"There is a pleasure sure in being mad
Which none but madmen know."
[FN#293] Lane (ii. 449) gives a tradition of the Prophet, "Whoso is in love, and acteth chastely, and concealeth (his passion) and dieth, dieth a martyr." Sakar is No. 5 Hell for Magi Guebres, Parsis, etc., it is used in the comic Persian curse, "Fi'n-nбri wa Sakar al-jadd w'al-pidar"=ln Hell and Sakar his grandfather and his father.
[FN#294] Arab. "Sifr": I have warned readers that whistling is considered a kind of devilish speech by the Arabs, especially the Badawin, and that the traveller must avoid it. It savours of idolatry: in the Koran we find (chaps. viii. 35), "Their prayer at the House of God (Ka'abah) is none other than whistling and hand-clapping;" and tradition says that they whistled through their fingers. Besides many of the Jinn have only round holes by way of mouths and their speech is whistling a kind of bird language like sibilant English.
[FN#295] Arab. 'Kнl wa kбl"=lit. "it was said and he said;" a popular phrase for chit chat, tittle-tattle, prattle and prate, etc.
[FN#296] Arab. "Hadis." comparing it with a tradition of the
Prophet.
[FN#297] Arab. "Mikashshah," the thick part of a midrib of a palm-frond soaked for some days in water and beaten out till the fibres separate. It makes an exceedingly hard, although not a lasting broom.
[FN#298] Persian, "the youth, the brave;" Sansk. Yuvбn: and Lat. Juvenis. The Kurd, in tales, is generally a sturdy thief; and in real-life is little better.
[FN#299] Arab. "Yб Shatir ;" lit. O clever one (in a bad sense).
[FN#300] Lane (ii. 453) has it. "that I may dress thy hair'" etc.
This is Bowdlerising with a witness.
[FN#301] The sign of respect when a personage dismounts.
(Pilgrimage i. 77.)