A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, Now Entituled the Book of the Thousand Nights and — Part 154

Now an unimportant frontier fort and village dividing Syria-Palestine from Egypt and famed for the French battle with the Mamelukes (Feb. 19, 1799) and the convention for evacuating Egypt. In the old times it was an important site built upon the “River of Egypt” now a dried up Wady; and it was the chief port of the then populous Najab or South Country. According to Abulfeda it derived its name (the “boothy,” the nest) from a hut built there by the brothers of Joseph when stopped at the frontier by the guards of Pharaoh. But this is usual Jewish infection of history.

Arab. “Báb” which may also = “Chapter” or category. See vol. i., 136 and elsewhere (index). In Egypt “Báb” sometimes means a sepulchral cave hewn in a rock (plur. Bíbán) from the Coptic “Bíb.”

_i.e._ “The Holy,” a town some three marches (60 miles) N. East of Cairo; thus showing the honour done to our unheroic hero. There is also a Sálihiyah quarter or suburb of Damascus famous for its cemetery of holy men; but the facetious Cits change the name to Zálliniyah = causing to stray; in allusion to its Kurdish population. Baron von Hammer reads “le faubourg Adelieh” built by Al-Malik Al-Adil and founded a chronological argument on a clerical error.

Kamar al-Zaman; the normal pun on the name; a practice as popular in the East as in the West, and worthy only of a pickpocket in either place.

Arab. “Azrár” plur. of “Zirr” and lit. = “buttons,” _i.e._ of his robe collar from which his white neck and face appear shining as the sun.

Arab. “Dáirah” = the usual inclosure of Kanáts or tent-flaps pitched for privacy during the halt.

_i.e._ it was so richly ornamented that it resembled an enchanted hoard whose spells, hiding it from sight, had been broken by some happy treasure seeker.

The merchant who is a “stern parent” and exceedingly ticklish on the Pundonor saw at first sight her servile origin which had escaped the mother. Usually it is the other way.

Not the head of the Church, or Chief Pontiff, but the Chief of the Olema and Fukahá (Fákihs or D.D.’s.) men learned in the Law (divinity). The order is peculiarly Moslem, in fact the succedaneum for the Christian “hierarchy,” an institution never contemplated by the Founder of Christianity. This title shows the modern date of the tale.