of right or convenience, may be readily found in the jurisprudence of
conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai
the dependent countries 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
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
battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four thousand
soldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand horse, where
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 cimeter: [15] the Moguls
rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet; and he declared
his esteem of the valor 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
Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. 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.
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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 (l. iii. c. 25)
has magnified his courage.]
[Footnote 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 neighboring 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 viziers,
(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's
History of Persia, p. 376--416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of Andrea
Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa, (in 1516,) fol.
313--318.)]
II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of Turkestan, or
the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could not endure the impunity
of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and
marched seven 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, [17] 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 a 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 a mild
expostulation, and a glorious victory, the emperor resolved on revenge;
and by the east, and the west, of the 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 chase. 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 peak 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 in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of
a flying enemy carried 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, [19] 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 harbor, 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
monuments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had
penetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon,
which authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
of evening prayer. [23]
[Footnote 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.)]
[Footnote 18: Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the
editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of
Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the designs of
Timour, and the true springs of action.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 20: M. Levesque (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.]
[Footnote 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.)]
[Footnote 22: The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l. 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.]
[Footnote 23: Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays of
the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely separated by any
interval; a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow, (the
56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis, and a long summer
twilight. But a _day_ of forty days (Khondemir apud D'Herbelot, p. 880)
would rigorously confine us within the polar circle.]
III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs the invasion of
India or Hindostan, [24] he was answered by a murmur of discontent: "The
rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor!
and the elephants, destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the
emperor was more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior
reason was convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was
safe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the
weakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces had
erected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan
Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army moved
in three great divisions; and Timour observes with pleasure, that the
ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded
with the ninety-two names or epithets of the prophet Mahomet. [241] Between
the Jihoon and the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains,
which are styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the
Earth. The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great
numbers of men and horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself was
let down a precipice on a portable scaffold--the ropes were one hundred
and fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom, this
dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed the Indus
at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively traversed, in the
footsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five rivers, [25] that fall into
the master stream. From Attok to Delhi, the high road measures no
more than six hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to the
south-east; and the motive of Timour was to join his grandson, who had
achieved by his command the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank of
the Hyphasis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and
wept: the Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, and
stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing city,
which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of the Mahometan
kings. [251] The siege, more especially of the castle, might have been a
work of time; but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultan
Mahmoud and his vizier to descend into the plain, with ten thousand
cuirassiers, forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and
twenty elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp
and poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the
imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some extraordinary
precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and a rampart of
bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls to smile at their own fears;
and as soon as these unwieldy animals were routed, the inferior species
(the men of India) disappeared from the field. Timour made his triumphal
entry into the capital of Hindostan; and admired, with a view to
imitate, the architecture of the stately mosque; but the order or
license of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival of
his victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the
idolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten to
one, the numbers of the Moslems. [252] In this pious design, he advanced
one hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges, fought
several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the famous rock of
Coupele, the statue of the cow, [253] that _seems_ to discharge the mighty
river, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Thibet. [26]
His return was along the skirts of the northern hills; nor could this
rapid campaign of one year justify the strange foresight of his emirs,
that their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of
Hindoos.
[Footnote 24: For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p. 129--139,)
the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of Ferishta, (in Dow,
vol. ii. p. 1--20,) which throws a general light on the affairs of
Hindostan.]
[Footnote 241: Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and Allah is
the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the names or epithets
of Mahomet, not of God.--M.]
[Footnote 25: The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of the
Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth and accuracy in
Major Rennel's incomparable map of Hindostan. In this Critical Memoir
he illustrates with judgment and learning the marches of Alexander and
Timour. * Note See vol. i. ch. ii. note 1.--M.]
[Footnote 251: They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers they
were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are called idolaters.
Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491.--M.]
[Footnote 252: See a curious passage on the destruction of the Hindoo
idols, Memoirs, p. 15.--M.]
[Footnote 253: Consult the very striking description of the Cow's Mouth by
Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. "A most wonderful scene.
The B'hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a very low arch at the foot
of the grand snow bed. My guide, an illiterate mountaineer compared the
pendent icicles to Mahodeva's hair." (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev.
vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the end of my translation of Nala.) "Hindoos of
research may formerly have been here; and if so, I cannot think of any
place to which they might more aptly give the name of a cow's mouth than
to this extraordinary debouche."--M.]
[Footnote 26: The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter, rise in
Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills, separate from each
other to the distance of 1200 miles, and, after a winding course of
2000 miles, again meet in one point near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so
capricious is Fame, that the Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his
brother Ganges has been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele,
the scene of Timour's last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100
miles from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel's Memoir, p.
7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]
It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed, by his
speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on the confines
of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and the
ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His vigor of mind and body was
not impaired by sixty-three years, and innumerable fatigues; and, after
enjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed
a new expedition of seven years into the western countries of Asia. [27]
To the soldiers who had served in the Indian war he granted the choice
of remaining at home, or following their prince; but the troops of
all the provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was first
directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only in
their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but these obstacles
were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of Timour: the rebels
submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if both religions boasted of
their martyrs, that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners,
who were offered the choice of abjuration or death. On his descent
from the hills, the emperor gave audience to the first ambassadors
of Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints and
menaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Between
two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be
wanting. The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
neighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful limit
been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ambitious monarchs
might accuse his rival of violating his territory, of threatening his
vassals, and protecting his rebels; and, by the name of rebels, each
understood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms he had usurped,
and whose life or liberty he implacably pursued. The resemblance of
character was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest;
and in their victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and
Bajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle [28] of the Mogul
emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish sultan,
whose family and nation he affected to despise. [29] "Dost thou not know,
that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our arms and our laws?
that our invincible forces extend from one sea to the other? that the
potentates of the earth form a line before our gate? and that we have
compelled Fortune herself to watch over the prosperity of our empire.
What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast fought
some battles in the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast
obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was
blessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of the
Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole consideration
that prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark
of the Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert the
thunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou
art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants?
Alas! they will trample thee under their feet." In his replies, Bajazet
poured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such
unusual contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted victories in
Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove, that Timour had never
triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes. "Thy
armies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of the
flying Tartar against the cimeters and battle-axes of my firm and
invincible Janizaries? I will guard the princes who have implored my
protection: seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum
are mine; and unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears
under the walls of Tauris and Sultania." The ungovernable rage of the
sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind. "If
I fly from thy arms," said he, "may _my_ wives be thrice divorced from
my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest
thou again receive _thy_ wives after they have thrice endured the
embraces of a stranger." [30] Any violation by word or deed of the
secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkish
nations; [31] and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was
imbittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his first
expedition, Timour was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Siwas
or Sebaste, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged
the indiscretion of the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand
Armenians, who were buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of
their duty. [311] As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation
of Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople; and
after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his pursuit, and
turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In these transactions,
the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and even by Timour, is styled the
_Kaissar of Roum_, the CÊsar of the Romans; a title which, by a small
anticipation, might be given to a monarch who possessed the provinces,
and threatened the city, of the successors of Constantine. [32]
[Footnote 27: See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1--16,) to the entrance of Timour into
Syria.]
[Footnote 28: We have three copies of these hostile epistles in the
Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in Arabshah,
(tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183--201;) which agree with each other in the spirit
and substance rather than in the style. It is probable, that they have
been translated, with various latitude, from the Turkish original into
the Arabic and Persian tongues. * Note: Von Hammer considers the letter
which Gibbon inserted in the text to be spurious. On the various copies
of these letters, see his note, p 116.--M.]
[Footnote 29: The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen by
the name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and nation of Bajazet with
the less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_. Yet I do not understand how
the Ottomans could be descended from a Turkman sailor; those inland
shepherds were so remote from the sea, and all maritime affairs. *
Note: Price translated the word pilot or boatman.--M.]
[Footnote 30: According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale's
Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife, (who
had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take her again,
till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated _by_, another
husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless to aggravate,
by supposing that the first husband must see her enjoyed by a second
before his face, (Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]
[Footnote 31: The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never speaking
of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabshah to the
Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough, that Chalcondyles (l. ii.
p. 55) had some knowledge of the prejudice and the insult. *
Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and note, p. 621.--M.]
[Footnote 311: Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these brave men.
Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295.--M.]
[Footnote 32: For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions, (p.
131, 147,) and for the Persians, the BibliothËque Orientale, (p. 882;)
but I do not find that the title of CÊsar has been applied by the
Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part II.