التاريخ اليميني 22.1

22.1

When the Sultan [151b] Yamīn al-Dawla wa-Amīn al-Milla had finished with the affair of Sijistān, its pulse had calmed for him and its cloud had cleared away from him, he turned with eagerness to the raid on Bhāṭiya. He led forth the hosts, marked with the emblems of trusted guides and the banners of armed defenders, until he crossed the Sayḥūn beyond al-Multān to the city of Bhāṭiya. He found it possessed of a wall from whose height the wings of eagles slip, surrounded by a moat like the encircling ocean, deep in its bottom and broad in its width, and filled to the limit of imagination with equipment and men, things wrought of iron, and elephants each like a rebellious devil. Their chief at that time was the one known as Bijrā; pride in what his hand held made him rash enough to come out from behind the wall, terrifying with the numbers of his men and the bulk of his elephants, and stretching out the arm of power to fight him.