Mahmúdah: Kultu, “khshi an takhirriní.”
“The effects of patience” (or aloes) quoth one “are praiseworthy!” Quoth I, much I fear lest it make me stool. Mahmúdah is not only un laxatif, but a slang name for a confection of aloes.
[64]. Arab. “Akúna fidá-ka.” Fidá = ransom, self-sacrifice and Fidá’an = instead of. The phrase, which everywhere occurs in The Nights, means, “I would give my life to save thine.”
[65]. Thus accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in prescribing a fib.
[66]. i.e. the 25,000 Amazons who in the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 308) are all made to be the King’s “Banát” = daughters or protégées. The Amazons of Dahome (see my “Mission”) who may now number 5,000 are all officially wives of the King and are called by the lieges “our mothers.”
[67]. The tale-teller has made up his mind about the damsel; although in this part of the story she is the chief and eldest sister and subsequently she appears as the youngest daughter of the supreme Jinn King. The mystification is artfully explained by the extraordinary likeness of the two sisters. (See Night dcccxi.)
[68]. This is a reminiscence of the old-fashioned “marriage by capture,” of which many traces survive, even among the civilised who wholly ignore their origin.
[69]. Meaning her companions and suite.
[70]. Arab. “’Abáah” vulg. “’Abáyah.” See vol. ii. [133].
[71]. Feet in the East lack that development of sebaceous glands which afflicts Europeans.