70 Alf Laylah wa Laylah. Ghanim, who was asleep, out of the mosque and set him, mat and all, on the camel ; and his mother and sister came out among the crowd to gaze upon him, but they knew him not. However, after look- ing at him and considering him carefully they said, " Of a truth he favours our Ghanim, poor boy ! ; can this sick man be he ? " Presently, he woke and finding himself bound with ropes on a camel's back, he began to weep and complain, 1 and the village- people saw his mother and sister weeping over him, albeit they knew him not. Then they fared forth for Baghdad, but the camel-man forewent them and, setting Ghanim down at the Spital-gate, went away with his beast. The sick man lay there till dawn and, when the folk began to go about the streets, they saw him and stood gazing on him, for he had become as thin as a toothpick, till the Syndic of the bazar came up and drove them away from him, saying, " I will gain Paradise through this poor creature ; for if they take him into the Hospital, they will kill him in a single day." 2 Then he made his young men carry him to his house, where they spread him a new bed with a new pillow, 3 and he said to his wife, " Tend him carefully ; " and she replied, " Good ! on my head be it ! " Thereupon she tucked up her sleeves and warming some water, washed his hands, feet and body ; after which she clothed him in a robe belonging to one of her slave-girls and made him drink a cup of wine and sprinkled rose-water over him. So he revived and complained, and the thought of his beloved Kut al-Kulub made his grief redouble. Thus far con- cerning him ; but as regards Kut al-Kulub, when the Caliph was angered against her, -- And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. fo&m it fioas t&e She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Caliph was angered against Kut al-Kulub, he ordered her to a dark chamber where she abode eighty days, at the end of which the Caliph, happening to pass on a certain day the place where she
He felt that he was being treated like a corpse. This hatred of the Hospital extends throughout Southern Europe, even in places
where it is not justified.
The importance of the pillow (wisadah or makhaddah) to the sick man is often
recognised in The Nights. ..." He took to his pillow " is = took to his bed.
