must not trust in these days to the once sacred tie; there are tribes which will give bread with one hand and stab with the other. The Eastern use of salt is a curious contrast with that of Westerns, who made it an invidious and inhospitable distinction, e.g., to sit above the salt-cellar and below the salt. Amongst the ancients, however, "he took bread and salt" means he swore, the food being eaten when an oath was taken. Hence the "Bride cake" of salt, water and flour.

[FN#687] Arab. "Harisah," the meat-pudding before explained.

[FN#688] Arab. "Sikbaj," before explained; it is held to be a lordly dish, invented by Khusraw Parwiz. "Fatted duck" says the Bresl. Edit. ii., 308, with more reason.

[FN#689] I was reproved in Southern Abyssinia for eating without this champing, "Thou feedest like a beggar who muncheth silently in his corner;" and presently found that it was a sign of good breeding to eat as noisily as possible.

[FN#690] Barley in Arabia is, like our oats, food for horses: it fattens at the same time that it cools them. Had this been known to our cavalry when we first occupied Egypt in 1883-4 our losses in horse-flesh would have been far less; but official ignorance persisted in feeding the cattle upon heating oats and the riders upon beef, which is indigestible, instead of mutton, which is wholesome.

[FN#691] i.e. "I conjure thee by G.o.d."

[FN#692] i.e. "This is the very thing for thee."

[FN#693] i.e., at random.

[FN#694] This is the way of slaughtering the camel, whose throat is never cut on account of the thickness of the muscles. "egorger un chameau" is a mistake often made in French books.

[FN#695] i.e. I will break bounds.

[FN#696] The Arabs have a saying corresponding with the dictum of the Salernitan school:--

Noscitur a labiis quantum sit virginis antrum: Noscitur a naso quanta sit haste viro; (A maiden's mouth shows what's the make of her chose; And man's mentule one knows by the length of his nose.)

Whereto I would add:--

And the eyebrows disclose how the lower wig grows.

The observations are purely empirical but, as far as my experience extends, correct.

[FN#697] Arab. "Kahkahah," a very low proceeding.

[FN#698] Or "for every death there is a cause;" but the older Arabs had a saying corresponding with "Deus non fecit mortem."

[FN#699] The King's barber is usually a man of rank for the best of reasons, that he holds his Sovereign's life between his fingers. One of these n.o.ble Figaros in India married an English lady who was, they say, unpleasantly surprised to find out what were her husband's official duties.