[56]. Arab. “Balát,” in Cairo the flat slabs of limestone and sandstone brought from the Turah quarries, which supplied stone for the Jízah Pyramids.
[57]. Arab. “Yá Mu’arras!” here = O fool and disreputable; see vol. i. 338.
[58]. These unfortunates in hot climates enjoy nothing so much as throwing off the clothes which burn their feverish skins: see Pilgrimage iii. 385. Hence the boys of Eastern cities, who are perfect imps and flibbertigibbets, always raise the cry “Majnún” when they see a man naked whose sanctity does not account for his nudity.
[59]. Arab. “Daur al-Ká’ah” = the round opening made in the ceiling for light and ventilation.
[60]. Arab. “La-nakhsifanna” with the emphatic termination called by grammarians “Nún al-taakid”—the N of injunction. Here it is the reduplicated form, the Nun al-Sakílah or heavy N. The addition of Lá (not) e.g. “Lá yazrabanna” = let him certainly not strike, answers to the intensive or corroborative negative of the Greek effected by two negations or even more. In Arabic as in Latin and English two negatives make an affirmative.
[61]. Parturition and death in warm climates, especially the damp-hot like Egypt are easy compared with both processes in the temperates of Europe. This is noticed by every traveller. Hence probably Easterns have never studied the artificial Euthanasia which is now appearing in literature. See p. 143 “My Path to Atheism,” by Annie Besant, London: Freethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C., 1877; based upon the Utopia of the highly religious Thomas More. Also “Essay on Euthanasia,” by P. D. Williams, Jun., and Mr. Tollemache in the “Nineteenth Century.”
[62]. i.e. he whose turn it is to sit on the bench outside the police-office in readiness for emergencies.
[63]. Arab. “’Udúl” (plur. of ’Ádil), gen. men of good repute, qualified as witnesses in the law-court, see vol. iv. 271. It is also used (as below) for the Kazi’s Assessors.
[64]. About £80.
[65]. Arab. “Kitáb” = book, written bond. This officiousness of the neighbours is thoroughly justified by Moslem custom; and the same scene would take place in this our day. Like the Hindú’s, but in a minor degree, the Moslem’s neighbours form a volunteer police which oversees his every action. In the case of the Hindú this is required by the exigencies of caste, an admirable institution much bedevilled by ignorant Mlenchhas, and if “dynamiting” become the fashion in England, as it threatens to become, we shall be obliged to establish “Vigilance Committees” which will be as inquisitorial as caste.