[FN#529] In the text Salma is made to speak, utterly confusing the dialogue.

[FN#530] The well-known Baloch province beginning west of Sind:  the term is supposed to be a corruption of Mahi-Khoran=Ichthyophagi.  The reader who wishes to know more about it will do well to consult “Unexplored Baluchistan,” etc.  (Griffith and Farran, 1882), the excellent work of my friend Mr. Ernest A. Floyer, long Chief of the Telegraphic Department, Cairo.

[FN#531] Meaning the last city in Makran before entering Sind.  Al-Sharr would be a fancy name, “The Wickedness.”

[FN#532] i.e. think of nothing but his present peril.

[FN#533] Arab.  “Munkati’ah"=lit. “cut off” (from the weal of the world).  See Pilgrimage i. 22.

[FN#534] The lines are in vol. i. 207 and iv. 189. 1 here quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#535] I have another proposal to make.

[FN#536] i.e.  In my heart’s core:  the figure has often occurred.

[FN#537] These sudden elevations, so common in the East and not unknown to the West in the Napoleonic days, explain how the legend of “Joanna Papissa” (Pope John XIII), who succeeded Leo iv. in A.D. 855 and was succeeded by Benedict iii., found ready belief amongst the enemies of papacy.  She was an English woman born in Germany who came to Rome and professed theology with eclat, wherefore the people enthroned her.  “Pope Joan” governed with exemplary wisdom, but during a procession on Rogation Sunday she was delivered of a fine boy in the street:  some make her die on the spot; others declare that she perished in prison.

[FN#538] That such things should happen in times of famine is only natural; but not at other seasons.  This abomination on the part of the butcher is, however, more than once alluded toin The Nights:  see vol. i. 332.

[FN#539] Opinions differ as to the site of this city, so celebrated in the mediaeval history of Al-Islam:  most probably it stood where Hyderabad of Sind now is.  The question has been ably treated by Sir Henry M. Elliot in his “History of India,” edited from his posthumous papers by Professor Dowson.

[FN#540] Which, by-the-by, the average Eastern does with even more difficulty than the average European.  For the most part the charge to secrecy fixes the matter in his mind even when he has forgotten that it is to be kept secret.  Hence the most unpleasant results.

[FN#541] Such an act appears impossible, and yet history tells us of a celebrated Sufi, Khayr al-Nassaj (the Weaver), who being of dark complexion was stopped on return from his pilgrimage at Kufah by a stranger that said, “Thou art my negro slave and thy name is Khayr.”  He was kept at the loom for years, till at last the man set him free, and simply said, “Thou wast not my slave” (Ibn Khall. i. 513).

[FN#542] These lines have occurred before.  I quote Mr. Payne for variety.