[517]. Arab. “Hájib”: Captain Trotter (“Our Mission to the Court of Morocco in 1880”: Edinburgh, Douglas, 1881) speaks, passim, of the “cheery little Hájeb or ’Eyebrow.’” Really this is too bad: why cannot travellers consult an Orientalist when treating of Oriental subjects?
[518]. Suicide is rare in Moslem lands, compared with India, China, and similar “pagan” countries; for the Mussulman has the same objection as the Christian “to rush into the presence of his Creator”, as if he could so do without the Creator’s permission. The Hindu also has some curious prejudices on the subject: he will hang himself, but not by the neck, for fear lest his soul be defiled by exiting through an impure channel. In England hanging is the commonest form for men; then follow in due order drowning, cutting or stabbing, poison, and gun-shot: women prefer drowning (except in the cold months) and poison. India has not yet found a Dr. Ogle to tabulate suicide; but the cases most familiar to old Anglo-Indians are leaping down cliffs (as at Giruar), drowning, and starving to death. And so little is life valued that a mother will make a vow obliging her son to suicide himself at a certain age.
[519]. Arab. “Zarad-Khánah,” before noticed: vol. vii. 363. Here it would mean a temporary prison for criminals of high degree. De Sacy, Chrestom, ii. 179.
[520]. Arab. “’Adúl,” I have said, means in Marocco, that land of lies and subterfuges, a public notary.
[521]. This sentence is inserted by Mr. Payne to complete the sense.
[522]. i.e. He intended to marry her when time served.
[523]. Arab. from Pers. Khwájah and Khawáját: see vol. vi. 46.
[524]. Probably meaning by one mother whom he loved best of all his wives: in the next page we read of their sister.
[525]. Come down, i.e. from heaven.
[526]. This is the Bresl. Edit’s. form of Shahryár = city-keeper (like Marzbán, guardian of the Marches), for city-friend. The learned Weil has perferred it to Shahryár.