[366] See Note 15 to Chapter ii.
[367] "El-Khiṭaṭ:" Account of the Palaces of the Khaleefehs.
[368] Dr. Millengen's Curiosities of Medical Experience, quoted in the Literary Gazette, No. 1043.
[369] The art here mentioned was first made known to Europeans by a Frenchman, M. Du Vigneau, in a work entitled "Secrétaire Turc, contenant l'Art d'exprimer ses pensées sans se voir, sans se parler, et sans s'écrire:" Paris, 1688: in-12.—Von Hammer has also given an interesting paper on this subject in the "Mines de l'Orient," No. 1: Vienna, 1809. (Note to Marcel's "Contes du Cheykh El-Mohdy," vol. iii. pp. 327 and 328: Paris, 1833.)
[370] Called "ghásool el-azrár." In Delile's Flora Ægyptiaca, the name of ghásool is given to the mesembryanthemum nodiflorum, class icosandria, order pentagynia.
[371] This name is now given to sherbet.
[372] Ḥalbet el-Kumeyt, ch. x.—The aloe-plant is called "ṣabir," "ṣabr," "ṣibr," and "ṣabbárah." The second of these words signifies "patience;" and so does the root of all of them: and the last signifies "very patient." The reason of its having these appellations cannot, of course, be proved.
[373] See Marcel, ubi suprà. He states that Von Hammer's vocabulary of flowers and other hieroglyphic objects contains 120 articles; and that of Du Vigneau, 179; almost all of the former being the same as those of the latter.
[374] Ch. xxviii. v. 19.
[375] Ch. v. v. 27.—This anecdote is from the Ḥalbet el-Kumeyt, ch. viii.—[Káfoor was a black eunuch purchased by El-Ikhsheed, the first of the virtually-independent dynasty of the Ikhsheedeeyeh, which fell before the Fáṭimee Khaleefehs. Káfoor was regent of Egypt for upwards of twenty years, during the reigns of his master's two sons; and was actual governor from the year of the Flight 355 to 357.—Ed.]