[102a] Literally, Bastards.
[102b] El Gharb is a prairie territory stretching from Tangier to the river Sebu. The word Gharb means “the west,” and Algarve in Portugal was simply the west of that country. The word Trafalgar is compounded from Tarf, a headland, and El Gharb, the west.
[102c] Flus is a small copper coin, a donkeyload of which about makes change for a sovereign. It has come in Morocco to mean money generally, and was evidently so used in Spain under the Moorish domination, for I remember seeing a coin the inscription on which was “this flus was coined in Andalous”—i.e., Spain, which the Moor generally referred to as “Andalous.”
[103a] Noria is the Persian water-wheel, Naurah in Arabic, which literally means a machine, and as it probably was the greatest machine at the time of its invention (say B.C. 5,000), the name has remained.
[103b] Alcuza is an earthenware jar, fixed to the water-wheel, which empties itself as the wheel turns round.
[108] The Gauchos used to call a sore on a horse’s back “una flor,” a flower, and they certainly rode their horses no matter how red the “flower” was, as if their own withers were unwrung.
[109a] Malon was the word used on the Pampa to designate an Indian invasion. I put it to casuists if it was permissible on these occasions to ride a sore-backed horse, and still be called a humane man.
[109b] “Algaroba” is one of the words the Spaniards have taken from Arabic, the word in that language being “El Karoub” or as some spell it “El Keurroub.”
[112] “Aqui hay gato encerrado,” is the Spanish proverb in reference to anything which seems too good to be true.
[114] The Shillah’s black horse is now in the hands of Don Jose Miravent the Spanish Consul at Mogador, after having carried me all the journey. As to my grey horse I cannot say, nor yet be certain if there are birds in last year’s nests.