Note 281 — ARDASHIR AND HAYAT AL-NUFUS.[261]

This is a sign of the Sada or melancholic temperament in which black bile predominates. It is supposed to cause a distaste for society and a longing for solitude, an unsettled habit of mind and neglect of worldly affairs. I remarked that in Arabia students are subject to it, and that amongst philosophers and literary men of Mecca and Al-Medinah there was hardly one who was not spoken of as a “Sada.” See Pilgrimage ii. 49, 50.