g critics inform us that "_Dastar-khwan_"
literally signifies the "turband of the table"!!! How they manage
to make such a meaning out of it is beyond ordinary research;
and when done, it makes nonsense. They forget that the Orientals
never made use of tables in the good old times. The _dastar-khwan_
is, in reality, both table and table-cloth in one. It is a round
piece of cloth or leather spread out on the floor. The food is then
arranged thereon, and the company squat round the edge of it, and,
after saying _Bism-Illah_, fall to, with what appetite they may;
hence the phrase _dastar-khwan par baithna_, to sit on, (not _at_,)
the table. The wise critics seem to be thinking of our modern mahogany,
which is a very different affair.

[206] In the original, an infinite variety of dishes is enumerated,
which are necessarily passed over in the translation, simply, because
we have no corresponding terms to express them in any Christian
tongue. They would puzzle the immortal Ude himself, or the no less
celebrated Soyer, the present autocrat of the culinary kingdom. But
my chief reason for passing them over so lightly is the following,
viz.: I have fully ascertained from officers home on furlough,
that these passages are never read in India, nor is the student
ever examined in them. They can interest only such little minds as
are of the most contemptibly frivolous description. A man may be a
first-rate English or French scholar, yea, an accomplished statesman,
without being conversant with the infinite variety of dishes, &c.,
set down on the _carte_ of a first-rate Parisian restaurateur.

[207] The Asiatics eat with the right hand, and use no knives or forks;
so to draw back the hand from eating is to leave off eating. Of course,
spoons are used for broths, &c, which cannot be eaten by the hand.

[208] As it were intended to be stored up and not eaten.

[209] This exceedingly plain expression is, so far from seeming gross
or indelicate, considered as a very high compliment among Orientals.

[210] Literally, "recite the _la haul_," &c, vide note 2, p. 5.

[211] _Jogis_ are _Hindu_ ascetics, or fanatics; some of them let
the nails grow
through the palm of their hands by keeping their fists shut, &c.

[212] The _maunis_ are _Hindu_ ascetics who vow everlasting silence.

[213] The _sevras_ are mendicants of the _Jain_ sects.

[214] _Majnun_ is a mad lover of eastern romance, who pined in vain
for the cruel _Laili_. _Farha