[35]. Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.
[36]. i.e. If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt charge me therewith on the Judgment-day.
[37]. Arab. Al-Alwán, plur. of laun (colour). The latter in Egyptian Arabic means a “dish of meat.” See Burckhardt No. 279. I repeat that the great traveller’s “Arabic Proverbs” wants republishing for two reasons. First he had not sufficient command of English to translate with the necessary laconism and assonance: secondly in his day British Philistinism was too rampant to permit a literal translation. Consequently the book falls short of what the Oriental student requires; and I have prepared it for my friend Mr. Quaritch.
[38]. i.e. Lofty, high-builded. See Night dcclxviii. vol. vii. p. [347]. In the Bresl. Edit. Al-Masíd (as in Al-Kazwíni): in the Mac. Edit. Al-Mashíd.
[39]. Arab. Munkati’ here = cut off from the rest of the world. Applied to a man, and a popular term of abuse in Al-Hijáz, it means one cut off from the blessings of Allah and the benefits of mankind; a pauvre sire. Pilgrimage ii. 22.
[40]. Arab. “Baras au Juzám,” the two common forms of leprosy. See vol. iv. [51]. Popular superstition in Syria holds that coition during the menses breeds the Juzám, Dáa al-Kabír (Great Evil) or Dáa al-Fíl (Elephantine Evil), i.e. Elephantiasis and that the days between the beginning of the flow (Sabíl) to that of coition shows the age when the progeny will be attacked; for instance if it take place on the first day, the disease will appear in the tenth year, on the fourth the fortieth and so on. The only diseases really dreaded by the Badawin are leprosy and small-pox. Coition during the menses is forbidden by all Eastern faiths under the severest penalties. Al-Mas’údi relates how a man thus begotten became a determined enemy of Ali; and the ancient Jews attributed the magical powers of Joshua Nazarenus to this accident of his birth, the popular idea being that sorcerers are thus impurely engendered.
[41]. By adoption: See vol. iii. [151]. This sudden affection (not love) suggests the “Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance!” of the Anti-Jacobin. But it is true to Eastern nature; and nothing can be more charming than this fast friendship between the Princess and Hasan.
[42]. En tout bien et en tout honneur, be it understood.
[43]. He had done nothing of the kind; but the feminine mind is prone to exaggeration. Also Hasan had told them a fib, to prejudice them against the Persian.
[44]. These nervous movements have been reduced to a system in the Turk. “Ihtilájnámeh” = Book of palpitations, prognosticating from the subsultus tendinum and other involuntary movements of the body from head to foot; according to Ja’afar the Just, Daniel the Prophet, Alexander the Great; the Sages of Persia and the Wise Men of Greece. In England we attend chiefly to the eye and ear.