[27]. Arab. “Mashá’íli” the cresset-bearer who acted hangman: see vol. i. 259, etc.
[28]. Arab. “Ta’kíl,” tying up a camel’s foreleg above the knee; the primary meaning of ’Akl, which has so many secondary significations.
[29]. Arab. “Suwán,” lit. = rock, syenite, hard stone, flint; here a marteau de guerre.
[30]. Arab. “Hálik” = intensely black, so as to look blue under a certain angle of light.
[31]. Arab. “Rikáb” (= stirrup) + “dár” Pers. (= holder).
[32]. I have ransacked dictionaries and vocabularies but the word is a mere blank.
[33]. Arab. “Jámúsah.” These mules are believed in by the Arabs. Shaw and other travellers mention the Mauritanian “Jumart,” the breed between a bull and a mare (or jenny-ass) or an ass and a cow. Buffon disbelieved in the mongrel, holding it to be a mere bardeau, got by a stallion horse out of an ass. Voltaire writes “Jumarre” after German fashion, and Littré derives it from jument + art (finale péjorative), or the Languedoc “Gimere” which according to Diez suggests “Chimæra.” Even in London not many years ago a mule was exhibited as the issue of a horse and a stag. No Indian ever allows his colt to drink buffalo’s milk, the idea being that a horse so fed will lie down instead of fording or swimming a stream.
[34]. See Sindbad the Seaman, vol. vi. 9.
[35]. Arab. “Mubattat” from batt = a duck: in Persia the Batt-i-May is a wine glass shaped like the duck. Scott (vi. 12) translates “thick and longish.”
[36]. Arab. “his Harím”; see vol. i. 165; iv. 126.