Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est;
Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.
[269]. He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects his dawn prayers.
[270]. For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games. Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding "Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants).
[271]. Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.
[272]. We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."
[273]. The bath first taken after sickness.
[274]. Arab. "Dikák" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="Revalenta Arabica," which costs a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England.
[275]. Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency.
[276]. This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagké," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama.