Note 70 — Chapter V · (continued 2)

Note 70. So in the Cairo edition. El-Muntaṣir bi-lláh was the great-grandson of Hároon Er-Rasheed, and acceded to the throne in the year of the Flight 247 (A.D. 861). A slight anachronism, therefore, is here presented, unless we suppose that the hero of the story told by the Sulṭán's steward was an old man at the period of the misfortune of the humpback. The reign of El-Muntaṣir was somewhat less than six months. The copy from which the old translation was made, and the edition of Breslau, date the adventure of the barber, here related, more than three centuries and a half later, in the reign of El-Mustaṣir bi-lláh.