I Was Surprised At The
Disproportion Of Female Nomenclature—The Missing Number Of Fair Ones
Seemed To Double That Of The Other Sex—And At A Practice So Opposed To
The Customs Of The Moslem World.
At length the boy Mohammed enlightened
me.
Egyptian and other bold women, when unable to join the pilgrimage,
will pay or persuade a friend to shout their names
[p.190] in hearing of the Holy Hill, with a view of ensuring a real
presence at the desired spot next year. So the welkin rang with the
indecent sounds of O Fatimah! O Zaynab! O Khayz’ran![FN#25] Plunderers,
too, were abroad. As we returned to the tent we found a crowd assembled
near it; a woman had seized a thief as he was beginning operations, and
had the courage to hold his beard till men ran to her assistance. And
we were obliged to defend by force our position against a knot of
grave-diggers, who would bury a little heap of bodies within a yard or
two of our tent.
One point struck me at once—the difference in point of cleanliness
between an encampment of citizens and of Badawin. Poor Mas’ud sat holding
his nose in ineffable disgust, for which he was derided by the Meccans.
I consoled him with quoting the celebrated song of Maysunah, the
beautiful Badawi wife of the Caliph Mu’awiyah. Nothing can be more
charming in its own Arabic than this little song; the Badawin never
hear it without screams of joy.
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