The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IX Part 18

[FN#198] Arab. "Mi'lakah" (Bresl. Edit. x, 456). The fork is modern even in the East and the Moors borrow their term for it from fourchette. But the spoon, which may have begun with a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l, dates from the remotest antiquity.

[FN#199] Arab. "Sufrah" properly the cloth or leather upon which food is placed. See vol. i. 178.

[FN#200] i.e. gaining much one day and little another.

[FN#201] Lit. "Rest thyself" i.e. by changing posture.

[FN#202] Arab. "Unnabi" = between dark yellow and red.

[FN#203] Arab. "Nilah" lit. = indigo, but here applied to all the materials for dyeing. The word is Sanskrit, and the growth probably came from India, although during the Crusaders'

occupation of Jerusalem it was cultivated in the valley of the lower Jordan. I need hardly say that it has nothing to do with the word "Nile" whose origin is still sub judice. And yet I lately met a sciolist who pompously announced to me this philological absurdity as a discovery of his own.

[FN#204] Still a popular form of "bilking" in the Wakalahs or Caravanserais of Cairo: but as a rule the Bawwab (porter or doorkeeper) keeps a sharp eye on those he suspects. The evil is increased when women are admitted into these places; so periodical orders for their exclusion are given to the police.

[FN#205] Natives of Egypt always hold this diaph.o.r.esis a sign that the disease has abated and they regard it rightly in the case of bilious remittents to which they are subject, especially after the hardships and sufferings of a sea-voyage with its alternations of fasting and over-eating.

[FN#206] Not simply, "such and such events happened to him"

(Lane); but, "a curious chance befel him."

[FN#207] Arab. "Harami," lit. = one who lives on unlawful gains; popularly a thief.

[FN#208] i.e. he turned on the water, hot and cold.

[FN#209] Men are often seen doing this in the Hammam. The idea is that the skin when free from sebaceous exudation sounds louder under the clapping. Easterns judge much by the state of the perspiration, especially in horse-training, which consists of hand-gallops for many successive miles. The sweat must not taste over salt and when held between thumb and forefinger and the two are drawn apart must not adhere in filaments.

[FN#210] Lit. "Aloes for making Nadd;" see vol. i. 310.

"Eagle-wood" (the Malay Aigla and Agallochum the Sansk. Agura) gave rise to many corruptions as lignum aloes, the Portuguese Pao d' Aguila etc. "Calamba" or "Calambak" was the finest kind. See Colonel Yule in the "Voyage of Linschoten" (vol. i. 120 and 150).

Edited for the Hakluyt Soc. (1885) by my learned and most amiable friend, the late Arthur Cooke Burnell.

[FN#211] The Hammam is one of those unpleasant things which are left "Ala judi-k" = to thy generosity; and the higher the bather's rank the more he or she is expected to pay. See Pilgrimage i. 103. In 1853 I paid at Cairo 3 piastres and twenty paras, something more than sixpence, but now five shillings would be asked.

[FN#212] This is something like the mythical d.u.c.h.ess in England who could not believe that the poor were starving when sponge-cakes were so cheap.

[FN#213] This magnificent "Bakhshish" must bring water into the mouths of all the bath-men in the coffee-house a.s.sembly.

[FN#214] i.e. the treasurer did not, as is the custom of such gentry, demand and receive a large "Bakhshish" on the occasion.

[FN#215] A fair specimen of clever Fellah chaff.

[FN#216] In the first room of the Hammam, called the Maslakh or stripping-place, the keeper sits by a large chest in which he deposits the purses and valuables of his customers and also makes it the caisse for the pay. Something of the kind is now done in the absurdly called "Turkish Baths" of London.

[FN#217] This is the rule in Egypt and Syria and a clout hung over the door shows that women are bathing. I have heard, but only heard, that in times and places when eunuchs went in with the women youths managed by long practice to retract the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es so as to pa.s.s for castratos. It is hard to say what perseverance may not effect in this line; witness Orsini and his abnormal development of hearing, by exercising muscles which are usually left idle.

[FN#218] This reference to Allah shows that Abu Sir did not believe his dyer-friend.

[FN#219] Arab. "Dawa" (lit. remedy, medicine) the vulgar term: see vol. iv. 256: also called Rasmah, Nurah and many other names.

[FN#220] Arab. "Ma Kahara-ni" = or none hath overcome me.

[FN#221] Bresl. Edit. "The King of Isbaniya." For the "Ishban"

(Spaniards) an ancient people descended from j.a.phet son of Noah and who now are no more, see Al-Mas'udi (Fr. Transl. I. 361). The "Herodotus of the Arabs" recognises only the "Jalalikah" or Gallicians, thus bearing witness to the antiquity and importance of the Gallego race.

[FN#222] Arab. "Sha'r," properly, hair of body, pile, especially the pecten. See Bruckhardt (Prov. No. 202), "grieving for lack of a cow she made a whip of her bush," said of those who console themselves by building Castles in Spain. The "parts below the waist" is the decent Turkish term for the privities.

[FN#223] The drowning is a martyr's death, the burning is a foretaste of h.e.l.l-fire.

[FN#224] Meaning that if the trick had been discovered the Captain would have taken the barber's place. We have seen (vol.

i. 63) the Prime Minister superintending the royal kitchen and here the Admiral fishes for the King's table. It is even more nave than the Court of Alcinous.

[FN#225] Bresl. Edit. xi. 32: i.e. save me from disgrace.

[FN#226] Arab. "Khinsir" or "Khinsar," the little finger or the middle finger. In Arabic each has its own name or names which is also that of the corresponding toe, e.g. Ibham (thumb); Sabbabah, Musabbah or Da'aah (fore-finger); Wasta (medius); Binsir (annularis ring-finger) and Khinsar (minimus). There are also names for the several s.p.a.ces between the fingers. See the English Arabic Dictionary (London, Kegan Paul an Co., 1881) by the Revd.

Dr. Badger, a work of immense labour and research but which I fear has been so the learned author a labour of love not of profit.

[FN#227] Meaning of course that the King signed towards the sack in which he supposed the victim to be, but the ring fell off before it could take effect. The Eastern story-teller often balances his multiplicity of words and needless details by a conciseness and an elliptical style which make his meaning a matter of divination.

[FN#228] See vol. v. 111.

[FN#229] This couplet was quoted to me by my friend the Rev. Dr.

Badger when he heard that I was translating "The Nights": needless to say that it is utterly inappropriate.

[FN#230] For a similar figure see vol i. 25.

[FN#231] Arab. "Hanzal": see vol. v. 19.

[FN#232] The tale begins upon the model of "Judar and his Brethren," vi. 213. Its hero's full name is Abdu'llahi=Slave of Allah, which vulgar Egyptians p.r.o.nounce Abdallah and purer speakers, Badawin and others, Abdullah: either form is therefore admissible. It is more common among Moslems but not unknown to Christians especially Syrians who borrow it from the Syriac Alloh. Mohammed is said to have said, "The names most approved by Allah are Abdu'llah, Abd al-Rahman (Slave of the Compa.s.sionate) and such like" (Pilgrimage i. 20).

[FN#233] Arab. "Sirah" here probably used of the Nile-sprat (Clupea Sprattus Linn.) or Sardine of which Forsk says, "Sardinn in Al-Yaman is applied to a Red Sea fish of the same name."

Ha.s.selquist the Swede notes that Egyptians stuff the Sardine with marjoram and eat it fried even when half putrid.

[FN#234] i.e. by declaring in the Koran (lxvii. 14; lxxiv. 39; lxxviii. 69; lx.x.xviii. 17), that each creature hath its appointed term and lot; especially "Thinketh man that he shall be left uncared for?" (xl. 36).

[FN#235] Arab. "Nusf," see vol. ii. 37.

[FN#236] Arab. "Allah Karim" (which Turks p.r.o.nounce Kyerim) a consecrated formula used especially when a man would show himself resigned to "small mercies." The fisherman's wife was evidently pious as she was poor; and the description of the pauper household is simple and effective.

[FN#237] This is repeated in the Mac. Edit. pp. 496-97; an instance amongst many of most careless editing.

[FN#238] Arab. "Ala mahlak" (vulg.), a popular phrase, often corresponding with our "Take it coolly."

[FN#239] For "He did not keep him waiting, as he did the rest of the folk." Lane prefers "nor neglected him as men generally would have done." But we are told supra that the baker "paid no heed to the folk by reason of the dense crowd."

[FN#240] Arab. "Ruh!" the most abrupt form, whose sound is coa.r.s.e and offensive as the Turkish yell, "Gyel!"=come here.

[FN#241] Bresl. Edit. xi. 50-51.

[FN#242] Arab. "adami"=an Adamite, one descended from the mythical and typical Adam for whom see Philo Judaeus. We are told in one place a few lines further on that the merman is of humankind; and in another that he is a kind of fish (Night dccccxlv). This belief in mermen, possible originating with the caricatures of the human face in the intelligent seal and stupid manatee, is universal. Al-Kazwini declares that a waterman with a tail was dried and exhibited, and that in Syria one of them was married to a woman and had by her a son "who understood the languages of both his parents." The fable was refined to perfect beauty by the Greeks: the mer-folk of the Arabs, Hindus and Northerners (Scandinavians, etc) are mere grotesques with green hair, etc. Art in its highest expression never left the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, and there is no sign that it ever will.