CHAP. some dungeon, from whence he escaped by his own courage, LXV. and the remorse of the oppressor. After swimming the broad and rapid stream of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led during some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the borders of the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; he learned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates of his fortune, and to apply the various characters of men for their advantage, and above all for his own. On his return to his native country, Timour was successively joined by the parties of his confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desart; nor can I refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity, one of their fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy horse. "When their eyes "fell upon me," says Timour, "they were overwhelmed "with joy; and they alighted from their horses; and they "came and kneeled; and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and took each of them in my (6 arms. And I put my turban on the head of the first chief; " and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with gold, I "bound on the loins of the second; and the third, I clothed "in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the "hour of prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we "mounted our horses, and came to my dwelling; and I "collected my people, and made a feast." His trusty bands were soon encreased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against a superior foe; and after some vicissitudes of war, the Getes were finally driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory; but much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some blood to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as their master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous; but the policy of Timour, in their frequent quarrels, exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy: and, after a small defeat, Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to disobey the commands of their lord. At the age of thirty-four,12 and in a general diet or couroultai, he 12 The 1st book of Sherefeddin is employed on the private life of the hero; LXV. A.D. 1370, April. was invested with Imperial command, but he affected to CHAP. revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served He ascends as a private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile the throne of Zagatai, kingdom, five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of the world; and before his death, the crown of Zagatai was one of the twenty-seven crowns which he had placed on his head. Without expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns; without describing the lines of march, which he repeatedly traced over the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent his conquests in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India,13 and from thence proceed tothe more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war. A. D. 1400. sia, A. D. 1380... 1393. I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of ho- His connour or zeal, of right or convenience, may be readily found quests, in the jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Ti- 1370... mour re-united to the patrimony of Zagatai the dependent 1. Of Percountries of Carizme and Candahar, than he turned his eyes towards the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris, that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign since the death of Abousaid, the last of the descendants of the great Holacou. Peace and justice had been banished from the land above forty years; and the Mogul invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people. Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms: they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or the obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan or Albania, kissed the footstool of the Imperial throne. His peace-offerings of silks, horses and jewels, were composed, according to the Tartar fashion, each article of nine pieces; but a critical spectator observed, that there were only eight slaves. "I "myself am the ninth," replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile and he himself, or his secretary (Institutions, p. 3...77), enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen designs and enterprises which most truly constitute his personal merit. It even shines through the dark colouring of Arabshah, P.i. c. 1...12. 13 The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by Arabshah, c. 13...55. Consult the ex. sellent Indexes to the Institutions. LXV. CHAP. of Timour.14 Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was one of the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a batttle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four thousand soldiers, the coul or main-body of thirty thousand horse, were the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen or fifteen guards remained near the standard of Timour; he stood firm as a rock, and received on his helmet two weighty strokes of a scy-. metar:15 the Moguls rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet, and he declared his esteem of the valour of a foe, by extirpating all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his troops advanced to the Persian gulf; and the richness and weakness of Ormuz 16 were displayed in an annual tribute of six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer the city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of Houlacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious succcessor. The whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and the Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the native Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet; by three expeditions he obtained the merit of the gazie, or holy war; and the prince of Teflis became his proselyte and friend. II. Of II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of A.D. 1370 Turkestan, or the eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the ....1383: 14 The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious number of nine, is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that reason, divides his Genealogical History into nine parts. 15 According to Arabshah (P. i. c. 28. p. 183), the coward Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the pursuit of Shah Mansour under the women's garments. Perhaps Sherefeddin (1. iii. c. 25.) has magnified his courage. 16 The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre. The old city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and renewed in a neighbouring island without fresh water or vegetation. The kings of Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the pearl fishery, possessed large territories both in Persia and Arabia; but they were at first the tributaries of the sultans of Kerman, and at last were delivered (A. D. 1505) by the Portuguese tyrants from the tyranny of their own vizirs (Marco Polo, l. i. c. 15, 16. fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda Geograph, tabul. xi. p. 261, 262. an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens' History of Persia, p. 376. 416. and the Itineraries inserted in the first volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema (1503), fol. 167. of Andrea Corsali (1517), fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa (in 1516), fol. 315...318). LXV. Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Cashgar, and marched se- CHAP. ven times into the heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the north-east of Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the river Irtish, engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits. The conquest of Kipzak, or the western Tartary," was founded on the double motive of aiding the distressed, and chastising the ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in his court: the ambassadors of Auruss Khan were dismissed with an haughty denial, and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success established Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the north. But after a reign of ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the strength of his benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the sacred rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him, amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After of Kipzak, Russia, &c. a mild expostulation and a glorious victory, the emperor A.D. 1390 resolved on revenge: and by the east, and the west, of the ...1396. Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence was often trusted to the fortune of the chace. At length the armies encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer, who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of Kipzak, determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I speak the language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi to the wind of desolation.18 He fled to the Christian duke of Lithuania; again returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after fifteen battles with a domestic rival, at last perished 17 Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of that northern region (P. i. c. 45 ...49). 18 Institutions of Timour, p. 123. 125. Mr. White, the editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of Sherefeddin (1. iii. c. 12, 13, 14), who was ignorant of the designs of Timour, and the true springs of action. CHAP. in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying enemy carLXV. ried Timour into the tributary provinces of Russia: a duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his capital; and Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might easily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would have been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a miraculous image of the Virgin, to whose protection they ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror. Ambition and prudence recalled him to the South, the desolate country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers were enriched with an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of Antioch,1 and of ingots of gold and silver.20 On the banks of the Don, or Tanais, he received an humble deputation from the consuls and merchants of Egypt,21 Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who explored the state of the magazines and harbour, was speedily followed by the destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes; the Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians, who had not fled to their ships, were condemned either to death or slavery.22 Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the monu❤ ments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had penetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a 19 The furs of Russia are more credible than the ingots. But the linen of Antioch has never been famous; and Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of Europe, which the Hanse merchants had imported by the way of Novogorod. 20 M. Levésque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie de Timour, p. 64..... 67. before the French version of the Institutes) has corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit of Timour's conquests. His arguments are superfluous, and a simple appeal to the Russian Annals is sufficient to prove that Moscow, which six years before had been taken by Toctamish, escaped the arms of a more formidable invader. 21 An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo, is mentioned in Barbaro's voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been rebuilt (Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92). 22 The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin (1. iii. c. 55); and much more particularly by the author of an Italian chronicle (Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron. Tarvisiano, in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 802...805). He had conversed with the Mianis, two Venetian brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy to the camp of Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and 12,000 ducats. |