"Miyαn-ji ti-ti!
Bachche-kν gαnd men anguli kν thi!"
("Schoolmaster hum!
Who fumbled and fingered the little boy's bum?")
[FN#171] Arab. "Mujawirin" = the lower servants, sweepers, etc. See Pilgrimage ii. 161, where it is also applied to certain "settlers" at Al-Medinah. Burckhardt (No. 480) notices another meaning "foreigners who attend mosque-lectures" and quotes the saying, "A. pilgrimaged:" quoth B. "yes! and for his villanies resideth (Mujαwir) at Meccah."
[FN#172] The custom (growing obsolete in Egypt) is preserved in Afghanistan where the learned wear turbans equal to the canoe- hats of the Spanish cardinals.
[FN#173] Arab. "Makmarah," a metal cover for the usual brasier or pan of charcoal which acts as a fire-place. Lane (ii. 600) does not translate the word and seems to think it means a belt or girdle, thus blunting the point of the dominie's excuse.
[FN#174] This story, a very old Joe Miller, was told to Lane as something new and he introduced it into his Modern Egyptians, end of chapt. ii.
[FN#175] This tale is a mere abbreviation of "The King and his
Wazir's Wife," in the Book of Sindibad or the Malice of Women,
Night dcxxviii., {which see for annotations}.
[FN#176] The older "Roe" which may be written "Rukh" or "Rukhkh." Colonel Yule, the learned translator of Marco Polo, has shown that "Roc's" feathers were not uncommon curiosities in mediζval ages; and holds that they were mostly fronds of the palm Raphia vinifera, which has the largest leaf in the vegetable kingdom and which the Moslems of Zanzibar call "Satan's date-tree." I need hardly quote "Frate Cipolla and the Angel Gabriel's Feather." (Decameron vi. 10.)
[FN#177] The tale is told in a bald, disjointed style and will be repeated in Sindbad the Seaman where I shall again notice the "Roc." See Night dxxxvii., etc.
[FN#178] Hνrah in Mesopotamia was a Christian city and
principality subject to the Persian Monarchs; and a rival to the
Roman kingdom of Ghassαn. It has a long history, for which see
D'Herbelot.
[FN#179] A pre-Islamite poet.