[28]. Arab. “Jiház,” the Egypt. “Gaház,” which is the Scotch “tocher,” and must not be confounded with the “Mahr” = dowry, settled by the husband upon the wife. Usually it consists of sundry articles of dress and ornament, furniture (matting and bedding, carpets, divans, cushions and kitchen utensils), to which the Badawi add “Girbahs” (water-skins), querns, and pestles with mortars. These are usually carried by camels from the bride’s house to the bridegroom’s: they are the wife’s property, and if divorced she takes them away with her and the husband has no control over the married woman’s capital, interest or gains. For other details see Lane M.E. chapt. vi. and Herklots chapt. xiv. sec. 7.
[29]. [Arab. “Shuwár” = trousseau, whence the verb “shawwara binta-hu” = he gave a marriage outfit to his daughter. See Dozy Suppl. s.v. and Arnold’s Chrestom. 157, 1.—St.]
[30]. Arab. “Ghashím,” see vol. ii. 330. It is a favourite word in Egypt extending to Badawi-land, and especially in Cairo, where it is looked upon as slighting if not insulting.
[31]. The whole of the scene is a replica of the marriage between Kamar al-Zamán and that notable blackguard the Lady Budúr (vol. iii. 211), where also we find the pigeon slaughtered (p. 289). I have mentioned that the blood of this bird is supposed throughout the East, where the use of the microscope is unknown, and the corpuscules are never studied, most to resemble the results of a bursten hymen, and that it is the most used to deceive the expert eyes of midwives and old matrons. See note to vol. iii. p. 280.
[32]. Scott (p. 254) makes his heroine “erect a most magnificent caravanserai, furnished with baths hot and cold, and every convenience for the weary traveller.” Compare this device with the public and royal banquet (p. 212) contrived by the slave-girl sultaness, the charming Zumurrud or Smaragdine in the tale of Ali Shár, vol. iv. 187.
[33]. In text “Shakhs,” see vol. iii. 26; viii. 159.
[34]. This assemblage of the dramatis personæ at the end of the scene, highly artistic and equally improbable, reminds us of the ending of King Omar bin al-Nu’uman (vol. iii. 112).
[35]. The King and the Minister could not have recognised the portrait as neither had seen the original.
[36]. In text “Ishtalaka” = he surmised, discovered (a secret).
[37]. In the Arab. “she knew them,” but the careless story-teller forgets the first part of his own story.