[FN#184] MSS. pp. 476-504. This tale is laid down on the same lines as "Abú al-Husn and his Slave-girl Tawaddud," vol. vi. 189. It is carefully avoided by Scott, C. de Perceval, Gauttier, etc. [FN#185] Lit. an interpreter woman; the word is the fem. of Tarjumán, a dragoman whom Mr. Curtis calls a Drag o' men; see vol. i. 100. It has changed wonderfully on its way from its "Semitic" home to Europe which has naturalised it as Drogman, Truchman and Dolmetsch. [FN#186] For this word of many senses, see vols. i. 231; ix. 221. M. Caussin de Perceval (viii. 16), quoting d'Herbelot (s.v.), notes that the Abbasides thus entitled the chief guardian of the Harem. [FN#187] See vols. iv. 100; viii. 268. In his Introduction (p. 22) to the Assemblies of Al-Hariri Chenery says, "This prosperity had now passed away, for God had brought the people of Rum (so the Arabs call the Byzantines, whom Abú Zayd here confounds with the Franks) on the land," etc. The confusion is not Abu Zayd's: "Rumí" in Marocco and other archaic parts of the Moslem world is still synonymous with our "European." [FN#188] This obedience to children is common in Eastern folk-lore: see Suppl. vol. i. 143, in which the royal father orders his son to sell him. The underlying idea is that the parents find their offspring too clever for them; not, as in the "New World," that Youth is entitled to take precedence and command of Age. [FN#189] In text "Fa min tumma" for "thumma"--then, alors. [FN#190] Such as the headstall and hobbles the cords and chains for binding captives, and the mace and sword hanging to the saddle-bow. [FN#191] i.e. not a well-known or distinguished horseman, but a chance rider. [FN#192] These "letters of Mutalammis," as Arabs term our Litteræ Bellerophonteæ, or "Uriah's letters," are a lieu commun in the East and the Prince was in luck when he opened and read the epistle here given by mistake to the wrong man. Mutalammis, a poet of The Ignorance, had this sobriquet (the "frequent asker," or, as we should say, the Solicitor-General), his name being Jarír bin 'Abd al-Masíh. He was uncle to Tarafah of the Mu'-allakah or prize poem, a type of the witty dissolute bard of the jovial period before Al-Islam arose to cloud and dull man's life. One day as he was playing with other children Mutalammis was reciting a panegyric upon his favourite camel, which ran:-- I mount a he-camel, dark-red and firm-fleshed; or a she-camel of Himyar, fleet of foot and driving the pebbles with her crushing hooves.