[FN#368] Women with white skins are supposed to be heating and unwholesome: hence the Hindu Rajahs slept with dark girls in the hot season.
[FN#369] Moslems sensibly have a cold as well as a hot Hell, the former called Zamharir (lit. "intense cold")or AI-Barahъt, after a well in Hazramaut; as Gehenna (Arab. "Jahannam") from the furnace-like ravine East of Jerusalem (Night cccxxv.). The icy Hell is necessary in terrorem for peoples who inhabit cold regions and who in a hot Hell only look forward to an eternity of "coals and candles" gratis. The sensible missionaries preached it in Iceland till foolishly forbidden by Papal-Bull.
[FN#370] Koran ii. 26; speaking of Abraham when he entertained the angels unawares.
[FN#371] Arab. "Rakb," usually applied to a fast-going caravan of dromedary riders (Pilgrimage ii. 329). The "Cafilah" is Arab.: "Caravan" is a corruption of the Pers. "Karwбn."
[FN#372] A popular saying. It is interesting to contrast this dispute between fat and thin with the Shakespearean humour of Falstaff and Prince Henry.
[FN#373] Arab. "Dalak" vulg. Hajar al-Hammam (Hammam-stone). The comparison is very apt: the rasps are of baked clay artificially roughened (see illustrations in Lane M. E. chaps. xvi.). The rope is called "Masad," a bristling line of palm-fibre like the coir now familiarly known in England.
[FN#374] Although the Arab's ideal-of beauty, as has been seen and said, corresponds with ours the Egyptians (Modern) the Maroccans and other negrofied races like "walking tun-butts" as Clapperton called his amorous widow.
[FN#375] Arab. "Khayzar" or "Khayzarбn" the rattan-palm. Those who have seen this most graceful "palmijuncus" in its native forest will recognize the neatness of the simile.
[FN#376] This is the popular idea of a bushy "veil of nature" in women: it is always removed by depilatories and vellication. When Bilkis Queen of Sheba discovered her legs by lifting her robe (Koran xxvii.), Solomon was minded to marry her, but would not do so till the devils had by a depilatory removed the hair. The popular preparation (called Nъrah) consists of quicklime 7 parts, and Zirnнk or orpiment, 3 parts: it is applied in the Hammam to a perspiring skin, and it must be washed off immediately the hair is loosened or it burns and discolours. The rest of the body-pile (Sha'arat opp. to Sha'ar=hair) is eradicated by applying a mixture of boiled honey with turpentine or other gum, and rolling it with the hand till the hair comes off. Men I have said remove the pubes by shaving, and pluck the hair of the arm-pits, one of the vestiges of pre-Adamite man. A good depilatory is still a desideratum, the best perfumers of London and Paris have none which they can recommend. The reason is plain: the hair bulb can be eradicated only by destroying the skin.
[FN#377] Koran, ii. 64: referring to the heifer which the Jews were ordered to sacrifice,