Note 186 — ABU KIR THE DYER AND ABU SIR THE BARBER.

Arab. “Dukhán,” lit. = smoke, here tobacco for the Chibouk, “Timbák” or “Tumbák” being the stronger (Persian and other) variety which must be washed before smoking in the Shíshah or water-pipe. Tobacco is mentioned here only and is evidently inserted by some scribe: the “weed” was not introduced into the East before the end of the sixteenth century (about a hundred years after coffee), when it radically changed the manners of society.