[FN#112] i.e. the round opening made in the ceiling for ventilation.
[FN#113] i.e. he who sits on the bench outside the police-office, to attend to emergencies.
[FN#114] Lit. witnesses, i.e. those who are qualified by their general respectability and the blamelessness of their lives, to give evidence in the Mohamedan courts of law.
[FN#115] Sic.
[FN#116] About 50 pounds.
[FN#117] Or guardian.
[FN#118] Syn. book (kitab).
[FN#119] Or made it a legal deed.
[FN#120] Lit. assessors.
[FN#121] This sentence is almost unintelligible, owing to the corruptness and obscurity of the text; but the sense appears to be as above.
[FN#122] Apparently supposing the draper to have lost it and purposing to require a heavy indemnity for its loss.
[FN#123] Apparently, a cant phrase for “thieve.”
[FN#124] or disapprove of.
[FN#125] This passage is unintelligible; the text is here again, to all appearance, corrupt.
[FN#126] i.e. women’s tricks?
[FN#127] Muslim formula of invitation.
[FN#128] i.e. the singers?
[FN#129] i.e. easily.
[FN#130] Or made a show of renouncing.
[FN#131] i.e. strong men (or athletes) armed.
[FN#132] Fityan, Arab cant name for thieves.
[FN#133] Apparently in a pavillion in some garden or orchard, the usual pleasure of the Arabs.
[FN#134] i.e. engaged her to attend an entertainment and paid her her hire in advance.
[FN#135] Lit. a [she-]partner, i.e. one who should relieve her, when she was weary of singing, and accompany her voice on the lute.
[FN#136] i.e. they grew ever more heated with drink.
[FN#137] Helfeh or helfaa (vulg. Alfa), a kind of coarse, rushy grass (Pos. multiflora), used in the East as fuel.
[FN#138] Lit. “we repented to God, etc, of singing.” The practice of music, vocal and instrumental, is deprecated by the strict Muslim, in accordance with a tradition by which the Prophet is said to have expressed his disapproval of these arts.
[FN#139] i.e. required to find the thief or make good the loss.
[FN#140] i.e. the parties aggrieved.
[FN#141] Or irrigation-work, usually a bucket-wheel, worked by oxen.
[FN#142] Or “came true.”
[FN#143] i.e. crucify.
[FN#144] i.e. a native of the Hauran, a district East of Damascus.
[FN#145] i.e. the mysterious speaker.
[FN#146] i.e. in the punishment that overtook me.
[FN#147] The well-known Arab formula of refusal to a beggar, equivalent to the Spanish “Perdoneme por amor de Dios, hermano!”
[FN#148] i.e. what I could afford.
[FN#149] i.e. that of the officers of police.