See C. de Perceval i. 101; Arab. Prov. i. 192; and Chenery p. 381.
(The Assemblies of Al-Hariri; London, Williams and Norgate, 1867).
I have made many enquiries into the true nature of Ithmid and
failed to learn anything: on the Upper Nile the word is=Kohl.
[FN#197] The general colour of chessmen in the East, where the game is played on a cloth more often than a board.
[FN#198] Arab. "Al-fil," the elephant=the French fol or fou and our bishop. I have derived "elephant" from Píl (old Persian, Sansk. Pilu) and Arab. Fil, with the article Al-Fil, whence the Greek ἐλέφας the suffix—as being devoted to barbarous words as Obod-as (Al Ubayd), Aretas (Al-Háris), etc. Mr. Isaac Taylor (The Alphabet i. 169), preserves the old absurdity of "eleph-ant or ox-like (!) beast of Africa." Prof. Sayce finds the word al-ab (two distinct characters) in line 3, above the figure of an (Indian) elephant, on the black obelisk of Nimrod Mound, and suggests an Assyrian derivation.
[FN#199] Arab. "Shaukat" which may also mean the "pride" or "mainstay" (of the army).
[FN#200] Lit. "smote him on the tendons of his neck." This is the famous shoulder-cut (Tawash shuh) which, with the leg-cut (Kalam), formed, and still forms, the staple of Eastern attack with the sword.
[FN#201] Arab. "Dirás." Easterns do not thresh with flails. The material is strewed over a round and smoothed floor of dried mud in the open air and threshed by different connivances. In Egypt the favourite is a chair-like machine called "Norag," running on iron plates and drawn by bulls or cows over the corn. Generally, however, Moslems prefer the old classical Τρίβολον, the Tribulum of Virgil and Varro, a slipper-shaped sled of wood garnished on the sole with large-headed iron nails, or sharp fragments of flint or basalt. Thus is made the "Tibn" or straw, the universal hay of the East, which our machines cannot imitate.
[FN#202] These numbers appear to be grossly exaggerated, but they were possible in the days of sword and armour: at the battle of Saffayn the Caliph Ali is said to have cut down five hundred and twenty-three men in a single night.
[FN#203] Arab. "Bika'á": hence the "Buka'ah" or Cœlesyria.
[FN#204] Richardson in his excellent dictionary (note 103) which modern priggism finds "unscientific " wonderfully derives this word from Arab. "Khattáf," a snatcher (i.e. of women), a ravisher. It is an evident corruption of "captivus" through Italian and French
[FN#205] These periodical and fair-like visitations to convents are still customary; especially amongst the Christians of Damascus.