[FN#71] In text “Kintar"=a quintal, 98 to 99 lbs. avoir.:  in round numbers a cwt. a hundred weight:  see vol. ii. 233.  The old version explains it by “A golden coin, equivalent to three hundred livres French (?).”  About the value of the Kintar of gold, doctors differ.  Some value it at 40 ounces, others make it a leathern bag containing 1,080 to 1,100 dinars, and others 100 rotls (lbs.) of precious metal; while Al-Makrizi relates that Mohammed the Apostle declared, “The Kintar of gold is twelve hundred ounces.”  Baron de Slane (Ibn Khaldun i. 210) computes 100 Kintars=1 million of francs.

[FN#72] In the text “wa la ahad tafawwaha fina.”

[FN#73] Arab.  “Falsafah"=philosophy:  see vols. v. 234 and vii. 145.

[FN#74] In the text “Fa-yatrahuna,” masc. for fem.

[FN#75] The writer probably remembered that the cat was a sacred animal amongst the Egyptians:  see Herod., ii. 66, and Diod.  Sic., who tells us (vol. i. p. 94) of a Roman put to death under Ptolemy Auletes for accidentally killing one of these holy beasts.  The artists of Bubastis, whose ruins are now for the first time being scientifically explored, modelled the animal in bronze with an admirable art akin to nature.

[FN#76] M. Houdas explains this miswritten passage, Quand le soleil fut leve et qu’il penetra par ces ouvertures (lis. abkhash, trou de flute), il repandit le sable dans ces cylindres formes par la lumiere du soleil.  It is not very intelligible.  I understand that the Sage went behind the Palace and drove through a mound or heap of earth a narrow hole bearing east -west, which he partially filled up with sand; and so when the sun rose the beams fell upon it and made it resemble a newly made cord of white flax.  M. Agoub (in Gauttier vol. vi. 344) shirks, as he is wont to do, the whole difficulty. [The idea seems to me to be, and I believe this is also the meaning of M. Houdas, that Haykar produced streaks of light in an otherwise dark room by boring holes in the back wall, and scattered the sand over them, so that, while passing through the rays of the sun, it assumed the appearance of ropes.  Hence he says mockingly to Pharaoh, “Have these ropes taken up, and each time you please I will twist thee the like of them”—­reading “Aftilu,” lst p. aor. instead of “Iftil”, 2nd imper.—­St.)

[FN#77] Gauttier (vi. 347), Ces presens ne sont pas dignes de lui; mais peu de chose contents les rois.

[FN#78] Haykar is a Sage who follows the religion of nature, “Love thy friends and hate thy foes.”  Gauttier (vii. 349) embroiders all this with Christian and French sentiment—­ L’intention secrete de Heycar etait de sauver la vie a l’ingrat qui avait conspire contre la sienne.  Il voulait pour toute vengeance, le mettre desormais dans l’impossibilite de nuire et l’abandonner ensuite a ses remords, persuade que le remords n’est pas le moindre chatiment du coupable.  True nonsense this when talking of a character born bad:  its only remorse is not to have done worse than bad.