[47]On the death of a Djaaly chief at Shendy, I saw the female relations of the deceased walking through all the principal streets and places, uttering the most lamentable howlings. Their bodies were half naked, and the little clothing they had on was in rags; while the head, face, and breast, being almost entirely covered with ashes, they had altogether a most ghastly appearance. They were accompanied by their female friends, in great numbers, echoing their howlings, and continually clasping their hands. Several cows were killed in the evening, and small dishes of the flesh sent to all the foreign merchants.
[48]A Greek priest, with whom I visited part of the Hauran, south of Damascus, made me pay two paras for every answer he gave me on curious subjects, and one para for the name of every village, or Arab tribe which I noted down, from his information; for every Greek inscription he found for me to copy, he received five paras.
[49]As far as I am able to judge, the road to Sennaar is practicable to a Christian or Frank traveller, or to an experienced person of any nation; but the routes from the Nile towards the Red Sea are impracticable to any one who cannot appear as a native trader.
[50]Adjem (عجم). This word is applied by the Arabians to Persia on the one side, and on the other to the countries of the African coast opposite to Arabia, where many different languages are spoken. These countries are still known to the inhabitants of Yemen and the Hedjaz, by the name of Berr el Adjem (برّ العجم), under which appellation is comprised the whole of the coast from Souakin to Barbara, not excepting Abyssinia. It is the Regnum Adjamiæ of the European geographers.
[52]The Kaszyde is one of the most ancient kinds of Arabic versification; the compositions in it are never long, rarely exceeding one hundred distichs, and they ought not to contain less than twenty, though some of seven are met with. The long or true Kaszyde is confined to heroic or serious subjects; the shorter are generally of a playful or amatory description. The versification is peculiar, the two first lines of the poem, and each alternate one, throughout, ending with the same sound. See Jones’s Comment. Poet. Asiat. c. iii. p. 78.
[53]The slaves of the Mek are the only persons who sometimes wear their master’s fire-arms.
[54]I afterwards learnt that a Shikh can never be the chief of a caravan; because, according to the ancient custom still prevalent in the eastern deserts of Arabia, the Shikh of the tribe is never the commander (قايد Kayed) of the armed parties, which the tribe sends out against an enemy. He may join the expedition, but the command of it is in the Kayed or leader, a dignity which is always hereditary in the same family. The Arabs say, (الشيخ ما يقيد القوم) Es Shikh ma yakyd el koum. “The Shikh has no right to be a leader.” I shall recur to this subject in a future journal.
[55]Several of the Souakin merchants had concubines with them, whom they always carry with them on their travels.
[56]In all the Mussulman countries the female cousins can be demanded in marriage by the males of the family.