CHAFJ ER XIII. 
As it was of consequence to our interests that the Ambassador should^ 
have a personal interview with the Prince Royal, we resumed our tents 
in the spring of 1812 , and departed for Tabriz at the end of May. ^ • 
I have in my former journal given a description of the road we were 
about to travel, consequently I shall restrict myself to such observations 
as may have novelty to recommend them. 
On the north bank of the river Karaj, the King is building a palace 
surrounded by a j fort, and a town which is to be called Sulimanieh, 
from the city of that name which was taken from the Courdish Chief, 
Abdurakhman Pasha. The spoils of the captured city and country are 
to defray the expenses of its construction. We found about one 
hundred peasants at work upon the fort, which is to be a square of two 
hundred yards, with four towers in front, and a gate in the middle of 
each side. The walls are made with sun-burnt bricks, with a previous 
foundation of common stone, and the arch-ways of the gates of bricks 
baked in a kiln. The bricks baked in the sun are composed of earth 
dug from pits in the vicinity, which is mixed up with straw, and then, 
from the form in which they have been cast, are arranged on a flat spot 
in rows, where the sun hardens them. This style of building is called 
the kali gil, or straw and clay. The peasants who were at work had been 
as usual collected by force, and were superintended by several of the 
King’s officers, who, with hard words, and sometimes harder . blows, 
hastened them in their operations. Their fate resembled that of the 
Israelites, who no doubt were employed in the same manner in build¬ 
ings for Pharoah, and with the very same sort of materials. Their bricks 
were mixed up with straw; they had to make a certain quantity daily, 
and their task-masters treated them cruelly if their task was not accom¬ 
plished. The complaints which they made were natural, and resembled 
the language used frequently on similar occasions by the oppressed in 
Persia. “ There is no strazv given unto thy servants, and. they say to us. 
