Kelat-i-Nádiri—as the modern name is—in Khorasán.
1
? "he texts are very corrupt here. I have followed the Turki.—Hh.
210 Adventures of the Author.
CHAPTER XV.
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S OWN ADVENTURES.
ArTER Sháhi Beg Khán had put my father to death, he despatehed | |


an emissary to Bokhárá with instructions to throw me into the
river, and thus send me to join those who had been drowned in
the river of Khojand. Although the order was an obnoxious one
to Ubaid Sultán, who received it (for he was married to my
sister), still it was impossible for him to refuse. |

But how excellent a thing it is that the Almighty has power
to check the violent and, if He so wills it, to restrain the hand of
the cruel: so that, without His consent, the tyrant cannot touch
a single hair of any man's head. And this is confirmed by the
events of this disturbed time.!' For, in his glory, vanity and
magnificence, see how many royal families Sháhi Beg Khán
destroyed, and the number of princely houses he annihilated !
For example, Sultán ITusaini? and his followers, to the number
of nearly 200,000 persons; Sultán Mahmud and the Mirzás with
nearly 50,000 men—these all suffered at the hands of Sháhi Beg
Khán. Again the royal houses of Samarkand and of Mirzá Sultán
Ahmad: to what extremities were they not all driven by this
tyrant? In a short space of time, he scattered to the winds of
annihilation many governors and officials, so that the dust of their
existence formed towers on the plains of non-existence, which
reached up to the heavens, and from the mists of their sighs à
frightful whirlwind arose in the deserts.
