My Whole
Perambulation Of The Greater Asia Is Likely To Extend Almost To 6000
Miles, By The Time I Have Returned Back Through Persia, By Babylon And
Nineveh To Cairo In Egypt, And Thence Down The Nile To Alexandria, When
I Propose, With God's Blessing, To Embark For Christendom.
The reigning Great Mogul is named Selim.[247] He is fifty-three years of
age, his birth-day having been celebrated with wonderful magnificence
since my arrival.
He was that day weighed in a pair of golden scales,
which by great chance I saw that same day, the opposite scale being
filled with as much gold as counterpoised his weight, and this is
afterwards distributed among the poor. This custom is observed every
year. His complexion is of an olive colour, something between white and
black; being of a seemly stature, but somewhat corpulent. His dominions
are very extensive, being about 4000 English miles in circumference,
nearly answerable to the compass of the Turkish territories; or, if the
Mogul kingdom be any way inferior in size to that empire, it is more
than equally endowed with a fertile soil beyond that of any other
country, and in having its territory connected together in one goodly
continent, within which no other prince possesses one single foot of
land. The yearly revenue of the Mogul extends to forty millions of
crowns, of six shillings each, while that of the Turk does not exceed
fifteen millions, as I was credibly informed in Constantinople, nor that
of the Sophy five millions, as I learnt at Ispahan.
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