مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 1.6

1.6

The pay of the officer varies from 10,000 to 1,000 tankas. A mamluk receives 500 tankas, and all receive, in addition, food and raiment, and forage for their horses. Soldiers and mamlúks do not receive grants of land-revenue, but draw their pay in money from the public treasury. The officers have villages of which they receive the revenues. As this same traveller observed to me, the revenues of these lands, if they do not increase, certainly do not decrease. Some of the officers receive double, and even more than that, in excess of the estimated value of their grants. The slaves of the Sultán each receive a monthly allowance for their maintenance of two mans of wheat and rice, and a daily allowance of three sirs of meat, with all the necessary accompaniments. Besides, he receives ten tankas per month, and four suits of clothes every year. The Sultan has a manufactory, in which 400 silk-weavers are employed, and where they make stuffs of all kinds for the dresses of persons attached to the Court, for robes of honour and presents, in addition to the stuffs which are brought every year from China, 'Irak, and Alexandria. Every year the Sultan distributes 200,000 complete dresses; 100,000 in spring, and 100,000 in autumn. The spring dresses consist principally of the goods manufactured at Alexandria. Those of the autumn are almost exclusively of silk manufactured at Dehli or imported from China and 'Irak. Dresses are also distributed to the monasteries and hermitages.