[30]. Arab. “Máridúna” = rebels (against Allah and his orders).
[31]. Arab. Yáfis or Yáfat. He had eleven sons and was entitled Abú al-Turk because this one engendered the Turcomans as others did the Chinese, Scythians, Slaves (Saklab), Gog, Magog, and the Muscovites or Russians. According to the Moslems there was a rapid falling off in size amongst this family. Noah’s grave at Karak (the Ruin) a suburb of Zahlah, in La Brocquière’s “Valley of Noah, where the Ark was built,” is 104 ft. 10 in. long by 8 ft. 8 in. broad. (N.B.—It is a bit of the old aqueduct which Mr. Porter, the learned author of the “Giant Cities of Bashan,” quotes as a “traditional memorial of primeval giants”—talibus carduis pascuntur asini!). Nabi Ham measures only 9 ft. 6 in. between headstone and tombstone, being in fact about as long as his father was broad.
[32]. See Night dcliv., vol. vii., p. [43], infra.
[33]. According to Turcoman legends (evidently post-Mohammedan) Noah gave his son Japhet a stone inscribed with the Greatest Name, and it had the virtue of bringing on or driving off rain. The Moghuls long preserved the tradition and hence probably the sword.
[34]. This expresses Moslem sentiment; the convert to Al-Islam being theoretically respected and practically despised. The Turks call him a “Burmá” = twister, a turncoat, and no one either trusts him or believes in his sincerity.
[35]. The name of the city first appears here: it is found also in the Bul. Edit., vol. ii, p. 132.
[36]. Arab. “’Amala hílah,” a Syro-Egyptian vulgarism.
[37]. i.e. his cousin, but he will not use the word.
[38]. Arab. “La’ab,” meaning very serious use of the sword: we still preserve the old “sword-play.”
[39]. Arab. “Ikhsa,” from a root meaning to drive away a dog.