LXIV. CHAP. rapine and flaughter; and the caufe of the war exasperated their native fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfal and death of the fultan Mohammed, who expired unpitied and alone, in a defert island of the Cafpian Sea, is a poor atonement for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the Carizmian empire have been faved by a fingle hero, it would have been faved by his fon Gelaleddin, whofe active valour repeatedly checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppreffed by their innumerable hoft, till, in the laft moment of defpair, Gelaleddin fpurred his horfe into the waves, fwam one of the broadest and most rapid rivers of Afia, and extorted the admiration and applause of Zingis himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and wealthy troops, who fighed for the enjoyment of their native land, Incumbered with the fpoils of Afia, he flowly measured back his footsteps, betrayed fome pity for the mifery of the vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities which had been swept away by the tempeft of his arms, After he had repaffed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two generals, whom he had detached with thirty thoufand horfe, to fubdue the western provinces of Perfia. They had trampled on the nations which opposed their paffage, penetrated through the gates of Derbend, traverfed the Volga and the Defert, and accomplished the circuit of the Cafpian Sea, by an expedition LXIV. which had never been attempted, and has never CHAP. been repeated. The return of Zingis was fignalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or independent kingdoms of Tartary; and he died His death, in the fulness of years and glory, with his last breath exhorting and inftructing his fons to atchieve the conqueft of the Chinese empire. A. D. 1227. of the fucceffors A. D. 1227 The haram of Zingis was compofed of five Conquefts hundred wives and concubines; and of his nu- Moguls merous progeny, four fons, illuftrious by their under the birth and merit, exercised under their father the of Zingis, principal offices of peace and war. Toushi was his great huntsman, Zagatai" his judge, Octai 1295his minister, and Tuli, his general; and their names and actions are often confpicuous in the history of his conquefts. Firmly united for their own and the public intereft, the three brothers and their families were content with dependent fceptres; and Octai, by general confent, was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars. He was fucceeded by his fon Gayuk, after whofe death the empire devolved to his coufins Mangou and Cublai, the fons of Tuli, and the grandfons of Zingis. In the fixtyeight years of his four firft fucceffors, the Mogul fubdued almoft all Afia, and a large portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of time, without expatiating on the detail of 21 Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindoftan, who emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Perfians. This certain etymology, and the fimilar example of Uzbek, Nogai, &c. may warn us not abfolutely to reject the derivations of a national, from a perfonal, name. events, CHAP. events, I fhall prefent a general picture of the LXIV. progrefs of their arms; I. In the Eaft; II. In the Of the northern China, A. D. 1234. The South; III. In the Weft; and IV. In the North. I. Before the invafion of Zingis, China was empire of divided into two empires or dynafties of the North and South 22; and the difference of origin and intereft was smoothed by a general conformity of laws, language, and national manners. Northern empire, which had been difmembered by Zingis, was finally fubdued seven years after his death. After the lofs of Pekin, the emperor had fixed his refidence at Kaifong, a city many leagues in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protefting his innocence and accufing his fortune, afcended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as foon as he had ftabbed himself, the fire fhould be kindled by his attendants. The dynasty of the Song, the native and ancient fovereigns of the whole empire, furvived about forty-five years the fall of the northern ufurpers; and the perfect conqueft was referved for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls were often di 22 In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the names of Cathay and Mangi diftinguish the northern and fouthern empires, which, from A. D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the Great Khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and mifled our navigators of the fixteenth century, in their attempts to discover the north-eaft paffage. CHA P. LXIV. verted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese feldom dared to meet their victors in the field, their paffive courage prefented an endlefs fucceffion of cities to form and of millions to flaughter. In the attack and defence of places, the engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a familiar practice"; and the fieges were conducted by the Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the fervice of Cublai. After paffing the great river, the troops and artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they invested the royal refidence of Hamcheu, or Quinfay, in the country of filk, the most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth, furrendered his perfon and fceptre; and before he was fent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or thankf giving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war of the (it was now styled a rebellion) was ftill maintained fouthern, in the fouthern provinces from Hamcheu to Can 23 I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Pere Gaubil, who tranflates the Chinese text of the Annals of the Moguls or Yuen (p. 71. 93. 153.); but I am ignorant at what time these annals were compofed and published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who ferved as engineers at the fiege of Siengyangfou (1. H. c. 61. in Ramufio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155. 157.), must have felt and related the effects of this deftructive powder, and their filence is a weighty, and almost decifive, objection. I entertain a fufpicion, that the recent discovery was carried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century, and falfely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of the Portuguese and Jefuits in the xvith. Yet the Pere Gaubil affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. A. D. 1279. LXIV. CHAP. ton; and the obftinate remnant of independence and hoftility was tranfported from the land to the fea. But when the fleet of the Song was furrounded and oppreffed by a fuperior armament, their laft champion leaped into the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. "It is more glo"rious," he cried, "to die a prince, than to "live a flave." An hundred thoufand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, fubmitted to the dominion of Cublai. His boundless ambition afpired to the conqueft of Japan: his fleet was twice fhipwrecked; and the lives of an hundred thousand Moguls and Chinese were facrificed in the fruitless expedition. But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian ocean with a fleet of a thousand fhips: they failed in fixty-eight days, moft probably to the isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though they returned not without fpoil or glory, the emperor was diffatisfied that the favage king had escaped from their hands. Of Perfia, and the the ca liphs, A. D. 1258. II. The conqueft of Hindoftan by the Moguls, empire of was referved in a later period for the houfe of Timour; but that of Iran, or Perfia, was atchieved by Holagou Khan, the grandson of Zingis, the brother and lieutenant of the two fucceffive emperors, Mangou and Cublai. I fhall not enumerate the crowd of fultans, emirs, and atabeks, whom he trampled into duft: but the ex |