[302]. So the Hindus speak of “the defilement of separation” as if it were an impurity.
[303]. Lane (i. 605) gives a long and instructive note on these public royal banquets which were expected from the lieges by Moslem subjects. The hanging-penalty is, perhaps, a little exaggerated; but we find the same excess in the priestly Gesta Romanorum.
[304]. Had he eaten it he would have become her guest. Amongst the older Badawin it was sufficient to spit upon a man (in entreaty) to claim his protection: so the horse-thieves when caught were placed in a hole in the ground covered over with matting to prevent this happening. Similarly Saladin (Saláh al-Din) the chivalrous would not order a cup of water for the robber, Reynald de Châtillon, before putting him to death.
[305]. Arab. “Kishk” properly “Kashk” = wheat-meal coarsely ground and eaten with milk or broth. It is de rigueur with the Egyptian Copts on the “Friday of Sorrow” (Good Friday): and Lane gives the recipe for making it (M. E. chapt. xxvi).
[306]. In those days distinctive of Moslems.
[307]. The euphemism has before been noticed: the Moslem reader would not like to pronounce the words “I am a Nazarene.” The same formula occurs a little lower down to save the reciter or reader from saying “Be my wife divorced,” etc.
[308]. Arab. “Hájj,” a favourite Egyptianism. We are wrong to write Hajji which an Eastern would pronounce Háj-jí.
[309]. This is Cairene “chaff.”
[310]. Whose shell fits very tight.
[311]. His hand was like a raven’s because he ate with thumb and two fingers and it came up with the rice about it like a camel’s hoof in dirty ground. This refers to the proverb (Burckhardt, 756), “He comes down a crow-claw (small) and comes up a camel-hoof (huge and round).”