When The Learned Doctor, Abu Abdullah
Mohammed Bin Idris Al-Shafe'i, Returned From Meccah To The Banks Of The
Nile, He Mounted, It Is Said, A Donkey Belonging To One Of The Asinarii
Of Bulak.
Arriving at the Caravanserai, he gave the man ample fare,
whereupon the Egyptian, putting forth his hand, and saying, "hat"
(give!) called for more.
The doctor doubled the fee; still the double
was demanded. At last the divine's purse was exhausted, and the
proprietor of the donkey waxed insolent. A wandering Turk seeing this,
took all the money from the Egyptian, paid him his due, solemnly kicked
him, and returned the rest to Al-Shafe'i, who asked him his
name-"Osman"-and his nation-the "Osmanli,"-blessed him, and prophesied
to his countrymen supremacy over the Fellahs and donkey boys of Egypt.
[FN#14] From Samm, the poison-wind. Vulgar and most erroneously called
the Simoon.
[FN#15] Hugh Murray derives this word from the Egyptian, and quoting
Strabo and Abulfeda makes it synonymous with Auasis and Hyasis. I
believe it to be a mere corruption of the Arabic Wady [Arabic text] or
Wah. Nothing can be more incorrect than the vulgar idea of an Arabian
Oasis, except it be the popular conception of an Arabian Desert. One
reads of "isles of the sandy sea," but one never sees them. The real
"Wady" is, generally speaking, a rocky valley bisected by the bed of a
mountain torrent, dry during the hot season. In such places the Badawin
love to encamp, because they find food and drink,-water being always
procurable by digging.
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