mules. After this came the present from the Prince of Yezd, another of the king's sons, which consisted of shawls and the silken stuffs, the manufacture of his own town. Then followed that of the Prince of Meshed; and, last of all, and most valuable, was that from Hajee Mahomed Hossein Khan, Ameen-ood-Dowlah. It consisted of fifty mules, each carrying a load of one thousand tomans." MORIER'S Travels in Persia.
"The royal procession made its appearance. First, the elder sons of the king entered, at the side on which we stood, Abbass Meerza taking the left of the whole, which brought him to the right of the throne. His brothers followed, till they nearly closed upon us. Directly opposite to this elder rank of princes, all grown to manhood, their younger brothers arranged themselves on the other side of the transverse water. They were all superbly habited, in the richest brocade vests and shawl-girdles, from the folds of which glittered the jewelled hilts of their daggers. Each wore a robe of gold stuff, lined and deeply collared with the most delicate sables, falling a little below the shoulder, and reaching to the calf of their leg. Around their black caps they also had wound the finest shawls. Every one of them, from the eldest to the youngest, wore bracelets of the most brilliant rubies and emeralds, just above the bend of the elbow.
"At some distance, near the front of the palace, appeared another range of highly revered personages—mollahs, astrologers, and other sages of this land of the East, clothed in their more sombre garments of religion and philosophy. There was no noise, no bustle of any kind; every person standing quietly in his place, awaiting the arrival of the monarch. At last, the sudden discharge of the swivels from the camel corps without, with the clang of trumpets, and I know not what congregation of uproarious sounds besides, announced that his Majesty had entered the gate of the citadel. But the most extraordinary part of the clamour was the appalling roar of two huge elephants, trained to the express purpose of giving this note of the especial movements of the great king.
"He entered the saloon from the left, and advanced to the front of it, with an air and step which belonged entirely to a sovereign. I never before had beheld anything like such perfect majesty; and he seated himself on his throne with the same indescribable, unaffected dignity. Had there been any assumption in his manner, I could not have been so impressed. I should then have seen a man, though a king, theatrically acting his state: here I beheld a great sovereign, feeling himself as such, and he looked the majesty he felt.
"He was one blaze of jewels, which literally dazzled the sight on first looking at him; but the details of his dress were these:—A lofty tiara of three elevations was on his head, which shape appears to have been long peculiar to the crown of the great king. It was entirely composed of thickly-set diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds, so exquisitely disposed as to form a mixture of the most beautiful colours in the brilliant light reflected from its surface. Several black feathers, like the heron plume, were intermixed with the resplendent aigrettes of this truly imperial diadem, whose bending points were finished with pear-formed pearls of an immense size. The vesture was of gold tissue, nearly covered with a
