[FN#87] Arab.  “Tay’i"=thirsty used with Jay’i=hungry.

[FN#88] Lit.  “Kohl’d with Ghunj” for which we have no better word than “coquetry.”  But see vol. v. 80.  It corresponds with the Latin crissare for women and cevere for men.

[FN#89] i.e. gold-coloured wine, as the Vino d’Oro.

[FN#90] Compare the charming song of Abu Mijan translated from the German of Dr. Weil in Bohn’s Edit. of Ockley (p. 149),

When the Death-angel cometh mine eyes to close,
Dig my grave ’mid the vines on the hill’s fair side;
For though deep in earth may my bones repose,
The juice of the grape shall their food provide. 
Ah, bury me not in a barren land,
Or Death will appear to me dread and drear! 
While fearless I’ll wait what he hath in hand I
An the scent of the vineyard my spirit cheer.

The glorious old drinker!

[FN#91] Arab.  “Rub’a al-Kharab” in Ibn al-Wardi Central Africa south of the Nile-sources, one of the richest regions in the world.  Here it prob. alludes to the Rub’a al-Khali or Great Arabian Desert:  for which see Night dclxxvi.  In rhetoric it is opposed to the “Rub’a Maskun,” or populated fourth of the world, the rest being held to be ocean.

[FN#92] This is the noble resignation of the Moslem.  What a dialogue there would have been in a European book between man and devil!

[FN#93] Arab.  “Al-’iddah” the period of four months and ten days which must elapse before she could legally marry again.  But this was a palpable wile:  she was not sure of her husband’s death and he had not divorced her; so that although a “grass widow,” a “Strohwitwe” as the Germans say, she could not wed again either with or without interval.

[FN#94] Here the silence is of cowardice and the passage is a fling at the “timeserving” of the Olema, a favourite theme, like “banging the bishops” amongst certain Westerns.

[FN#95] Arab.  “Umm al-raas,” the poll, crown of the head, here the place where a calamity coming down from heaven would first alight.

[FN#96] From Al-Hariri (Lane):  the lines are excellent.

[FN#97] When the charming Princess is so ready at the voie de faits, the reader will understand how common is such energetic action among women of lower degree.  The “fair sex” in Egypt has a horrible way of murdering men, especially husbands, by tying them down and tearing out the testicles.  See Lane M. E. chapt. xiii.

[FN#98] Arab.  “Sijn al-Ghazab,” the dungeons appropriated to the worst of criminals where they suffer penalties far worse than hanging or guillotining.

[FN#99] According to some modern Moslems Munkar and Nakir visit the graves of Infidels (non-Moslems) and Bashshir and Mubashshir ("Givers of glad tidings”) those of Mohammedans.  Petis de la Croix (Les Mille et un Jours vol. iii. 258) speaks of the “Zoubanya,” black angels who torture the damned under their chief Dabilah.