the fingers till the water reach the roots.  The Sunnat, or practice of the Prophet, was to wear the beard not longer than one hand and two fingers’ breadth.  In Persian “Kuseh” (thin beard) is an insulting term opposed to “Khush-rish,” a well-bearded man.  The Iranian growth is perhaps the finest in the world, often extending to the waist; but it gives infinite trouble, requiring, for instance, a bag when travelling.  The Arab beard is often composed of two tufts on the chin-sides and straggling hairs upon the cheeks; and this is a severe mortification, especially to Shaykhs and elders, who not only look upon the beard as one of man’s characteristics, but attach a religious importance to the appendage.  Hence the enormity of Kamar al-Zaman’s behaviour.  The Persian festival of the vernal equinox was called Kusehnishin (Thin-beard sitting).  An old man with one eye paraded the streets on an ass with a crow in one hand and a scourge and fan in the other, cooling himself, flogging the bystanders and crying heat! heat! (garma! garma!).  For other particulars see Richardson (Dissertation, p.  Iii.).  This is the Italian Giorno delle Vecchie, Thursday in Mid Lent, March 12 (1885), celebrating the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.

[FN#274] I quote Torrens (p. 400) as these lines have occurred in Night xxxviii.

[FN#275] Moslems have only two names for week days, Friday, Al-Jum’ah or meeting-day, and Al-Sabt, Sabbath day, that is Saturday.  The others are known by numbers after Quaker fashion with us, the usage of Portugal and Scandinavia.

[FN#276] Our last night.

[FN#277] Arab.  “Tayf"=phantom, the nearest approach to our “ghost,” that queer remnant of Fetishism imbedded in Christianity; the phantasma, the shade (not the soul) of tile dead.  Hence the accurate Niebuhr declares, “apparitions (i.e., of the departed) are unknown in Arabia.”  Haunted houses are there tenanted by Ghuls, Jinns and a host of supernatural creatures; but not by ghosts proper; and a man may live years in Arabia before he ever hears of the “Tayf.”  With the Hindus it is otherwise (Pilgrimage iii. 144).  Yet the ghost, the embodied fear of the dead and of death is common, in a greater or less degree, to all peoples; and, as modern Spiritualism proves, that ghost is not yet laid.

[FN#278] Mr. Payne (iii. 133) omits the lines which are apropos de rein and read much like “nonsense verses.”  I retain them simply because they are in the text.

[FN#279] The first two couplets are the quatrain (or octave) in Night xxxv.

[FN#280] Arab.  “Ar’ar,” the Heb.  “Aroer,” which Luther and the A. V. translate “heath.”  The modern Aramaic name is “Lizzab” (Unexplored Syria. i. 68).

[FN#281] In the old version and the Bresl.  Edit. (iii. 220) the Princess beats the “Kahramanah,” but does not kill her.

[FN#282] ’This is still the popular Eastern treatment of the insane.

[FN#283] Pers.  “Marz-ban” = Warden of the Marches, Margrave.  The foster-brother in the East is held dear as, and often dearer than, kith and kin.