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The horse on which the Sultan rode was of rare beauty, and, as they told me, of the true Arabian breed; the saddle-cloth was richly embroidered with gold, and the stirrups, of the same precious metal, were in the form of shoes, covered with the finest chased work. The Sultan is a slender slim-looking youth of nineteen years of age, and looks pale, languid, and blase.
An expedition of 3600 men under General Köhler was sent out against the defiant sultan in April, 1873, but suffered disaster, the General himself dying of disease. A second stronger expedition under General van Swieten was then dispatched, which was successful; and the sultan was deposed in January, 1874.
This was true and I enjoyed it greatly. I sent the man out to rub Sultan down while she prepared for him under my eyes a warm drench of ale and meal. "Be y'r honour going far?" she asked. "That depends how far it is to Ellerton Grange. Do you know it?" "Oh aye, y'r honour. Sir James Blount lives there. It's three miles out'n Tutcheter on the Burton road." "Is it a straight road to Uttoxeter?"
Allow me to state that there was something Providential in the fact, and in the time of intercession in my behalf. The Sultan is a generous man; I can bear testimony to that. By that noble resolution our lives were saved. For a long while, no encouragement came, and we lingered in our prison, forsaken and without hope. You, sir, moved a resolution in the Senate of the United States.
The King offered as his ransom, and that of his troops, the town of Damietta and a million of bezants; but the Sultan would not be contented without the cities of the Crusaders in Palestine, Louis replied that these were not his own; and when Touran Chah threatened him with torture or lifelong captivity, his only reply was, "I am his prisoner; he can do as he will with me."
In June, 1885, Sultan MUMIM died, at the age, according to Native statements, which are very unreliable on such points, of 114 years, and was succeeded by the Tumonggong, who was proclaimed Sultan on the 5th June of the same year, when I had the honour of being present at the ceremony, which was not of an imposing character.
"I gave one to the Sultan, who mounted it in his sabre; another to our holy father the Pope, who had it set in his tiara, opposite to one nearly as large, though not so fine, given by the Emperor Napoleon to his predecessor, Pius VII. I kept the third for myself, and I had it hollowed out, which reduced its value, but rendered it more commodious for the purpose I intended."
At last I arrived in the dominions of the sultan my uncle, and came to his capital. I gave him a long detail of the tragical cause of my return, and of the sad condition he saw me in. "Alas!" cried he, "was it not enough for me to have lost my son, but must I have also news of the death of a brother I loved so dearly, and see you reduced to this deplorable condition?"
This suggestion Bahá’u’lláh declined, choosing to abide in the dominions of the Sulṭán of Turkey.
"General Bonaparte," he continues, "only wants a communication opened by sea, to march into Syria, that the transports with stores, &c., for the army, may go alongshore with him." This he had learned from French officers who were prisoners on board, and we know it corresponded with the facts. "If the Sultan will not send anything, he will lose Syria."
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