Ethiopic designates gold, not by a derivative of the root ‘ḏhb,’ like the other languages of the same stock, but by the word waraḳ. We cannot decide _a priori_ whether in its origin this word expresses a colour-sensation or not. In Arabic also we find waraḳ or wariḳ in a similar signification, and I can scarcely believe that it must be thrown out of the original treasury of the Arabic vocabulary. Von Kremer classifies it with the Arabic words borrowed from the Persian stock, and refers it to the Huzwâresh _warg_.[406] In old time it was equivalent to ‘property, goods.’[407] The poet Suḥeym, an elder contemporary of Moḥammed, says in a little poem, ‘The poems of the slave of the Banû-l-Ḥasḥâs on the day of competition are worth as much as noble birth and waraḳ (property);[408] and in some of the traditional sayings of Moḥammed a collateral form of the same word, riḳâ, denotes 'money.’[409] The Arabic lexicographers give the signification of both forms as al-darâhim al-maḍrûbâ ‘stamped coins,’ drachmas. In the more general signification we find waraḳ used by Abû Nuwâs in a poem of youth or rather childhood. The poet Ibn Munâdir, finding little Abû Nuwâs leaning against a pillar in the mosque, took a great fancy to him, and addressed an erotic poem to him; upon which the boy extemporised the following verses, and wrote them on the back of the letter: You write me a letter of praise without any waraḳ (present); That is like a house built on a foundation of reeds; But I should think it much pleasanter than your eulogy on me, If you would send me a pair of black shoes and a fine dress. If you are willing, do get me a waraḳ (present): if you do so I shall not turn you away.[410]