Note 390 — KAMAR AL-ZAMAN AND THE JEWELLER’S WIFE.[375]

“On a certain day the leg shall be bared and men shall be called upon to bow in adoration, but they shall not be able” (Koran, lxviii. 42). “Baring the leg” implies a grievous calamity, probably borrowed from the notion of tucking up the skirts and stripping for flight. On the dangerous San Francisco River one of the rapids is called “Tira-calcoens” = take off your trousers (Highlands of the Brazil, ii. 35). But here the allusion is simply ludicrous and to a Moslem blasphemous.