oes Elphinstone,
adding that in consequence the Usbeks are "obliged to be content with
beef." Pinkerton tells us that it is made into dried hams; but this
seems to be a refinement, for we hear a great deal from various authors
of its being eaten more than half raw. After all, horse-flesh was the
most delicate of the Tartar viands in the times we are now considering.
We are told that, in spite of their gold and silver, and jewels, they
were content to eat dogs, foxes, and wolves; and, as I have observed
before, the flesh of animals which had died of disease.

But again we have lost sight of the ambassador of Spain. After this
banquet, he was taken about by Timour to other palaces, each more
magnificent than the one preceding it. He speaks of the magnificent
halls, painted with various colours, of the hangings of silk, of gold
and silver embroidery, of tables of solid gold, and of the rubies and
other precious stones. The most magnificent of these entertainments was
on a plain; 20,000 pavilions being pitched around Timour's, which
displayed the most gorgeous variety of colours. Two entertainments were
given by the ladies of the court, in which the state queens of Timour,
nine in number, sat in a row, and here pages handed round wine, not
_koumiss_, in golden cups, which they were not slow in emptying.

The good friar, who went from St. Louis to the princes of the house of
Zingis, several centuries earlier, gives us a similar account. When he
was presented to the Khan, he went with a Bible and a Psalter in his
hand; on entering the royal apartment, he found a curtain of felt spread
across the room; it was lifted up, and discovered the great man at table
with his wives about him, and prepared for drinking _koumiss_. The court
knew something of Christianity from the Nestorians, who were about it,
and the friar was asked to say a blessing on the meal; so he entered
singing the Salve Regina. On another occasion he was present at the
baptism of a wife of the Khan by a Nestorian priest. After the ceremony,
she called for a cup of liquor, desired a blessing from the officiating
minister, and drank it off. Then she drank off another, and then
another; and continued this process till she could drink no more, and
was put into her carriage, and taken home. At another entertainment the
friar had to make a speech, in the name of the holy king he represented,
to pray for health and long life to the Khan. When he looked round for
his in