[455]. Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter's "Murray," gives a long account of this Christian Church 'verted to a Mosque.
[456]. Arab. "Nabút"; Pilgrimage i. 336.
[457]. The Bres. Edit. says, "would have knocked him into Al-Yaman" (Southern Arabia) something like our slang phrase "into the middle of next week."
[458]. Arab. "Khádim": lit. a servant, politely applied (like Aghá=master) to a castrato. These gentry wax furious if baldly called "Tawáshi"=Eunuch. A mauvais plaisant in Egypt used to call me The Agha because a friend had placed his wife under my charge.
[459]. This sounds absurd enough in English, but Easterns always put themselves first for respect.
[460]. In Arabic the World is feminine.
[461]. Arab. "Sáhib"=lit. a companion; also a friend and especially applied to the Companions of Mohammed. Hence the Sunnis claim for them the honour of "friendship" with the Apostle; but the Shia'hs reply that the Arab says "Sahaba-hu'l-himár" (the Ass was his Sahib or companion). In the text it is a Wazirial title, in modern India it is=gentleman, e.g. "Sahib log" (the Sahib people) means their white conquerors, who, by the by, mostly mispronounce the word "Sáb."
[462]. Arab. "Suwán," prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but applied to flint and any hard stone.
[463]. It was famous in the middle ages, and even now it is, perhaps, the most interesting to travellers after that "Sentina Gentium," the "Bhendi Bazar" of unromantic Bombay.
[464]. "The Gate of the Gardens," in the northern wall, a Roman archway of the usual solid construction shaming not only our modern shams, but our finest masonry.