[428]. Arab. “Ya Sáki’ al-Wajh,” which Lane translates by “lying” or “liar.”
[429]. Kamín (in Bresl. Edit. “bayn” = between) Al-Bahrayn = Ambuscade or lurking-place of the two seas. The name of the city in Lane is “’Emareeych” imaginary but derived from Emarch (’imárah) = being populous. Trébutien (ii. 161) takes from Bresl. Edit. “Amar” and translates the port-name, “le lieu de refuge des deux mers.”
[430]. i.e. “High of (among) the Kings.” Lane proposes to read ’Ali al-Mulk = high in dominion.
[431]. Pronounce Mu’inuddeen = Aider of the Faith. The Bresl. Edit. (iv. 266) also reads “Mu’in al-Riyásah” = Mu’in of the Captaincies.
[432]. Arab. Shúm = a tough wood used for the staves with which donkeys are driven. Sir Gardner Wilkinson informed Lane that it is the ash.
[433]. In Persian we find the fuller metaphorical form, “kissing the ground of obedience.”
[434]. For the Shaykh of the Sea(-board) in Sindbad the Seaman see vol. vi. 50.
[435]. That this riding is a facetious exaggeration of the African practice I find was guessed by Mr. Keightley.
[436]. Arab. “Kummasra”: the root seems to be “Kamsara” = being slender or compact.
[437]. Lane translates, “by reason of the exhilaration produced by intoxication.” But the Arabic here has no assonance. The passage also alludes to the drunken habits of those blameless Ethiopians, the races of Central Africa where, after midday a chief is rarely if ever found sober. We hear much about drink in England but Englishmen are mere babes compared with these stalwart Negroes. In Unyamwezi I found all the standing bedsteads of pole-sleepers and bark-slabs disposed at an angle of about 20 degrees for the purpose of draining off the huge pottle-fulls of Pombe (Osirian beer) drained by the occupants; and, comminxit lectum potus might be said of the whole male population.