Tumbak Is
Cheap, Costing About Four Piastres A Pound, But Large Quantities Of It
Are Used.
4th.
Hummi, as the word signifies, a "hot" variety of the tumbak, grown
in Al-Yaman and other countries.
It is placed in the tile on the buri
or cocoa-nut pipe, unwetted, and has a very acrid flavour. Being
supposed to produce intoxication, or rather a swimming in the head,
hummi gives its votaries a bad name: respectable men would answer "no"
with rage if asked whether they are smoking it, and when a fellow tells
you that he has seen better days, but that now he smokes Hummi in a
buri, you understand him that his misfortunes have affected either his
brain or his morality. Hence it is that this tobacco is never put into
pipes intended for smoking the other kinds. The price of Hummi is about
five piastres per pound.
[FN#26] A study essential to the learned, as in some particular
portions of the Koran a mispronunciation becomes a sin.
[FN#27] The Shafe'i, to quote but one point of similarity, abuse Yazid,
the Syrian tyrant, who caused the death of the Imam Husayn: this
expression of indignation is forbidden by the Hanafi doctors, who
rigidly order their disciples to "judge not."
[FN#28] A systematic concealment of doctrine, and profession of popular
tenets, technically called by the Shi'ahs "Takiyah:" the literal
meaning of the word is "fear," or "caution."
[FN#29] One of the most esteemed chapters of the Koran, frequently
recited as a Wazifah or daily task by religious Moslems in Egypt.
[FN#30] The Mastabah here is a long earthen bench plastered over with
clay, and raised about two feet from the ground, so as to bring the
purchaser's head to a level with the shop. Mohammed Ali ordered the
people to remove them, as they narrowed the streets; their place is now
supplied by "Kafas," cages or stools of wicker-work.
[FN#31] A great age in Lower Egypt, where but few reach the 12th
lustre. Even the ancients observed that the old Egyptians, despite
their attention to diet and physic, were the most short-lived, and the
Britons, despite their barbarism, the longest lived of men.
[FN#32] This is the "imposition" of Oxford and Cambridge.
[FN#33] The Hammam, or hot bath, being a kind of religious
establishment, is one of the class of things-so uncomfortably numerous
in Eastern countries-left 'ala jud'ak, "to thy generosity."
Consequently, you are pretty sure to have something disagreeable there,
which you would vainly attempt to avoid by liberality. The best way to
deal with all such extortioners, with the Lawingi (undresser) of a
Cairo Hammam, or the "jarvey" of a London Hansom, is to find out the
fare, and never to go beyond it-never to be generous. The Hammam has
been too often noticed to bear another description: one point, however,
connected with it I must be allowed to notice. Mr. Lane (Modern
Egyptians) asserts that a Moslem should not pray nor recite the Koran
in it, as the bath is believed to be a favourite resort of Jinnis (or
genii). On the contrary, it is the custom of some sects to recite a
Ruk'atayn (two-bow) prayer immediately after religious ablution in the
hot cistern.
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