memory the king raised Ghaiassuddin, the eldest son of Rashid, to his father's former office. He was a man of noble liberal and gentle character, but perished in the troubles which followed the death of Abu Said.
What is told of Rashid's wealth, magnificence, acquirements, and labours, reads like a bit of French romance. In addition
to the sciences connected with his original profession, he had studied agriculture, architecture, and metaphysics ; he was an adept in Mussulman theology and controversy ; and was acquainted willi Persian, Arabic, 1Ylôngol, Turki, and Hebrew. In the space of eleven months, whilst administering a great kingdom, he declares himself to have composed three important works, besides numerous minor treatises on a variety of intricate subjects. The Raba' Rashidi was a magnificent suburb, the buildings of which were laid out with great regularity and elegance ; it was built entirely at his expense, as well as supplied with water by a canal which he caused to be cut through the rock. When Oljaitu founded Soltania, his minister built there also a quarter consisting of one thousand houses, with a mosque, a college, a hospital, and a monastery, and all these he furnished with considerable endowments. In the transcription and binding of copies of his own works he is said to have laid out 60,000 dinars, equal, according to Quatremère, to about £36,000.
Rashid stoutly declares the integrity and justice of his own administration, and in this he is corroborated, not merely by contemporaries, but also by the authors of the next generation.
His greatest work was called by the author the Jami'-utTawétrilch, " Collection of Histories" or Historical Cyclopedia, which in fact it is. It contained histories of the Tartar and Turkish tribes, of Chingiz and his race, and of the Persian khans in particular, including his master Oljaitu ; of various dynasties of Western Asia, of Mahomed and his companions, of the prophets of Israel, the Cesars and other Christian princes ; of China and of India. It concluded, or was intended to conclude, with a universal geography, but it is doubtful if this was ever written, though the existing portions of the work contain many geographical notices.
A general judgment cannot be formed of the worth of these
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