[109]. Meaning "Well done!" Mashallah (Má sháa 'llah) is an exclamation of many uses, especially affected when praising man or beast for fear lest flattering words induce the evil eye.
[110]. Arab. "Kabkáb" vulg. "Kubkáb." They are between three and ten inches high; and those using them for the first time in the slippery Hammam must be careful.
[111]. Arab. "Majlis" = sitting. The postures of coition, ethnologically curious and interesting, are subjects so extensive that they require a volume rather than a note. Full information can be found in the Ananga-ranga, or Stage of the Bodiless One, a treatise in Sanskrit verse vulgarly known as Koka Pandit from the supposed author, a Wazir of the great Rajah Bhoj or, according to others, of the Maharajah of Kanoj. Under the title Lizzat al-Nisá (The Pleasures—or enjoying—of Women) it has been translated into all the languages of the Moslem East, from Hindustani to Arabic. It divides postures into five great divisions: (1) the woman lying supine, of which there are eleven subdivisions; (2) lying on her side, right or left, with three varieties; (3) sitting, which has ten; (4) standing, with three subdivisions, and (5) lying prone, with two. This total of twenty-nine, with three forms of "Purusháyit," when the man lies supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two, approaching the French quarante façons. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both "sit at squat" somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern's limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga-ranga appeared in 1873 under the name of Káma-Shástra; or the Hindoo Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica); but of this only six copies were printed. It was re-issued (printed but not published) in 1885. The curious in such matters will consult the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, privately printed, 1879) by Pisanus Fraxi (H. S. Ashbee).
[112]. i.e. Le Roi Crotte.
[113]. This seems to be a punning allusion to Baghdad, which in Persian would mean the Garden (bágh) of Justice (dád). See "Biographical Notices of Persian Poets" by Sir Gore Ouseley, London, Oriental Translation Fund, 1846.
[114]. The Kardoukhoi (Carduchi) of Xenophon; also called (Strabo xv.) "Kárdakís, from a Persian word signifying manliness," which would be "Kardak" = a doer (of derring-do). They also named the Montes Gordæi the original Ararat of Xisisthrus-Noah's Ark. The Kurds are of Persian race, speaking an old and barbarous Iranian tongue and often of the Shi'ah sect. They are born bandits, highwaymen, cattle-lifters; yet they have spread extensively over Syria and Egypt and have produced some glorious men, witness Sultan Saláh al-Din (Saladin) the Great. They claim affinity with the English in the East, because both races always inhabit the highest grounds they can find.
[115]. These irregular bands who belong to no tribe are the most dangerous bandits in Arabia, especially upon the northern frontier. Burckhardt, who suffered from them, gives a long account of their treachery and utter absence of that Arab "pundonor" which is supposed to characterise Arab thieves.
[116]. An euphemistic form to avoid mentioning the incestuous marriage.
[117]. The Arab form of our "Kinchin lay."
[118]. These are the signs of a Shaykh's tent.