[207] The Asiatics eat with the right hand, and use no knives or forks; so to draw back the hand from eating is to leave off eating.  Of course, spoons are used for broths, &c, which cannot be eaten by the hand.

[208] As it were intended to be stored up and not eaten.

[209] This exceedingly plain expression is, so far from seeming gross or indelicate, considered as a very high compliment among Orientals.

[210] Literally, “recite the la haul,” &c, vide note 2, p. 5.

[211] Jogis are Hindu ascetics, or fanatics; some of them let the nails grow through the palm of their hands by keeping their fists shut, &c.

[212] The maunis are Hindu ascetics who vow everlasting silence.

[213] The sevras are mendicants of the Jain sects.

[214] Majnun is a mad lover of eastern romance, who pined in vain for the cruel Laili. Farhad is equally celebrated as an unhappy amant who perished for Shirin.

[215] The word salam, “salutation,” is used idiomatically in the sense of our terms “compliments” or “respects,” &c.  And in that sense it has now become, in India, adopted into the English language.

[216] The marriage portion here alluded to is not to be taken in the vague sense we attach to the term.  The word mahar denotes a present made to, or a portion settled on, the wife at or before marriage.

[217] Nimroz is that part of Persia which comprehends the provinces of Sijistan and Mikran, towards the south-east.

[218] The man, commonly called “maund,” a measure of weight, about eighty pounds avoirdupois.

[219] It is needless here to enumerate the stores of various articles detailed in the original, as they will all be found in the vocabulary.

[220] Literally, “her own leavings.”  In the East it considered a very high compliment on the part of a person of rank to present his guest with the remnants of his own dish.

[221] Literally, “night of power or grandeur,” would in that place be “without grandeur.”  The shabi kadr, or as the Arabs have it, lailatu-l-kadri, is a sacred festival held on the 27th of Ramazan, being, according to the Musalmans, the night on which the Kur,an was sent down from heaven.

[222] Meaning that, under present circumstances, her commands were altogether out of place.

[223] It is incumbent on good Mussulmans to wash the hands and face before prayers.  Where water is not to be had, this ceremony, called tayammum is performed by using sand instead.

[224] Lukman is supposed to be the Greek slave AEsop, the author of the Fables. Bu ’Ali Sina is the famous Arab physician and philosopher, by mediaeval writers erroneously called Avicenna.