[FN#409] Arab. "Lisán al-Hamal" lit. = Lamb's tongue.
[FN#410] See in Bresl. Edit. X, 221. Taif, a well-known town in the mountain region East of Meccah, and not in the Holy Land, was once famous for scented goat's leather. It is considered to be a "fragment of Syria" (Pilgrimage ii. 207) and derives its name = the circumambulator from its having circuited pilgrim-like round the Ka'abah (Ibid.).
[FN#411] Arab. "Mikhaddah" = cheek-pillow: Ital. guanciale. In
Bresl. Edit. Mudawwarah (a round cushion) Sinjabiyah (of Ermine).
For "Mudawwarah" see vol. iv. 135.
[FN#412] "Coffee" is here evidently an anachronism and was probably inserted by the copyist. See vol. v. 169, for its first metnion. But "Kahwah" may have preserved its original meaning = strong old wine (vol. ii. 261); and the amount of wine-drinking and drunkenness proves that the coffee movement had not set in.
[FN#413] i.e. they are welcome. In Marocco "Lá baas" means, "I am pretty well" (in health).
[FN#414] The Rose (Ward) in Arab. is masculine, sounding to us most uncouth. But there is a fem. form Wardah = a single rose.
[FN#415] Arab. "Akmám," pl. of Kumm, a sleeve, a petal. See vol. iv. 107 and supra p. 267. The Moslem woman will show any part of her person rather than her face, instinctively knowing that the latter may be recognised whereas the former cannot. The traveller in the outer East will see ludicrous situations in which the modest one runs away with hind parts bare and head and face carefully covered.
[FN#416] Arab. "Ikyán" which Mr. Payne translates "vegetable gold" very picturesquely but not quite preserving the idea. See supra p. 272.
[FN#417] It is the custom for fast youths, in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere to stick small gold pieces, mere spangles of metal on the brows, cheeks and lips of the singing and dancing girls and the perspiration and mask of cosmetics make them adhere for a time till fresh movement shakes them off.
[FN#418] See the same idea in vol. i. 132, and 349.