[FN#147] Galland very unnecessarily makes the Wazir’s son pass into the wardrobe (garderobe) to dress himself.

[FN#148] Professional singing and dancing girls:  Properly the word is the fem.  Of ’Alim = a learned man; but it has been anglicised by Byron’s

“The long chibouque’s dissolving cloud supply
Where dance the Almahs to wild minstrelsy.” 
—­(The Corsair, ii. 2.)

They go about the streets with unveiled faces and are seldom admitted into respectable Harems, although on festal occasions they perform in the court or in front of the house, but even this is objected to by the Mrs. Grundy of Egypt.  Lane (M.E. chap. xviii.) derives with Saint Jerome the word from the Heb. or Phoenician Almah = a virgin, a girl, a singing- girl; and thus explains “Alamoth” in Psalms xlvi. and I Chron. xv. 20.  Parkhurst (s.v.  ’Alamah = an undeflowered virgin) renders Job xxxix. 30, “the way of a man with a maid” (bi-almah).  The way of a man in his virgin state, shunning youthful lust and keeping himself “pure and unspotted.”

[FN#149] The text reads “Rafa’ " (he raised) “al-Bashkhanah” which in Suppl.  Nights (ii. 119) is a hanging, a curtain.  Apparently it is a corruption of the Pers.  “Paskhkhanah,” a mosquito-curtain.

[FN#150] The father suspected that she had not gone to bed a clean maid.

[FN#151] Arab.  Aysh = Ayyu Shayyin and Laysh = li ayyi Shayyin.  This vulgarism, or rather popular corruption, is of olden date and was used by such a purist as Al-Mutanabbi in such a phrase as “Aysh Khabara-k?” = how art thou?  See Ibn Khallikan, iii. 79.

[FN#152] In the H. V. the Minister sends the Chob-dar= = rod-bearer, mace-bearer, usher, etc.

[FN#153] In the text Sahal for Sahal, again the broad “Doric” of Syria.

[FN#154] Arab.  Dahab ramli = gold dust washed out of the sand, placer-gold.  I must excuse myself for using this Americanism, properly a diluvium or deposit of sand, and improperly (Bartlett) a find of drift gold.  The word, like many mining terms in the Far West, is borrowed from the Spaniards; it is not therefore one of the many American vulgarisms which threaten hopelessly to defile the pure well of English speech.

[FN#155] Abra.  “Ratl,” by Europeans usually pronounced “Rotl” (Rotolo).

[FN#156] In the H. V. she returns from the bazar; and, “seeing the house filled with so many persons in goodliest attire, marvelled greatly.  Then setting down the meat lately bought she would have taken off her veil, but Alaeddin prevented her and said,” etc.

[FN#157] The word is popularly derived from Serai in Persian = a palace; but it comes from the Span. and Port.  Cerrar = to shut up, and should be written with the reduplicated liquid.

[FN#158] In the H. V. the dresses and ornaments of the slaves were priced at ten millions (Karur a crore) of gold coins.  I have noticed that Messer Marco “Milione” did not learn his high numerals in Arabia, but that India might easily have taught them to him.