Note 332 — TALE OF KAMAR AL-ZAMAN, (continued 2)

Arab. "Asáfírí," so called because they attract sparrows (asáfír) a bird very fond of the ripe oily fruit. In the Romance of "Antar" Asáfír camels are beasts that fly like birds in fleetness. The reader must not confound the olives of the text with the hard unripe berries ("little plums pickled in stale") which appear at English tables; nor wonder that bread and olives are the beef-steak and potatoes of many Mediterranean peoples. It is an excellent diet, the highly oleaginous fruit supplying the necessary carbon.