Both of these writers, however, assert that Zarka's eyes, when cut
out, were found to contain fibres blackened by the use of Kohl, and
they attribute to her the invention of this pigment.
I have often heard
the legend from the Arabs, who declare that she painted her eyes with
"Ismid," a yellow metal, of what kind I have never been able to
determine, although its name is everywhere known.
[FN#9] Burckhardt confounds the Ayn al-Zarka with the Bir al-Khatim, or
Kuba well, of whose produce the surplus only mixes with it, and he
complains loudly of the "detestable water of Madinah." But he was ill
at the time, otherwise he would not have condemned it so strongly after
eulogising the salt-bitter produce of the Meccan Zemzem.
[FN#10] The people of Nijd, as Wallin informs us, believe that the more
the palms are watered, the more syrup will the fruit produce; they
therefore inundate the ground, as often as possible. At Al-Jauf, where
the date is peculiarly good, the trees are watered regularly every
third or fourth day.
[FN#11] Properly meaning the Yellow Wind or Air. The antiquity of the
word and its origin are still disputed.
[FN#12] Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. ii.) informs us, that in
A.D. 1815, when Meccah, Yambu', and Jeddah suffered severely from the
plague, Al-Madinah and the open country between the two seaports
escaped.
[FN#13] Conjecture, however, goes a little too far when it discovers
small-pox in the Tayr Ababil, the "swallow birds," which, according to
the Koran, destroyed the host of Abrahat al-Ashram.
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