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The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)

Note 271 — TALE OF KAMAR AL-ZAMAN,

Richard Francis Burton translation

This morning evacuation is considered, in the East, a sine quâ non of health; and old Anglo-Indians are unanimous in their opinion of the "bari fajar" (as they mispronounce the dawn-clearance). The natives of India, Hindús (pagans) and Hindís (Moslems), unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for:—

C'est la constipation qui rend l'homme rigoureux.

The English, since the first invasion of cholera, in October, 1831, are a different race from their costive grandparents who could not dine without a "dinner-pill." Curious to say the clyster is almost unknown to the people of Hindostan although the barbarous West Africans use it daily to "wash 'um belly," as the Bonney-men say. And, as Sonnini notes, to propose the process in Egypt under the Beys might have cost a Frankish medico his life.

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