A tower of 282 heads
Editorial contextMarching from Shamakhi towards the Kura, the embassy passed a circular 'pyramid' about fifty feet high with niches holding the heads of 282 Persian and Tartar chiefs of the Shamakhi rebellion, all beheaded in one morning on Nadir Shah's orders. The diarist notes that these Tartars had never accepted Persian rule, yet were punished as rebels.
…here is a circular pyramid of near 50 feet high; in which are niches filled with 282 human heads, of the late Persian and tartar chiefs of the Shamakie rebellion, who were all beheaded in one morning. These Tartars had not acknowledged subjection to Persia, and yet they were treated as rebels.
About Persian and Tartar rebel chiefs
Continue in this sourceJonas Hanway's history of British trade over the Caspian1743 to 1745 · 17 passages'The Tatars are exceedingly numerous'
Editorial contextWhen a large Mongol army under Chormaghun crossed the Oxus, Sultan Jalal al-Din of Khwarazm, though on bad terms with the caliph and the rulers of Anatolia and Syria, sent envoys to each of them. Rashid writes 'Mughul' (Mongol) in his own voice, but gives the substance of the warning as 'the Tatars are exceedingly numerous'. The same army is Mongol in the narrative and Tatar in the alarm.
He sent an envoy to each of them and gave news of the Mongols' coming; the substance of the message was that the Tatars are exceedingly numerous, and this time more than ever before.
Working translation
Original wording
پیش هریك رسول فرستاد و از حال وصول مغول خبر داد و مضمون پیغام آنك تاتار بغایت بسیارند و این نوبت زیادت از هر بار
About Mongols (Chormaghun's army), called Tatars
Keep in mind
Reported speech summarised by Rashid some seventy years later.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR for this Persian text is garbled).
A hundred thousand tents on the Mughan plain
Editorial contextCrossing the plains near the Aras River, Cook was told that the kings of Persia bred their best horses there, and that the plains had held more than 100,000 tents of roving people 'as the Kalmucks do in Astrachan' when Nadir Shah took the throne. He passed a few of the last groups being moved to Khorasan on Nadir's orders.
these plains were formerly inhabited by roving people living in tents, as the Kalmucks do in Astrachan ; and that upwards of a hundred thousand tents were in these happy plains when Kouli Khan mounted the throne of Persia.
About Nomadic tent-dwellers of Persia (compared to Kalmyks)
Keep in mind
Reported figure.