[111]. Half-brother of Abdullah bin al-Zubayr, the celebrated pretender.
[112]. Grand-daughter of the Caliph Abu Bakr and the most beautiful woman of her day.
[113]. The Calc. Edit. by mistake reads “Izzah.” Torrens (notes i.-xi.) remarks “The word Ghoonj is applied to this sort of blandishment” (i.e. an affected gait), and says Burckhardt (Prov. No. 685), “The women of Cairo flatter themselves that their Ghoonj is superior to that of all other females in the Levant.” But Torrens did not understand and Burckhardt would not explain “Ghunj” except by “assumed airs” (see No. 714). It here means the art of moving in coition, which is especially affected, even by modest women, throughout the East and they have many books teaching the genial art. In China there are professors, mostly old women, who instruct young girls in this branch of the gymnastic.
ABU AL-ASWAD AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL.
Abu al-Aswad bought a native-born slave-girl, who was blind of an eye, and she pleased him; but his people decried her to him; whereat he wondered and, turning the palms of his hands upwards,[[114]] recited these two couplets:—
They find me fault with her where I default ne’er find, ✿ Save haply that a speck in either eye may show:
But if her eyes have fault, of fault her form hath none, ✿ Slim-built above the waist and heavily made below.
And this is also told of