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[ Here coffee is mentioned without tobacco, whereas in more modern days the two are intimately connected. And the reason is purely hygienic. Smoking increases the pulsations without strengthening them, and depresses the heart-action with a calming and soothing effect. Coffee, like alcohol, affects the circulation in the reverse way by exciting it through the nervous system; and not a few authorities advise habitual smokers to end the day and prepare for rest with a glass of spirits and water. It is to be desired that the ignorants who write about "that filthy tobacco" would take the trouble to observe its effects on a large scale, and not base the strongest and extremest opinions, as is the wont of the Anglo-Saxon Halb-bildung, upon the narrowest and shakiest of bases. In Egypt, India and other parts of the Eastern world they will find nicotiana used by men, women and children, of all ranks and ages; and the study of these millions would greatly modify the results of observing a few hundreds at home. But, as in the case of opium-eating, populus vult decipi, the philanthrope does not want to know the truth, indeed he shrinks from it and loathes it. All he cares for is his own especial "fad.">[
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[ Arab. "Fínjál" systematically repeated for "Finján" pronounced in Egypt "Fingán" see vol. viii. 200. (The plural "Fanájíl," pronounced "Fanágíl," occurs in Spitta Bey's Contes Arabes Modernes, p. 92, and in his Grammar, p. 26, the same author states that the forms "Fingán" and "Fingál" are used promiscuously.—ST.)]
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[ For the "Khaznah" (Khazínah) or 10,000 kís each = £5, see vols. ii. 84; iii. 278.]
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[ A euphuism meaning some disaster. The text contains a favourite incident in folklore; the first instance, I believe, being that of Polycrates of Samos according to Herodotus (lib. iii. 41-42). The theory is supported after a fashion by experience amongst all versed in that melancholy wisdom the "knowledge of the world." As Syr Cauline the knight philosophically says:—
Everye white will have its blacke,
And everye sweete its sowre: etc.]