At Constantinople, Where The
Best Is Sold, The Piece, Which Will Cut Into Two Shirts, Costs About
Thirty Shillings.
[FN#
8] The "Mizz" (in colloquial Arabic Misd) are the tight-fitting
inner slippers of soft Cordovan leather, worn as stockings
Inside the
slipper; they are always clean, so they may be retained in the Mosque
or on the Diwan (divan or sofa).
[FN#9] The Majlis ("the Place of Sitting") is the drawing or reception
room; it is usually in the first story of the house, below the
apartments of the women.
[FN#10] The coffee drank at Al-Madinah is generally of a good quality.
In Egypt that beverage in the common coffee-shops is,-as required to be
by the people who frequent those places,-"bitter as death, black as
Satan, and hot as Jahannam." To effect this desideratum, therefore,
they toast the grain to blackness, boil it to bitterness, and then
drink scalding stuff of the consistency of water-gruel. At Al-Madinah,
on the contrary,-as indeed in the houses of the better classes even in
Egypt,-the grain is carefully picked, and that the flavour may be
preserved, it is never put upon the fire until required. It is toasted
too till it becomes yellow, not black; and afterwards is bruised, not
pounded to powder. The water into which it is thrown is allowed to boil
up three times, after which a cold sprinkling is administered to clear
it, and then the fine light-dun infusion is poured off into another
pot. Those who admire the "Kaimak," or froth, do not use a second
vessel. The Arabs seldom drink more than one cup of coffee at a time,
but with many the time is every half-hour of the day. The coffee-husk
or "Kishr" of Al-Yaman is here unknown.
[FN#11] The common name for the Russians in Egypt and Al-Hijaz.
[FN#12] The Greeks are well known at Al-Madinah, and several of the
historians complain that some of the minor holy places had fallen into
the hands of this race, (Moslems, or pretended Moslems, I presume), who
prevented people visiting them. It is curious that the impostor
Cagliostro should have hit upon the truth when he located Greeks at
Al-Madinah
[FN#13] Parents and full-grown men amuse themselves with grossly
abusing children, almost as soon as they can speak, in order to excite
their rage, and to judge of their dispositions. This supplies the
infant population with a large stock-in-trade of ribaldry. They
literally lisp in bad language.
[FN#14] The Hanafiyah is a large vessel of copper, sometimes tinned,
with a cock in the lower part, and, generally, an ewer, or a basin, to
receive the water.
[FN#15] It is wonderful that this most comfortable, inexpensive, and
ornamental style of furnishing a room, has not been oftener imitated in
India and the hot countries of Europe. The Diwan-it must not be
confounded with the leathern perversion which obtains that name in our
club smoking-rooms-is a line of flat cushions ranged round the room,
either placed upon the ground, or on wooden benches, or on a step of
masonry; varying in height according to the fashion of the day.
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