[155]. Capital of Al-Yaman, and then famed for its leather and other work (vol. v. 16).
[156]. The creases in the stomach like the large navel are always insisted upon. Says the Kathá (ii. 525) “And he looked on that torrent river of the elixir of beauty, adorned with a waist made charming by those wave-like wrinkles,” etc.
[157]. Arab. Sabaj (not Sabah, as the Mac. Edit. misprints it): I am not sure of its meaning.
[158]. A truly Arab conceit, suggesting—
The mind, the music breathing from her face;
her calves moved rhythmically, suggesting the movement and consequent sound of a musical instrument.
[159]. The morosa voluptas of the Catholic divines. The Sapphist described in the text would procure an orgasm (in gloria, as the Italians call it) by biting and rolling over the girl she loved; but by loosening the trouser-string she evidently aims at a closer tribadism—the Arab “Musáhikah.”
[160]. We drink (or drank) after dinner; Easterns before the meal and half-Easterns (like the Russians) before and after. We talk of liquor being unwholesome on an empty stomach; but the truth is that all is purely habit. And as the Russian accompanies his Vodki with caviare, etc., so the Oriental drinks his Raki or Mahayá (Ma al-hayát—aqua vitæ) alternately with a Salátah, for whose composition see Pilgrimage i. 198. The Eastern practice has its advantages: it awakens the appetite, stimulates digestion and, what Easterns greatly regard, it is economical; half a bottle doing the work of a whole. Bhang and Kusumbá (opium dissolved and strained through a pledget of cotton) are always drunk before dinner and thus the “jolly” time is the preprandial, not the postprandial.
[161]. “Abu al-Sakhá” (pronounced Abussakhá) = Father of munificence.
[162]. Arab. “Shammara,” also used for gathering up the gown, so as to run the faster.