they inflicted chastisement on him. The officers were obliged to delineate the features of every one employed in the cavalry or infantry, and also to furnish a representation of his horse, and to give the men their regular pay with punctuality. Previous to the Gilsháhian dynasty, no one ever branded the king’s horses, as this was regarded as an act of cruelty towards the animal: most of the soldiers also were furnished with horses by the king, as the sovereigns of Ajem had many studs. On the death of a horse, the testimony of the collectors and inspectors was requisite. Every soldier who received not a horse from the king, brought his own with him: they also took one out of twenty from the Rayas. However, under the Sassanian princes, the Rayas requested “to take from them one out of ten:” and as this proposition was accepted, it was therefore called _Baj-i-hamdastani_, or voluntary contribution, as having been settled by the consent of the Rayas. The Omras and the great of the kingdom, near and far, had not the power to put a guilty man to death; but when the _Shadahband_, “recorder,” brought a case before the king, his majesty acted according to the prescriptions of the _Ferhang-abad_, unless in the case of executing a dangerous rebel, when, from sparing him until receiving the king’s will, a great evil would arise to the country. They laid down this royal ordinance: that if the king sent even a single person, he was to bring back the head of the commander of a hundred thousand; nay, that person never turned aside from the punishment. For example, when such a commander in the time of Shah _Máhbúl_ had put an innocent man to death, the prince sent a person who was to behead the criminal on a day on which the nobles were all assembled: and of this there are innumerable examples. Also in the time of Shah _Faridún_, the son of _Abtin_, the son of _Farshad_, the son of _Shá-î Gilîv_, a general named _Máhlád_ was governor of _Khorosan_: and he having put to death one of the village chiefs, the Shudahbands reported to the king all the public and private details of the fact, on receiving which the king thus wrote to Máhlád: “Thou hast acted contrary to the Farhang Abad.” When Mahlád had perused the king’s letter, he assembled the chief men of the province, and sending for the village chieftain’s son, put a sword in his hand that he might cut off his head: the son replied: “I consent to pass over my father’s blood.” Máhlád, however, would not agree to this, and insisted so earnestly, that the young man cut off his head, which was sent to the court. The king greatly commended this conduct, and according to his usual practice conferred Máhlád’s office on his son. In the same manner, the Moghúls submitted implicitly to the commands of the Lord strengthened by the Almighty, that is, to _Jenghiz Khan_;[358] and the tribes of _Kazl-Básh_[359] were equally obedient to _Ismail Safavi_ during his reign. But the kings of Ajem were averse to the infliction