MAGNIFICENCE OF FUTTEH ALI SHAH. ' 225 
huge elephants, trained to the express purpose of giving this 
note of the especial movements of the Great King. 
He entered the saloon from the left, and advanced to the front 
of it, with an air and step which belonged entirely to a so¬ 
vereign. I never before had beheld any thing like such perfect 
majesty ; and he seated himself on his throne with the same un- 
describable, unaffected dignity. Had there been any assumption 
in his manner, I could not have been so impressed. I should 
then have seen a man, though a king, theatrically acting his 
state; here, I beheld a great sovereign feeling himself as such, 
and he looked the majesty he felt. 
He was one blaze of jewels, which literally dazzled the sight 
on first looking at him ; but the details of his dress were these : 
A lofty tiara of three elevations was on his head, which shape 
appears to have been long peculiar to the crown of the Great 
King. It was entirely composed of thickly-set diamonds, pearls, 
rubies, and emeralds, so exquisitely disposed, as to form a mix¬ 
ture of the most beautiful colours, in the brilliant light reflected 
from its surface. Several black feathers, like the heron-plume, 
were intermixed with the resplendent aigrettes of this truly im¬ 
perial diadem, whose bending points were finished with pear- 
formed pearls, of an immense size. His vesture was of gold 
tissue, nearly covered with a similar disposition of jewellery ; and, 
crossing the shoulders, were two strings of pearls, probably the 
largest in the world. I call his dress a vesture, because it sat 
close to his person, from the neck to the bottom of the waist, 
showing a shape as noble as his air. At that point, it devolved 
downwards in loose drapery, like the usual Persian garment, and 
was of the same costly materials with the vest. But for splen¬ 
dour, nothing could exceed the broad bracelets round his arms, 
