[49] I warrant you there were no "tickets of leave" granted in those blessed days.
[50] This means an impertinent, or rather a chaffing, question, like our own classic interrogation, "Does your mother know you'ra out?"
[51] It is incumbent on every good Musalman to pray five times in the twenty-four hours. The stated periods are rather capriciously settled:—1st. The morning prayer is to be repeated between daybreak and sunrise; 2nd. The prayer of noon, when the sun shows a sensible declination from the meridian; 3rd. The afternoon prayer, when the sun is near the horizon that the shadow of a perpendicular object is twice it's length; 4th. The evening prayer, between sunset and close of twilight; 5th. The prayer of night, any time during the darkness. The inhabitants of Iceland and Greenland would find themselves sadly embarrassed in complying with these pious precepts, bequeathed by Muhammad to the true believers, as they call themselves.
[52] The Asiatics consider male children as the light or splendour of their house. In the original there is a play upon the word "diya" which, as a substantive signifies "a lamp;" and as a verbal participle it denotes "given," or "bestowed."
[53] The literal meaning is—"There is no one as the bearer of his name, and the giver of water."
[54] The Mirror Saloon, called by the Persians, and from them by the Hindustanis, Shish Mahall, is a grand apartment in all oriental palaces, the walls of which are generally inlaid with small mirrors, and their borders richly gilded. Those of Dilli and Agra are the finest in Hinduistan.
[55] "The messenger was the white hair in his majesty's whiskers.
[56] Called in the original, Pain Bagh. Most royal Asiatic gardens have a Pain Bagh or lower terrace adorned with flowers, to which princes descend when they wish to relax with their courtiers.
[57] The Diwani' Amm, or Public Hall of Audience in eastern palaces, is a grand saloon where Asiatic princes hold a more promiscuous court than in the Diwani Khass, or the Private Hall of Audience.
[58] The Musalla, is generally in Persia a small carpet, but frequently a fine mat in Hindustan, which is spread for the performance of prayer. The devotee kneels and prostrates himself upon it in his act of devotion. It is superfluous to remark that the Muhammadans pray with their face turned towards Mecca, as far as they can guess its direction. Jerusalem was the original point, but the prophet, (it is said,) in a fit of anger, changed it to Mecca.