IN compliance with your application for an order to the Aumil of Khan-Khanhully, to furnish you with two more iron boilers,* which you represent to be necessary, on account of the increase in the number of horses under your charge, we have written, and now enclose, the requi­site letter to the aforesaid Aumil, to whom you will forward it. The boilers in question must, however, be paid for, at the time of their being delivered to your people.

There appears to have been a great iron-foundery and manufactory established at Khan-Khanhully,* the business of which was, I believe, conducted on account, and for the exclusive benefit of, the Sultan’s government. There is, no doubt, some difficulty in understanding why an article, purchased, in fact, of the Sultan, and for his service, should be actually paid for in money, when a simple order to the directors of the works to furnish such articles, would apparently have answered the purpose as well. A similar practice, however, seems to have prevailed in other departments of the government; and the object of it might possibly have been to preserve the accounts of the proceeds or profits of the monopolies in question, as distinctly as possible.