[243]. The detected sodomite is punished with death according to Moslem law, but again comes the difficulty of proof. At Shiraz I have heard of a pious Moslem publicly executing his son.
[244]. Koran xxvi. 165 et seq. The Lord speaks to the “people of Lot” (Sodomites). Mr. Payne renders “Min al-álamína,” “from the four corners of the world.”
[245]. Meaning before and behind, a Moslemah “Bet Balmanno.”
[246]. Arab. “Lúti,” (plur. Lawáti), much used in Persian as a buffoon, a debauchee, a rascal. The orig. sig. is “One of (the people of) Lot.” The old English was Ingle or Yngle (a bardachio, a catamite, a boy kept for sodomy), which Minsheu says is, “Vox hispanica et significat Latinè Inguen” (the groin). Our vulgar modern word like the Italian bugiardo is pop. derived from Fr. Bougre, alias Bulgarus, a Bulgarian, a heretic: hence Boulgrin (Rabelais i. chapt. ii.) is popularly applied to the Albigeois (Albigenses, whose persecution began shortly after A.D. 1200) and the Lutherans. I cannot but think that “bougre” took its especial modern signification after the French became acquainted with the Brazil, where the Huguenots (in A.D. 1555) were founding a Nouvelle France, alias Equinoctiale, alias Antarctique, and whence the savages were carried as curiosities to Paris. Their generic name was “Bugre” (properly a tribe in Southern Brazil, but applied to all the redskins) and they were all born Sodomites. More of this in the terminal Essay.
[247]. His paper is the whiteness of his skin. I have quoted the Persian saying of a young beard: “his cheeks don mourning for his beauty’s death.”
[248]. Arab. “Khabál,” lit. the pus which flows from the bodies of the damned.
[249]. Most characteristic of Egypt is all this scene. Her reverence, it is true, sits behind a curtain; but her virtue uses language which would shame the lowest European prostitute; and which is filthy almost as Dean Swift’s.
[250]. Arab. “Niyat:” the Moslem’s idea of intentions quite runs with the Christian’s. There must be a “Niyat” or purpose of prayer or the devotion is valueless. Lane tells a pleasant tale of a thief in the Mosque, saying “I purpose (before prayer) to carry off this nice pair of new shoes!”
ABU SUWAYD AND THE PRETTY OLD WOMAN.
(Quoth Abu Suwayd) I and a company of my friends, entered a garden one day to buy somewhat of fruit; and we saw in a corner an old woman, who was bright of face, but her head-hair was white, and she was combing it with an ivory comb. We stopped before her, yet she paid no heed to us neither veiled her face: so I said, to her, “O old woman,[[251]] wert thou to dye thy hair black, thou wouldst be handsomer than a girl: what hindereth thee from this?” She raised her head towards me——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.