'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎55] (166/258)

4
OBSERVATIONS ON BAGHDAD.
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planet amid a galaxy of stars. Eunuchs, black and white, with inferior officers,
to the amount’of eight thousand, served as a foil to these gems. Silk and gold
embroidered tapestiy, numbering thirty-eight thousand pieces, ornamented the
palace walls, and on a curious tree of gold and silver were perched a variety
of birds, whose movements and notes were regulated by machinery. Twenty-
two thousand carpets covered the floors, and a variety of vessels, each splen
didly decorated, floated on the broad stream of the Tigris, before the windows
of the palace, while a hundred lions in charge of their keepers lent a contrast
to the glittering scene.* Its institutions boasted of authors, physicians and
philosophers, and in their libraries were stored a vast number of books, all
manuscripts, for printing was not then invented. We may judge of their
amount, when it is related, that a doctor declined the invitation of a Sultan
of Bokhara, because his books alone would have required four hundred camels
for their transport.
Money too must have been alike plentiful in its treasuries. The founder of
Baghdad, A1 Mansur, is reported to have left at his death about thirty millions
sterling. His son expended three millions in a single pilgrimage to Mecca,
and we read of a Vizier having founded a college at a charge of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold, endowing it at the same time with an annual sum
equivalent to seven thousand pounds. What then must have been the revenue
which admitted of such a drain on the coffers of Baghdad 1 We learn from
a financial document, drawn up by one Ahmed-ibn-Mahomed during th e
reign of the Khalif A1 Mamun, that from the various tributes received in specie
and kind it amounted to about fifty-six millions sterling. As a dependancy ot
Turkey in 1854 its revenue is under three hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Nothing strikes more forcibly than comparisons, and here is one exhibiting
a lamentable contrast between splendour and poverty. An abundance ot
riches acquired by the strong arm and abstemious habits of the early Arab con
querors soon led to luxury and effeminacy. The hand ot Haroun-ar-Rashid
which subscribed the letter to the Emperor Nicepharus calling “him “ a Roman
dog” was capable of action in support of the insulting speech, but the inflated
language of the later Khalifs derived no weight from the listless character of
their lives. Isolated from their subjects by pretended sanctity of person, they
passed their days in the seclusion of the “ Harem,” while factions were strug
gling in the city, abetted by traitors beyond the walls and rebellions m e
provinces at a distance. Thus the Seljuck Princes diminished he authority
of the Khalifs and paved the way for the advance of the Tartar hordes und
* The glowing descriptions in the Arabian Nights of the splendor of the
scenes in Baghdad are Ldiiar to us all. They are doubUess jch exaggerated, but *>11
impress us with an idea of display in accordance with the wealth ot its p P •