text:  The Sultan's commissioner at first rated this source of revenue at the exorbitant sum of 50 000 dollars!--but it was at last agreed that it should be commuted for a yearly stipend of 8708 a mode of payment preferred by the Sultan to the receipt of a gross sum lest the rapacity of his neighbours should be excited against him by so sudden an accession of wealth: while the amount thus fixed was believed even to exceed the actual amount of the customs