[FN#42] i.e. robed as thou art.
[FN#43] i.e. his kinsfolk of the Hashimis.
[FN#44] See vol. ii. 24. {Vol2, FN#49}
[FN#45] Arab. "Sur'itu" = I was possessed of a Jinn, the common Eastern explanation of an epileptic fit long before the days of the Evangel. See vol. iv. 89.
[FN#46] Arab. "Zн'ah," village, feof or farm.
[FN#47] Arab. "Tarнkah."
[FN#48] "Most of the great Arab musicians had their own peculiar fashion of tuning the lute, for the purpose of extending its register or facilitating the accompaniment of songs composed in uncommon keys and rhythms or possibly of increasing its sonority, and it appears to have been a common test of the skill of a great musician, such as Ishac el-Mausili or his father Ibrahim, to require him to accompany a difficult song on a lute purposely untuned. As a (partial) modern instance of the practice referred to in the text, may be cited Paganini's custom of lowering or raising the G string of the violin in playing certain of his own compositions. According to the Kitab el-Aghani, Ishac el-Mausili is said to have familiarized himself, by incessant practice, with the exact sounds produced by each division of the strings of the four course lute of his day, under every imaginable circumstance of tuning." It is regrettable that Mr. Payne does not give us more of such notes.
[FN#49] See vol. vii. 363 for the use of these fumigations.
[FN#50] In the Mac. Edit. "Aylah" for Ubullah: the latter is one of the innumerable canals, leading from Bassorah to Ubullah-town a distance of twelve miles. Its banks are the favourite pleasure- resort of the townsfolk, being built over with villas and pavilions (now no more) and the orchards seem to form one great garden, all confined by one wall. See Jaubert's translation of Al-Idrisi, vol. i. pp. 368-69. The Aylah, a tributary of the Tigris, waters (I have noted) the Gardens of Bassorah.
[FN#51] Music having been forbidden by Mohammed who believed with the vulgar that the Devil has something to do with it. Even Paganini could not escape suspicion in the nineteenth century.