The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01...

564. From the Meccan well used by Moslems much like Eau de Lourdes by Christians: the water is saltish, hence the touch of Arab humour (Pilgrimage III., 201-202.)

565. Such articles would be sacred from Moslem eyes.

566. Physiologically true, but not generally mentioned in describing the emotions.

567. Properly "Uta," the different rooms, each "Odalisque," or concubine, having her own.

568. Showing that her monthly ailment was over.

569. Arab. "Muhammarah"=either browned before the fire or artificially reddened.

570. The insolence and licence of these palace-girls was (and is) unlimited; especially when, as in the present case, they have to deal with a "softy." On this subject numberless stories are current throughout the East.

571. i.e. blackened by the fires of Jehannam.

572. Arab. "Bi'l-Salámah"=in safety (to avert the evil eye). When visiting the sick it is usual to say something civil; "The Lord heal thee! No evil befal thee!" etc.

573. Washing during sickness is held dangerous by Arabs; and "going to the Hammam" is, I have said, equivalent to convalescence.

574. Arab. "Máristán" (pronounced Múristan) a corruption of the Pers. "Bímáristán"=place of sickness, a hospital much affected by the old Guebres (Dabistan, i., 165, 166). That of Damascus was the first Moslem hospital, founded by Al-Walid Son of Abd al-Malik the Ommiade in A.H. 88=706-7. Benjamin of Tudela (A.D. 1164) calls it "Dar-al-Maraphtan" which his latest Editor explains by "Dar-al-Mora-bittan" (abode of those who require being chained). Al-Makrizi (Khitat) ascribes the invention of "Spitals" to Hippocrates; another historian to an early Pharaoh "Manákiyush;" thus ignoring the Persian Kings, Saint Ephrem (or Ephraim) Syru etc. In modern parlance "Maristan" is a madhouse where the maniacs are treated with all the horrors which were universal in Europe till within a few years and of which occasional traces occur to this day. In A.D. 1399 Katherine de la Court held a "hospital in the Court called Robert de Paris;" but the first madhouse in Christendom was built by the legate Ortiz in Toledo A.D. 1483, and was therefore called Casa del Nuncio. The Damascus "Maristan" was described by every traveller of the last century: and it showed a curious contrast between the treatment of the maniac and the idiot or omadhaun, who is humanely allowed to wander about unharmed, if not held a Saint. When I saw it last (1870) it was all but empty and mostly in ruins. As far as my experience goes, the United States is the only country where the insane are rationally treated by the sane.

575. Hence the trite saying "Whoso drinks the water of the Nile will ever long to drink it again." "Light" means easily digested water; and the great test is being able to drink it at night between the sleeps, without indigestion.

576. "Níl" in popular parlance is the Nile in flood, although also used for the River as a proper name. Egyptians (modern as well as ancient), have three seasons Al-Shitá (winter), Al-Sayf (summer) and Al-Níl (the Nile i.e. flood season, our mid-summer); corresponding with the Growth-months; Housing (or granary) months and Flood-months of the older race.

577. These lines are in the Mac. Edit.

578. Arab. "Birkat al-Habash," a tank formerly existing in Southern Cairo: Galland (Night 128) says "en remontant vers l'Éthiopie."

579. The Bres. Edit. (ii., 190) from which I borrow this description, here alludes to the well-known Island, Al-Rauzah (Rodah)=The Garden.

580. Arab. "Laylat al-Wafá," the night of the completion or abundance of the Nile (flood), usually between August 6th and 16th, when the government proclaims that the Nilometer shows a rise of 16 cubits. Of course it is a great festival and a high ceremony, for Egypt is still the gift of the Nile (Lane M. E. chapt. xxvi—a work which would be much improved by a better index).

581. i.e. admiration will be complete.

582. Arab. "Sáhil Masr" (Misr): hence I suppose Galland's villes maritimes.

583. A favourite simile, suggested by the broken glitter and shimmer of the stream under the level rays and the breeze of eventide.

584. Arab. "Halab," derived by Moslems from "He (Abraham) milked (halaba) the white and dun cow." But the name of the city occurs in the Cuneiforms as Halbun or Khalbun, and the classics knew it as Βέροια, Beroea, written with variants.

585. Arab. "Ká'ah," usually a saloon; but also applied to a fine house here and elsewhere in The Nights.

586. Arab. "Ghamz"=winking, signing with the eye which, amongst Moslems, is not held "vulgar."

587. Arab. "Kamís" from low Lat. "Camicia," first found in St. Jerome:—"Solent militantes habere lineas, quas Camicias vocant." Our shirt, chemise, chemisette, etc. was unknown to the Ancients of Europe.

588. Arab. "Narjís." The Arabs borrowed nothing, but the Persians much, from Greek Mythology. Hence the eye of Narcissus, an idea hardly suggested by the look of the daffodil (or asphodel) flower, is at times the glance of a spy and at times the die-away look of a mistress. Some scholars explain it by the form of the flower, the internal calyx resembling the iris, and the stalk being bent just below the petals suggesting drooping eyelids and languid eyes. Hence a poet addresses the Narcissus:—

O Narjis, look away! Before those eyes ✿ I may not kiss her as a-breast she lies.

What! Shall the lover close his eyes in sleep ✿ While thine watch all things between earth and skies?

The fashionable lover in the East must affect a frantic jealousy if he does not feel it.

589. In Egypt there are neither bedsteads nor bed-rooms: the carpets and mattresses, pillows and cushions (sheets being unknown) are spread out when wanted, and during the day are put into chests or cupboards, or only rolled up in a corner of the room (Pilgrimage i., 53).

590. The women of Damascus have always been famed for the sanguinary jealousy with which European story-books and novels credit the "Spanish lady." The men were as celebrated for intolerance and fanaticism, which we first read of in the days of Bertrandon de la Brocquière and which culminated in the massacre of 1860. Yet they are a notoriously timid race and make, physically and morally, the worst of soldiers: we proved that under my late friend Fred. Walpole in the Bashi-Buzuks during the old Crimean war. The men looked very fine fellows and after a month in camp fell off to the condition of old women.

591. Arab. "Rukhám," properly=alabaster and "Marmar"=marble; but the two are often confounded.

592. He was ceremonially impure after touching a corpse.

593. The phrase is perfectly appropriate: Cairo without "her Nile" would be nothing.

594. "The market was hot" say the Hindustanis. This would begin between 7 and 8 a.m.

595. Arab. Al-Faranj, Europeans generally. It is derived from "Gens Francorum," and dates from Crusading days when the French played the leading part. Hence the Lingua Franca, the Levantine jargon, of which Molière has left such a witty specimen.

596. A process familiar to European surgery of the same date.

597. In sign of disappointment, regret, vexation; a gesture still common amongst Moslems and corresponding in significance to a certain extent with our stamping, wringing the hands and so forth. It is not mentioned in the Koran where, however, we find "biting fingers' ends out of wrath" against a man (chapt. iii).

598. This is no unmerited scandal. The Cairenes, especially the feminine half (for reasons elsewhere given), have always been held exceedingly debauched. Even the modest Lane gives a "shocking" story of a woman enjoying her lover under the nose of her husband and confining the latter in a madhouse (chapt. xiii.) With civilisation, which objects to the good old remedy, the sword, they become worse: and the Kazi's court is crowded with would-be divorcees. Under English rule the evil has reached its acme because it goes unpunished: in the avenues of the new Isma'iliyah Quarter, inhabited by Europeans, women, even young women, will threaten to expose their persons unless they receive "bakhshísh." It was the same in Sind when husbands were assured that they would be hanged for cutting down adulterous wives: at once after its conquest the women broke loose; and in 1843-50, if a young officer sent to the bazar for a girl, half-a-dozen would troop to his quarters. Indeed more than once the professional prostitutes threatened to memorialise Sir Charles Napier because the "modest women," the "ladies" were taking the bread out of their mouths. The same was the case at Kabul (Caboul) of Afghanistan in the old war of 1840; and here the women had more excuse, the husbands being notable sodomites as the song has it:—

The worth of slit the Afghan knows;

The worth of hole the Kábul-man.