[FN#112] Arab. "Maragha" lit. rubbed his face on them like a fawning dog. Ghanim is another "softy" lover, a favourite character in Arab tales; and by way of contrast, the girl is masterful enough.
[FN#113] Because the Abbaside Caliphs descend from Al-Abbas, paternal uncle of Mohammed, text means more explicitly, "O descendant of the Prophet's uncle!"
[FN#114] The most terrible part of a belle passion in the East is that the beloved will not allow her lover leave of absence for an hour.
[FN#115] It is hard to preserve these wretched puns. In the original we have "O spray (or branch) of capparis-shrub (aráki) which has been thinned of leaf and fruit (tujna, i.e., whose fruit, the hymen, has been plucked before and not by me) I see thee (aráka) against me sinning (tajní).
[FN#116] Apparently the writer forgets that the Abbaside banners and dress were black, originally a badge of mourning for the Imám Ibrahim bin Mohammed put to death by the Ommiade Caliph Al-Marwan. The modern Egyptian mourning, like the old Persian, is indigo-blue of the darkest; but, as before noted, the custom is by no means universal.
[FN#117] Koran, chaps. iv. In the East as elsewhere the Devil quotes Scripture.
[FN#118] A servant returning from a journey shows his master due honour by appearing before him in travelling suit and uncleaned.
[FN#119] The first name means "Rattan", the second "Willow-wand," from the "Bán" or "Khiláf" the Egyptian willow (Salix Ægyptiaca Linn.) vulgarly called "Safsáf." Forskal holds the "Bán" to be a different variety.
[FN#120] Arab. "Ta'ám," which has many meanings: in mod. parlance it would signify millet, holcus-seed.
[FN#121] i.e. "I well know how to deal with him."