Note 54 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
See pp. 215 to 222 of Mr. Salt’s Travels, for a comparison of the sum paid by Lady Hester to go to Palmyra, with that paid by Mr. Salt at Arhecko, to get to Gondar, where, after all, he never arrived. Chateaubriand pretended that it cost him 5,000 piasters to go to the Dead Sea.
In another book of Travels, published about 1829, I find the following passage; the author is speaking of Mahannah and his son:—“After much prevarication, during which they endeavoured to make us pay for the camels extra, they at length consented to our terms, as they said, for the love of the Malaka or queen, for such they were pleased to call Lady Hester, who gave £500 for this trip. Had we paid them as much money, no doubt, they would have called us two kings; for, like the Nubians, flûs, (money) is their idol.”