[FN#377] Arab. "Al-Kuds" = holiness. There are few cities which in our day have less claim to this title than Jerusalem; and, curious to say, the "Holy Land" shows Jews, Christians and Moslems all in their worst form. The only religion (if it can be called one) which produces men in Syria is the Druse. "Heiligen-landes Jüden" are proverbial and nothing can be meaner than the Christians while the Moslems are famed for treachery.
[FN#378] Arab. "Shamm al-hawá." In vulgar parlance to "smell the air" is to take a walk, especially out of town. There is a peculiar Egyptian festival called "Shamm al-Nasím" (smelling the Zephyr) which begins on Easter-Monday (O.S.), thus corresponding with the Persian Nau-roz, vernal equinox and introducing the fifty days of "Khammasín" or "Mirísi" (hot desert winds). On awakening, the people smell and bathe their temples with vinegar in which an onion has been soaked and break their fast with a "fisikh" or dried "búri" = mullet from Lake Menzalah: the late Hekekiyan Bey had the fish-heads counted in one public garden and found 70,000. The rest of the day is spent out of doors "Gypsying," and families greatly enjoy themselves on these occasions. For a longer description, see a paper by my excellent friend Yacoub Artin Pasha, in the Bulletin de l'Institut Égyptien, 2nd series, No. 4, Cairo, 1884. I have noticed the Mirísi (south-wester) and other winds in the Land of Midian, i., 23.
[FN#379] So in the days of the "Mameluke Beys" in Egypt a man of rank would not cross the street on foot.
[FN#380] Arab. Basrah. The city is now in decay and not to flourish again till the advent of the Euphrates Valley R.R., is a modern place, founded in A.H. 15, by the Caliph Omar upon the Aylah, a feeder of the Tigris. Here, according to Al-Haríri, the "whales and the lizards meet," and, as the tide affects the river,
Its stream shows prodigy, ebbing and flowing.
In its far-famed market-place, Al-Marbad, poems used to be recited; and the city was famous for its mosques and Saint-shrines, fair women and school of Grammar which rivalled that of Kúfah. But already in Al-Hariri's day (nat. A.H. 446 = A.D. 1030) Baghdad had drawn off much of its population.
[FN#381] This fumigation (Bukhúr) is still used. A little incense or perfumed wood is burnt upon an open censor (Mibkharah) of earthenware or metal, and passed round, each guest holding it for a few moments under his beard. In the Somali Country, the very home of incense, both sexes fumigate the whole person after carnal intercourse. Lane (Mod. Egypt, chapt. viii) gives an illustration of the Mibkharah.
[FN#382] The reader of The Nights will remark that the merchant is often a merchant-prince, consorting and mating with the highest dignitaries. Even amongst the Romans, a race of soldiers, statesmen and lawyers, "mercatura" on a large scale was "not to be vituperated." In Boccacio (x. 19) they are netti e delicati uomini. England is perhaps the only country which has made her fortune by trade, and much of it illicit trade, like that in slaves which built Liverpool and Bristol, and which yet disdains or affects to disdain the trader. But the unworthy prejudice is disappearing with the last generation, and men who formerly would have half starved as curates and ensigns, barristers and carabins are now only too glad to become merchants.
[FN#383] These lines in the Calc. and Bul. Edits. Have already occurred (Night vii.) but such carelessness is characteristic despite the proverb, "In repetition is no fruition." I quote Torrens (p. 60) by way of variety. As regards the anemone (here called a tulip) being named "Shakík" = fissure, I would conjecture that it derives from the flower often forming long lines of red like stripes of blood in the landscape. Travellers in Syria always observe this.
[FN#384] Such an address to a royalty (Eastern) even in the present day, would be a passport to future favours.