he never did so again as long as I remained with him. I was astonished at this proof of his sagacity and intelligence.” He was very quickly dissatisfied with Kafur. “What I want,” he said, “I declare not; thou art gifted with sagacity, and my silence is a sufficient explanation, nay a plain request.” At length he left Kafur’s court, dissatisfied at the liberal gifts he received because they were not ample enough, and revenged himself by writing satires on Kafur, such as:— “Who could teach noble sentiments to this castrated negro?—his white masters?—or his ancestors who were hunted like wild beasts?” The poet finally settled at the court of Adud ad-Dawla at Shiraz (Ibn Khall. ii. 524, sqq.). But Kafur, though easy going and with many of the weaknesses of the negro, was a man who had the wit to acquire more than a superficial education by the right use of opportunities which were often available to the ambitious slave, and which indeed form one of the redeeming features of slavery as it existed in Muslim lands. Besides this he was a painstaking and efficient administrator, and a man of deep religious convictions. In all Kafur ruled the country twenty-two years, part of the time as tutor to the two sons of the Ikhshih, part as independent viceroy in all but name. During the closing years of this period he became unpopular. Feeling had been strained by the famine due to the bad Niles, and the reports of the Qarmatians’ advance into Syria bred disaffection amongst the Turkish and Greek mercenaries. On Tuesday, the 20th Jumada I. 356 (May, 967), he died at the age of sixty, leaving property to the value of 700,000 dinars of gold, and goods, furniture, jewels, slaves, and animals valued at some 600,000 dinars.