Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez De Clavijo to the Court of Timour at Samarcand A.D. 1403-6

He begins with an account of the occurrences of each day during the voyage from Cadiz to Constantinople ; gives a minute description of all the public edifices of the great capital of the empire of the east before it fell into the hands of the Turks ; graphically describes the dangers of his voyage in the Black Sea ; recounts his adventures in the long journey from Trebizond to Samarcand and en [...] The sons and other relations of the sovereign sat round the throne the Syuds and learned men stood on the right hand the Ameer-ul-Omrah Begler Begs and Ameers on the left hand the Dewan Beggee Viziers and other civil officers opposite the throne the magistrates behind the viziers and the soldiers with the title of Bahadur 1 in the left rear of the throne. [...] The first superintended the state of the husbandmen the produce the levy of duties the merchandize and the police ; the second had charge of the pay of the troops the supply of provisions and the state and strength of the army; the third took possession of the effects of absentees and of the dead received taxes and restored the effects of the dead to their lawful heirs ; and the fourth supe [...] The first treats of the teras and epochs ; the second of the knowledge of the times ; the third of the course of the planets ; and the fourth of the fixed stars in two hundred sections A. D. 1437. [...] Shiraz the beautiful city made immortal by the songs of Sadi and of Hafiz where Ali of Yezd wrote the life of the mighty Timour is reduced to the condition of an ipoverished provincial town in the kingdom of the bungling Kajar Shahs of Persia.