Note 441
TALE OF NUR AL-DIN AND HIS SON.
Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes "Fleisher" upon the word "Ghamghama" (Diss. Crit. De Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares with "Dumduma" and Humbuma," determining them to be onomatopoeics, "an incomplete and an obscure murmur of a sentence as it were lingering between the teeth and lips and therefore difficult to be understood." Of this family is "Taghúm"; not used in modern days. In my Pilgrimage (i. 313) I have noticed another, "Khyas', Khyas'!" occurring in a Hizb al-Bahr (Spell of the Sea). Herklots gives a host of them; and their sole characteristics are harshness and strangeness of sound, uniting consonants which are not joined in Arabic. The old Egyptians and Chaldeans had many such words composed at will for theurgic operations.
… this sight he was confounded and said, "This is none other than he, the rascal Hunchback!" So he called to him, "Ho Hunchback!" The Gobbo grunted out, "Taghum! Taghum!" [FN#441] thinking it was the Ifrit spoke to him; so the Wazir shouted at him and said, "Speak out, or I'll strike off thy pate with this sword." Then quoth the Hunchback, "By Allah, O Shaykh of the Ifrits, ever since thou settest me in this place, I have not l…
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