It Is So Called From The Argile There Found And Which Supported An Old Pottery. [FN#9] "Praise Be To

Allah, Lord of the (three) worlds!" a pious ejaculation, which leaves the lips of the True Believer on all occasions

Of concluding actions. [FN#10] "Bakhshish," says a modern writer, "is a fee or present which the Arabs (he here means the Egyptians, who got the word from the Persians through the Turks,) claim on all occasions for services you render them, as well as for services they have rendered you. A doctor visits a patient gratis-the patient or his servant will ask for a bakhshish (largesse); you employ, pay, clothe, and feed a child-the father will demand his bakhshish; you may save the life of an Arab, at the risk of your own, and he will certainly claim a bakhshish. This bakhshish, in fact, is a sort of alms or tribute, which the poor Arab believes himself entitled to claim from every respectable-looking person." [FN#11] Mafish, "there is none," equivalent to, "I have left my purse at home." Nothing takes the Oriental mind so much as a retort alliterative or jingling. An officer in the Bombay army (Colonel Hamerton) once saved himself from assault and battery by informing a furious band of natives, that under British rule "harakat na hui, barakat hui," "blessing hath there been to you; bane there hath been none." [FN#12] In a coarser sense "kayf" is app1ied to all manner of intoxication. Sonnini is not wrong when he says, "the Arabs give the name of Kayf to the voluptuous relaxation, the delicious stupor, produced by the smoking of hemp." [FN#13] Cleopatra's Needle is called by the native Ciceroni "Masallat Firaun," Pharaoh's packing needle. What Solomon, and the Jinnis and Sikandar zu'l karnain (Alexander of Macedon), are to other Moslem lands, such is Pharaoh to Egypt, the "Caesar aut Diabolus" of the Nile. The ichneumon becomes "Pharaoh's cat,"-even the French were bitten and named it, le rat de Pharaon; the prickly pear, "Pharaoh's fig;" the guinea-worm, "Pharaoh's worm;" certain unapproachable sulphur springs, "Pharaoh's bath;" a mausoleum at Petra, "Pharaoh's palace;" the mongrel race now inhabiting the valley of the Nile is contemptuously named by Turks and Arabs "Jins Firaun," or "Pharaoh's Breed;" and a foul kind of vulture (vultur percnopterus, ak baba of the Turks, and ukab of Sind), "Pharaoh's hen." This abhorrence of Pharaoh is, however, confined to the vulgar and the religious. The philosophers and mystics of Al-Islam, in their admiration of his impious daring, make him equal, and even superior, to Moses. Sahil, a celebrated Sufi, declares that the secret of the soul (i.e., its emanation) was first revealed when Pharaoh declared himself a god. And Al-Ghazali sees in such temerity nothing but the most noble aspiration to the divine, innate in the human, spirit. (Dabistan, vol. iii.) [FN#14] [Greek text] "Quid novi fert Africa?" said the Romans. "In the same season Fayoles, tetrarch of Numidia, sent from the land of Africa to Grangousier, the most hideously great mare that was ever seen; for you know well enough how it is said, that ‘Africa always is productive of some new thing.'" [FN#15] Alexandria, moreover, is an interesting place to Moslems, on account of the prophecy that it will succeed to the honours of Meccah, when the holy city falls into the hands of the infidel.

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