[FN#507] A bit of wood used in the children's game called "Táb" which resembles our tip-cat (Lane M. E. chaps. xvii.).
[FN#508] Arab. "Balah," the unripened date, which is considered a laxative and eaten in hot weather.
[FN#509] Lane (i. 611), quoting Al-Kazwíní, notes that the date- stone is called "Nawá" (dim. "Nawáyah") which also means distance, absence, severance. Thus the lady threatens to cast off her greedy and sleepy lover.
[FN#510] The pad of the carob-bean which changes little after being plucked is an emblem of constancy.
[FN#511] This dirham=48 grains avoir.
[FN#512] The weight would be round: also "Hadíd" (=iron) means sharp or piercing (Koran chaps. Vi]. 21). The double "swear" is intended to be very serious. Moreover iron conjures away fiends: when a water-spout or a sand-devil (called Shaytán also in Arabia) approaches, you point the index at the Jinn and say, "Iron, O thou ill-omened one!" Amongst the Ancient Egyptians the metal was ill- omened being the bones of Typhon, 80 here, possibly, we have an instance of early homœopathy—similia similibus.
[FN#513] Probably fermented to a kind of wine. The insipid fruit (Unnáb) which looks like an apple in miniature, is much used in stews, etc. It is the fruit (Nabak classically Nabik) of Rhamnus Nabeca (or Sidrat) also termed Zizyphus Jujuba, seu Spina Christi because fabled to have formed the crown of thorns: in the English market this plum is called Chinese Japonica. I have described it in Pilgrimage ii. 205, and have noticed the infusion of the leaves for washing the dead (ibid. ii. 105): this is especially the use of the "Ber" in India, where the leaves are superstitiously held peculiarly pure. Our dictionaries translate "Sidr" by "Lote-tree"; and no wonder that believers in Homeric writ feel their bile aroused by so poor a realisation of the glorious myth. The Homerids probably alluded to Hashish or Bhang.
[FN#514] Arab. "Azrár": the open collar of the Saub ("Tobe") or long loose dress is symptomatic. The Eastern button is on the same principle as ours (both having taken the place of the classical fibula); but the Moslem affects a loop (like those to which we attach our "frogs") and utterly ignores a button-hole.
[FN#515] Alluding to the ceremonious circumambulation of the Holy
House at Meccah: a notable irreverence worthy of Kneph-town
(Canopus).
[FN#516] The ear-drop is the penis and the anklet its crown of glory.