I WAS in Kerman when the defeat of the army of the Kizil Bâsh and the return of the Great Khan from Bagdad took place. It occurred to me that at this juncture it might be easy to reach Basra and Najaf Ashraf from the ports of Fars. With this idea I set off for Bender Abbâsi. On the road I suffered great distress from my infirmity and from the violent fits of the quartan ague with which it was now sixteen months since I had been first attacked. At length I arrived at the Port, and finding that the voyage by sea to Basra was not yet practicable I there remained. A short time afterwards, the news came of the arrival of the Great Khan a second time before Bagdad and of the blockade of its inhabitants, and put a stop to the attainment of my object.

Mohammed Khan Balôch held sway over the province of Fârs, and had secretly spread a report of his intention to make the conquest of Isphâhân and of Irâk, and to release Shah Tah­mâsb from confinement. The commissioners of the Great Khan who were established in Isphâ­hân and the surrounding districts, becoming alarmed at their inability to make resistance, represented his rebellion in the most exaggerated terms to the Great Khan, and described the danger of revolution as very great. The Khan had brought the affair of Bagdad near to a con­clusion, and boundless fear had taken possession of Ahmed Pasha and the besieged, who had absolutely no longer any pretence or means to hold the fort: and about that time it would have been subdued, but for the events in Fars and Irâk, which disturbed the Khan's mind. Thinking it no longer advisable to stay in those parts, he proposed articles of peace to Ahmed Pasha, and certain terms were agreed on, which the Pasha had never hoped to obtain, and now regarded as the greatest blessing.

The Khan, determined to repress the rebellion of Mohammed Khan, moved from Bagdad with the quickness of lightning and the swiftness of the wind, and arrived at the town of Shôshter. The inhabitants of that place were publicly known to have given in their submission to Mohammed Khan, and were suspected to favour all his projects; and now after the execution of Abo El Fatah Khan, governor of that country, a great number of the Ayâns and the commonalty of the town were beheaded with the sword of chastisement; and it would be impossible to relate what contempt and disgrace, rapine and plunder, murder and captivity fell upon the inhabitants of that country.

The Great Khan dispatched a division of his army on the side of Fars, and followed also him­self in the rear. Mohammed Khan on his part set out from Shiraz with what troops he had, in the intention to give him battle; and the meeting took place on the territory of Kohkiloyah. Mohammed Khan bravely stood his ground, and after some severe engagements he was near proving himself victorious. At that moment the report was spread of the approach of the Great Khan, who was coming up behind the van of his army. On this the soldiers of Fârs were frightened out of their minds, and as night was come on, the greatest part of them, concealing their shame behind the curtain of darkness, quitted their banners and dispersed. At day-break scarcely any one remained with Mohammed Khan; only just round his tent were left a few of his own tribe and his relatives and servants, who did not amount to three thousand persons. Mohammed Khan had no alternative but to retire from the field, and being come in all haste to Lâr,* he there left one of his tribe with a body of troops as governor, and turned his endeavours to collect together an army among the inhabitants of the warm countries, that he might again prepare himself for the combat.