Arab. "Báb," also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.), corresponding with the Persian "Dar" as in Sad-dar, the Hundred Doors. Here, however, it is figurative "I tried a new mode." This scene is in the Mabinogion. Footnote 253: I use this Irish term=crying for the dead; as English wants the word for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, "Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living," _i.e._ punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system in the "weeping-song": I have noted this in "The Lake-Regions of Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chapt. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid. Footnote 254: These lines are hardly translateable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience" as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to Burckhardt, is planted in grave-yards as a lesson of patience: it is also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house-doors to prevent evil spirits entering; "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane (M. E., chapt. xi.), "it will live for several years and even blossom. Hence (?) it is called _Sabr_, which signifies patience." But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long-sufferance." I hold the practise to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens of Wák, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350). Footnote 255: Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the "River of Peace (or Security)." Footnote 256: This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chapt. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden Wire." Footnote 257: