In Bresl. Edit. (iv. 285) “Yá Khwájah,” for which see vol. vi. 46.
Arab. Tabl (vulg. báz) = a kettle-drum about half a foot broad held in the left hand and beaten with a stick or leathern thong. Lane refers to his description (M.E. ii. chapt. v.) of the Dervish’s drum of tinned copper with parchment face, and renders Zakhmah or Zukhmah (strap, stirrup-leather) by “plectrum,” which gives a wrong idea. The Bresl. Edit. ignores the strap.
The “Spartivento” of Italy, mostly a tall headland which divides the clouds. The most remarkable feature of the kind is the Dalmatian Island, Pelagosa.
The “Rocs” (Al-Arkhákh) in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 290). The Rakham = aquiline vulture.
Lane here quotes a similar incident in the romance “Sayf Zú al-Yazan,” so called from the hero, whose son, Misr, is sewn up in a camel’s hide by Bahrám, a treacherous Magian, and is carried by the Rukhs to a mountain-top.
These lines occurred in Night xxvi. vol. i. 275: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.
Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.
_i.e._ If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt charge me therewith on the Judgment-day.
Arab. Al-Alwán, plur. of laun (colour). The latter in Egyptian Arabic means a “dish of meat.” See Burckhardt No. 279. I repeat that the great traveller’s “Arabic Proverbs” wants republishing for two reasons. First he had not sufficient command of English to translate with the necessary laconism and assonance: secondly in his day British Philistinism was too rampant to permit a literal translation. Consequently the book falls short of what the Oriental student requires; and I have prepared it for my friend Mr. Quaritch.
_i.e._ Lofty, high-builded. See Night dcclxviii. vol. vii. p. 347. In the Bresl. Edit. Al-Masíd (as in Al-Kazwíni): in the Mac. Edit. Al-Mashíd.
Arab. Munkati’ here = cut off from the rest of the world. Applied to a man, and a popular term of abuse in Al-Hijáz, it means one cut off from the blessings of Allah and the benefits of mankind; a pauvre sire. Pilgrimage ii. 22.
Arab. “Baras au Juzám,” the two common forms of leprosy. See vol. iv. 51. Popular superstition in Syria holds that coition during the menses breeds the Juzám, Dáa al-Kabír (Great Evil) or Dáa al-Fíl (Elephantine Evil), _i.e._ Elephantiasis and that the days between the beginning of the flow (Sabíl) to that of coition shows the age when the progeny will be attacked; for instance if it take place on the first day, the disease will appear in the tenth year, on the fourth the fortieth and so on. The only diseases really dreaded by the Badawin are leprosy and small-pox. Coition during the menses is forbidden by all Eastern faiths under the severest penalties. Al-Mas’údi relates how a man thus begotten became a determined enemy of Ali; and the ancient Jews attributed the magical powers of Joshua Nazarenus to this accident of his birth, the popular idea being that sorcerers are thus impurely engendered.