[FN#225] He compares her glance with the blade of a Yamani sword, a lieu commun of Eastern poetry. The weapons are famous in The Nights; but the best sword-cutlery came from Persia as the porcelain from China to Sana'á. Here, however, is especial allusion as to the sword "Samsam" or "Samsamah." It belonged to the Himyarite Tobba, Amru bin Ma'ad Kurb, and came into the hands of Harun al-Rashid. When the Emperor of the Greeks sent a present of superior sword-blades to him by way of a brave, the Caliph, in the presence of the Envoys, took "Samsam" in hand and cut the others in twain as if they were cabbages without the least prejudice to the edge of "Samsam." [FN#226] This touch of pathos is truly Arab. So in the "Romance of Dalhamah" (Lane, M. E. xxiii.) the infant Gundubah sucks the breast of its dead mother and the King exclaims, "If she had committed this crime she would not be affording the child her milk after she was dead." [FN#227] Arab. "Sadda'l-Aktár," a term picturesque enough to be preserved in English. "Sadd," I have said, is a wall or dyke, the term applied to the great dam of water- plants which obstructs the navigation of the Upper Nile, the lilies and other growths floating with the current from the (Victoria) Nyanza Lake. I may note that we need no longer derive from India the lotus-llily so extensively used by the Ancient Egyptians and so neglected by the moderns that it has well-nigh disappeared. All the Central African basins abound in the Nymphæa and thence it found its way down the Nile Valley. [FN#228] Arab. "Al Marhúmah": equivalent to our "late lamented." [FN#229] Vulgarly pronounced "Mahmal," and by Egyptians and Turks "Mehmel." Lane (M. E. xxiv.) has figured this queenly litter and I have sketched and described it in my Pilgrimage (iii. 12). [FN#230] For such fits of religious enthusiasm see my Pilgrimage (iii. 254). [FN#231] "Irák" (Mesopotamia) means "a level country beside the banks of a ever." [FN#232] "Al Kuds," or "Bays al-Mukaddas," is still the popular name of Jerusalem, from the Heb. Yerushalaim ha-Kadushah (legend on shekel of Simon Maccabeus). [FN#233] "Follow the religion of Abraham" says the Koran (chaps. iii. 89). Abraham, titled "Khalílu'llah," ranks next in dignity to Mohammed, preceding Isa, I need hardly say that his tomb is not in Jerusalem nor is the tomb itself at Hebron ever visited. Here Moslems (soi disant) are allowed by the jealousies of Europe to close and conceal a place which belongs to the world, especially to Jews and Christians. The tombs, if they exist, lie in a vault or cave under the Mosque. [FN#234] Abá, or Abáyah, vulg. Abayah, is a cloak of hair, goat's or camel's; too well known to require description. [FN#235] Arab. "Al-Wakkád," the man who lights and keeps up the bath-fires. [FN#236] Arab. "Má al-Khaláf" (or "Khiláf") a sickly perfume but much prized, made from the flowers of the Salix Ægyptiaca. [FN#237] Used by way of soap; like glasswort and other plants.