[284]. This tetrastich has before occurred; so I quote Lane (ii. 444).
[285]. In Night xxxv. the same occurs with a difference.
[286]. The old rite, I repeat, has lost amongst all but the noblest of Arab tribes the whole of its significance; and the traveller must be careful how he trusts to the phrase “Nahnu málihin”—we are bound together by the salt.
[287]. Arab. “Aláma” = Alá-má = upon what? wherefore?
[288]. Arab. “Mauz”; hence the Linnean name Musa (paradisiaca, etc). The word is explained by Sale (Koran, chapt. xxxvii. 146) as “a small tree or shrub;” and he would identify it with Jonah’s gourd.
[289]. Lane (ii. 446) “bald wolf or empowered fate,” reading (with Mac.) Kazá for Kattan (cat).
[290]. i.e. “The Orthodox in the Faith.” Ráshid is a proper name; witness that scourge of Syria, Ráshid Pasha. Born in 1830, of the Haji Nazir Agha family, Darrah-Beys of Macedonian Draina, he was educated in Paris where he learned the usual hatred of Europeans: he entered the Egyptian service in 1851; and, presently exchanging it for the Turkish, became in due time Wali (Governor-General) of Syria which he plundered most shamelessly. Recalled in 1872, he eventually entered the Ministry and on June 15, 1876, he was shot down, with other villians like himself, by gallant Captain Hasan, the Circassian (Yarham-hu ‘lláh!).
[291]. Quoted from a piece of verse, of which more presently.
[292]. This tetrastich has occurred before (Night cxciii.). I quote Lane (ii. 449), who quotes Dryden’s Spanish Friar:-
There is a pleasure sure in being mad