[FN#247] Arab. "Kaff Shurayk" applied to a single bun. The Shurayk is a bunn, an oblong cake about the size of a man's hand (hence the term "Kaff"=palm) with two long cuts and sundry oblique crosscuts, made of leavened dough, glazed with egg and Samn (clarified butter) and flavoured with spices (cinnamon, curcuma, artemisia and prunes mahalab) and with aromatic seeds, (Rihat al-'ajin) of which Lane (iii. 641) specifies aniseed, nigella, absinthium, (Artemisia arborescens) and Kбfъrah (A. camphorata Monspeliensis) etc. The Shurayk is given to the poor when visiting the tombs and on certain fкtes.
[FN#248] "Mother of Prosperities."
[FN#249] Tribes of pre-historic Arabs who were sent to Hell for bad behaviour to Prophets Sбlih and Hъd. See vol. iii. 294.
[FN#250] "Too much for him to come by lawfully."
[FN#251] To protect it. The Arab. is "Jбh"=high station, dignity.
[FN#252] The European reader, especially feminine, will think this a hard fate for the pious first wife but the idea would not occur to the Moslem mind. After bearing ten children a woman becomes "Umm al-banбti w'al-banнn"=a mother of daughters and sons, and should hold herself unfit for love-disport. The seven ages of womankind are thus described by the Arabs and I translate the lines after a well-known (Irish) model:—
From ten years to twenty—
Of beauty there's plenty.
From twenty to thirty—
Fat, fair and alert t'ye.
From thirty to forty—
Lads and lasses she bore t'ye.
From forty to fifty—
An old'un and shifty.
From fifty to sixty—
A sorrow that sticks t'ye.
From sixty to seventy—
A curse of God sent t'ye.
For these and other sentiments upon the subject of women and marriage see Pilgrimage ii. 285-87.
[FN#253] Abdullah, as has been said, means "servant or rather slave of Allah."
[FN#254] Again the "Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance," of the Anti-Jacobin.