For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games. Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding "Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants). Footnote 271: Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given. Footnote 272: We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth." Footnote 273: The bath first taken after sickness. Footnote 274: Arab. "Dikák" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="_Revalenta Arabica_," which costs a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England. Footnote 275: Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency. Footnote 276: This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagké," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama. Footnote 277: Having lately been moved by Ajib. Footnote 278: Mr. Payne (i. 131.) omits these lines which appear out of place; but this mode of inappropriate quotation is a characteristic of Eastern tales. Footnote 279: Anglicè "him." Footnote 280: This march of the tribe is a _lieu commun_ of Arab verse _e.g._ the poet Labid's noble elegy on the "Deserted Camp." We shall find scores of instances in The Nights. Footnote 281: I have heard of such sands in the Desert east of Damascus which can be crossed only on boards or camel furniture; and the same is reported of the infamous Region "Al-Ahkáf" ("Unexplored Syria"). Footnote 282: Hence the Arab. saying "The bark of a dog and not the gleam of a fire;" the tired traveller knows from the former that the camp is near, whereas the latter shows from great distances. Footnote 283: Dark blue is the colour of mourning in Egypt as it was of the Roman Republic. The Persians hold that this tint was introduced by Kay Kawús (B.C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyáwush. It was continued till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month, then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black. As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called "Hidád"), looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile women dye their hands with indigo and stain their faces black or blacker. Footnote 284: