After all this, and leading to the very presence of the Caliph, came the officers of state and the pages of the privy council, all in gorgeous raiment, with their swords and girdles glittering with gold and gems. Near them were “the eunuchs and the chamberlains and the black pages.” The number of the eunuchs was seven thousand in all, four thousand of them white and three thousand black; the number of the chamberlains was also seven thousand, and the number of the black pages, other than the eunuchs, was four thousand.... On the Tigris there were skiffs and wherries, barques and barges and other boats, all magnificently ornamented, duly arranged and disposed.... The number of the hangings in the palaces of the Caliph was thirty-eight thousand. These were curtains of gold--of brocade embroidered with gold--all magnificently figured with representations of drinking vessels and with elephants and horses, camels, lions and birds.... The number of the carpets and the mats was twenty-two thousand pieces; these were laid in the corridors and courts....[434] A hundred lions were brought out, every lion being held in by the hand of its keeper. Among other spectacles of rare and stupendous luxury was a tree of gold and silver. The tree had eighteen branches, every branch having numerous twigs, on which sat all kinds of gold and silver birds, both large and small. Most of the branches of this tree were of silver, but some were of gold, and they spread into the air carrying leaves of divers colors. The leaves of the tree moved as the wind blew, while the birds, under the action of mechanical appliances, piped and sang. Through this scene of magnificence the Greek ambassadors were led to the foot of the Caliph’s throne. The impression made on the ambassador and his suite at the sight of such a display of wealth and luxury was, we may well believe, not unlike that produced on the Spanish Conquistadores at the sight of the vast treasures of Cuzco and Cajamarca, or on the astonished ambassadors of foreign powers when they were admitted to the presence of Abd-al-Rahman III in his gorgeous audience chamber in the famed palace of Medina-al-Zahra.[435] But Bagdad has more compelling claims to undying fame than those based on gorgeous palaces, superb mosques, boundless luxury, and ostentatious displays of fabulous wealth. This splendid capital of the Caliphs will always live in history’s page as the seat of numerous and splendid institutions of charity and education and as the home of Caliphs who were the most munificent patrons of science and letters of the Middle Ages.