[260]. The lesser ablution of hands, face and feet; a kind of "washing the points." More in Night ccccxl.
[261]. Arab. "Ruka'tayn"; the number of these bows which are followed by the prostrations distinguishes the five daily prayers.
[262]. The "Beth Kol" of the Hebrews; also called by the Moslems "Hátif"; for which ask the Spiritualists. It is the Hindu "voice divine" or "voice from heaven."
[263]. These formulæ are technically called Tasmiyah, Tahlíl (before noted) and Takbír: the "testifying" is Tashhíd.
[264]. Arab. "Samn," (Pers. "Raughan" Hind. "Ghi") the "single sauce" of the East; fresh butter set upon the fire, skimmed and kept (for a century if required) in leather bottles and demijohns. Then it becomes a hard black mass, considered a panacea for wounds and diseases. It is very "filling": you say jocosely to an Eastern threatened with a sudden inroad of guests, "Go, swamp thy rice with Raughan." I once tried training, like a Hindu Pahlawan or athlete, on Gur (raw sugar), milk and Ghi; and the result was being blinded by bile before the week ended.
[265]. These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should apply to women.
[266]. The Bul. Edit. (i. 43) reads otherwise:—I found a garden and a second and a third and so on till they numbered thirty and nine; and, in each garden, I saw what praise will not express, of trees and rills and fruits and treasures. At the end of the last I sighted a door and said to myself, "What may be in this place?; needs must I open it and look in!" I did so accordingly and saw a courser ready saddled and bridled and picketed; so I loosed and mounted him; and he flew with me like a bird till he set me down on a terrace-roof; and, having landed me, he struck me a whisk with his tail and put out mine eye and fled from me. Thereupon I descended from the roof and found ten youths all blind of one eye who, when they saw me exclaimed, "No welcome to thee, and no good cheer!" I asked them, "Do ye admit me to your home and society?" and they answered, "No, by Allah, thou shalt not live amongst us." So I went forth with weeping eyes and grieving heart, but Allah had written my safety on the Guarded Tablet so I reached Baghdad in safety, etc. This is a fair specimen of how the work has been curtailed in that issue.
[267]. Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the fœtus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).
[268]. This is contrary to the commands of Al-Islam; Mohammed expressly said "The Astrologers are liars, by the Lord of the Ka'abah!"; and his saying is known to almost all Moslems, lettered or unlettered. Yet, the further we go East (Indiawards) the more we find these practises held in honour. Turning westwards we have:
Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto;