"The Sultan brought his forces under the fort and surrounded it, and prepared to attack the garrison vigorously, boldly and wisely. When the defenders saw the hills covered with the armies of plunderers, and the arrows ascending towards them like flaming sparks of fire, great fear came upon them, and, calling out for mercy, they opened the gates, and fell on the earth, like sparrows before a hawk, or rain before lightning. Thus did God grant an easy conquest of this fort to the Sultan, and bestowed on him as plunder the products of mines and seas, the ornaments of heads and breasts, to his heart’s content. The Sultan entered the fort, with Abu Nasr Ahmad bin Muhammad Farighuni, the ruler of Juzjan, and all his own private attendants, and appointed his two chief chamberlains, Altuntash and Asightigin,16 to take charge of the treasures of gold and silver and all the valuable property, while he himself took charge of the jewels. The treasures were laden on the backs of as many camels as they could procure, and the officers carried away the rest. The stamped coin amounted to seventy thousand thousand royal dirhams, and the gold and silver ingots amounted to seven hundred thousand four hundred mans in weight, besides wearing apparel and fine cloths of Sus, respecting which old men said they never remembered to have seen any so fine, soft, and embroidered. Among the booty was a house of white silver, like to the houses of rich men, the length of which was thirty yards and the breadth fifteen.17 It could be taken to pieces and put together again. And there was a canopy, made of the fine linen of Rum, forty yards long and twenty [p. 31] broad, supported on two golden and two silver poles, which had been cast in moulds."