[207]. Arab. “Harámi,” lit. = one who lives on unlawful gains; popularly a thief.
[208]. i.e. he turned on the water, hot and cold.
[209]. Men are often seen doing this in the Hammam. The idea is that the skin when free from sebaceous exudation sounds louder under the clapping. Easterns judge much by the state of the perspiration, especially in horse-training, which consists of hand-gallops for many successive miles. The sweat must not taste over salt and when held between thumb and forefinger and the two are drawn apart must not adhere in filaments.
[210]. Lit. “Aloes for making Nadd;” see vol. i. [310]. “Eagle-wood” (the Malay Aigla and Agallochum the Sansk. Agura) gave rise to many corruptions as lignum aloes, the Portuguese Páo d’ Aguila etc. “Calamba” or “Calambak” was the finest kind. See Colonel Yule in the “Voyage of Linschoten” (vol. i. [120] and 150). Edited for the Hackluyt Soc. (1885) by my learned and most amiable friend, the late Arthur Cooke Burnell.
[211]. The Hammam is one of those unpleasant things which are left “Alà júdi-k” = to thy generosity; and the higher the bather’s rank the more he or she is expected to pay. See Pilgrimage i. 103. In 1853 I paid at Cairo 3 piastres and twenty paras, something more than sixpence, but now five shillings would be asked.
[212]. This is something like the mythical duchess in England who could not believe that the poor were starving when sponge-cakes were so cheap.
[213]. This magnificent “Bakhshish” must bring water into the mouths of all the bath-men in the coffee-house assembly.
[214]. i.e. the treasurer did not, as is the custom of such gentry, demand and receive a large “Bakhshish” on the occasion.
[215]. A fair specimen of clever Fellah chaff.
[216]. In the first room of the Hammam, called the Maslakh or stripping-place, the keeper sits by a large chest in which he deposits the purses and valuables of his customers and also makes it the caisse for the pay. Something of the kind is now done in the absurdly called “Turkish Baths” of London.