Khosrou Shah, though a Turk, applied his attention to the mode of raising his revenues, and he spent them liberally. At the death of Sultan Mahmud Mirza, he reached the highest pitch of greatness, and his retainers rose to the number of twenty thousand. Though he prayed regularly and abstained from forbidden foods, yet he was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding and slender talents, faithless and a traitor. For the sake of the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world, he put out the eyes of one and murdered another of the sons of the benefactor in whose service he had been, and by whom he had been protected; rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of execration and shame till the day of final retribution. These crimes he perpetrated merely to secure the enjoyment of some poor worldly vanities; yet with all the power of his many and populous territories, in spite of his magazines of warlike stores, he had not the spirit to face a barnyard chicken. He will often be mentioned in these memoirs. Ali Shir Beg was celebrated for the elegance of his manners; and this elegance and polish were ascribed to the conscious pride of high fortune: but this was not the case; they were natural to him. Indeed, Ali Shir Beg was an incomparable person. From the time that poetry was first written in the Turki language, no man has written so much and so well. He has also left excellent pieces of music; they are excellent both as to the airs themselves and as to the preludes. There is not upon record in history any man who was a greater patron and protector of men of talent than he. He had no son nor daughter, nor wife nor family; he passed through the world single and unincumbered. Another poet was Sheikhem Beg. He composed a sort of verses, in which both the words and the sense are terrifying and correspond with each other. The following is one of his couplets:-- _During my sorrows of the night, the whirlpool of my sighs bears the firmament from its place; The dragons of the inundations of my tears bear down the four quarters of the habitable world_! It is well known that on one occasion, having repeated these verses to Moulana Abdal Rahman Jami, the Mulla said, "Are you repeating poetry, or are you terrifying folks?" A good many men who wrote verses happened to be present. During the party the following verse of Muhammed Salikh was repeated:-- _What can one do to regulate his thoughts, with a mistress possessed of every blandishment_? _Where you are, how is it possible for our thoughts to wander to another_? It was agreed that every one should make an extempore couplet to the same rhyme and measure. Every one accordingly repeated his verse. As we had been very merry, I repeated the following extempore satirical verses:-- _What can one do with a drunken sot like you? What can be done with one foolish as a she-ass?_