[516]. Arab. “Haláwat al-Salámah,” the sweetmeats offered to friends after returning from a journey or escaping sore peril. See vol. iv. [60].
[517]. So Eginhardt was an Erzcapeilan and belonged to the ghostly profession.
[518]. These lines are in vols. iii. 258 and iv. 204. I quote Mr. Payne.
[519]. Arab. “Firásah,” lit. = skill in judging of horse flesh (Faras) and thence applied, like “Kiyáfah,” to physiognomy. One Kári was the first to divine man’s future by worldly signs (Al-Maydáni, Arab. prov. ii. 132) and the knowledge was hereditary in the tribe Mashíj.
[520]. Reported to be a “Hadis” or saying of Mohammed, to whom are attributed many such shrewd aphorisms, e.g. “Allah defend us from the ire of the mild (tempered).”
[521]. These lines are in vol. i. [126]. I quote Torrens (p. 120).
[522]. These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.
[523]. Arab. “Khák-bák,” an onomatopœia like our flip-flap and a host of similar words. This profaning a Christian Church which contained the relics of the Virgin would hugely delight the coffee-house habitués, and the Egyptians would be equally flattered to hear that the son of a Cairene merchant had made the conquest of a Frankish Princess Royal. That he was an arrant poltroon mattered very little, as his cowardice only set off his charms.
[524]. i.e. after the rising up of the dead.
[525]. Arab. “Nafísah,” the precious one i.e. the Virgin.