Note 201 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138]

Arab. "Dirás." Easterns do not thresh with flails. The material is strewed over a round and smoothed floor of dried mud in the open air and threshed by different contrivances. In Egypt the favourite is a chair-like machine called "Norag," running on iron plates and drawn by bulls or cows over the corn. Generally, however, Moslems prefer the old classical Τρίβολον, the Tribulum of Virgil and Varro, a slipper-shaped sled of wood garnished on the sole with large-headed iron nails, or sharp fragments of flint or basalt. Thus is made the "Tibn" or straw, the universal hay of the East, which our machines cannot imitate.