[546]. These lines have occurred vol. iv. [267]. I quote Mr. Lane.
[547]. The topothesia is here designedly made absurd. Alexandria was one of the first cities taken by the Moslems (A.H. 21 = 642) and the Christian pirates preferred attacking weaker places, Rosetta and Damietta.
[548]. Arab. “Bilád al-Rúm,” here and elsewhere applied to France.
[549]. Here the last line of p. 324, vol. iv. in the Mac. Edit. is misplaced and belongs to the next page.
[550]. Arab. Akhawán shakíkán = brothers german (of men and beasts) born of one father and mother, sire and dam.
[551]. “The Forerunner” and “the Overtaker,” terms borrowed from the Arab Epsom.
[552]. Known to us as “the web and pin,” it is a film which affects Arab horses in the damp hot regions of Malabar and Zanzibar and soon blinds them. This equine cataract combined with loin-disease compels men to ride Pegu and other ponies.
[553]. Arab. “Zujáj bikr” whose apparent meaning would be glass in the lump and unworked. Zaj áj bears, however, the meaning of clove-nails (the ripe bud of the clove-shrub) and may possibly apply to one of the manifold “Alfáz Adwiyah” (names of drugs). Here, however, pounded glass would be all sufficient to blind a horse: it is much used in the East especially for dogs affected by intestinal vermicules.
[554]. Alluding to the Arab saying “The two rests” (Al-ráhatáni) “certainty of success or failure,” as opposed to “Wiswás” when the mind fluctuates in doubt.
[555]. She falls in love with the groom, thus anticipating the noble self-devotion of Miss Aurora Floyd.