The Shayks of Arab tribes especially transact most of their public business during the dark hours.
[FN#269] Suspecting that it had been sent by some Royal lover.
[FN#270] Arab. “Rubbamá” a particle more emphatic than rubba,=perhaps, sometimes, often.
[FN#271] “The broken (wall)” from Hatim=breaking. It fences the Hijr or space where Ishmael is buried (vol. vi. 205); and I have described it in Pilgrimage iii. 165.
[FN#272] Arab. “Faráis” (plur. of farísah): the phrase has often occurred and is=our “trembled in every nerve.” As often happens in Arabic, it is “horsey;” alluding to the shoulder-muscles (not shoulder-blades, Preston p. 89) between neck and flank which readily quiver in blood-horses when excited or frightened.
[FN#273] Arab. “Fazl”=exceeding goodness as in “Fazl wa ma’rifah”=virtue and learning.
[FN#274] Arab. “Al-Mafárik” (plur. of Mafrak),=the pole or crown of the head, where the hair parts naturally and where baldness mostly begins.
[FN#275] Arab. “Ná’i al-maut”, the person sent round to announce a death to the friends and relations of the deceased and invite them to the funeral.
[FN#276] Arab. “Táir al-bayn”, any bird, not only the Hátim or black crow, which announces separation. Crows and ravens flock for food to the camps broken up for the springtide and autumnal marches, and thus become emblems of desertion and desolation. The same birds are also connected with Abel’s burial in the Koran (v. 34), a Jewish tradition borrowed by Mohammed. Lastly, here is a paranomasia in the words “Ghuráb al-Bayn”=Raven of the Wold (the black bird with white breast and red beak and legs): “Ghuráb” (Heb. Oreb) connects with Ghurbah=strangerhood, exile, and “Bayn” with distance, interval, disunion, the desert (between the cultivated spots). There is another and a similar pun anent the Bán-tree; the first word meaning “he fared, he left.”
[FN#277] Arab. “Tayr,” any flying thing, a bird; with true
Arab carelessness the writer waits till the tale is nearly
ended before letting us know that the birds are pigeons
(Hamám).