asted the greatest part of the
day: the tent was surrounded with silk hangings, and a Tartar liquor was
served on the table, which possessed at least the intoxicating qualities
of wine. The entertainment of the succeeding day was more sumptuous; the
silk hangings of the second tent were embroidered in various figures;
and the royal seat, the cups, and the vases, were of gold. A third
pavilion was supported by columns of gilt wood; a bed of pure and massy
gold was raised on four peacocks of the same metal: and before the
entrance of the tent, dishes, basins, and statues of solid silver, and
admirable art, were ostentatiously piled in wagons, the monuments of
valor rather than of industry. When Disabul led his armies against the
frontiers of Persia, his Roman allies followed many days the march of
the Turkish camp, nor were they dismissed till they had enjoyed their
precedency over the envoy of the great king, whose loud and intemperate
clamors interrupted the silence of the royal banquet. The power and
ambition of Chosroes cemented the union of the Turks and Romans,
who touched his dominions on either side: but those distant nations,
regardless of each other, consulted the dictates of interest, without
recollecting the obligations of oaths and treaties. While the successor
of Disabul celebrated his father's obsequies, he was saluted by the
ambassadors of the emperor Tiberius, who proposed an invasion of Persia,
and sustained, with firmness, the angry and perhaps the just reproaches
of that haughty Barbarian. "You see my ten fingers," said the great
khan, and he applied them to his mouth. "You Romans speak with as many
tongues, but they are tongues of deceit and perjury. To me you hold
one language, to my subjects another; and the nations are successively
deluded by your perfidious eloquence. You precipitate your allies
into war and danger, you enjoy their labors, and you neglect your
benefactors. Hasten your return, inform your master that a Turk is
incapable of uttering or forgiving falsehood, and that he shall speedily
meet the punishment which he deserves. While he solicits my friendship
with flattering and hollow words, he is sunk to a confederate of
my fugitive Varchonites. If I condescend to march against those
contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips; they
will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my innumerable
cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they have followed to