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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.19

English (machine translation) 13.19

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English

13.19.1

During the Sultan's absence from his capital, when he set out for the land of Maʿbar, famine struck and things grew severe: the mann reached sixty dirhams and then rose higher. Conditions became hard and the calamity great. Once I went out to meet the vizier and saw three women cutting pieces from the hide of a horse that had died months before and eating them. Hides were cooked and sold in the markets, and when cattle were slaughtered people would take their blood and eat it!

13.19.2

Some students from Khurāsān told me that they entered a town called Akrūha, between Ḥānsī and Sarsatī, and found it deserted. They went to a house to spend the night and found in one of its rooms a man who had lit a fire and held a human leg in his hand, roasting it in the fire and eating from it, God preserve us! When the situation became severe, the Sultan ordered that all the people of Dihlī be given provisions for six months. The qāḍīs, secretaries and amīrs went round the lanes and quarters, registering the people and giving each person six months' provisions at the rate of one and a half Maghribī raṭls a day per person. During that time I was feeding people from the food I prepared at the mausoleum of Sultan Quṭb al-Dīn, as will be related, and the people were revived by it. May God Most High reward the intention in it.

13.19.3

Now that we have related sufficient of the Sultan's history and the events of his reign, let us return to what concerns ourselves, and relate how we first came to his capital, and the course of events until we left his service, then our departure from the Sultan on the embassy to China, and our return from there to our own country, God Most High willing.

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