[FN#104] This is a true “City of Brass.” (Nuhás asfar=yellow copper), as we learn in Night dcclxxii. It is situated in the “Maghrib” (Mauritania), the region of magic and mystery; and the idea was probably suggested by the grand Roman ruins which rise abruptly from what has become a sandy waste. Compare with this tale “The City of Brass” (Night cclxxii.). In Egypt Nuhás is vulg. pronounced Nihás. [FN#105] The Bresl. Edit. adds that the seal-ring was of stamped stone and iron, copper and lead. I have borrowed copiously from its vol. vi. pp. 343, et seq. [FN#106] As this was a well-known pre-Islamitic bard, his appearance here is decidedly anachronistic, probably by intention. [FN#107] The first Moslem conqueror of Spain whose lieutenant, Tárik, the gallant and unfortunate, named Gibraltar (Jabal al-Tarik). [FN#108] The colours of the Banú Umayyah (Ommiade) Caliphs were white, of the Banú Abbás (Abbasides) black, and of the Fatimites green. Carrying the royal flag denoted the generalissimo or plenipotentiary. [FN#109] i.e. Old Cairo, or Fustat: the present Cairo was then a Coptic village founded on an old Egyptian settlement called Lui-Tkeshroma, to which belonged the tanks on the hill and the great well, Bir Yusuf, absurdly attributed to Joseph the Patriarch. Lui is evidently the origin of Levi and means a high priest (Brugsh ii. 130) and his son’s name was Roma. [FN#110] I cannot but suspect that this is a clerical error for “Al-Samanhúdi,” a native of Samanhúd (Wilkinson’s “Semenood”) in the Delta on the Damietta branch, the old Sebennytus (in Coptic Jem-nuti=Jem the God), a town which has produced many distinguished men in Moslem times. But there is also a Samhúd lying a few miles down stream from Denderah and, as its mounds prove, it is an ancient site. [FN#111] Egypt had not then been conquered from the Christians. [FN#112] Arab. “Kízán fukká’a,” i.e. thin and slightly porous earthenware jars used for Fukká’a, a fermented drink, made of barley or raisins. [FN#113] I retain this venerable blunder: the right form is Samúm, from Samm, the poison-wind. [FN#114] i.e. for worship and to prepare for futurity. [FN#115] The camel carries the Badawi’s corpse to the cemetery which is often distant: hence to dream of a camel is an omen of death. [FN#116] Koran xxiv 39. The word “Saráb” (mirage) is found in Isaiah (xxxv. 7) where the passage should be rendered “And the mirage (sharab) shall become a lake” (not, “and the parched ground shall become a pool”). The Hindus prettily call it “Mrigatrishná” = the thirst of the deer. [FN#117] A name of Allah. [FN#118] Arab. “Kintár”=a hundredweight (i.e. 100 Ibs.), about 98¾ Ibs. avoir. Hence the French quintal and its congeners (Littré). [FN#119] i.e. “from Shám (Syria) to (the land of) Adnan,” ancestor of the Naturalized Arabs that is, to Arabia. [FN#120] Koran lii. 21. “Every man is given in pledge for that which he shall have wrought.”