Falcons thrice four and twain,[7] that on the wing
Of Unity soar ever hovering
Round Caucasus (within whose rocky caves
Dwells the Sīmurg͟h); while ever on their graves
The clouds of God’s Grace every moment pour
Unnumbered blessings from His bounteous store.
Thus says this writer, His Royal Highness Prince Taymūr Mīrzā,[8] son of the Blessed[9] Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā, Farmān-Farmā,[10] and grandson of the Blessed[9] King Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, Qājār (whom Allah has clothed in the Robes of Light):—At the beginning of the reign of King Muḥammad Shāh (the Receiver of God’s Pardon[11] and a Dweller in Paradise), in the year of the Flight 1250 (a thousand blessings and praises on Him that performed it[12]) I with my brothers Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā[8], Nāqibu ’l-Iyāla, and Najaf Qulī Mīrzā, Wālī, both my elders, and Shāh-ruk͟h Mīrzā, and Iskandar Mīrzā, younger than the writer, departed from the Province of Fārs on a pilgrimage to the Sacred Karbalā[13]—best of blessings and perfect benedictions on its silent[14] inmates! After a residence of some months in that Celestial City, I, as God and Fate decreed, with my brother Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā and Najaf Qulī Mīrzā took a journey to Europe, returning to the Holy Places[15] after the space of a year and a half. By the grace of God we spent the long space of thirty years, in peace and freedom, in those Abodes of Peace, visiting the Holy Shrines and hawking and hunting in their environs.
When the throne of the Kingdom of Īrān—which God protect from the changes and vicissitudes of Time—was adorned and illuminated by the splendour of the auspicious accession of His Majesty Shāh Nāṣiru ’d-Dīn, a Jamshīd in rank, the shade of God’s Grace and His Blessing to men, the Divinely-aided, a King and the son of Kings; and when the fame of the Justice and the echo of the Clemency of this peerless Monarch spread and resounded throughout the world, nay reached even to the high oratories of Heaven’s Dome, I, your humble slave, with Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, left Bag͟hdād, the Abode of Peace,[16] in the year of the Flight 1279, on a pilgrimage to Holy Meshed, in order to kiss the sacred shrine of the Eighth Imām,—the blessings of God Almighty on him, his honoured forefathers, and his descendants the Leaders of men!
In Kirmānshāh his pre-destined death overtook Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, in the Fort known as Ḥājī Karīm, one of the stages on our journey; and in accordance with the passage, “All that breathes shall taste of death,” he passed away, and the hidden mystery of, “No living thing knoweth in what land it shall die” was manifested to us.
When the bird of his spirit spread its wings and soared to the eyrie of Rest we despatched his bier to the Holy City of Najaf[17] (thousands of blessings on him that has sanctified it) where was his dwelling-place and ancestral home, so that he might there be buried with his fathers, while I, alone, with my burden of grief continued on my way to the most Sacred City.[18]