[287]. Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut" (Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.
[288]. Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhabá," the words still popularly addressed to a guest.
[289]. This may mean "liquid black eyes"; but also, as I have noticed, that the lashes were long and thick enough to make the eyelids appear as if Kohl-powder had been applied to the inner rims.
[290]. A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is considered a beauty by Arabs; why it is hard to say except for the racial love of variety. "Sughr" (Thugr) in the text means, primarily, the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.
[291]. i.e. makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the gall-bladder" (Marárah) being our "breaking the heart."
[292]. Almost needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a lieu commun in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard."
[293]. Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix., 30).
[294]. Arab. "Al-Barkúk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is "Burkúk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishmish," and it also denotes a small plum or damson. In Syria the "side next the sun" shows a glowing red flush.
[295]. Arab. "Hazáṙ" (in Persian, a thousand)=a kind of mocking bird.
[296]. Some Edit. make the doors number a hundred, but the Princesses were forty and these coincidences, which seem to have significance and have none save for Arab symmetromania, are common in Arab stories.