Mr. Payne (ii. 227) translates "Hawá al-'Uzrí" by "the love of the Beni Udhra, an Arabian tribe famous for the passion and devotion with which love was practised among them." See Night dclxxxiii. I understand it as "excusable love" which, for want of a better term, is here translated "platonic." It is, however, more like the old "bundling" of Wales and Northern England; and allows all the pleasures but one, the toyings which the French call _les plaisirs de la petite oie_; a term my dear old friend Fred. Hankey derived from _la petite voie_. The Afghans know it as "Námzad-bází" or betrothed-play (Pilgrimage, ii. 56); the Abyssinians as eye-love; and the Kafirs as Slambuka a Shlabonka, for which see the traveller Delegorgue.
"Turk" in Arabic and Persian poetry means a plunderer, a robber. Thus Hafiz: "Agar án Turk-i-Shirázi ba-dast árad dil-i-márá," If that Shirazi (ah, the Turk!) would deign to take my heart in hand, etc.
Arab. "Názir," a steward or an eye (a "looker"). The idea is borrowed from Al-Hariri (Assemblies, xiii.), and
Arab. "Hájib," a groom of the chambers, a chamberlain; also an eyebrow. See Al-Hariri, ibid. xiii. and xxii.
This gesture speaks for itself: it is that of a dyer staining a cloth. The "Sabbágh's" shop is the usual small recess, open to the street and showing pans of various dyes sunk like "dog-laps" in the floor.
The Arab. Sabt (from sabata, he kept Sabt) and the Heb. "Sabbath" both mean Saturn's day, Saturday, transferred by some unknown process throughout Christendom to Sunday. The change is one of the most curious in the history of religions. If there be a single command stronger than all others it is "Keep the Saturday holy." It was so kept by the Founder of Christianity; the order was never abrogated and yet most Christians are not aware that Sabbath, or "Sawbath," means Saturn's day, the "Shiyár" of the older Arabs. And to complete its degradation "Sabbat" in French and German means a _criaillerie_, a "row," a disorder, an abominable festival of Hexen (witches). This monstrous absurdity can be explained only by aberrations of sectarian zeal, of party spirit in religion.
The men who cry to prayer. The first was Bilál, the Abyssinian slave bought and manumitted by Abu Bakr. His simple cry was "I testify there is no Iláh (god) but Allah (God)! Come ye to prayers!" Caliph Omar, with the Prophet's permission, added, "I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle of Allah." The prayer-cry which is beautiful and human, contrasting pleasantly with the brazen clang of the bell, now is