1869 ] Translations from the Tarikh i Firuz Shdh'i. 201 



takings all turned out well, one after another, and despatches announ- 

 cing victories were pouring in from all quarters. Every year two or 

 three sons were born to him, and pavilions were erected and festivities 

 held to celebrate the events. 



The whole of his state affairs in short were satisfactorily managed 

 agreeably to the utmost wish of his heart. In his magazines he beheld 

 vast treasures, and daily did he enjoy the spectacle of his jewels and 

 pearls, of which he possessed chests and caskets full ; while his eye 

 likewise fell on numerous elephants and 70,000 horses in the sheds 

 and stables in and around the city. He also found two or three vast 

 countries firmly bound under his rule, and the idea of any adversary 

 or rival in the kingdom never crossed his mind. 



Intoxicated under all these varied incentives to pride, he began 

 to brood over in his head the grandest projects and most ex- 

 traordinary schemes, which were neither suited to his capacity, nor 

 indeed to the capacity of a hundred thousand like him ; and such ideas 

 came into his mind, as had never entered the imagination of any other 

 monarch. From his utter intoxication and senselessness, his supreme 

 arrogance and self-conceit, his intense ignorance and infatuation, and 

 his excessive folly and stupidity, he lost all control over himself, and 

 began to conceive impossibilities and absurdities. He was a man who 

 had not a smattering even of education, and had never associated with 

 men of learning ; for he neither knew how to read nor write. 



In disposition he was ill-natured, and in temper harsh ; and in his 

 heart was lodged a mass of cruelty. The more frequently the world 

 went well with him, the oftener his enterprizes were crowned with 

 success ; and the more fortune favoured him, so much the more sense- 

 less and intoxicated he became. 



The object of my (bringing forward) the above peroration is this, 

 that Sultan 'Alauddin during these periods of senselessness and 

 intoxication used to say in the presence of his assembled guests, 

 that he had two projects before him, and he used to consult his 

 friends, boon companions, and associates about the furtherance of these 

 two projects, and to ask the Maliks he was intimate with, what 

 he had better do, so as to carry out his plans most effectually. 

 . One of these two projects, which he was always talking about 

 carrying out, was this. He used to say : " God Almighty gave to the 

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