ABSTRACT
THUS it was that on Monday the 8th of September we ambassadors left that garden, the place where we had been lodged, and were carried in to the city of Samarqand after crossing the plain. This on all hands is occupied by private gardens and houses between which are streets and squares where goods of all kinds were on sale. By the hour of tierce [nine in the morning] we were come to a great orchard, with a palace therein, where Timur was in residence, and this, as will be understood, lay some distance without the city. As soon as we had arrived they caused us to alight at a certain house that was built outside the palace, and here two of the lords of the court came forward to us saying that we were to give up into their hands such gifts or offerings as we were bringing for presentation to his Highness, seeing that they would arrange and dispose these objects suitably, having them borne by the hands of attendants who would later bring them in and lay them before Timur. As soon as we had given up our gifts into their hands these lords departed: but not before they had likewise said the same to the ambassador of the Sultan of Egypt who was with us, and he too therefore now gave up into their hands the present he had brought.
