[85] Tabari, _Annales_, II. p. 109. [86] He was not the son of the famous governor of Basra. [87] In the interim the post seems to have been filled for a short time by Khulayd ibn `Abdullah el-Hanafī (Tabari, II. p. 155). [88] Tabari, II. p. 156. [89] Vambéry considers _Tarkhān_ (or _Tarkhūn_) to be an old Turkish title, which Mohammedan authors have regarded erroneously as a proper name. [90] Tabari, II. p. 156. [91] Tabari, II. p. 169. Tabari says he was the first to cross the mountains of Bokhārā on a camel, _loc. cit._ [92] Tabari, II. p. 169. The Persian Tabari does not mention this queen, but relates the same incident of the _king_ of the Turks; Ba`lami, the Persian translator, also adds that the shoe was sold by Ubaydullah to the merchants of Basra. Cf. Zotenberg’s _Chroniques de Tabari_, tome iv. p. 19. [93] The direm, derived from the Greek drachma, contained 25 grains of silver, and was worth about 5d. of our money. On this basis the value of the shoe would be £4166 sterling! [94] Vambéry, _History of Bokhārā_, p. 20. The author says he has this fact from “Arabic authors,” but we have been unable to find any mention of it in either the Arabic or Persian versions of Tabari. [95] According to Tabari (II. p. 179), Sa`īd was met by a great Soghdian force on reaching Samarkand. The rival hosts stood facing each other till nightfall, but on the following day Sa`īd made a furious onslaught and put the defenders to flight, taking fifteen young nobles as hostages. [96] Narshakhi, ed. Schefer, p. 39. [97] Bellew and Vambéry both call him “Muslim,” a reading which has been adopted in the Russian translation of Narshakhi, published in Tashkent in 1897. The latter, indeed, contains a note to the effect that the name is written “Salm” in Arabic sources. It is also the spelling in the Persian Tabari. Salm was twenty-four years of age on his appointment. His father was `Ubaydullah, the famous governor of Basra. [98] This warrior held command of the Arab troops in Central Asia under several viceroys in succession, and thus gained the confidence of his troops and an intimate knowledge of Khorāsān and the adjoining tracts. The stability in the office of generalissimo went far to neutralise any disadvantages occurring from the frequent changes in that of viceroy. [99] Tabari (II. p. 394) tells us that Salm took his wife Umm Mohammed with him, and that she was the first Arab woman to cross the Oxus. She bore him a son, who was surnamed the “Soghdian.” [100] £55 reckoned in our currency. [101] Narshakhi’s account of these events brings the lack of discipline among the Arabs into a strong light, and serves to account for the vicissitudes of their rule in Central Asia.