[338] The nazar or pesh-kash is a sum of money, &c., which, all oriental officials pay to the prince of the country, or to his favourites, &c., when appointed to their situations. Some people say that such things are done nearer home, with this difference, that among us it is a private transaction; whereas, in the East, it is an open one.
[339] ja-girs are donations of lands, or, rather, of the revenues arising from a certain portion of land; strictly speaking, such a grant is a reward for military service, though it is sometimes bestowed without that condition.
[340] As the Musalmans reckon their day from sun-set, this is no bull.
[341] Literally, "the third fault is that of the mother."
[342] The king here resumes his address to the four darweshes.
[343] A proverb synonymous to ours, of "What is bred in the bone, will never come out of the flesh."
[344] The tawa is a circular plate of malleable or cast iron, used for baking cakes or bannocks. It is slightly convex, like a watch-glass, on the upper side, where the bread is laid on; the under or concave side being, of course perfectly black. In Scotland, and in the northern counties of England, this domestic implement is called "the girdle," and is still in common use in places remote from towns.
[345] Till recently a province of Persia; the northern part of ancient Media. It is now, alas! fallen into the deadly grasp of the unholy Muscovite.
[346] A kind of pea common in India; it is the ordinary food of horses, oxen, camels, &c., likewise of the native. By Europeans it is generally called grum or "graum."
[347] The Muhammadans believe that on the day of judgment all who have died will assemble on a vast plain, to hear their sentences from the mouth of God; so the reader may naturally conceive the size of the plain.