they were detained by the rains till the first of Moharram, in the year 823 of the Hejira[3], or Thursday, 16th January 1420; on which day they departed from Balkh, and arrived in twenty-two days journey at Samarkand.  They here found Soltan Shars, and Mehemmed Bakhshi, the ambassadors of Ulug-Beg[4], who had been sent to accompany them, together with all his Kathayans:  And the ambassadors of Khorassan, Badakshan, and from other princes, having here joined company, they all set out together with those of Kathay[5].

Having passed through the cities of Tashkend, Sayram, and Ash[6], they entered into the country of the Mongols[7] on the eleventh of Rabiya-al-akher, and learnt that the horde was in great confusion, Awis-khan being at war with Shir Mehemmed Aglan.  These disturbances being settled, Amir Khudadad, who commanded in that country, came to inform them, that the ambassadors might proceed safely on their journey.  On the 18th of Jomada-al-awal, they came to a place named Bilgotu[8], on the territories of Mehemmed-Beg, where they waited for the Dajis[9], and the retinue of the Shah of Badakshan.  After their arrival, they passed the river Kenker[10] on the twenty-second of Jomada-al-awal, and next day, they saw Mehemmed-Beg, prince of that horde, whose son, Soltan Shadi Karkan[11], was son-in-law to Shah Rokh, and a daughter of that prince had married Mirza Mehemmed Juki[12].  On the twenty-eighth of the before named month, they entered the country of Ilduz[13], which was occupied by the tribe of Jel, and under the dominion of Shir Behram, or Scheir Begrahim; and though the sun was then in the summer solstice, they were often astonished to find ice two inches thick in this vast desert.  On the eighth of Jomada-al-akher, they were alarmed, by receiving, news that the son of Ahmed Beg had plundered the Daji, who was ambassador from Awis, or Oweys Khan; and they made every possible haste to pass through the defiles of the mountains, notwithstanding of much hail and rain falling at the time.  At the end or the month, they arrived at Tarkan[14], where there is a great temple, with a huge idol, which the idolatrous inhabitants say is the image of Shakmonni, or Shamku.  Departing from thence on the second of Rajeb, they came on the fifth to Karakoja.[l5] And certain Kathayans came here on the tenth, who took a list of the names of the ambassadors and all their retinue.  On the nineteenth they arrived at the town of Ata-Sufi, where Kha Zadeh Taj’oddin resided, a person descended from the prophet, originally of the city of Tormul, and son-in-law to Amir Fakr’oddin, chief of the Moslems in Kabul[16].