[FN#113] Arab.  “Al-Zalamah”; the policeman; see vol. vi. 214.

[FN#114] i.e. in my punishment.

[FN#115] i.e. on Doomsday thou shalt get thy deserts.

[FN#116] i.e. what I could well afford.

[FN#117] Arab.  Hirfah=a trade, a guild, a corporation:  here the officers of police.

[FN#118] Gen. “tip-cat” (vol. ii. 314.) Here it would mean a rude form of tables or backgammon, in which the players who throw certain numbers are dubbed Sultan and Wazir, and demean themselves accordingly.  A favourite bit of fun with Cairene boys of a past generation was to “make a Pasha;” and for this proceeding, see Pilgrimage, vol. i. 119.

[FN#119] In Marocco there is great difficulty about finding an executioner who becomes obnoxious to the Thar, vendetta or blood-revenge.  For salting the criminal’s head, however, the soldiers seize upon the nearest Jew and compel him to clean out the brain and to prepare it for what is often a long journey.  Hence, according to some, the local name of the Ghetto, Al-Mallah,=the salting-ground.

[FN#120] Mr. Payne suspects that “laban,” milk, esp. artificially soured (see vol. vi, 201), is a clerical error for “jubn"=cheese.  This may be; but I follow the text as the exaggeration is greater

[FN#121] i.e. in relinquishing his blood-wite for his brother.

[FN#122] The Story-teller, probably to relieve the monotony of the Constables’ histories, here returns to the original cadre.  We must not forget that in the Bresl.  Edit. the Nights are running on, and that the charming queen is relating the adventure of Al-Malik al-Zahir.

[FN#123] Arab.  “Za’amu"=they opine, they declare, a favourite term with the Bresl.  Edit.

[FN#124] Arab.  “Zirtah” the coarsest of terms for what the French nuns prettily termed un sonnet; I find ung sonnet also in Nov. ii. of the Cent nouvelles Nouvelles.  Captain Lockett (p. 32) quotes Strepsiades in The Clouds {Greek} “because he cannot express the bathos of the original (in the Tale of Ja’afar and the old Badawi) without descending to the oracular language of Giacoma Rodogina, the engastrymythian prophetess.”  But Sterne was by no means so squeamish.  The literature of this subject is extensive, beginning with “Peteriana, ou l’art de peter,” which distinguishes 62 different tones.  After dining with a late friend en garcon we went into his sitting-room and found on the table 13 books and booklets upon the Crepitus Ventris, and there was some astonishment as not a few of the party had never seen one.

[FN#125] This tale is a replica of the Cranes of Ibycus.  This was a Rhegium man who when returning to Corinth, his home, was set upon by robbers and slain.  He cast his dying eyes heavenwards and seeing a flight of cranes called upon them to avenge him and this they did by flying over the theatre of Corinth on a day when the murderers were present and one cried out, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus!” Whereupon they were taken and put to death.  So says Paulus Hieronymus, and the affecting old tale has newly been sung in charming verse by Mr. Justin H. McCarthy ("Serapion.”  London:  Chatto and Windus).