[FN#87] Or night. A metaphor for rushing into peril.
[FN#88] Plur. of kumkum, cucurbite, gourd-shaped vessel, jar.
[FN#89] A popular exaggeration for a very expert thief.
[FN#90] Arab. "Buka'at Ad-bum": lit. the "low place of blood" (where it stagnates): so Al-Bukб'ah = Cњlesyria.
[FN#91] That common and very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism and self-esteem, "I told you so," is even more common in the naпve East than in the West. In this case the son's answer is far superior to the mother's question.
[FN#92] In order to keep his oath to the letter.
[FN#93] "Tabannuj; " literally "hemping" (drugging with hemp or henbane) is the equivalent in Arab medicine of our "anжsthetics." These have been used in surgery throughout the East for centuries before ether and chloroform became the fashion in the civilised West.
[FN#94] Arab. "Durkб'ah," the lower part of the floor, opposed to the "liwбn" or daпs. Liwбn =Al-Aywбn (Arab. and Pers.) the hall (including the daпs and the sunken parts)
[FN#95] i.e. he would toast it as he would a mistress.
[FN#96] This till very late years was the custom in Persia, and Fath Ali Shah never appeared in scarlet without ordering some horrible cruelties. In Dar-For wearing a red cashmere turban was a sign of wrath and sending a blood red dress to a subject meant that he would be slain.