[99]. The Persian saying is "First at the feast and last at the fray."
[100]. i.e. a tempter, a seducer.
[101]. Arab. "Wayl-ak" here probably used in the sense of "Wayh-ak" an expression of affectionate concern.
[102]. Firdausi, the Homer of Persia, affects the same magnificent exaggeration. The trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one layer (of the seven) from earth and adds it to the (seven of the) Heavens. The "blaze" on the stallion's forehead (Arab. "Ghurrah") is the white gleam of the morning.
[103]. A noted sign of excitement in the Arab blood horse, when the tail looks like a panache covering the hind-quarter.
[104]. i.e. Prince Kanmakan.
[105]. The "quality of mercy" belongs to the noble Arab, whereas the ignoble and the Badawin are rancorous and revengeful as camels.
[106]. Arab. "Khanjar," the poison was let into the grooves and hollows of the poniard.
[107]. The Pers. "Bang"; Indian "Bhang"; Maroccan "Fasúkh" and S. African "Dakhá." (Pilgrimage i. 64). I heard of a "Hashish-orgie" in London which ended in half the experimentalists being on their sofas for a week. The drug is useful for stokers, having the curious property of making men insensible to heat. Easterns also use it for "Imsák" prolonging coition, of which I speak presently.
[108]. Arab. "Hashsháshín;" whence De Sacy derived "Assassin." A notable effect of the Hashish preparation is wildly to excite the imagination, a kind of delirium imaginans sive phantasticum.