ascertained the event, she raised herself, and sat up, and said, 'No life remaineth to me after her.' And she wept and wailed until the day appeared, when they began to prepare for the speedy burial of the slave; and they washed the corpse before her, and carried it to the grave. Then she returned to her bed, and fell into the agonies of death, and died at the close of the day; and on the following day they carried her corpse to the grave in like manner."[283] FOOTNOTES: [236] I may suffer in public estimation for my differing in opinion from this accomplished traveller and most estimable man; but I cannot, on that account, abstain from the expression of my dissent. Our difference, I think, may be thus explained. He conformed, in a great degree, to the habits of the Arabs; but not to such an extent as I consider necessary to obtain from them that confidence in his sympathy which would induce them to lay open to him their character; and when a man is often treated with coldness and reserve, I doubt whether the people from whom he experiences such treatment can be judged by him with strict impartiality. To be received on terms of equality by Arabs of the more polished classes, an undeviating observance of their code of etiquette is absolutely indispensable: but Burckhardt, I have been assured, often violated this code by practices harmless enough to our notions and probably also in the opinion of the Arabs of the Desert, but extremely offensive to the people who enjoyed the least share of his esteem: his most intimate acquaintances in Cairo generally refused, in speaking of him, to designate him by the title of "sheykh" which he had adopted; and yet the heaviest charge that I heard brought against him was his frequent habit of _whistling_!--This fact has been mentioned, as corroborating an observation of the same kind, by Mr. Urquhart ("Spirit of the East," i. 417, 418), all of whose opinions relating to the East, expressed in that work, and especially those regarding the characteristics of the Eastern mind, are entitled to the highest respect. [237] Kitáb el-´Onwán fee Mekáïd en-Niswán, a work on the stratagems of women (MS.). [238] This word slightly varied (changed to Ḍa´eefih) bears another meaning, namely, "his weak one:" the final vowel being suppressed by the rule of waḳf. [239] Kitáb el-´Onwán. [240] The Arabs in general entertain a prejudice against blue eyes; a prejudice said to have arisen from the great number of blue-eyed persons among certain of their northern enemies. [241] In another analysis of the same kind, it is said that four should be _short_,--the hands, the feet, the tongue, and the teeth--but this is metaphorically speaking; the meaning is, that these members should be kept within their proper bounds. (Kitáb el-´Onwán.) [242] An unnamed author quoted by El-Isḥáḳee, in his account of the ´Abbásee Khaleefeh El-Mutawekkil. [243] Kitáb el-´Onwán.