This Uncommon Sagacity Has Been Remarked
By The Arabs, Who Look On Amused At Their Battles.
Current in Al-Hijaz
are also certain superstitions about the dog resembling ours; only, as
usual, more poetical and less grotesque.
Most people believe that when
the animal howls without apparent cause in the neighbourhood of a
house, it forbodes death to one of the inmates; for the dog they say
can distinguish the awful form of Azrail, the Angel of Death, hovering
over the doomed abode, whereas man's spiritual sight is dull and dim by
reason of his sins.
When the Damascus Caravan entered Al-Madinah, our day became a little
more amusing. From the windows of Shaykh Hamid's house there was a
perpetual succession of strange scenes. A Persian nobleman, also, had
pitched his tents so near the door, that the whole course of his
private life became public and patent to the boy Mohammed,
[p.303] who amused his companions by reporting all manner of ludicrous
scenes. The Persian's wife was rather a pretty woman, and she excited
the youth's fierce indignation, by not veiling her face when he gazed
at her,-thereby showing that, as his beard was not grown, she
considered him a mere boy.
"I will ask her to marry me," said Mohammed, "and thereby rouse her
shame!"
He did so, but, unhappy youth! the fair Persian never even ceased
fanning herself.
The boy Mohammed was for once confounded.
[FN#1] In the East, wherever there is a compound of fort and city, that
place has certainly been in the habit of being divided against itself.
Surat in Western India is a well-known instance. I must refer the
reader to Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. ii., page 281, and
onwards) for a detailed account of the feuds and affrays between the
"Agha of the Castle" and the "Agha of the Town." Their day has now gone
by,-for the moment.
[FN#2] Sir John Mandeville, writing in the 14th century, informed
Europe that "Machomet lyeth in the Cytee of Methone." In the 19th
century, Mr. Halliwell, his editor, teaches us in a foot-note that
"Methone" is Meccah! It is strange how often this gross mistake is
still made by respectable authors in France as well as in England.
[FN#3] This torrent is called Al-Sayh,-"the Running Water,"-which,
properly speaking, is the name of a well-wooded Wady outside the town,
in the direction of Kuba.
[FN#4] "Manakhah" is a place where camels kneel down; it is a
derivation from the better known root to "Nakh," or cause the animal to
kneel.
[FN#5] Arabs, and, indeed, most Orientals, are generally received after
returning from a journey, with shrill cries of joy by all the fair part
of the household, and they do not like strangers to hear this
demonstration.
[FN#6] An Eastern Barber is not content to pass the razor over hairy
spots: he must scrape the forehead, trim the eyebrows, clean the
cheeks, run the blade rapidly over the nose, correct the upper and
under lines of the mustaches, parting them in the centre, and so on.
[FN#7] Halaili is a cotton stuff, with long stripes of white silk, a
favourite material amongst the city Arabs.
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