12 illustration(s) from this book
NOTE 31. In the houses of persons of the middle classes in Arabian
countries, there is generally an apartment on the ground-floor fitted up
as a stable for a horse, mule, or ass, or for two or more such animals;
and the cattle of the farmer, if not very numerous, are usually lodged
during the night in similar quarters, or in an open court enclosed
within, or immediately adjacent to, his house.
NOTE 32. It is a common custom in the East to sprinkle the ground,
during the summer, in order to cool the air.
NOTE 33. Cut straw is the usual fodder of asses and other beasts of
burden in Egypt and other countries of the East.
NOTE 34. The phrase with which the bull commences his address to the
ass, is one dictated by an indispensable rule of Muslim politeness,
which requires that these or some similar words should be uttered by a
person whenever he sees another with food before him, and does not
partake of it. If this were not done, it would be feared that the food
had been poisoned, or rendered of no avail, by an envious eye.
NOTE 35. The peasants in the East use a hand-mill for grinding their
corn. The larger mills used for this and other purposes are turned by
cattle.
NOTE 36. In the Calcutta edition of the first two hundred nights, the
ass is made to quote verses to the bull. Hast thou not, he asks him,
heard the poet say:--
I occupy myself every day and night in anxious service of him in
whose prosperity I have no enjoyment;
Like the bleacher who blackens his face in the sun, while he watches
the whitening of the clothes of others.