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
invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the