[FN#469] Arab. "Raat-hu." This apparently harmless word suggests one similar in sound and meaning which gave some trouble in its day. Says Mohammed in the Koran (ii. 98) "O ye who believe! say not (to the Apostle) Rá'iná (look at us) but Unzurná (regard us)." "Rá'iná" as pronounced in Hebrew means "our bad one."
[FN#470] By reason of its leanness.
[FN#471] In the Mac. Edit. "Fifty." For a scene which illustrates this mercantile transaction see my Pilgrimage i. 88, and its deduction. "How often is it our fate, in the West as in the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear from rosy lips an implied, if not an expressed 'Why don't you buy me?' or, worse still, 'Why can't you buy me?'"
[FN#472] See vol. ii. 165 dragging or trailing the skirts = walking without the usual strut or swagger: here it means assuming the humble manners of a slave in presence of the master.
[FN#473] This is the Moslem form of "boycotting": so amongst early Christians they refused to give one another God-speed. Amongst Hindús it takes the form of refusing "Hukkah (pipe) and water" which practically makes a man an outcast. In the text the old man expresses the popular contempt for those who borrow and who do not repay. He had evidently not read the essay of Elia on the professional borrower.
[FN#474] See note p. 273.
[FN#475] i.e. the best kind of camels.
[FN#476] This first verse has occurred three times.
[FN#477] Arab. "Surayyá" in Dictionaries a dim. of Sarwá = moderately rich. It may either denote abundance of rain or a number of stars forming a constellation. Hence in Job (xxxviii. 31) it is called a heap (kímah).
[FN#478] Pleiads in Gr. the Stars whereby men sail.