[431]. “How many men, in Masr,” said one of my friends to me, “have lost their lives on account of women! A very handsome young libertine, who lived in this house which you now occupy, was beheaded here in the street, before his own door, for an intrigue with the wife of a Bey, and all the women of Masr wept for him.”
[432]. A respectable female is generally addressed, in a letter, as “the guarded lady, and concealed jewel” (“es-sitt el-masooneh wa-l-góharah el-meknooneh”).
[433]. Kur-án, chap. v., ver. 91.
[434]. “Wekáleh” (generally pronounced by the Franks occaleh, occal, etc.) is for “Dár el-Wekáleh,” signifying a factory.
[435]. This has long been the case in other Eastern countries. See Jeremiah xxxvii. 21.
[436]. The tradesman keeps his main stock of goods (if more than his shop will contain) in this magazine, or in his private dwelling, or in a wekáleh.
[437]. As Ephron did to Abraham, when the latter expressed his wish to purchase the cave and field of Machpelah. See Genesis xxiii. 11.
[438]. El-Is-hákee states that the custom of smoking tobacco began to be common in Egypt between the years of the Flight 1010 and 1012 (A.D. 1601 and 1603).
[439]. El-Gabartee relates, that about a century ago, in the time of Mohammad Básha El-Yedekshee (or Yedekchee), who governed Egypt in the years of the Flight, 1156-8, it frequently happened that when a man was found with a pipe in his hand in Cairo, he was made to eat the bowl with its burning contents. This may seem incredible, but a pipe-bowl may be broken by strong teeth. The tobacco first used in the East was probably very strong.
[440]. See De Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe, vol. i., pp. 412-483, 2nde ed.