[494]. Arab. “Tájir Alfí” which may mean a thousand dinars (£500) or a thousand purses (= £5,000). “Alfí” is not an uncommon P.N., meaning that the bearer (Pasha or pauper) had been bought for a thousand left indefinite.
[495]. Tigris-Euphrates.
[496]. Possibly the quarter of Baghdad so called and mentioned in The Nights more than once.
[497]. For this fiery sea see Sind Revisited i. 19.
[498]. Arab. “Al-Ghayb” which may also mean “in the future” (unknown to man).
[499]. Arab. “Jabal”; here a mountainous island: see vol. i. [140].
[500]. i.e. ye shall be spared this day’s miseries. See my Pilgrimage vol. i. [314], and the delight with which we glided into Marsá Damghah.
[501]. Arab. “Súwán” = “Syenite” (= granite) also used for flint and other hard stones. See vol. i. [238].
[502]. Koran xxiv. Male children are to the Arab as much prized an object of possession as riches, since without them wealth is of no value to him. Mohammed, therefore, couples wealth with children as the two things wherewith one wards off the ills of this world, though they are powerless against those of the world to come.
[503]. An exclamation derived from the Surat Nasr (cx. 1) one of the most affecting in the Koran. It gave Mohammed warning of his death and caused Al-Abbás to shed tears; the Prophet sings a song of victory in the ixth year of the Hijrah (he died on the xth) and implores the pardon of his Lord.