[FN#511] I need hardly note that this is an old Biblical practice. The ass is used for city-work as the horse for fighting and travelling, the mule for burdens and the dromedary for the desert. But the Badawi, like the Indian, despises the monture and sings:—
The back of the steed is a noble place
But the mule's dishonour, the ass disgrace!
The fine white asses, often thirteen hands high, sold by the Banu Salíb and other Badawi tribes, will fetch £100, and more. I rode a little brute from Meccah to Jedda (42 miles) in one night and it came in with me cantering.
[FN#512] A dry measure of about five bushels (Cairo). The classical pronunciation is Irdabb and it measured 24 sa'a (gallons) each filling four outstretched hands.
[FN#513] "Al-Jawáli" should be Al-Jáwali (Al-Makrizi) and the Bab al-Nasr (Gate of Victory) is that leading to Suez. I lived in that quarter as shown by my Pilgrimage (i. 62).
[FN#514] Arab. "Al-'ajalah," referring to a saying in every Moslem mouth, "Patience is from the Protector (Allah): Hurry is from Hell." That and "Inshallah bukra!" (Please God tomorrow.) are the traveller's bêtes noires.
[FN#515] Here it is a polite equivalent for "fall to!"
[FN#516] The left hand is used throughout the East for purposes of ablution and is considered unclean. To offer the left hand would be most insulting and no man ever strokes his beard with it or eats with it: hence, probably, one never sees a left handed man throughout the Moslem east. In the Brazil for the same reason old-fashioned people will not take snuff with the right hand. And it is related of the Khataians that they prefer the left hand, "Because the heart, which is the Sultan of the city of the Body, hath his mansion on that side" (Rauzat al-Safá).
[FN#517] Two feminine names as we might say Mary and Martha.
[FN#518] It was near the Caliph's two Palaces (Al Kasrayn); and was famous in the 15th century A. D. The Kazi's Mahkamah (Court house) now occupies the place of the Two Palaces