ictionary_) defines _Kaukaba_ as 'a polished steel ball suspended to
a long pole, and carried as an ensign before the king; a star of
gold, silver, or tinsel, worn as ornament or sign of rank; a
concourse of people; a royal train, retinue, cavalcade; splendour'.

9. Yezdegird III (Isdigerd), the last of the Sassanians, was defeated
in A.D. 641 at the battle of Nahavend by the Arab Noman, general of
the Khalif Omar, and driven from his throne. The supremacy of the
Khalifs over Persia lasted till A.D. 1258. The subordinate Samani
dynasty ruled over Khurasan, Seistan, Balkh, and the countries of
Trans-Oxiana in the tenth century. Two of the princes of this line
were named Nuh, or Noah. The author probably refers to the better
known of the two, Amir Nuh II (Malcolm, _History of Persia_, ed.
1829, vol. i, pp. 158-66).

10. The poor old blind emperor. Shah Alam, when delivered from the
Marathas in 1803 by Lord Lake, did all he could to show his gratitude
by conferring on his deliverer honours and titles, and among them the
'Mahi Maratib'. The editor has been unable to discover the source of
the author's story of the origin of the Persian order of knighthood.
Malcolm, an excellent authority, gives the following very different
account: 'Their sovereigns have, for many centuries, preserved as the
peculiar arms of the country,[e] the sign or figure of Sol in the
constellation of Leo; and this device, a lion couchant and the sun
rising at his back, has not only been sculptured upon their
palaces[f] and embroidered upon their banners.[g] but has been
converted into an Order,[h] which in the form of gold and silver
medals, has been given to such as have distinguished themselves
against the enemies of their country.[i]

_Note e_. The causes which led to the sign of Sol in Leo becoming the
arms of Persia cannot be distinctly traced, but there is reason to
believe that the use of this symbol is not of very great antiquity.
We meet with it upon the coins of one of the Seljukian princes of
Iconium; and, when this family had been destroyed by Hulaku [A.D.
1258], the grandson of Chengiz, that prince, or his successors,
perhaps adopted this emblem as a trophy of their conquest, whence it
has remained ever since among the most remarkable of the royal
insignia. A learned friend, who has a valuable collection of Oriental
coins, and whose information and opinion have enabled me to make this
conjecture, believes that the emblematical represen