[207] Swani, so that the odium theologium might not be wanting, hoped that the Persian would be killed on the road, for, said he, these Persian heretics are worse than Christians. The Persians are, as is well known, unorthodox, and who does not prefer an infidel to an unorthodox believer?
[209] Oudad, the moufflon.
[212] Ain Sefra is, or was a few months ago, the terminus of the French railway system in the Western Sahara. I should not be surprised that it was pushed on close to Figig by now, for the French in matters of this kind are not hampered with conscience, Nonconformist or otherwise.
[213a] “Uaheda Sultana Madame Casba.”
[213b] Magia is a spirit made by the Jews in Morocco; it is sometimes made of grapes, sometimes of figs, and again of dates. The magia made of dates is less lethal than that from figs or grapes. It is of a milky colour and very strong.
[214] Es Shark, the East. It is possible that the word Asia was derived from it when it is remembered that the Greeks and Romans must have had great difficulty in pronouncing both the Arabic gutturals and semi-gutturals.
[218] Ceilings divided into an infinity of little squares, and with pendant knobs here and there, and much inlaid work and gilding, are called “artesonado” in Spain, and I know no word in English by which to render it.
[219a] “Shillah race,” see books on Morocco, written sometimes by those whom Disraeli described as “flat-nosed Franks,” and who, no doubt humiliated by having met in the Arabs a finer type than their own, turned to the Berbers with the relief that the earthen tea-pot must find when taken away from the drawing-room companionship of “powder blue” china, and put back again on the kitchen dresser.
[219b] These saddle-cloths, called in Morocco “libdah,” are carried by respectable Moors when going to the Mosques to pray; Talebs and men of letters (who ride mules) generally have one loose upon their saddles, to sit upon when they dismount. Men of the sword disdain them and use them only underneath their saddles, where they place seven of them, of several colours, blue, red and yellow, and add an eighth, when on a journey, of white wool and separate from the others (which are all sewed together), so that it may be removed and washed.
[221] An ajimez is one of the little long-shaped horse-shoe windows, so frequently seen in Moorish buildings; often in the sides of towers, as in those of the Giralda at Seville.