[FN#127] As opposed to the "but" or outer room.
[FN#128] Arab. "Darb al-Asfar" in the old Jamalнyah or Northern part of Cairo.
[FN#129] A noble tribe of Badawin that migrated from Al-Yaman and settled in Al-Najd Their Chief, who died a few years before Mohammed's birth, was Al-Hatim (the "black crow"), a model of Arab manliness and munificence; and although born in the Ignorance he will enter Heaven with the Moslems. Hatim was buried on the hill called Owбrid: I have already noted this favourite practice of the wilder Arabs and the affecting idea that the Dead may still look upon his kith and kin. There is not an Arab book nor, indeed, a book upon Arabia which does not contain the name of Hatim: he is mentioned as unpleasantly often as Aristides.
[FN#130] Lord of "Cattle-feet," this King's name is unknown; but the Kбmъs mentions two Kings called Zu 'l Kalб'a, the Greater and the Less. Lane's Shaykh (ii. 333) opined that the man who demanded Hatim's hospitality was one Abu'l-Khaybari.
[FN#131] The camel's throat, I repeat, is not cut as in the case of other animals, the muscles being too strong: it is slaughtered by the "nahr," i.e. thrusting a knife into the hollow at the commissure of the chest. (Pilgrimage iii. 303.)
[FN#132] Adi became a Moslem and was one of the companions of the
Prophet.
[FN#133] A rival-in generosity to Hatim: a Persian poet praising his patron's generosity says that it buried that of Hatim and dimmed that of Ma'an (D'Herbelot). He was a high official-under the last Ommiade, Marwбn al-Himбr (the "Ass," or the "Century," the duration of Ommiade rule) who was routed and slain in A.H. 132=750. Ma'an continued to serve under the Abbasides and was a favourite with Al-Mansъr. "More generous or bountiful than Ka'ab" is another saying (A. P., i. 325); Ka'ab ibn Mбmah was a man who, somewhat like Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen, gave his own portion of drink while he was dying of thirst to a man who looked wistfully at him, whence the saying "Give drink to thy brother the Nбmiri" (A. P., i. 608). Ka'ab could not mount, so they put garments over him to scare away the wild beasts and left him in the desert to die. "Scatterer of blessings" (Nбshir al-Ni'am) was a title of King Malik of Al-Yaman, son of Sharhabнl, eminent for his liberality. He set up the statue in the Western Desert, inscribed "Nothing behind me," as a warner to others.
[FN#134] Lane (ii. 352) here introduces, between Nights cclxxi. and ccxc., a tale entitled in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 134) "The Sleeper and the Waker," i.e. the sleeper awakened; and he calls it: The Story of Abu-l-Hasan the Wag. It is interesting and founded upon historical-fact; but it can hardly be introduced here without breaking the sequence of The Nights. I regret this the more as Mr. Alexander J. Cotheal-of New York has most obligingly sent me an addition to the Breslau text (iv. 137) from his MS. But I hope eventually to make use of it.
[FN#135] The first girl calls gold "Titer" (pure, unalloyed metal); the second "Asjad" (gold generally) and the third "Ibrнz" (virgin ore, the Greek {Greek letters}. This is a law of Arab rhetoric never to repeat the word except for a purpose and, as the language can produce 1,200,000 (to 100,000 in English) the copiousness is somewhat painful to readers.
[FN#136] Arab. "Shakes" before noticed.