Note 72 — Chapter XIV

This spring is named by Pococke Sakat Elourby. Saka is a watercourse, and Elourby is mistaken by him for El Kharby, a ruin. His muleteers, ignorant of the real name, probably answered him, when he asked what do you call this? This? why, this is the watercourse of the ruin, and so it was entered in his note-book. We shall have occasion to remark several errors of this sort, regarding names of more consequence than of a spring, and the more dangerous in such a man, inasmuch as he has always been considered a good Arabic scholar.