[FN#124] The name has occurred in the Knightly tale of King Omar and his sons, Vol. ii. 269. She is here called Mother of Calamities,but in p. 123, Vol. iv. of the Mac. Edit. she becomes "Lady (Zát) al-Dawáhi." It will be remembered that the title means calamitous to the foe.
[FN#125] By this address she assured him that she had no design upon his chastity. In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman, no matter how young, with, "Yá Ummí!" = O my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to make love to her.
[FN#126] Apparently the Wakites numbered their Islands as the Anglo-Americans do their streets. For this they have been charged with "want of imagination"; but the custom is strictly classical. See at Pompeii "Reg (io) I; Ins (ula) I, Via Prima, Secunda," etc.
[FN#127] These are the Puellæ Wakwakienses of whom Ibn Al-Wardi relates after an ocular witness, "Here too is a tree which bears fruits like women who have fair faces and are hung by their hair. They come forth from integuments like large leathern bags (calabash-gourds?) and when they sense air and sun they cry 'Wak! Wak!' (God! God!) till their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the islanders understand this cry wherefrom they augure ill." The Ajáib al-Hind (chapt. xv.) places in Wak-land the Samandal, a bird which enters the fire without being burnt evidently the Egyptian "Pi-Benni," which the Greeks metamorphised to "Phnix." It also mentions a hare-like animal, now male then female, and the Somal behind Cape Guardafui tell the same tale of their Cynhyænas.
[FN#128] i.e. I will keep thee as though thou wert the apple of my eye.
[FN#129] A mere exaggeration of the "Gull-fairs" noted by travellers in sundry islands as Ascension and the rock off Brazilian Santos.
[FN#130] Arab. "Kámil wa Basít wa Wáfir" = the names of three popular metres, for which see the Terminal Essay.
[FN#131] Arab. "Manáshif" = drying towels, Plur. of Minshafah, and the popular term which Dr. Jonathan Swift corrupted to "Munnassaf." Lane (Nights, Introduct. p. ix.).
[FN#132] Arab. "Shafaif" opposed to "Shafah" the mouth-lips.
[FN#133] Fountains of Paradise. This description is a fair instance of how the Saj'a (prose-rhyme) dislocates the order; an Arab begins with hair, forehead, eyebrows and lashes and when he reaches the nose, he slips down to the toes for the sake of the assonance. If the latter be neglected the whole list of charms must be otherwise ordered; and the student will compare Mr. Payne's version of this passage with mine.
