[396]. Arab. “Mizwad,” or Mizwád = lit. provision-bag, from Zád = viaticum; afterwards called Kirbah (pron. Girbah, the popular term), and Sakl. The latter is given in the Dictionaries as Askálah = scala, échelle, stage, plank.
[397]. Those blood-feuds are most troublesome to the traveller, who may be delayed by them for months: and, until a peace be patched up, he will never be allowed to pass from one tribe to their enemies. A quarrel of the kind prevented my crossing Arabia from Al-Medinah to Maskat (Pilgrimage, ii. 297), and another in Africa from visiting the head of the Tanganyika Lake. In all such journeys the traveller who has to fight against Time is almost sure to lose.
[398]. i.e. his fighting-men.
[399]. The popular treatment of a detected horse-thief, for which see Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia (1829), and Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (1830).
[400]. Arab. “Ashírah”: see vol. vii. 121.
[401]. Arab. “Musáfahah”: see vol. vi. 287.
[402]. In the text, “To the palace of the king’s daughter.”
[403]. Arab. “Marj Salí’” = cleft meadow (here and below). Mr. Payne suggests that this may be a mistranscription for Marj Salí’ (with a Sád) = a treeless champaign. It appears to me a careless blunder for the Marj akhzar (green meadow) before mentioned.
[404]. The palace, even without especial and personal reasons, not being the place for a religious and scrupulous woman.
[405]. “i.e. those of El Aziz, who had apparently entered the city or passed through it on their way to the camp of El Abbas.” This is Mr. Payne’s suggestion.