[FN#399] The fiction may have been suggested by the fact that in all Moslem cities from India to Barbary the inner and outer gates are carefully shut during the noontide devotions, not "because Friday is the day on which creation was finished and Mohammed entered Al-Medinah;" but because there is a popular idea that in times now approaching the Christians will rise up against the Moslems during prayers and will repeat the "Sicilian Vespers."
[FN#400] i.e. the syndic of the Guild of Jewellers.
[FN#401] This is an Arab Lady Godiva of the wrong sort.
[FN#402] This is explained in my Pilgrimage i. 99 et seq.
[FN#403] About three pennyweights. It varies, however, everywhere and in Morocco the "Mezkal" as they call it is an imaginary value, no such coin existing.
[FN#404] i.e. over and above the value of the gold, etc.
[FN#405] This was the custom of contemporary Europe and more than one master cutler has put to death an apprentice playing Peeping Tom to detect the secret of sword-making.
[FN#406] Among Moslems husbands are divided into three species; (1) of "Bahr" who is married for love; (2) of "Dahr," for defence against the world, and (3) of "Mahr" for marriage-settlements (money). Master Obayd was an unhappy compound of the two latter; but he did not cease to be a man of honour.
[FN#407]The Mac. Edit. here is a mass of blunders and misprints.
[FN#408] The Mac. Edit. everywhere calls her "Sabiyah" = the young lady and does not mention her name Halimah = the Mild, the Gentle till the cmlxxivth Night. I follow Mr. Payne's example by introducing it earlier into the story, as it avoids vagueness and repetition of the indefinite.