C'est la constipation qui rend l'homme rigoureux.
The English, since the first invasion of cholera, in October, 1831, are a different race from their costive grandparents who could not dine without a "dinner-pill." Curious to say the clyster is almost unknown to the people of Hindostan although the barbarous West Africans use it daily to "wash 'um belly," as the Bonney-men say. And, as Sonnini notes, to propose the process in Egypt under the Beys might have cost a Frankish medico his life.
[272]. The Egyptian author cannot refrain from this characteristic polissonnerie; and reading it out is always followed by a roar of laughter. Even serious writers like Al-Hariri do not, as I have noted, despise the indecency.
[273]. "Long beard and little wits," is a saying throughout the East where the Kausaj (= man with thin, short beard) is looked upon as cunning and tricksy. There is a venerable Joe Miller about a schoolmaster who, wishing to singe his long beard short, burnt it off and his face to boot:—which reminded him of the saying. A thick beard is defined as one which wholly conceals the skin; and in ceremonial ablution it must be combed out with the fingers till the water reach the roots. The Sunnat, or practice of the Prophet, was to wear the beard not longer than one hand and two fingers' breadth. In Persian "Kúseh" (thin-beard) is an insulting term opposed to "Khush-rísh," a well-bearded man. The Iranian growth is perhaps the finest in the world, often extending to the waist; but it gives infinite trouble, requiring, for instance, a bag when travelling. The Arab beard is often composed of two tufts on the chin-sides and straggling hairs upon the cheeks; and this is a severe mortification, especially to Shaykhs and elders, who not only look upon the beard as one of man's characteristics, but attach a religious importance to the appendage. Hence the enormity of Kamar al-Zaman's behaviour. The Persian festival of the vernal equinox was called Kuseh-nishín (Thin-beard sitting). An old man with one eye paraded the streets on an ass with a crow in one hand and a scourge and fan in the other, cooling himself, flogging the bystanders and crying heat! heat! (garmá! garmá!). For other particulars see Richardson (Dissertation, p. lii.). This is the Italian Giorno delle Vecchie, Thursday in Mid-Lent, March 12 (1885), celebrating the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.
[274]. I quote Torrens (p. 400) as these lines have occurred in Night xxxviii.
[275]. Moslems have only two names for week days, Friday, Al-Jum'ah or meeting-day, and Al-Sabt, Sabbath-day, that is Saturday. The others are known by numbers after Quaker fashion with us, the usage of Portugal and Scandinavia.
[276]. Our last night.
[277]. Arab. "Tayf" = phantom, the nearest approach to our "ghost," that queer remnant of Fetishism imbedded in Christianity; the phantasma, the shade (not the soul) of the dead. Hence the accurate Niebuhr declares, "apparitions (i.e., of the departed) are unknown in Arabia." Haunted houses are there tenanted by Ghuls, Jinns and a host of supernatural creatures; but not by ghosts proper; and a man may live years in Arabia before he ever hears of the "Tayf." With the Hindus it is otherwise (Pilgrimage iii. 144.) Yet the ghost, the embodied fear of the dead and of death is common, in a greater or less degree, to all peoples; and, as modern Spiritualism proves, that ghost is not yet laid.
[278]. Mr. Payne (iii. 133,) omits the lines which are à propos de rien and read much like "nonsense verses." I retain them simply because they are in the text.
[279]. The first two couplets are the quatrain (or octave) in Night xxxv.