A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 (of 17)

582

Arab. "Sáhil Masr" (Misr): hence I suppose Galland's villes maritimes.

583

A favourite simile, suggested by the broken glitter and shimmer of the stream under the level rays and the breeze of eventide.

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 classics knew it as Βέροια, Beroea, written with variants.

585

Arab. "Ká'ah," usually a saloon; but also applied to a fine house here and elsewhere in The Nights.

586

Arab. "Ghamz"=winking, signing with the eye which, amongst Moslems, is not held "vulgar."

587

Arab. "Kamís" from low Lat. "Camicia," first found in St. Jerome: – "Solent militantes habere lineas, quas Camicias vocant." Our shirt, chemise, chemisette, etc. was unknown to the Ancients of Europe.

588

Arab. "Narjís." 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 fashionable lover in the East must affect a frantic jealousy if he does not feel it.

589

In Egypt there are neither bedsteads nor bed-rooms: the carpets and mattresses, pillows and cushions (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).

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 Brocquière and which culminated in the massacre 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 Bashi-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.

591

Arab. "Rukhám," properly=alabaster and "Marmar"=marble; but the two are often confounded.

592

He was ceremonially impure after touching a corpse.

593

The phrase is perfectly appropriate: Cairo without "her Nile" would be nothing.

594

"The market was hot" say the Hindustanis. This would begin between 7 and 8 a. m.

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 Molière has left such a witty specimen.

596

A process familiar to European surgery of the same date.

597

In sign of disappointment, regret, vexation; a gesture still common amongst Moslems and corresponding in significance to a certain extent with our stamping, wringing the hands and so forth. It is not mentioned in the Koran where, however, we find "biting fingers' ends out of wrath" against a man (chapt. iii).

598

This is no unmerited scandal. The Cairenes, especially the feminine half (for reasons elsewhere given), have always been held exceedingly debauched. Even the modest Lane gives a "shocking" story of a woman enjoying her lover under the nose of her husband and confining the latter in a madhouse (chapt. xiii.) With civilisation, which objects to the good old remedy, the sword, they become worse: and the Kazi's court is crowded with would-be divorcees. Under English rule the evil has reached its acme because it goes unpunished: in the avenues of the new Isma'iliyah Quarter, inhabited by Europeans, women, even young women, will threaten to expose their persons unless they receive "bakhshísh." It was the same in Sind when husbands were assured that they would be hanged for cutting down adulterous wives: at once after its conquest the women broke loose; and in 1843-50, if a young officer sent to the bazar for a girl, half-a-dozen would troop to his quarters. Indeed more than once the professional prostitutes threatened to memorialise Sir Charles Napier because the "modest women," the "ladies" were taking the bread out of their mouths. The same was the case at Kabul (Caboul) of Afghanistan in the old war of 1840; and here the women had more excuse, the husbands being notable sodomites as the song has it: —

The worth of slit the Afghan knows;
The worth of hole the Kábul-man.

599

So that he might not have to do with three sisters german. Moreover amongst Moslems a girl's conduct is presaged by that of her mother; and if one sister go wrong, the other is expected to follow suit. Practically the rule applies everywhere: "like mother like daughter."

600

In sign of dissent; as opposed to nodding the head which signifies assent. These are two items, apparently instinctive and universal, of man's gesture-language which has been so highly cultivated by sundry North American tribes and by the surdo-mute establishments of Europe.

601

This "Futur" is the real "breakfast" of the East, the "Chhoti házri" (petit déjeûner) of India, a bit of bread, a cup of coffee or tea and a pipe on rising. In the text, however it is a ceremonious affair.

602

Arab. "Nahs," a word of many meanings; a sinister aspect of the stars (as in Heb. and Aram.) or, adjectively, sinister, of ill-omen. Vulgarly it is used as the reverse of nice and corresponds, after a fashion with our "nasty."

603

"Window-gardening," new in England, is an old practise in the East.

604

Her pimping instinct at once revealed the case to her.