[FN#87] We are obliged to English the word by "valley," which is about as correct as the "brook Kedron," applied to the grisliest of ravines. The Wady (in old Coptic wah, oah, whence "Oasis") is the bed of a watercourse which flows only after rains. I have rendered it by "Fiumara" (Pilgrimage i., 5, and ii., 196, etc.), an Italian or rather a Sicilian word which exactly describes the "wady."
[FN#88] I have described this scene which Mr. T. Wolf illustrated by an excellent lithograph in "Falconry, etc." (London, Van Voorst, MDCCCLII.)
[FN#89] Arab. "Kaylúlah," mid-day sleep; called siesta from the sixth canonical hour.
[FN#90] This parrot-story is world-wide in folk-lore and the belief in metempsychosis, which prevails more or less over all the East, there lends it probability. The "Book of Sindibad" (see Night dlxxix. and "The Academy," Sept. 20, 1884, No. 646) converts it into the "Story of the Confectioner, his Wife and the Parrot," and it is the base of the Hindostani text-book, "Tota-Kaháni" (Parrot-chat), an abridgement of the Tutinámah (Parrot-book) of Nakhshabi (circ. A.D. 1300), a congener of the Sanskrit "Suka Saptati," or Seventy Parrot-stories. The tale is not in the Bul. or Mac. Edits. but occurs in the Bresl. (i., pp. 90, 91) much mutilated; and better in the Calc. Edit I cannot here refrain from noticing how vilely the twelve vols. of the Breslau Edit have been edited; even a table of contents being absent from the first four volumes.
[FN#91] The young "Turk" is probably a late addition, as it does not appear in many of the MSS., e. g. the Bresl. Edit. The wife usually spreads a cloth over the cage; this in the Turkish translation becomes a piece of leather.
[FN#92] The Hebrew-Syrian month July used to express the height of summer. As Herodotus tells us (ii. 4) the Egyptians claimed to be the discoverers of the solar year and the portioners of its course into twelve parts.
[FN#93] This proceeding is thoroughly characteristic of the servile class; they conscientiously conceal everything from the master till he finds a clew; after which they tell him everything and something more.
[FN#94] Until late years, merchants and shopkeepers in the nearer East all carried swords, and held it a disgrace to leave the house unarmed.
[FN#95] The Bresl. Edit. absurdly has Jazírah (an island).
[FN#96] The Ghúlah (fem. of Ghúl) is the Heb. Lilith or Lilis; the classical Lamia; the Hindu Yogini and Dákini; the Chaldean Utug and Gigim (desert-demons) as opposed to the Mas (hill-demon) and Telal (who steal into towns); the Ogress of our tales and the Ba{l}a yaga {Баба Яга} (Granny-witch) of Russian folk-lore. Etymologically "Ghul" is a calamity, a panic fear; and the monster is evidently the embodied horror of the grave and the graveyard.