[327]. The name seems now unknown. “Al-Khalí’a” is somewhat stronger than “Wag,” meaning at least a “wicked wit.” Properly it is the Span. “perdido,” a youth cast off (Khala’) by his friends; though not so strong a term as “Harfúsh” = a blackguard.
[328]. Arab. “Farsakh” = parasang.
[329]. Arab. “Nahás asfar” = yellow copper, brass as opposed to Nahás ahmar = copper. The reader who cares to study the subject will find much about it in my “Book of The Sword,” chapt. iv.
[330]. Lane (ii. 479) translates one stanza of this mukhammas (pentastich) and speaks of “five more,” which would make six.
[331]. A servile name, Delicacy, Elegance.
[332]. These verses have occurred twice: (Night ix. etc.) so I give Lane’s version (ii. 482).
[333]. A Badawi tribe to which belonged the generous Ma’an bin Za’idah, often mentioned in The Nights.
[334]. Wealthy harems, I have said, are hot-beds of Sapphism and Tribadism. Every woman past her first youth has a girl whom she calls her “Myrtle” (in Damascus). At Agbome, capital of Dahome, I found that a troop of women was kept for the use of the “Amazons” (Mission to Gelele, ii. 73). Amongst the wild Arabs, who ignore Socratic and Sapphic perversions, the lover is always more jealous of his beloved’s girl-friends than of men rivals. In England we content ourselves with saying that women corrupt women more than men do.
[335]. The Hebrew Pentateuch; Roll of the Law.
[336]. I need hardly notice the brass trays, platters and table-covers with inscriptions which are familiar to every reader: those made in the East for foreign markets mostly carry imitation inscriptions lest infidel eyes fall upon Holy Writ.