تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.106.4

13.106.4

I stayed on half a month after him and then left for his capital, which is the city of Mutra — with u after the m, the dotted t unvowelled, and a after the r. It is a large city with wide streets. The first to make it a capital was my father-in-law, the sharīf Sultan Jalāl al-Dīn Aḥsan Shāh, who made it resemble Dihlī and built it well. When I arrived there I found an epidemic in it from which people were dying in great numbers: whoever fell ill died on the second or third day of his illness, and if his death was delayed, then on the fourth. Whenever I went out I saw only the sick or the dead. I bought a slave-girl there on the understanding that she was healthy, and she died the next day. One day a woman whose husband had been one of the viziers of Sultan Aḥsan Shāh came to me with her son, eight years old, a fine, clever and intelligent boy. She complained of her poverty and I gave her money for her needs; both of them were healthy and well. The next day she came asking for a shroud for that son of hers, for he had died suddenly.