[FN#517] Equivalent to our "Alas! Alas!" which, by the by, no one ever says. "Awah," like "Yauh," is now a woman's word although used by Al-Hariri (Assembly of Basrah) and so Al-awwáh=one who cries from grief "Awáh." A favourite conversational form is "Yehh" with the aspirate exasperated, but it is an expression of astonishment rather than sorrow. It enters into Europe travel-books.
[FN#518] In the text "burst her gall-bladder."
[FN#519] The death of Azizah is told with true Arab pathos and simplicity: it still draws tear. *from the eyes of the Badawi, and I never read it without a "lump in the throat."
[FN#520] Arab. "Inshallah bukra!" a universal saying which is the horror of travellers.
[FN#521] I have explained "Nu'uman's flower" as the anemone which in Grecised Arabic is "Anúmiyá." Here they are strewed over the tomb; often the flowers are planted in a small bed of mould sunk in the upper surface.
[FN#522] Arab. "Barzakh" lit. a bar, a partition: in the Koran (chapts. xxiii. and xxxv.) the space or the place between death and resurrection where souls are stowed away. It corresponds after a fashion with the classical Hades and the Limbus (Limbo) of Christendom, e.g.. Limbus patrum, infantum, fatuorum. But it must not be confounded with Al-A'aráf, The Moslem purgatory.
[FN#523] Arab. "Zukák al-Nakíb," the latter word has been explained as a chief, leader, head man.
[FN#524] Moslems never stand up at such times, for a spray of urine would make their clothes ceremonially impure: hence the scrupulous will break up with stick or knife the hard ground in front of them. A certain pilgrim was reported to have made this blunder which is hardly possible in Moslem dress. A high personage once asked me if it was true that he killed a man who caught him in a standing position; and I found to my surprise that the absurd scandal was already twenty years old. After urinating the Moslem wipes the os penis with one to three bits of stone, clay or handfuls of earth, and he must perform Wuzu before he can pray. Tournefort (Voyage au Levant iii. 335) tells a pleasant story of certain Christians at Constantinople who powdered with "Poivre-d'Inde" the stones in a wall where the Moslems were in the habit of rubbing the os penis by way of wiping The same author (ii. 336) strongly recommends a translation of Rabelais' Torcheculative chapter (Lib i., chaps. 13) for the benefit of Mohammedans.
[FN#525] Arab. "Nuhás ahmar," lit. red brass.
[FN#526] The cup is that between the lady's legs.