DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSIAN CAMP. 
‘i78 
whither the King retires to enjoy the breeze and the view of hm 
camp. 
Around this building, to an immense extent, at various intervals, was 
spread the camp, consisting of tents and pavilions of all colours and 
all denominations. An order had been issued, that every tent in the 
camp should be pitched with its entrance immediately facing the pa¬ 
lace, by which it was intended that every one who came forth, should 
make the serferou, or bow the head to the royal abode, an invention 
in honors scarcely to be exceeded by those exacted by Alexander. The 
King thus became, as it were, the nave of a great wheel; and he was 
so completely hemmed in by his troops, that if an enemy had ap¬ 
peared it would have been impossible to get at him without first cutting 
a road through the labyrinth of ropes and tents, which every where 
surrounded him. 
The Princes were lodged in large pavilions, surrounded by the dis¬ 
tinguishing serperdeh; the viziers and other great officers were in 
similar tents, but without that outward screen, and the troops were dis¬ 
posed of in small tents of every description. As the King’s army was 
mostly composed of men drawn from the different tribes, each tribe 
was encamped in separate divisions ; the jBakhtiarees, the Afshars, the 
Irakees, the Shah-i-pesends, were all stationed by lots or compartmenst: 
but notwithstanding this attempt at regularity, such was the intermix¬ 
ture of men and cattle, tents, shops, and hot baths, of the instruments of 
war, and of the luxuries of private ease, that all appearance of order was 
lost. The tents of the horsemen were known-by their long spears being 
stuck upright at their entrance, those of the infantry by their muskets 
and matchlocks. Twelve pieces of artillery were situated in the midst 
of tents and confusion ; and although they were arranged in line, yet 
nothing could have got them clear of the camp, if they had been re¬ 
quired to act at a moment’s warning. The King, like the Persian mo- 
narchs of old, takes his women with him upon his marches, but not in 
such great numbers. * The Persians enjoy as many luxuries in their 
* Quint. Curt. lib. iii. c. 3. 
