Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/267

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 245 mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhoof] of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of resigning himself to the luxury of his harem, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the perpetual motion of the royal camp, each pro- vince was successively blessed with his presence ; and he is said to have perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which surpassed the A.sialic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these expeditions, the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of Mecca ; the freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by his arms ; the citizens and pilgrims were en- riched by the profusion of his alms ; and the desert was cheered by the places of relief and refreshment, which he instituted for the use of his brethren. Hunting was the pleasure, and even the passion, of the sultan, and his train consistftd of forty-seven thousand horses ; but, after the massacre of a Turkish chase, for each piece of game, he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight atonement, at the expense of the people, for the cost and mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of his reign, the cities of Asia were adorn(d with palaces and hospitals, with mosques and colleges ; few departed from his divan without reward, and none without justice. The language and literature of Persia revived under the house ofSeljuk;''^ and, if .Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself,^** his palace might resound with the songs of an hundred poets. The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the reformation of the calendar, which was efr<;eted by a general assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet, the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar months; in Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolu- tion of the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival ; *'^ but, after the fall of the .Magian empire, the inter- calation had been neglected ; the fractions of minutes and hours were multiplied into days ; and the date of the Spring was removed Shah, and the articles of the poets, Arnak, Anvari, Kaschadi, &c. in the Biblio- th'jque Orientale. as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls of gold and silver to the poets (d Herbe- lot, p. 107). All this may 1^ true ; but I do not understand how he could reign in Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the beginning, not the cnrJ, of the xith century is the true aera of his reign. [Kadr Khan (one of the Turki Ilak Kh.nns) ruled at Kashghar and Yarkand at beginning of xith cent. ; his coins exist.]
 * '' See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir William Jones's History of Nadir
 * His name was Khcder Khan. Four bags were placed round his .sopha, and,
 * " .Sec Chardin, Voyages en Perse, torn. ii. p. 235.