[FN#441] Here "Kahwah" (coffee) is used in its original sense of strong old wine. The derivation is "Akhá"=fastidire fecit, causing disinclination for food, the Matambre (kill- hunger) of the Iberians. In old days the scrupulous called coffee "Kihwah" in order to distinguish it from 'Kakwah," wine.
[FN#442] i.e. Mohammed, a common title.
[FN#443] That is, fatal to the scoffer and the impious.
[FN#444] Equivalent to our "The Devil was sick," etc.
[FN#445] i.e. to the enemy: the North American Indians (so called) use similar forms of "inverted speech"; and the Australian aborigines are in no way behind them.
[FN#446] See Vol. i., p. 154 (Night xvi.).
[FN#447] Arab. "Sauf," a particle denoting a near future whereas
"Sa-" points to one which may be very remote.
[FN#448] From the root "Shanh"=having a fascinating eye, terrifying. The Irish call the fascinater "eybitter" and the victim (who is also rhymed to death) "eybitten."
[FN#449] i.e., not like the noble-born, strong in enduring the stress of fight.
[FN#450] i.e., of Abraham. For the Well Zemzem and the Place of Abraham see my Pilgrimage (iii. 171-175, etc.), where I described the water as of salt-bitter taste, like that of Epsom (iii. 203). Sir William Muir (in his excellent life of Mahomet, I. cclviii.) remarks that "the flavour of stale water bottled up for months would not be a criterion of the same water freshly drawn;" but soldered tins-full of water drawn a fortnight before are to be had in Calcutta and elsewhere after Pilgrimage time; and analysis would at once detect the salt.