His war

against

jazet, A.D. 1400, 1st Sept.

to Samar

1399, May]

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 licence 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. In this pious design, he advanced one hundred miles to the northeast 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, that seems to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Thibet.31 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.

It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was inSultan Ba- formed, 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 [His return Bajazet. His vigour of mind and body was not impaired by cand, A.D. 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.32 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

31 The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter [Brahmapootra], 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! (Rennell's Memoir, p. 7, 59, 90, 91, 99).

32 See the institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st book, and Sherefeddin (1. v. c. 1-16), to the entrance of Timour into Syria.

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 neighbours, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting. The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the neighbourhood of Erzerum 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 33 of the Mogul emperor must have provoked instead of reconciling the Turkish sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise.34 "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 has fought some battles in the woods

33 We have three copies of these hostile epistles in the Institutions (p. 147), in Sherefeddin (1. 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. [The genuineness of these letters is doubtful.]

34 The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen by the name of Turks, and stigmatizes the race and nation of Bajazet with the less honourable 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.

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 labours 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 scymetars 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 my 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 "35 Any violation, by word or deed, of the secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkish nations ; and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was embittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his first expedition Timour

36

35 According to the Koran (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale's Discourses, p. 134), a Musulman 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).

36 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 (1. ii. p. 55 [p. 105, ed. Bonn]) had some knowledge of the prejudice and the insult.

was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Suvas, or Sebaste, [A.D. 1401] 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. As a Musulman, 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 Timour Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and even by Timour, is styled Syria, A.D. the Kaissar of Roum, the Cæsar 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.38

The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in Egypt and Syria; but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by that of the Circassians; 39 and their favourite Barkok, from a slave and a prisoner, was raised and restored to the throne. In the midst of rebellion and discord, he braved the menaces, corresponded with the enemies, and detained the ambassadors, of the Mogul, who patiently expected his decease, to revenge the crimes of the father on the feeble reign of his son Farage. The Syrian emirs 40 were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion; they confided in the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the temper of their swords and lances, of the purest steel of Damascus, in the strength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixty thousand villages; and, instead of sustaining a siege, they threw open their gates and arrayed

37 [And he put to death Bayezid's eldest son Ertogrul.]

38 For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions (p. 131, 147), and for the Persians, the Bibliothèque Orientale (p. 882); but I do not find that the title of Cæsar has been applied by the Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves. [From Timur to Bayezid the name is an insult; he will not give him a Musulman title.]

39 See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. de Guignes (tom. iv. l. xxii.), who from the Arabic texts of Aboulmahasen, Ebn Schounah, and Aintabi has added some acts to our common stock of materials. [In 1390 the Bahri dynasty made way for the Burji dynasty, founded by Al-Zahir Sayf al-Din Barkūk, who in 1398 was succeeded by Al-Nasir Nasir al-Din Faraj.]

40 For these recent and domestic transactions, Arabshah, though a partial, is a credible, witness (tom. i. c. 64-68; tom. ii. c. 1-14). Timour must have been odious to a Syrian; but the notoriety of facts would have obliged him, in some measure, to respect his enemy and himself. His bitters may correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin (1. v. c. 17-29).

invades

1400

Sacks
Aleppo,
A.D. 1400,

11th Nov.

their forces in the plain. But these forces were not cemented
by virtue and union; and some powerful emirs had been seduced
to desert or betray their more loyal companions. Timour's
front was covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets
were filled with archers and Greek fire; the rapid evolutions
of his cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian
crowds fell back on each other; many thousands were stifled
or slaughtered in the entrance of the great street; the Moguls
entered with the fugitives; and, after a short defence, the
citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrendered by
cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants and captives,
Timour distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited
to the dangerous honour of a personal conference."1 The Mo-
gul prince was a zealous Musulman; but his Persian schools
had taught him to revere the memory of Ali and Hosein; and
he had imbibed a deep prejudice against the Syrians, as the
enemies of the son of the daughter of the apostle of God.
To
these doctors he proposed a captious question, which the casuists
of Bochara, Samarcand, and Herat were incapable of resolving.
"Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side,
or on that of my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied,
by the dexterity of one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied,
in the words of Mahomet himself, that the motive, not the en-
sign, constitutes the martyr; and that the Moslems of either
party, who fight only for the glory of God, may deserve that
sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphs was a
controversy of a still more delicate nature, and the frankness of
a doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the emperor to
exclaim, "Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was
an usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor
of the prophet". A prudent explanation restored his tran-
quillity; and he passed to a more familiar topic of conversation.
"What is your age?" said he to the cadhi. "Fifty years.'
"It would be the age of my eldest son. You see me here
(continued Timour) a poor, lame, decrepit mortal.
Yet by my
arm has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of
Iran, Touran, and the Indies. I am not a man of blood; and

41 These interesting conversations appear to have been copied by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625-645) from the Cadhi and historian Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be alive seventy-five years afterwards (d'Herbelot, p. 792) ?