As A General Rule, The Western Arabs
Avoid Cold Water, From A Belief That It Causes Fever.
When Mr. C. Cole,
H.B.M.'s Vice-Consul, arrived at Jeddah, the people of the place,
seeing that he kept up his Indian habits, advised him strongly to drop
them.
He refused; but unhappily he soon caught a fever, which confirmed
them all in their belief. When Arabs wish to cool the skin after a
journey, they wash with a kind of fuller's earth called "Tafl," or with
a thin paste of henna, and then anoint the body with oil or butter.
[FN#18] An incrementative form of the name "Fatimah," very common in
Egypt. Fatimah would mean a "weaner"-Fattumah, a "great weaner." By the
same barbarism Khadijah becomes "Khaddugah"; Aminah, "Ammunah"; and
Nafisah, "Naffusah," on the banks of the Nile.
[FN#19] The palmy days of the Egyptian husband, when he might use the
stick, the sword, or the sack with impunity, are, in civilised places
at least, now gone by. The wife has only to complain to the Kazi, or to
the governor, and she is certain of redress. This is right in the
abstract, but in practice it acts badly. The fair sex is so unruly in
this country, that strong measures are necessary to coerce it, and in
the arts of deceit men have here little or no chance against women.
[FN#20] The amount of settlement being, among Moslems as among
Christians, the test of a bride's value,-moral and physical,-it will
readily be understood that our demand was more facetious than
complimentary.
[FN#21] The term Misriyah (an Egyptian woman) means in Al-Hijaz and the
countries about it, a depraved character. Even the men own unwillingly
to being Egyptians, for the free-born never forget that the banks of
the Nile have for centuries been ruled by the slaves of slaves. "He
shall be called an Egyptian," is a denunciation which has been
strikingly fulfilled, though the country be no longer the "basest of
kingdoms."
[FN#22] In those days merchants depended solely upon the native trade
and the passage of pilgrims. The pecuniary advantage attending what is
called the Overland transit benefits chiefly the lowest orders,
camel-men, sailors, porters, and others of the same class. Sixteen
years ago the hire of a boat from the harbour to the roadstead was a
piastre and a half: now it is at least five.
[FN#23] This word, says Mansfield Parkyns (Life in Abyssinia), is
applied to the wandering pilgrim from Darfur, Dar Borghu, Bayarimah,
Fellatah, and Western Africa. He mentions, however, a tribe called
"Tokrouri," settled in Abyssinia near Nimr's country, but he does not
appear to know that the ancient Arab settlement in Western Africa,
"Al-Takrur," (Sakatu?) which has handed down its name to a large
posterity of small kingdoms, will be found in Al-Idrisi (1. climate, 1.
section,); but I do not agree with the learned translator in writing
the word "Tokrour." Burckhardt often alludes in his benevolent way to
the "respectable and industrious Tekrourys." I shall have occasion to
mention them at a future time.
[FN#24] The Sudan (Blackland) in Arabia is applied to Upper Nubia,
Senaar, Kordofan, and the parts adjacent.
[FN#25] Not only in Ghiz, but also in Arabic, the mother of Ghiz, the
word "Habash," whence our "Abyssinians," means a rabble, a mixture of
people.
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