[475]. A necessary precaution against poison (Pilgrimage i. 84, and iii. 43).
[476]. The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 108) describes the scene at greater length.
[477]. The Bul. Edit. gives by mistake of diacritical points, "Zabdaniyah:" Raydaniyah is or rather was a camping ground to the North of Cairo.
[478]. Arab. "La'abat"=a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane (i. 326) conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a man with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas of mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and ignominious punishment. (Koran, chapt. vii.)
[479]. Here good blood, driven to bay, speaks out boldly. But, as a rule the humblest and mildest Eastern when in despair turns round upon his oppressors like a wild cat. Some of the criminals whom Fath Ali Shah of Persia put to death by chopping down the fork, beginning at the scrotum, abused his mother till the knife reached their vitals and they could no longer speak.
[480]. These repeated "laughs" prove the trouble of his spirit. Noble Arabs "show their back-teeth" so rarely that their laughter is held worthy of being recorded by their biographers.
[481]. A popular phrase, derived from the Koranic "Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance" (chapt. xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41, "Magna est veritas et prævalebit." But the great question still remains, What is Truth?
[482]. In Night lxxv. these lines will occur with variants.
[483]. This is always mentioned: the nearer the seat the higher the honour.
[484]. Alluding to the phrase "Al-safar zafar"=voyaging is victory (Pilgrimage i., 127).