Bodl. MS heb. e 98/69
A traveling cantor asks the nagid Mevorakh for a gift toward the holidays after a package containing his good clothing had fallen into the Nile (MS 2:569n25). Complains, "I have nothing beautiful with which to celebrate the feast” (MS 4:156): mā lī mā uʿayyid bihi ʿalā ḥalī. "The Arabic word for "beautiful," ḥalī, refers mostly to female ornaments. The Hebrew vowel segol (three dots), put beneath the ḥ of ḥalī, was pronounced (and is still pronounced so by Yemenites) as a short a in Arabic” (Med. Soc. 4:397n43). (Information from Goitein's index card and Mediterranean Society, references above; see also Cohen, JSG, 261, 263, 297, 363. Rustow, Lost Archive, ch. 14, nn. 37, 39 and 40 gives the shelfmark incorrectly as 95/69.)
