[262]. In the text “Miláyah,” a cotton stuff some 6 feet long, woven in small chequers of white and indigo-blue with an ending of red at either extremity. Men wrap it round the body or throw it over the shoulder like our plaid, whose colours I believe are a survival of the old body-paintings, Pictish and others. The woman’s “Miláyah” worn only out of doors may be of silk or cotton: it is made of two pieces which are sewed together lengthwise and these cover head and body like a hooded cloak. Lane figures it in M.E. chapt. i. When a woman is too poor to own a “Miláyah” or a “Habarah” (a similar article) she will use a bed-sheet for out-of-doors work.
[263]. The pun here is “Khalíyát” = bee-hive and empty: See vols. vi., 246; ix. 291. It will occur again in Supplementary vol. v. Night DCXLVI.
[264]. i.e. Caravan, the common Eastern term. In India it was used for a fleet of merchantmen under convoy: see Col. Yule, Glossary, s. v.
[265]. Again “Bartamán” for “Martabán.”
[266]. The “Sáhib” = owner, and the “Dallál” = broker, are evidently the same person.
[267]. “Alà kám” for “kam” (how much?)—peasants’ speech.
[268]. She has appeared already twice in The Nights, esp. in The Tale of Ghánim bin ’Ayyúb (vol. ii. 45) and in Khalífah the Fisherman of Baghdad (vol. viii. 145). I must again warn my readers not to confound “Kút” = food with “Kuwwat” = force, as in Scott’s “Koout al Koolloob” (vi. 146). See Terminal Essay p. 110.
[269]. In text “Mu’ammarjiyah” (master-masons), a vulgar Egyptianism for “Mu’ammarin.” See “Jáwashiyah,” vols. ii. 49; viii. 330. In the third line below we find “Muhandizín” = geometricians, architects, for “Muhandisín.” [Perhaps a reminiscence of the Persian origin of the word “Handasah” = geometry, which is derived from “Andázah” = measurement, etc.—St.]
[270]. The text ends this line in Arabic.
[271]. Alluding to the curious phenomenon pithily expressed in the Latin proverb, “Suus cuique crepitus benè olet,” I know of no exception to the rule, except amongst travellers in Tibet, where the wild onion, the only procurable green-stuff, produces an odour so rank and fetid that men run away from their own crepitations. The subject is not savoury, yet it has been copiously illustrated: I once dined at a London house whose nameless owner, a noted bibliophile, especially of “facetiæ,” had placed upon the drawing-room table a dozen books treating of the “Crepitus ventris.” When the guests came up and drew near the table, and opened the volumes, their faces were a study. For the Arab. “Faswah” = a silent break wind, see vol. ix. 11 and 291. It is opposed to “Zirt” = a loud fart and the vulgar term, see vol. ii. 88.