[FN#247] His paper is the whiteness of his skin. I have quoted the Persian saying of a young beard: "his cheeks don mourning for his beauty's death."
[FN#248] Arab. "Khabαl," lit. the pus which flows from the bodies of the damned.
[FN#249] Most characteristic of Egypt is all this scene. Her reverence, it is true, sits behind a curtain; but her virtue uses language which would shame the lowest European prostitute; and which is filthy almost as Dean Swift's.
[FN#250] Arab. "Niyat:" the Moslem's idea of intentions quite runs with the Christian's. There must be a "Niyat" or purpose of prayer or the devotion is valueless. Lane tells a pleasant tale of a thief in the Mosque, saying "I purpose (before Prayer) to carry off this nice pair of new shoes!"
[FN#251] Arab. "Ya 'l-Ajϊz" (in Cairo "Agooz" pronounced "Ago-o- oz"): the address is now insulting and would elicit "The old woman in thine eye" (with fingers extended). In Egypt the polite address is "O lady (Sitt), O pilgrimess, O bride, and O daughter" (although she be the wrong side of fifty). In Arabia you may say "O woman (Imraah)" but in Egypt the reply would be "The woman shall see Allah cut out thy heart!" So in Southern Italy you address "bella fι" (fair one) and cause a quarrel by "vecchiarella."
[FN#252] Governor of Egypt, Khorasan, etc. under Al-Maamun.
[FN#253] i.e., a companion, a solacer: it is also a man's name (vol. i. xxiv.).
[FN#254] At Baghdad; evidently written by a Baghdad or Mosul man.
[FN#255] A blind traditionist of Bassorah (ninth century).
[FN#256] Arab. "Zaghab"=the chick's down; the warts on the cucumber which sometimes develop into projections.