[331]. For this “nosebag,” see vols. ii. 52, and vi. 151, 192.
[332]. [Until here the change from the first person into the third, as pointed out in note 2, has been kept up in the MS.—“He reached the barracks,” “he found,” etc. Now suddenly the gender changes as well, and the tale continues: “And lo, the girl went to them and said,” etc. etc. This looseness of style may, in the mouth of an Eastern Ráwí, have an additional dramatic charm for his more eager than critical audience; but it would be intolerable to European readers. Sir Richard has, therefore, very properly substituted the first person all through.—St.]
[333]. “Riyál” is from the Span. “Real” = royal (coin): in Egypt it was so named by order of Ali Bey, the Mameluke, in A.H. 1185 (A.D. 1771–72) and it was worth ninety Faddahs = 5⅖d. The word, however, is still applied to the dollar proper (Maria Theresa), to the Riyál Fransá or five-franc piece and to the Span. pillar dollar: the latter is also nicknamed “Abu Madfa’” Father of a Cannon (the columns being mistaken for cannons); also the Abú Tákah (Father of a Window), whence we obtain the Europeanised “Patacco” (see Lane, Appendix ii.) and “Pataca,” which Littré confounds with the “Patard” and of which he ignores the origin.
[334]. See The Nights, vol. x. 12.
[335]. i.e. “pleasant,” “enjoyable”; see “White as milk” opposed to “black as mud,” etc., vol. iv. 140. Here it is after a fashion synonymous with the French nuit blanche.
[336]. [The MS. seems here to read “wa jasad-hu yuhazdimu,” (thus at least the word, would have to be vocalized if it were a quadriliteral verbal form), and of this I cannot make out any sense. I suspect the final syllable is meant for “Dam,” blood, of which a few lines lower down the plural “Dimá” occurs. Remains to account for the characters immediately preceding it. I think that either the upper dot of the Arabic belongs to the first radical instead of the second, reading “yukhirru,” as the fourth or causative form of “kharra yakhurru,” to flow, to ripple, to purl; or that the two dots beneath are to be divided between the first two characters, reading “bajaza.” The latter, it is true, is no dictionary word, but we have found supra p. 228 “muhandiz” for “muhandis,” so here “bajaza” may stand for “bajasa” = gushed forth, used intransitively and transitively. In either case the translation would be “his body was emitting blood freely.”—St.]
[337]. The MS. here is hardly intelligible but the sense shows the word to be “Misallah” (plur. “Misáll”) = a large needle for sewing canvas, &c. In Egypt the usual pronunciation is “Musallah,” hence the vulgar name of Cleopatra’s needle “Musallat Far’aun” (of Pharaoh) the two terms contending for which shall be the more absurd. I may note that Commander Gorridge, the distinguished officer of the U.S. Navy who safely and easily carried the “Needle” to New York after the English had made a prodigious mess with their obelisk, showed me upon the freshly uncovered base of the pillar the most distinct intaglio representations of masonic implements, the plumb-line, the square, the compass, and so forth. These, however, I attributed to masonry as the craft, to the guild; he to Freemasonry, which in my belief was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and is never mentioned in history before the eight Crusades (A.D. 1096–1270). The practices and procedure were evidently borrowed from the various Vehms and secret societies which then influenced the Moslem world, and our modern lodges have strictly preserved in the “Architect of the Universe,” Arian and Moslem Unitarianism as opposed to Athanasian and Christian Tritheism; they admit the Jew and the Mussulman as apprentices, but they refuse the Hindú and the Pagan. It seems now the fashion to run down the mystic craft, to describe it as a “goose-club” and no more; it is, however, sleeping, not dead; the charities of the brethren are still active, and the society still takes an active part in politics throughout the East. As the late Pope Pius IX. (fitly nicknamed “Pio no-no”), a free mason himself, forbade Freemasonry to his church because a secret society is incompatible with oral confession (and priestcraft tolerates only its own mysteries), and made excommunication the penalty, the French lodges have dwindled away and the English have thriven upon their decay, thus enlisting a host of neophytes who, when the struggle shall come on, may lend excellent aid.
[338]. The “Janázah,” or bier, is often made of planks loosely nailed or pegged together into a stretcher or platform, and it would be easy to thrust a skewer between the joints. I may remind the reader that “Janázah” = a bier with a corpse thereon (vol. ii. 46), whereas the “Sarír” is the same when unburdened, and the “Na’ash” is a box like our coffin, but open at the tip.
[339]. [In the Arab. text “they will recognise me,” which I would rather refer to the Vagabonds than to the crowd, as the latter merely cries wonder at the resuscitation, without apparently troubling much about the wonder-worker.—St.]
[340]. [Ar. “na’tázu,” viii. form of ’áza = it escaped, was missing, lacked, hence the meaning of this form, “we are in want of,” “we need.”—St.]