[77] Young and handsome, he looked extremely well. Mâlem Surûr one day showed me his wardrobe, which was exceedingly well furnished. The Levantines are as nice, and perhaps nicer, in their distinction of colours than the French. Take, for example, Shems el Aser (the setting sun); mantûra, rosy pink; zinjàby, between dove and ash-colour, &c., all tints exceedingly delicate.
[78] This catalogue, on my return to England, I lent to Dr. Nichol, Hebrew professor at Oxford: at his death it probably was burnt, as a paper of no value.
[79] The word bakhshýsh is so often in the mouths of the Syrians and Egyptians, that the reader will be anxious to know its precise meaning. The verb bakhshesh means “to give gratuitously:” and the native of these countries, after every thing he does for you, generally says—Please to give me a bakhshýsh, or please to bakhshýsh me. It is the first word that a stranger learns and the last that he hears: so that it is not astonishing if very soon it becomes familiar to his ear.
[80] I conceive these Ansárys to be descendants of the Iturei spoken of by Strabo in his 16th book, and who were in part subdued by Pompey.
[81] This is supposing the Ansárys to be those same mountaineers, one of whom stabbed our crusading king, and hence introduced the word assassin into our language.
[82] Dukhýl means a suppliant, according to the dictionary.
[83] Black slaves often are named from substances in colour and quality very unlike themselves. Thus merján means coral, and anbar or amber was another name of one of Ahmed bey’s black slaves.
[84] The very adjunct of Nykhu, a nickname the most offensive to delicate ears in the Arabic language, would have been sufficient to designate this man as an impostor.
[85] Among the remedies which had been used to remove the anasarcous swelling of his feet and legs were the actual cautery on the instep and the application of pounded small white snails (called in Arabic halazony), in poultices to his feet.
[86] It was as follows:—Aloes and myrrh in powder, three parts: pitch and frankincense, two parts. Some time subsequently M. Belzoni observed, on my showing him this receipt, that frankincense formed no part of the embalming powder used by the Egyptians, it being forbidden by their religion.