[FN#314] [The words “’Irz,” protection, in the preceding sentence, “Hurmah” and “Shat r h” explain each other mutually.  The formula “f¡ ’irzak” (vulg. “arzak"), I place myself under thy protection, implies an appeal to one’s honour ("’Irz").  Therefore the youth says:  “Inna h zih Hurmah lam ’alay-h  Shat rah,” i.e.  “Truly this one is a woman” (in the emphatic sense of a sacred or forbidden object; “this woman” would be “h zih al-Hurmah"), “I must not act vilely or rashly towards her,” both vileness and rashness belonging to the many significations of “Shat rah,” which is most usually “cleverness.” —­St.]

[FN#315] In the text “Sind,” still confounding this tale with the preceding.

[FN#316] In text “Intih ba ’l furas,” lit.==the snatching of opportunities, a jingle with “Kanas.”

[FN#317] [Compare with this episode the viith of Spitta Bey’s Tales:  Histoire du Prince qui apprit un m‚tier.—­St.]

[FN#318] i.e. enables a man to conceal the pressure of impecuniosity.

[FN#319] In text “Al-S dah wa al-Khat y t.”

[FN#320] Subaudi, “that hath not been pierced.”  “The first night,” which is often so portentous a matter in England and upon the Continent (not of North America), is rarely treated as important by Orientals.  A long theoretical familiarity with the worship of Venus

          Leaves not much mystery for the nuptial night.

Such lore has been carefully cultivated by the “young person” with the able assistance of the ancient dames of the household, of her juvenile companions and co-evals and especially of the slave-girls.  Moreover not a few Moslems, even Egyptians, the most lecherous and salacious of men, in all ranks of life from prince to peasant take a pride in respecting the maiden for a few nights after the wedding-feast extending, perhaps to a whole week and sometimes more.  A brutal haste is looked upon as “low”; and, as sensible men, they provoke by fondling and toying Nature to speak ere proceeding to the final and critical act.  In England it is very different.  I have heard of brides over thirty years old who had not the slightest suspicion concerning what complaisance was expected of them:  out of mauvaise honte, the besetting sin of the respectable classes, neither mother nor father would venture to enlighten the elderly innocents.  For a delicate girl to find a man introducing himself into her bedroom and her bed, the shock must be severe and the contact of hirsute breast and hairy limbs with a satiny skin is a strangeness which must often breed loathing and disgust.  Too frequently also, instead of showing the utmost regard for virginal modesty and innocence (alias ignorance), the bridegroom will not put a check upon his passions and precipitates matters with the rage of the bull, ruentis in venerem.  Even after he hears “the cry” which, as the Arabs say, “must be cried,” he has no mercy:  the newly made woman lies quivering with mental agitation and physical