[FN#154] Arab. "'Atb," more literally= "blame," "reproach."
[FN#155] Bresl. Edit. In the Mac. "it returned to the place whence I had brought it"--an inferior reading.
[FN#156] The dreams play an important part in the Romances of Chivalry, e.g. the dream of King Perion in Amadis de Gaul, chapt. ii. (London; Longmans, 1803).
[FN#157] Amongst Moslems bastardy is a sore offence and a love-child is exceedingly rare. The girl is not only carefully guarded but she also guards herself knowing that otherwise she will not find a husband. Hence seduction is all but unknown. The wife is equally well guarded and lacks opportunities hence adultery is found difficult except in books. Of the Ibn (or Walad) Harám (bastard as opposed to the Ibn Halál) the proverb says, "This child is not thine, so the madder he be the more is thy glee!" Yet strange to say public prostitution has never been wholly abolished in Al-Islam. Al-Mas'údi tells us that in Arabia were public prostitutes'(Bagháyá), even before the days of the Apostle, who affected certain quarters as in our day the Tartúshah of Alexandria and the Hosh Bardak of Cairo. Here says Herr Carlo Landberg (p. 57, Syrian Proverbs) "Elles parlent une langue toute à elle." So pretentious and dogmatic a writer as the author of Proverbes et Dictons de la Province de Syrie, ought surely to have known that the Hosh Bardak is the head-quarters of the Cairene Gypsies. This author, who seems to write in order to learn, reminds me of an acute Oxonian undergraduate of my day who, when advised to take a "coach," became a "coach" himself.
[FN#158] These lines occur in vol. vii. p. 340. I quote Mr. Payne.
[FN#159] She shows all the semi-maniacal rancour of a good woman, or rather a woman who has not broken the eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out," against an erring sister who has been discovered. In the East also these unco'gúid dames have had, and too often have, the power to carry into effect the cruelty and diabolical malignity which in London and Paris must vent itself in scan. mag. and anonymous letters.
[FN#160] These faintings and trances are as common in the Romances of Chivalry e.g. Amadis of Gaul, where they unlace the garments to give more liberty, pour cold water on the face and bathe the temples and pulses with diluted vinegar (for rose water) exactly as they do in The Nights.