i.e. on the hill-tops near the camp, to guide benighted
travellers. Also the Lamíyat al-Ajam says:—
The fire of hospitality is ever lit on the high
stations.
This natural telegraph was used in a host of ways by the Arabs of The Ignorance; for instance, when a hated guest left the camp they lighted the "Fire of Rejection," and cried, "Allah, bear him far from us!" Nothing was more ignoble than to quench such fire: hence in obloquy of the Fazár tribe it was said:—
Ne'er trust Fazár with an ass, for they
Once roasted ass-pizzle, the rabble rout:
And, when sight they guest, to their dams they say,
"Piss quick on the guest-fire and put it out!"
(Al-Mas"udi vi. 140.)]
432 ([return])
[ i.e. of rare wood, set with rubies.]
433 ([return])
[ i.e. whose absence pained us.]
434 ([return])
[ Mr. Payne and I have long puzzled over these enigmatical and possibly corrupt lines: he wrote to me in 1884, "This is the first piece that has beaten me." In the couplet above (vol. xii. 230) "Rayhání" may mean "my basil-plant" or "my food" (the latter Koranic), "my compassion," etc.; and Súsání is equally ancipitous "My lilies" or "my sleep": see Bard al-Susan = les douceurs du sommeil in Al-Mas'údi vii. 168.]