[363]. Arab. "Khila'ah" prop. what a man strips from his person: gen. an honorary gift. It is something more than the "robe of honour" of our chivalrous romances, as it includes a horse, a sword (often gold-hilted), a black turban (amongst the Abbasides) embroidered with gold, a violet-coloured mantle, a waist-shawl and a gold neck-chain and shoe-buckles.
[364]. Arab. "Izá," i.e. the visits of condolence and so forth which are long and terribly wearisome in the Moslem East.
[365]. Arab. "Mahr," the money settled by the man before marriage on the woman and without which the contract is not valid. Usually half of it is paid down on the marriage-day and the other half when the husband dies or divorces his wife. But if she take a divorce she forfeits her right to it, and obscene fellows, especially Persians, often compel her to demand divorce by unnatural and preposterous use of her person.
[366]. Bismillah here means "Thou art welcome to it."
[367]. Arab. "Bassak," half Pers. (bas=enough) and—ak=thou; for thee. "Bas" sounds like our "buss" (to kiss) and there are sundry good old Anglo-Indian jokes of feminine mistakes on the subject.
[368]. This saving clause makes the threat worse. The scene between the two brothers is written with characteristic Arab humour; and it is true to nature. In England we have heard of a man who separated from his wife because he wished to dine at six and she preferred half-past six.
[369]. Arab. "Misr" (vulg. Masr). The word, which comes of a very ancient house, was applied to the present Capital about the time of its conquest by the Osmanli Turks A.H. 923=1517.
[370]. The Arab. "Jízah,"=skirt, edge; the modern village is the site of an ancient Egyptian city, as the "Ghizah inscription" proves (Brugsch, History of Egypt, ii. 415).
[371]. Arab. "Watan" literally meaning "birth-place" but also used for "patria, native country"; thus "Hubb al-Watan"=patriotism. The Turks pronounce it "Vatan," which the French have turned into Va-t'en!