18 Translations from the Tdr'ikli i Firuz Shdhi. [No. 1, 



[' Thirdly, I have heard that your Majesty has banished every- 

 thing that intoxicates, and that the lust and the lying of the lusty 

 and the liars have turned bitterer than poison. Hail, hail, bravo, 

 bravo, king, that thou hast brought about this result.'] 



['Fourthly, I have heard that thou hast driven the trades people 

 with their voluble tongues into mice holes, and hast taken the cheat- 

 ing, and lying, and falsifying out of them ; and yet thou thinkest* 

 it little that, in this regard also, thou hast managed Lizar-people 

 as no king ever has done since the days of Adam. king, bless God 

 that thou sittest for such deeds in the company of the prophets !] 



[' But the other things which I have heard of your Majesty, are 

 such as neither God, nor the prophets and the saints, nor even the 

 rationalist, can approve of. First, for the office of Qazi of the realm 

 (a most critical office which suits no one, except he despise the world) 

 thou hast appointed Hamid of Multan, whose family from the times 

 of his grandfather and father have lived on usury. Nor dost thou 

 carefully enquire into the belief of thy other Qazis, and thou givest 

 the laws of the Prophet into the hands of the covetous, the avaricious, 

 and the worldly. Be on thy guard, lest thou shouldst not be able 

 to bear thy sinful drowsiness on the morrow of resurrection.'] 



[' Secondly, I have heard that people in thy city give up walking 

 after the tradition of the Prophet, and walk after the sayings of the 

 1 wise.' It is difficult for me to understand why thy town, the people 

 of which have the tradition but do not follow it, has not long ago 

 become a heap of rubbish, or why the visitations of heaven do not pour 

 down upon it.] 



[' Thirdly, I have heard that ill-starred, black-faced, learned men in 

 thy town sit in the mosques with abominable law books and deci- 

 sions before them, making money, and perverting the right of Musal- 

 mans by interpreting, and cheating, and adopting various ways of 

 swindling. They drown the accuser and the accused ; but they too 

 shall be drowned.'] 



* On p. 298, in Bibl. Ind. edition, 1. 4, read bamandfi' for mandjV, and on 

 1. 11, mishumdri for mashumdrt. It looks as if mashumdri had been taken in 

 the sense of nashumdri, because the same grammatical blunder is perpetrated 

 three times on p. 327. 



On p. 302, 1. 8, read lashkar for shuTcr ; 1. 11, ndgirift for td girift ; 1. 17, az 

 for ar. 



