'A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the years 1808 and 1809, in which is included some account of the proceedings of his Majesty's Mission, under Sir Harford Jones, Bart., to the Court of the King of Persia. With twenty-five engravings from the designs of the author; a plate of inscriptions; and three maps.' [‎110] (163/524)

110
SHIRAZ.
during the ceremony of our audience ; in which he had been previously
tutored by his minister: and I very easily believe, according to the
stories related of him, that he exchanges with eagerness these etiquettes
of rank for the less restrained enjoyments of his power. On these he
lavishes his revenue; and in the costliness of a hunting equipage, the
fantasies of dress, and the delicacies of the Harem are frittered away a
hundred thousand tomauns a year. Young as he is, (for he is only
nineteen) he has already a family of eight children. In his public
government he is much beloved by his people; and although the
Persians are not inclined in conversation to spare the faults of their
superiors, of him I never heard an evil word. He has not indeed those
sanguinary propensities, which are almost naturally imbibed in the
possession of despotic power ; and where others cut off ears, slit noses,
and pierce eyes, he contents himself with the administration of the more
lenient bastinado.
Nasr Oallah Khan is appointed by the King to remit to the
court of Teheran any surplus revenue; an office probably neither easy,
to the Minister, nor acceptable to the Prince, whose immense and
splendid establishments exact a very liberal proportion of the whole
receipts of the province. In his actual service and pay the Prince has
only a force of one thousand cavalry, of which two hundred (the quota
furnished by the Baktiar tribe) form his body guard; but in an emer
gency he could sent to the war twenty thousand horsemen. His troops
provide their own arms and clothing, and they receive annually in pay
forty piastres, and a daily allowance of one maun (seven pounds and a
quarter) of barley, two maims of straw, and a quarter of a maun of
wheat, except in spring when their horses feed on the new herbage.
They have further, each in his own country, for the maintenance of
their families, a certain allotment of land, which they till and sow, and
of which they reap the annual fruits. When a new levy is ordered,
the head of each tribe brings forward the number which the state has
required of him.
4th. At about one hour before sunset, we repaired to the house of