470 ([return])
[ Mr. Payne entitles it, "The Merchant of Cairo and the Favourite of the Khalif el Mamoun el Hakim bi Amrillah.">[
471 ([return])
[ See my Pilgrimage (i. 100): the seat would be on the same bit of boarding where the master sits or on a stool or bench in the street.]
472 ([return])
[ This is true Cairene chaff, give and take; and the stranger must accustom himself to it before he can be at home with the people.]
473 ([return])
[ i.e. In Rauzah-Island: see vol. v. 169.]
474 ([return])
[ There is no historical person who answers to these name, "The Secure, the Ruler by Commandment of Allah." The cognomen applies to two soldans of Egypt, of whom the later Abu al-Abbas Ahmad the Abbaside (A.D. 1261-1301) has already been mentioned in The Nights (vol. v. 86). The tale suggests the earlier Al-Hakim (Abu Ali al-Mansúr, the Fatimite, A.D. 995-1021), the God of the Druze "persuasion;" and the tale-teller may have purposely blundered in changing Mansúr to Maamún for fear of offending a sect which has been most dangerous in the matter of assassination and which is capable of becoming so again.]