At The Same Time, Mirza Baysangar, The Son Of Shah Rokh, Sent Soltan
Ahmet, And A Painter Named Khoja Gayath
Addin, to accompany his fathers
ambassadors, giving orders to his servants to keep an exact journal of
their travels, and
To take notice of every thing that was remarkable in
every city and country they travelled through; carefully noting the nature
of the roads, the police, and customs of the people, and the magnificence
and government of the various sovereigns. Leaving Herat[1] on the 11th of
the month Zi'lkaa-deh[2], the ambassadors arrived at Balkh on the 8th of
Zi'lhejjeh, where they were detained by the rains till the first of
Moharram, in the year 823 of the Hejira[3], or Thursday, 16th January 1420;
on which day they departed from Balkh, and arrived in twenty-two days
journey at Samarkand. They here found Soltan Shars, and Mehemmed Bakhshi,
the ambassadors of Ulug-Beg[4], who had been sent to accompany them,
together with all his Kathayans: And the ambassadors of Khorassan,
Badakshan, and from other princes, having here joined company, they all set
out together with those of Kathay[5].
Having passed through the cities of Tashkend, Sayram, and Ash[6], they
entered into the country of the Mongols[7] on the eleventh of Rabiya-al-
akher, and learnt that the horde was in great confusion, Awis-khan being
at war with Shir Mehemmed Aglan. These disturbances being settled, Amir
Khudadad, who commanded in that country, came to inform them, that the
ambassadors might proceed safely on their journey. On the 18th of Jomada-
al-awal, they came to a place named Bilgotu[8], on the territories of
Mehemmed-Beg, where they waited for the Dajis[9], and the retinue of the
Shah of Badakshan. After their arrival, they passed the river Kenker[10]
on the twenty-second of Jomada-al-awal, and next day, they saw Mehemmed-
Beg, prince of that horde, whose son, Soltan Shadi Karkan[11], was son-in-
law to Shah Rokh, and a daughter of that prince had married Mirza Mehemmed
Juki[12]. On the twenty-eighth of the before named month, they entered the
country of Ilduz[13], which was occupied by the tribe of Jel, and under the
dominion of Shir Behram, or Scheir Begrahim; and though the sun was then in
the summer solstice, they were often astonished to find ice two inches
thick in this vast desert. On the eighth of Jomada-al-akher, they were
alarmed, by receiving, news that the son of Ahmed Beg had plundered the
Daji, who was ambassador from Awis, or Oweys Khan; and they made every
possible haste to pass through the defiles of the mountains,
notwithstanding of much hail and rain falling at the time. At the end or
the month, they arrived at Tarkan[14], where there is a great temple, with
a huge idol, which the idolatrous inhabitants say is the image of
Shakmonni, or Shamku. Departing from thence on the second of Rajeb, they
came on the fifth to Karakoja.[l5] And certain Kathayans came here on the
tenth, who took a list of the names of the ambassadors and all their
retinue.
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