[FN#209] His dignity forbade him to walk even the length of a carpet:  see vol. vii. for this habit of the Mameluke Beys.  When Harun al-Rashid made his famous pilgrimage afoot from Baghdad to Meccah (and he was the last of the Caliphs who performed this rite), the whole way was spread with a “Pa-andaz” of carpets and costly cloths.

[FN#210] The proverb suggests our “par nobile fratrum,” a pair resembling each other as two halves of a split bean.

[FN#211] In the H. V.  “If the elder Magician was in the East, the other was in the West; but once a year, by their skill in geomancy, they had tidings of each other.”

[FN#212] The act was religiously laudable, but to the Eastern, as to the South European mind, fair play is not a jewel; moreover the story-teller may insinuate that vengeance would be taken only by foul and unlawful means—­the Black Art, perjury, murder and so forth

[FN#213] For this game, a prime favourite in Egypt, see vol. vi. 145, De Sacy (Chrestomathie i. 477) and his authorities Hyde, Syntagma Dissert. ii. 374, P. Labat, “Memoires du Chev d’Arvieux,” iii. 321; Thevenot, “Voyage du Levant,” p. 107, and Niebuhr, “Voyages,” i. 139, Plate 25, fig.  H.

[FN#214] Evidently="(jeu de) dames” (supposed to have been invented in Paris during the days of the Regency:  see Littre); and, although in certain Eastern places now popular, a term of European origin.  It is not in Galland.  According to Ibn Khallikan (iii. 69) “Nard” = tables, arose with King Ardashir son of Babuk, and was therefore called Nardashir (Nard Ardashir? ).  He designed it as an image of the world and its people, so the board had twelve squares to represent the months; the thirty pieces or men represented the days, and the dice were the emblems of Fate and Lot.

[FN#215] i.e. a weaner, a name of good omen for a girl-child:  see vol. vi. 145.  The Hindi translator, Totaram Shayyan, calls her Hamidah = the Praiseworthy.

[FN#216] Arab.  Kiramat:  see vols. ii. 237; iv. 45.  The Necromancer clearly smells a rat holding with Diderot: 

          De par le Roi!  Defense a Dieu
          De faire miracle en ce lieu;

and the stage properties afterwards found with the holy woman, such as the gallipot of colouring ointment, justify his suspicion.

[FN#217] " ’Ajaib” plur. of " ’Ajib,” a common exclamation amongst the populace.  It is used in Persian as well as in Arabic.

[FN#218] Evidently la force de l’imagination, of which a curious illustration was given in Paris during the debauched days of the Second Empire.  Before a highly “fashionable” assembly of men appeared a youth in fleshings who sat down upon a stool, bared his pudenda and closed his eyes when, by “force of fancy,” erection and emission took place.  But presently it was suspected and proved that the stool was hollow and admitted from below a hand whose titillating fingers explained the phenomenon.