[FN#56] Arab. "Lisám," the end of the "Kufiyah," or head-kerchief passed over the face under the eyes and made fast on the other side. This mouth-veil serves as a mask (eyes not being recognisable) and defends from heat, cold and thirst. I also believe that hooding the eyes with this article, Badawi-fashion, produces a sensation of coolness, at any rate a marked difference of apparent temperature; somewhat like a pair of dark spectacles or looking at the sea from a sandy shore. (Pilgrimage i., 210 and 346.) The woman's "Lisám" (chin-veil) or Yashmak is noticed in i., 337. [FN#57] Most characteristic is this familiarity between the greatest man then in the world and his pauper subject. The fisherman alludes to a practise of Al-Islam, instituted by Caliph Omar, that all rulers should work at some handicraft in order to spare the public treasure. Hence Sultan Mu'ayyad of Cairo was a calligrapher who sold his handwriting, and his example was followed by the Turkish Sultans Mahmúd, Abd al-Majíd and Abd al-Azíz. German royalties prefer carpentering and Louis XVI, watch-making. [FN#58] There would be nothing singular in this request. The democracy of despotism levels all men outside the pale of politics and religion. [FN#59] "Wa'lláhi tayyib!" an exclamation characteristic of the Egyptian Moslem. [FN#60] The pretended fisherman's name Karím=the Generous. [FN#61] Such an act of generosity would appear to Europeans well- nigh insanity, but it is quite in Arab manners. Witness the oft- quoted tale of Hatim and his horse. As a rule the Arab is the reverse of generous, contrasting badly, in this point, with his cousin the Jew: hence his ideal of generosity is of the very highest. "The generous (i.e. liberal) is Allah's friend, aye, though he be a sinner; and the miser is Allah's foe, aye, though he be a saint!" Indian Moslems call a skin-flint Makhi-chús = fly-sucker. (Pilgrimage i. 242.) [FN#62] Arab. "Ammá ba'ad" (or Wa ba'ad), an initiatory formula attributed to Koss ibn Sa'idat al-Iyadi, bishop of Najrán (the town in Al-Yaman which D'Herbelot calls Negiran) and a famous preacher in Mohammed's day, hence "more eloquent than Koss" (Maydání, Arab. Prov., 189). He was the first who addressed letters with the incept, "from A. to B."; and the first who preached from a pulpit and who leant on a sword or a staff when discoursing. Many Moslems date Ammá ba'ad from the Prophet David, relying upon a passage of the Koran (xxxviii. 19). [FN#63] Arab. "Nusf"=half (a dirham): vulgarly pronounced "nuss," and synonymous with the Egypt. "Faddah" (=silver), the Greek "Asper," and the Turkish "paráh." It is the smallest Egyptian coin, made of very base metal and, there being forty to the piastre, it is worth nearly a quarter of a farthing. [FN#64] The too literal Torrens and Lane make the Caliph give the gardener-lad the clothes in which he was then clad, forgetting, like the author or copier, that he wore the fisherman's lousy suit.