PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
Footnotes
[1]. The “Sons of Ali,” or, as they are called, the “Oulâd-Ali,” have been settled for many years in Egypt, but their legendary history is carried back to the period when they dwelt in Upper Arabia, and they claim affinity with a tribe which still pastures its flocks on the borders of the Nejd.
[2]. A kels is a long rope extended in line, and fastened to the ground by pegs. Throughout its whole length, at intervals of eighteen inches, are fixed two short nooses or slip-knots, into which the forefeet of the goats are inserted at milking-time. In Persia it is usual on a march to fasten the horses at night in a manner precisely similar.
[3]. For the information of the English reader it is necessary to mention that the word Herâm, with a light aspirate of the initial letter, is the conventional term in Egypt applied to the Pyramid (its plural is Ehrâm), whereas Ĥharâm, with a slight guttural pronunciation of the initial letter, signifies “shame” or “sin.” Although these two sounds are scarcely distinguishable from each other in the mouth of a European, they are perfectly distinct in that of an Arab; and thus the expression “Ebn-Harâm,” according as the initial is pronounced, means “Child of the Pyramid,” or “Child of Shame.”
[4]. Hassan El-Gizèwi, or Hassan of Ghizeh, the district in which, about eight or nine miles from Cairo, stand the Great Pyramid and several of the smaller pyramids.
[5]. The Mohammedan law acknowledges in full the custom of parental adoption, and a child so adopted has legal right of inheritance; but certain religious forms are prescribed for this adoption, which it seems that Sheik Sâleh had not observed in respect to Hassan, probably from a belief that some day he would be claimed by his real parents.
[6]. Sakkarah is a district lying twelve or fourteen miles to the south-west of Cairo, and is familiar to all Egyptian travellers and untravelled readers as being the site of several pyramids, near which excavations have been made with highly interesting results.
[7]. One of the Arabic names of Cairo is “Omm-ed-doonia,” “Mother of the world.”