Note 52 — DESCRIPTION OF A JOURNEY FROM UPPER EGYPT THROUGH THE DESERTS OF NUBIA TO BERBER AND SUAKIN, AND FROM THENCE TO DJIDDA IN ARABIA. (continued 4)

The Kaszyde is one of the most ancient kinds of Arabic versification; the compositions in it are never long, rarely exceeding one hundred distichs, and they ought not to contain less than twenty, though some of seven are met with. The long or true Kaszyde is confined to heroic or serious subjects; the shorter are generally of a playful or amatory description. The versification is peculiar, the two first lines of the poem, and each alternate one, throughout, ending with the same sound. See Jones’s Comment. Poet. Asiat. c. iii. p. 78.