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MARCHING SANDS
HOUSE OF THE FALCON
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Attention Patron:
This volume is too fragile for any future repair.
Please handle with great care.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARY, CONSERVATION & BOOK REPAIR


I






TAMERLANE
HAROLD LAMB








TIMUR. PAINTED DURING THE LIFE OF THE
GREAT AMIR, WHEN HE WAS ABOUT FIFTY
YEARS OF AGE. (Martin)




TAMER LANE
The,Earth Shaker


BY
HAROLD


LAMB


Illustrated


Robert M. McBride & Company
NEW YORK       MCMXXVIII




COPYRIGHT, 1928,
B3Y ROBERT M. MC BRIDE &c COMPANY
Publisrhed, August, 1928.
TAMERLANE
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




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TO
MY FATHER




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CONTENTS


Foreword
THE ATTEMPT


PAGE.          I'5


Part One


CHAPTER
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
x
X
XI
XII
XIII


BEYOND THE RIVER
THE HELMETED MEN
THE KING MAKER OF SALI SARAI
THE LORD}S LADY
TIMUR, DIPLOMAT
THE WANDERER
A CAMEL AND A HORSE.
AT THE STONE BRIDGE
THE BATTLE OF THE RAIN.
THE TWO AMIRS
ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS
THE AFFAIR OF THE SUFIS..      20
*   24
30.   36
43
50
57
63. *     69
*   74
84.        90
*.98


Part Two


XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII


SAMARKAND....
THE GOLDEN HORDE
THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES
THE LAND OF SHADOWS.
MOSCOW...
vii. ~105.  I12.   121. I30
*     1I38




viii             CONTENTS
CHAPTER                                    PAG
XIX  THE CUP COMPANIONS.... I47
XX  DOMINION...158
XXI IN THE SADDLE....67
XXII SULTAN AHMED OF BAGDAD..        77
Part Three
XXIII THE PROTECTED...84
XXIV  THE GREAT LADY AND THE LITTLE LADY  I95
XXV  TIMURnS CATHEDRAL. 202
XXVI THE WAR OF THREE YEARS..      207
XXVII BISHOP JOHN GOES TO EUROPE.. 214
XXVIII THE LAST CRUSADE. 220
XXIX  TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER.. 228
XXX  AT THE GATES OF EUROPE..      238 -XXXI THE WHITE WORLD.. 247
Afterword
WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT.. 252
Part Four: Notes
I THE WISE MEN AT THE BATTLE.. 260
II BOWS, IN THE EAST AND WEST.. 262
III THE FLAME THROWERS.... 265
IV  ANGORA.......267
V  DUKE WITOLD AND THE TATARS.        272
VI THE TWO MASTERS OF WAR..      275
VII THE POETS...... 278
VIII MONGOL......281
IX  TATAR...... 283




CONTENTS                   ix
CHAPTER                                    PAG
X  TURK...286
XI THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN..290
XII THE GREAT AND NOBLE CITY OF TABRIZ  293
XIII CLAVIJO AT TABRIZ.... 295
XIV  THE AMIR S PAVILION..298
XV  THE GREAT DOME....      299
XVI THE PYRAMIDS OF SKULLS...301
XVII TIMURnS CHARACTER...303
XVIII TIMUR AND THE CHURCH...305
BIBLIOGRAPHY....309
INDEX.......327




I
l




ILLUSTRATIONS


TIMUR


Fronti


A PRINCE OF IRAN AND HIS COUNSELOR
CAPTIVE MONGOL
SAMARKAND AND THE CARAVAN ROUTES OF THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
TIMUR CROSSING THE AMU
MONGOL CLANS IN BATTLE
STORMING A MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLD
A SUFI PRINCE ENTERTAINED BY HIS WOMEN
HUNTING FROM CAMEL-BACK
THE ASSAULT OF A CITY GATE
ONE OF TIMUR'S PERSIAN FOLLOWERS
TIMUR HOLDS COURT IN HIS PALACE GARDEN
BUILDING THE MOSQUE OF SAMARKAND
THE EMPIRE UNDER TIMUR
PERSIAN SWORDSMEN PILING HEADS
THE SULTAN OF THE TURKS
IN THE TOMB OF THE AMIR
THE PAGEANTRY OF MONARCHY


Jspiece
PAGE
32
40


48
60
72
88
io6
128
152
170
I92
204
208
216
232
256
288


WARRIORS IN BATTLE, FROM A CONTEMPORARY
PAINTING SHOWING THE QUILTED ARMOR AND
EQUIPMENT OF TIMUR'S DAY.     End Paper




/I




TAMERLANE




"This is the resting place of the illustrious
and merciful monarch, the most great Sultan,
the most mighty Warrior, Lord Timur, conqueror of the Earth."
INSCRIPTION OVER THE DOOR OF THE
ANTECHAMBER OF TAMERLANE'S TOMB
IN SAMARKAND.




TAMERLANE
Foreword
THE ATTEMPT
FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO a man tried
to make himself master of the world. In everything he undertook he was successful. We call him
Tamerlane.
In the beginning he was a gentleman of little consequence-master of no more than some cattle and land
in that breeding ground of conquerors, Central Asia.
Not the son of a king, as Alexander was, or the heir
of a chieftain, like Genghis Khan. The victorious
Alexander had at the outset his people, the Macedonians, and Genghis Khan had his Mongols. But
Tamerlane gathered together a people.
One after the other, he overcame the armies of more
than half the world. He tore down cities, and rebuilt
them in the way he wished. Over his roads the caravan
trade of two continents passed. Under his hands he
gathered the wealth of empires, and spent it as he
fancied. Out of mountain summits he made pleasure
palaces-in a month. More, perhaps, than any human
being within a life he attempted "To grasp this sorry
Scheme of Things entire... and then, Remould it
nearer to the heart's desire."
Tamerlane he was, and only as Tamerlane is he
known to us to-day. In our general histories his empire
'5




16


TAMERLANE


is called only Tamerlane's-although our ancestors of
five centuries ago spoke of it as Tatary. Vaguely they
knew him as a dominant and merciless figure, moving
beyond the gates of Europe among golden tents and
towers built of human skulls lighted at night by spirit
beacons.
Asia knew him well-both to its pride and its sorrow.
And there his enemies said that he was a great gray
wolf eating the earth; while his followers called him
lion and conqueror.
The blind Milton, pondering the legends of Tamerlane, seems to have drawn from them the somber colors
with which he painted the magnificence of his Satan.
And the fantasies of the poets have been followed by
the silence of the historians. Tamerlane could not
easily be classified. He was part of no dynasty-he
founded one; he was not, like Attila, one of the barbarians who harried Rome-out there in the limbo of
things he built a Rome of his own in the desert. He
made a throne for himself, but he spent most of his
years in the saddle of a horse. And when he built
he used no previous pattern of architecture; he made a
new one according to his own inclination, out of cliffs
and mountain peaks and a solitary dome that he saw
in Damascus before he burned that city. This swelling
dome of Tamerlane's fancy has become the motif of
Russian design, and is the crown of the Taj Mahal.
And the Taj Mahal was built by one of the MoghulsTamerlane's great grandchildren.
History has dealt fully with the Europe of his day.
We know how Venice was dominated by the Council
of Ten, and how Rienzi became the Mussolini of that
time, a generation after the death of Dante. Petrarch
was writing then, and in France the Hundred Years'




THE ATTEMPT


17


War was dragging through its sterile course, while
Orleanist and Burgundian wrangled with the butchers
in Paris, under the indifferent eyes of the half-mad
Charles the Sixth. Europe was young then, rousing
from the darkness of the middle ages. Not yet had the
fire of the Renaissance given it brilliance.
And Europe looked to the east for the luxuries of
civilization —for linen and buckram and spice, for silk
and iron and steel and china-ware. Silver and gold
and precious stones came out of the east. By this overland trade Venice and Genoa had grown great; Cordova and Seville in Spain had been built by the Arabs,
and the palaces of Granada. Constantinople was half
oriental.
There is to-day near a junction of the Trans-Siberian railway a stone obelisk bearing on one side the
word Europa and on the other Asia. In Tamerlane's
day this stone would have been placed some fifty degrees of longitude farther west, about in the suburbs
of Venice. Europe proper would have been no more
than a province of Asia. A province of barons and serfs
where the cities as a rule were no more than hamlets
and life —so says the chronicler —an affair of murmuring and misery.
We know the setting of the European scene of that
century, but not the man who rose to dominate the
world. To those Europeans Tamerlane's magnificence
seemed unearthly and his power demoniac. When he
appeared at their threshold, their kings sent letters and
envoys to "Tamburlan the Great, Lord of Tatary."
Henry IV of England, who had fought beyond the
border with the Prussian Knights, congratulated the
unknown conqueror upon his victories; Charles VI,
King of France, sent praise to "The most victorious and
serene Prince, Themur." And the shrewd Genoese
II. 7...




18


TAMERLANE


raised his standard outside Constantinople, while the
Greek Emperor Manuel appealed to him for aid. The
Lord Don Henry, by grace of God King of Castile,
dispatched to Tamerlane as envoy the good knight Ruy
de Gonzales Clavijo. And Clavijo, following the conqueror to Samarkand, returned to report in his own way
who Tamerlane was.
"Tamerlane, Lord of Samarkand, having conquered
all the land of the Mongols, and India; also having
conquered the Land of the Sun, which is a great lordship; also having conquered and reduced to obedience
the land of Kharesm; also having reduced all Persia
and Media, with the empire of Tabriz and the City of
the Sultan; also having conquered the Land of Silk,
with the land of the Gates; and also having conquered
Armenia the Less, and Erzerum, and the land of the
Kurds-having conquered in battle the lord of India
and taken a great part of his territory: also having destroyed the city of Damascus, and reduced the cities of
Aleppo, of Babylon and Bagdad; and having overrun
many other lands and lordships and won many battles,
and achieved many conquests, he came against the
Turk Bayazid (who is one of the greatest lords of the
world) and gave him battle, conquering him and taking
him prisoner."
Thus said Clavijo, who stood before Tamerlane and
saw at his court of Samarkand princesses from the royal
families of most of the world, and ambassadors from
Egypt and China. He himself as envoy of the Franks
was treated courteously because "even the smallest fish
have their place in the sea."
In the European pageantry of kings, Tamerlane has
been given no place; in the pages of history there is




THE ATTEMPT


19


only a fleeting impression of the terror he aroused.
But to the men of Asia he is still The Lord.
After five centuries it is clear to us that he was the
last of the great conquerors. Napoleon and Bismarck
are secure in their niches; we know the details of their
lives. But the one died a failure, and the other triumphed in the political leadership of a single empire.
Tamerlane created an empire, and was successful in
every campaign he undertook; he died on the march
toward the last power strong enough to oppose him.
To understand what he attempted we must look at
the man as he lived. To do this it is necessary to put
aside the histories of Europe, and close our eyes to
modern civilization, with its prejudices. And to look
at Tamerlane through the eyes of the men who rode
at his side.
As Clavijo did, we must penetrate the veil of terror
and go beyond the towers of human skulls, past Constantinople, and over the sea into Asia-along the
highway of the Land of the Sun, on the road to
Samarkand. The time is the year of Our Lord I335.
The place is a river.




Part One


CHAPTER I
BEYOND THE RIVER
TIcT is," the good knight Clavijo said, "one of the
four rivers that flow out of Paradise. And the
country is very bright, gay and beautiful."
A cloudless sky overhead-blue ridges of mountains
in the distance, rising to the snow peak that was called
the Majesty of Solomon. The rolling foothills were
covered with meadows, and the streams raced down still
cold from the chill of the higher ranges. In these
uplands sheep grazed, watched by the out-shepherds
on shaggy ponies. Cattle clustered lower down in the
lush grass of the glens near the villages.
The river twisted among masses of limestone. More
sedately it flowed out into a long valley dark with
mulberry trees and the tangle of vineyards. Channels
led from it into fields of rice and melons and rolling
barley —irrigation ditches where creaking wheels raised
the water slowly.
They called the river the Amu. And it had been
from time immemorable the border between Iran and
Turan-between south and north. To the south lay
Khorassan, the Land of the Sun where the Iranians
spoke Persian and cultivated the soil. They were
wearers of turbans, gentlefolk and beggars of elder
Asia.
Beyond, to the north, lay Turan, out of the depths
of which the nomads had come, the cattle breeding,
20




BEYOND THE RIVER


21


horse raising races-the helmeted men. Except for
the river, there was no frontier. The land to the north
of the river was called Ma-vara'n-nahr, Beyond the
River.
Hither, the traveler crossed the river, to go to
Samarkand. He threaded through gullies and a dense
oak forest and entered the maw of a gorge where ridged
sandstone walls rose six hundred feet overhead and
echoes mocked him. In the gloom of this red defilethey called it the Iron Gate-in a place where no more
than two laden camels could pass, dark-faced men
leaned on their spears and looked at the travelers.
They were large men, with thin mustaches that fell
to their wide chins; they spoke slowly, drawling their
words; and they wore chain armor, their helmets
crested with horsetails, and they were the guards of
Tatary.
The first caravan sarai beyond the Iron Gate was a
fertile spot with a small river of its own, shut in by
hills. They had named it the Green City. Around
it ran a moat filled with water, and through the mesh
of blossoming fig and apricot trees uprose the white
domes of tombs, and spearlike minarets that served
also for watch towers.
In the Green City Tamerlane was born, and he loved
it. His home was a house of wood and unburned clay,
with a walled courtyard and a garden within the wall.
It had a flat roof with a parapet, where a boy could lie
unseen and listen at dusk to the muezzin's long call
to prayer, while the sheep and the cattle were driven
in from the fields.
Here, too, came bearded men in flaming silk robes
who spread their sleeping rugs and talked of caravans
and happenings, and always of war. For the shadow
of war lay over the valley of the Green City.


r, -t




22


TAMERLANE


"Erein mor nigen bui —Tamerlane heard this
phrase often. "A man's path is only one."
He did not bother his head about it much-or the
gravely intoned verses from the Koran. The words
of the elder men were law, but the boys liked to watch
their weapons, and speculate upon the cutting edge of
a sheathed tulwar, or the meaning of a broken spear
shaft.
These boys grew up among horses, and matched
their steeds in the clover meadows across the Samarkand
road. With their bows they hunted quail and foxes,
and their trophies they kept in a castle of their own
among rocks beneath the overhang of a cliff. Here
they played at siege, while their dogs slept and the
horses grazed. Tamerlane was the leader-he had no
more than three or four companions-in this game of
mimic war.
He was gravely purposeful in play, and he never
laughed. Although his horses were not as good as
some of the others, he was the best rider of his troupe.
And when they were old enough to be given hunting
swords, he soon established his mastery with the
weapons.
Perhaps this seriousness was bred of his near-solitude. His mother died while he was young, and his
father, a chieftain of the Barlas Tatars spent most of
his hours in talk with the green turbaned holy men
who had visited the shrines of Islam and gained
sanctity thereby. The son had his falcons, his dogs and
his companions. But there were only two servitors in
the house, and the horses did not fill half the stable.
The father was not a reigning chieftain; he came of a
line of men distinguished in war, but he was poor.
The boy rode afield and sat much in his eyrie, looking at the Samarkand road. Down this highway rode




BEYOND THE RIVER                 23
cavalcades of wealthy Persians, with armed guards
about their veiled women-the Tatar women did not
veil. Lean Arab traders escorted horse trains, with
loads of brocades from Cathay and raw silk and rugs
from the northern looms. Moving through the yellow
dust came also slave caravans, and beggars with staff
and bowl, and holy men looking for disciples.
At times there appeared a Jew with his mules or a
slender Hindu voicing tales of Afghan robbers. At
the hour of dusk they raised their tents among the animals and the cook fires that smelled of dung and wormwood. And, kneeling and sitting back on his heels outside their circle, Tamerlane listened to their talk of
prices and the world of Samarkand. When his father
scolded him for sitting with the caravan men, he made
answer.
"A man's path is only one."




CHAPTER II


THE HELMETED MEN
T HE VALLEY and all in it was the heritage of the
Barlas clan. It could not be said they owned it.
The right of grazing and cultivating land, with its fat
cattle, and vineyards and pastures was theirs so long
as they could keep it. The Khan beyond the mountains had given it to their ancestors long since, and they
held it as the clans of Scotland held their lands, by
virtue of their swords and the craft and dignity of their
chieftains. They were Tatars, long of limb and big
of bone. Bearded, sun-scorched, they walked-when
it was necessary to walk at all-with a swagger and
without turning aside for any one, unless a Tatar
greater than they.
They all kept strings of horses, rangy and long enduring, accustomed to the hills. Only a few were fortunate enough to own mounts of a swift-footed racing
breed, or ponies trained on the polo field. Their reins
were heavy with silver work and they had a liking for
embroidered silk to cover the saddles. The poorest of
these Tatars' would not have thought of going from
his tent to the mosque without mounting his horse.
They held to their tents by choice, and by custom,
and they said, "A coward builds a tower to hide in."
But their tents were domes of white felt or carpeted
1 Tamerlane's clansmen were called many things, including devils and
mighty men of war. By common consent they are most often called Tatars,
and the earliest of their chroniclers describes them so. They were one of
the clans of high Asia that were named Scythians in the elder days, and
sometimes Turks. With the Mongol Horde they had come from the northern plains to this fertile mountain land.
24




THE HELMETED MEN


25


pavilions, and many of them had a residence of some
kind in the city, where guests could be entertained or
their women sheltered at need. A century ago the
Tatars had been nomads in truth, searching the desert
for pasturage. War had made their ancestors masters
of most of Asia, and these men were children of war.
They knew the truth of the saying:
"The sand of the desert is lightly blown away by
a breath; still more lightly is the fortune of man destroyed."
Hugely they feasted, weeping over the wine cup, but
they laughed in battle. Few of them did not have
upon them the white scars of wounds. And few of
them died under a roof. As a matter of course they
went about in light armor-linked steel mail under
flowing surcoats of striped silk. The instinct of the
desert warfare was still in them.
Hunting was their passion, in the intervals of quiet,
and they would part with their sheep and cattle for
the trained falcons that the hillmen brought down to
sell to them. A good hawk added to a man's dignity,
but a golden eagle that could be flown at stag gave
honor to a whole family. Some had hunting leopards
that were carried blindfold upon the crupper of a saddle
and loosed to stalk deer while the riders watched.
With the long, heavy bow they were expert, bringing down birds with double headed arrows, and going
on foot against tigers. When they knelt on the carpet
to eat, they dipped their fingers into a common pot,
and their dogs sat behind them, while the hawks
screamed from the perches. Game was their favorite
dish, and horseflesh, and they had a weakness for the
fare of the Arabs, the haunch of a camel.
They admired the chivalry of the Arabs, and like
these nomads of the dry lands they were restless un



26


TAMERLANE


less they were in the saddle, to raid or hunt or to join
the standards of war. They spent most of their time
away at the court of the King Maker.
The pride of the Barlas men was the pride of a
military caste. Theirs was the aristocracy of the sword.
To intermarry with Iranian merchants and farmers was
to lose their race. As a consequence, being poor men of
business, they were on the road to ruin.
They were unreasonably generous and equally unreasonably headstrong and cruel. Property they gave
away or pawned, to pay for their banquets. Hospitality was their obligation, and their courtyards were
packed with wayfarers, while their sheep progressed
steadily into the pot.
Other men than the Barlas Tatars fared better in
the valley of the Green City. Iranian peasants moved
patiently between their irrigation ditches; Sarts, city
dwellers, sat in the stalls of the market place; Persian
nobles gambled and built pleasure gardens, and listened
to the readers of the Koran. These wearers of the
turban followed the law of the Koran, while the helmeted men still adhered to the law of Genghis Khan.
And the lot of the Barlas clan was all the worse because it had no chieftain. Taragai, once head of the
clan, was a mild man full of his dignity. He had
listened to the expounders of the law of Islam, and had
withdrawn to a monastery to meditate-Taragai the
father of Tamerlane. No one lived in the white clay
palace outside the Green City.
"The world," Taragai told his son, "is no better than
a golden vase filled with scorpions and serpents. I
am tired of it."
Like many other fathers, he lectured to his son
upon the glory and worth of his ancestors, who had
been masters of the mountain ranges far in the north,




THE HELMETED MEN


27


above the Gobi desert. These were rare tales of pagan
days, and Taragai in spite of his renunciation of the
world seemed to enjoy the telling. He described
hosts of riders living with their cattle, migrating with
the snows, lying in wait along the caravan routes, and
marching behind their horned standard to harry
Cathay-tribal hunts that lasted for two or three
moons, over five hundred miles of prairie. He told
of the sacrifice of white horses at a chieftain's grave, and
how the horses went through the gate of the skywhere the northern lights flamed-to serve the spirits
in the world beyond the sky.
He named princesses of Cathay who were sent as
brides to the desert Khans, with wagon loads of silk
and carved ivory, and he described how victorious
Khans drank mare's milk from the skull of their
enemies plated with gold.
"So it was, my son," he explained often, "until the
day when Genghis Khan led his Mongols to the conquest of the world. It was written that this should be.
And when the dark angel stood over Genghis Khan
and he died, he divided the world into four empires
among his sons and the son of his eldest who died
before him.
"To his son Chagatai he gave the empire of this part,
where we dwell. But the children of Chagatai gave
themselves to wine and hunting. In time they withdrew to the mountains of the north. And there, now,
the Khan, the tura, feasts and hunts, leaving the government of Samarkand and all Beyond the River to
the lord who is called the King Maker. The rest thou
knowest.
"But, 0 my son," he ended, sadly shaking his head,
"I would not have thee depart from the path of the
law of God, whose messenger is Muhammad (upon




28


TAMERLANE


whom and on his posterity be the peace). Respect
the learned sayyids, ask blessing of the dervishes. Be
strengthened by the four pillars of the law, prayer,
fasting, pilgrimage and alms."
Taragai left his son to his own devices, but the men
of the monastery had taken notice of the boy, and a
gray-haired sayyid who found Tamerlane sitting in a
corner of the hall reading a chapter of the Koran asked
his name.
"Timur 2 am I," the boy responded, rising.
The descendant of the prophet looked at the chapter
and reflected. "Support the faith of Islam, and thou
wilt be protected."
Timur considered the promise earnestly, and for a
while gave up playing polo and chess, his favorite
diversion. When he encountered a dervish squatting
in the shade by the road, he dismounted and begged a
blessing. He could not read very easily, so he confined
himself, apparently, to that one chapter until he knew
it well.
In these days when he was about seventeen he liked
to go to the mosque courtyards where sat the imams,
the leaders of Islam.  He took his place behind the
listeners, where the slippers were discarded, and it is
related that a certain Zain ad-Din saw him there and
called the boy to him, giving Timur his own cap and
shawl girdle and a ring set with a cornelian. Zain
ad-Din was a keen mind and worldly wise, a true
leader. And Timur remembered his intent eyes and
grave voice, and perhaps also the gift.
The only leader of the Barlas clan was Hadji Barlas,
Tamerlane is the European rendering of Timur-i-lang-Timur the
Limper. Timur means Iron, and this alone was his name until his foot
was injured by an arrow and he was not able to walk without limping.
The historians of Asia speak of him as Amir Timur Gurigan-Lord Timur,
the Splendid-and only as Timur-i-lang in the way of vituperation.




THE HELMETED MEN                  29
the uncle of Timur, who was seldom at the Green City.
The Hadji, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca,
had no interest at all in Timur. He was suspicious
and impetuous and gloomy, and under him the fortunes of the clan went from bad to worse.
Most of the nobles and warriors drifted away to
serve the King Maker. And there also Timur went,
at his father's advice.




CHAPTER III


THE KING MAKER OF SALI SARAI
AT THIS TIME TIMUR-we cannot very well call
him    Tamerlane-was a young gentleman of
leisure. And leisure with Timur meant activity. He
was powerful in body, a fine physique, wide-shouldered, long-limbed. His head was large and splendidly poised-a high forehead and full dark eyes that
moved slowly and looked directly at a man. He had
the broad cheek bones and wide sensitive mouth of his
race, evidences of the vitality in him. The energy
in him was little less than ferocious. A youth of few
words, a deep and penetrating voice. He had no love
of foolery and in all his life he never appreciated a jest.
We are given a glimpse of him riding down a deer
with his companions over the open plain in winter.
Timur was in the lead when his horse came to a gully
that was both wide and deep. Timur tried to turn
the horse, and, failing, kneed him forward to the jump.
His mount did not quite clear the gully, and slipped
back with his hind feet, while the young Tatar kicked
himself loose from the stirrups and swung to safety.
The horse fell and was disabled-Timur going around
the gully to his companions and mounting a led horse.
Light began to fail, and the riders turned back.
Darkness and a heavy rain soon lost them in the open
steppe. They were suffering from cold when they
passed some black mounds that looked like tents.
"They are sand hills," said Timur's companions. The
son of Taragai threw his reins on the horse's neck and
30




THE KING MAKER OF SALI SARAI 31
gripped the mane. The pony stretched his neck and
neighed, so Timur turned toward the mounds, and
presently a light was seen, and the shapes in the rain
disclosed themselves as black felt tents.
At once the young Tatars were assailed by the dogs
and men who believed them to be raiders as a matter
of course.
"Nay, ye people of the tents," Timur cried, "I am
the son of Taragai."
Weapons were put away and hospitality extendedbroth heated up in the pot over the fire, and quilts
spread in a dry spot for the guests. The fleas in the
quilts banished slumber, and Timur abandoned the
coverlets, to stir up the fire and tell stories, his hosts
coming forth to listen until daylight and the end of the
storm. Years later Timur sent reward to the family
of the black tents.
In this early world of Islam hospitality was an obligation to be accepted as such and returned only in kind.
The Tatars were great wanderers, and Timur had the
freedom of every tent and courtyard from Samarkand
to the Land of the Sun. With his handful of companions he might travel a thousand miles in a fortnight, through the mountain tracks or down along the
desert's edge —carrying nothing more with him than
his sword and a light hunting bow. The Arabs of the
caravan camps talked to him, being honored by the
presence of a chieftain's son; hillmen, washing river
gravel for particles of gold, told him their legends
and gossip of their horses and women of other clans;
he played chess with the barons of the clans in their
citadels.
"The King Maker of Sali Sarai has asked for thee,"
they said.
Timur had taken thought for the remnants of his




32


TAMERLANE


father's possessions. The sheep he divided up into
flocks, giving them to the care of herders whose pay
was a fourth of the milk, the butter and the wool. The
goats, horses and camels were cared for in the same
way. No other property is mentioned.
With him   Timur took the best of the string of
horses, and a boy-Abdullah, born in his own houseto serve him. And with this escort he rode south
through the foothills toward the great river Amu. So
might a youthful esquire-at-arms have traveled to the
court of his king, in Norman England-except that
no squire of Christiandom rode clad in soft shagreen
boots and a high crowned white felt hat, bordered with
sable, and a coat-robe of dressed horsehide with wide
flaps over the shoulders, girdled with a heavy leather
belt ornamented with silver work and turquoise. And
few youths of England were so utterly alone as Timur,
his mother dead, his father in a monastery and his
kinsmen more than ready to become his enemies. An
adventurer, he joined the camp of warriors without
a king.
"Instead of religion," Kazgan the King Maker told
him, bluntly, "brothers."
There were many eyes to watch him-to judge his
horsemanship, the way he handled his sword in the
bouts that would have hazarded his life if he had not
been sure of his blade. Taragai had been a chieftain,
and Timur was his only son.
And in Sali Sarai, where two thousand Tatarslords, youths and warriors-encamped in the forests,
no one thought of teaching Timur anything. He had
to find out for himself, and find out he did.
1 "Din ayiri, Kardash"-"Religious faith aside, brothers." They spoke
Turki, but their written language was the Mongol-Uighur of Central Asia,
now vanished. Most of them including Timur knew a good deal of Arabic
-the Latin of Asia.




A PRINCE OF IRAN AND HIS COUNSELOR. THE
RUINED BUILDING IS TYPICAL OF THIS AGE
OF WAR. (Blochot)
I..




S.




THE KING MAKER OF SALI SARAI 33
One of the horse guards galloped in with the tidings
that raiders had come over the border and were driving
off horses. Kazgan the Amir called Timur to him
and ordered the scion of the house of Barlas to go
with a company of the younger men and bring back the
horses. Timur rose at once-he had been sitting with
the Amir's men-and set out. It was a task that delighted him, a mounting of horses and a swift dash
for half a day along the tracks of the invaders.
They proved to be Persians from the west, and
they had gathered up plunder on the way, putting it
into packs on the captured horses. At sight of the
Tatars they divided into two parties, one remaining
with the pack animals, the other advancing toward
the pursuers. Timur's companions advised him to
attack the baggage train.
"Nay," he said, "if we overcome the fighting men,
the others will flee."
The raiders stood their ground long enough to exchange a few sword cuts with the helmeted men, but
they knew themselves outmatched and scattered.
Timur escorted back the horses and gear to their owners,
and Kazgan praised him, rewarding the young Barlas
warrior with his own bow case.
Thereafter Kazgan the King Maker liked the son of
Taragai and began to show him favor.
"Thou art of the family of the Gurigan, the
Splendid," he said, "but thou art not a tura, a descendant of the family of Genghis Khan. Before thy
life, the ancestor of thy house Kayouli made an agreement with Kabul Khan, the ancestor of the house of
Genghis. The agreement was that the offspring of
Kayouli should be leaders and commanders of the
army, while the house of Kabul should rule as Khans.




34.LAMERILANE


It was so said between them, and it was written on steel
and the steel is kept in the archives of the great Khans.
Thy father has said this to me and it is true."
And he added thoughtfully. "Surely my path has
been only one. I have drawn my reins to the path of
war, and I have not turned aside from the struggle.
Now men follow me, and my name is glorious. That
is the one path, and there is no other."
This Timur knew. He knew also that Chagatai the
son of Genghis Khan had ruled all that portion of the
earth including the lands of the Afghans to the south
and the vaster mountain ranges behind the Majesty
of Solomon. In the hundred years since then the
children of Chagatai's line had loosened their grip on
their heritage; individual Tatar clans had become virtually rulers of their own provinces and the Khans had
retired to the north to hunt and drink, until now they
only appeared near the Green City to pillage and
carry off what struck their fancy under pretext of
putting down a revolt.
Kazgan had been the amir, the commander, of such
a Khan, and had made Samarkand his residence, until
he tired of watching disastrous raids and had dared
rebel against the Khan. Long and bitter fighting followed, ending in the death of the Khan, and leaving
Kazgan lord in reality of Samarkand and the provinces
of the Barlas and other Tatar clans. To fulfill the law
of Genghis Khan, and to satisfy these warriors who now
looked to him for leadership, he had called a council
and elected a descendant of the royal line Khan of
Samarkand-a puppet king, fed and protected by
Kazgan and good-naturedly indifferent to other matters. Thus was Kazgan called the King Maker.
Like Timur, he was of a small family, not a tura of
the royal blood of Genghis Khan. Audacious, he had
made alliances; just and upright, he had enforced the




THE KING MAKER OF SALI SARAI 35
respect of the restless Tatars. He was blind in one
eye from an arrow wound. After the great stroke of
his rebellion, he devoted himself to hunting and only
lifted the standard of war at need. He could not feel
certain of the support of the Tatar clans, and he saw
in Timur a chieftain's son who could aid him greatly.
Other amirs of the King Maker's court had interests
of their own. They gave tribute and the outward show
of loyalty to Kazgan's puppet on the throne of
Samarkand, but they had all shared in Kazgan's successful revolt. Some of them could muster ten thousand riders to their standards, and only Kazgan's
sagacity kept the reins of power in his hands.
He noticed that Timur was a favorite of the bahaturs,
the men among the Tatars who had won a name for
valor. They were the berserks of the clans who went
to battle as if to a feast, and Taragai's son took his
place among them as if by right. He went off with
them on raids and they returned, to sit on Kazgan's
carpet and tell tales of his recklessness and daring.
It seemed that there was in Timur a spark of sheer
eagerness that made him love a risk for the sake of
its danger. But, more than that, in a crisis Timur remained quiet and thoughtful. "A breeder of action,"
the bahaturs said. His overflowing physical energy
made light work of long rides and sleepless nights.
Timur had the qualifications of leadership, and he
liked to lead. And he was overconfident-too full of
his own strength. He asked Kazgan for the headship
of the scattered Barlas clan.
"Wilt thou not wait?" the King Maker, who did not
at all approve the suggestion, made answer. "It will
be thine, some time or other."
After a while it occurred to Kazgan to give Timur
a wife. And he chose one of his granddaughters,
who was also of the reigning family of another clan.




CHAPTER IV


THE LORD'S LADY
T HE CHRONICLE tells us of Timur's bride that her
beauty was like the young moon, and her body
graceful as the young cypress. She must have been
about fifteen years of age, because she had been allowed
to ride to the hunts with her father. Her name was,
hereafter, Aljai Khatun Agha-the Lord's Lady Aljai.
At that time the women of the Tatars went unveiled. They knew nothing as yet of the seclusion of
harim, sanctuary. In the saddle, from an early age,
they accompanied their lords through the varying fortunes of journey and campaign and pilgrimage. Being
children of conquerors they had their share of pride,
and the vitality that comes from life in open country.
Their great-grandmothers had had the care of all the
family property, including the milking of camels and
the making of boots.
The Tatar women of Timur's day had property of
their own-marriage portions and gifts of their lords.
Wives of the greater nobles were mistresses of separate establishments, having quarters to themselves in
the palaces and individual groups of pavilions on the
march. Unlike their sisters of Europe they did not
occupy themselves with the embroidery frame or the
tapestry or rug loom. They were companions of warriors, their duty the care of their young children; they
took their place at the banquets of rejoicing, and, if
their lord's enemies prevailed over him, they were part
of the spoils of defeat.
Princess Aljai came down from her home on the
36




THE LORD'S LADY


37


northern border escorted by her kinsmen and slaves.
She presented herself before the King Maker, and
there for the first time she saw the face of the man
who was to be her master-the lean and bearded face
of Timur who had come in from an excursion with the
bahaturs to be present at his wedding.
"Thy fate is written upon thy forehead," the learned
men had said to her, "and alter it thou canst not."
For the King Maker and his lords the wedding was
simply an occasion for feasting, but for this daughter
of the powerful Jalair clan it was the first day of her
destiny. She was not present when the agreement was
read before the Muhammadan judges and the names
of witnesses written down, as the Koran ordained.
Her preparations were otherwise. She bathed in
rose water, and her long, dark tresses were washed
first in oil of sesame then in hot milk until they
gleamed as softly as silk. Then she was dressed in a
gown of pomegranate red, embroidered with gold
flowers. The gown was sleeveless, like the over-robe
of white silk stiffened with cloth-of-silver-the robe
that, trailing behind her, was borne in the hands of her
women.
Over her slender shoulders fell the mass of black
hair. Black jade pendants hung from her ears, and
her head was made splendid by a cap of gold cloth, silk
flowers covering its crown, and heron's plumes sweeping back upon her hair.
So clad, Aljai advanced among the carpets where
sat the Tatars-for the moment the girl drew their
eyes. And again when she changed her dress and came
back in different colors. Even her clear olive skin was
tinted white with rice powder or white lead. A blueblack line was drawn over and between her eyebrows
with woad juice.




38


TAMERLANE


While the men mixed spirits with their wine to get
drunk the quicker and Aljai walked between them,
impassive of face, erect and frightened, the King Maker
scattered fistfuls of pearls among the throng, and at
his summons the nakars thundered-the bronze-bound
saddle drums that were the summons to rejoicing or
war.
"Upon the twain," cried Zain ad-Din, "be the peace
of God, the one God!"
It was then the hour for gifts, not to the bride but to
the assembled Tatars. Kazgan rose and went from
group to group, his slaves carrying khalats, court coats.
To some were given scimitars, to others girdles of price.
For Kazgan, a Tatar of the old stock, was no niggard.
And, besides, he knew the advantage to himself of
mutual good-will.
While the nobles and warriors lay, contented and
more than a little drowsy, on the carpets in the sunflecked shade of the oak and willow groves, story
tellers came and squatted among them.     Guitars
strummed plaintively, and mellow voices recited well
remembered tales-the listeners marking with appreciative ear the familiar inflections and gestures. They
knew the stories as well as the tellers and would have
felt cheated if a phrase had been altered or left out
of the interminable, droning narratives. From time to
time, remembering their manners, they gulped loudly,
to show their appreciation of the feast.
Daylight faded and slaves appeared bearing torches.
Lanterns were hung along the bank of the river and
under the trees. Fresh leather platters of food were
laid among the guests who exclaimed gutturally at the
sight of smoking quarters of young lamb, and haunches
of horses and barley cakes soaked in honey.
Once more Aljai passed among them, this time not




THE LORD'S LADY


39


to return. Timur led a white Arab charger over the
carpets, a smooth paced horse of racing blood, silk
caparisoning hanging over its saddle down to the
ground. Upon the charger he lifted Aljai, and led
her away to his own pavilion.
Here, apart from the guests, her women had come to
help her out of her head-dress and train. With them
they had brought the chests of her belongings. They
smiled when they felt her trembling under their hands
when they took from the girl her outer robe, leaving
her standing in her slippers and in the sleeveless gown
and the heavy veil of her long hair.
They salaamed to the young lord who came into the
pavilion silently. He had eyes only for Aljai, and the
serving women withdrew. Timur's few followers, who
had assembled at the tent entrance to salute their mistress, now closed the curtain and went off to their
quarters.
That night Aljai, lying in the young warrior's arms,
heard above the distant rush of the river and the
murmur of voices the harsh thunder of the drums.
She was the first of Timur's possessions. She did
not live long, but while she lived no other woman
shared her place at Timur's side.
There is no doubt that from his twentieth to his
twenty-fourth year Messire Timur found life very
good indeed. He made a home for Aljai out of a
wing of the tenantless white clay palace of the Green
City. He adorned the dwelling after his own taste,
with the carpets, the silver and tapestry work that was
the fruit of his soldiering. His father gave him the
family cattle and pasture rights.
Amir Kazgan appointed him Ming-bashi, commander of a thousand —colonel of a regiment, we




4o


TAMERLANE


would say. And Timur rejoiced in his thousand, feeding them well, and never sitting down to a meal without some of them at his side. In his girdle he carried
a list of their names. Kazgan, a judge of warriors,
allowed Timur and his thousand to lead the advance
of the army.
Often along the Samarkand road Timur would ride
to his home a day ahead of the main body, the white
dust rising about his horses in the moonlight, to greet
Aljai and to make ready a feast for the lords that came
behind him. He relished the splendor of these banquets in the water garden of the Green City. When
Aljai bore him a son, Timur named the boy Jahangirthe World Gripper-and summoned all the amirs of
the King Maker to a festival. They rode in to honor
Timur-except his uncle Hadji Barlas, and Amir
Bayazid Jalair, ruler of his wife's clan.
"Truly," said the guests, "Timur is a son of the
Gurigan, the Splendid."
And the wild hill clans that had served Aljai's
fathers made up songs about the master and the mistress
of the Green City.
Aided by Timur's daring, Kazgan gained new victories in the western desert and the southern valleys,
bringing back to Sali Sarai the Malik of Herat as
captive. He had profited much from the unselfish
service of the young Barlas warrior, and together they
might have continued to grow in power, when a new
dissension broke out among Kazgan's amirs.
They demanded that the captive Malik be put to
death and his personal property divided among them.
Kazgan had given his word to the Malik that he
should come to no harm, and when the amirs grew more
insistent-the Malik was an old foeman and wealthyKazgan secretly warned his prisoner, and freed him




CAPTIVE MONGOL KHAN IN SHOULDER YOKE.
A CONTEMPORANEOUS PAINTING SHOWING
THE HIGH-HEELED RIDING BOOT AND GIRDLE-WEAPONS OF THE NORTHERNERS. (Martin,)


OF
4y Q I








THE LORD'S LADY


41


when they were hunting south of the river on the way
to Herat. It is not clear whether Timur was sent, as
one account has it, to escort the Malik back to Herat.
In any case he was absent when his protector Kazgan
was put to death. The King Maker was indulging
his fondness for hunting, and was still south of the
river unarmed with a few followers, when two chieftains who cherished a grievance against him attacked
Kazgan and shot him down with arrows.
Timur heard of it and rode up in time to carry
the body back across the river, and bury it in the forest
of Sali Sarai.
Then, before trying to protect his own possessions, he
swam his horse again south over the Amu river to join
the officers of the King Maker who were pursuing the
murderers into the mountains. One of the oldest of
the traditions of the Tatars was that a man should not
sleep under the same sky with the slayer of his kin.
The two chieftains who had struck down Kazgan did
not live long.
Hunted from ravine to heights, changing horses at
each village, they could not shake off the Tatars who
followed their tracks and cut off the avenues of escape.
The murderers were caught on the upper slopes of the
mountains and their lives ended in a swift flashing of
swords. This done, Timur hastened back to his own
valley. He found a new order of things.
When a ruler died in mid-Asia, his son might take
the throne only if the late chieftain had left a well
founded dominion and the son were able enough to
hold it for himself; otherwise, at best, there would be
a council of the great vassals and a new ruler chosen.
At the worst-more often than not-there would be a
general struggle for the throne and the strongest would
seize it. They had a proverb, these helmeted men



42


TAMMERLANE


"Only a hand that can grasp a sword may hold a
scepter."
Kazgan's son made a brief attempt to take the reins
of authority in hand at Samarkand, but soon fled, preferring life to dignity. Then Hadji Barlas and the
Jalair prince appeared at Samarkand and claimed the
overlordship of the Tatars.
Meanwhile the other amirs retired to their various
citadels and mustered their warriors to the standards,
preparing to defend their own possessions and raid their
neighbors. It was the old weakness of the Tatarsclan struggling with clan for mastery. With one accord they would have followed a leader strong enough
to whip them into place. But Kazgan had fallen in
his blood, and Hadji Barlas and Bayazid Jalair were
not the men to bridle these unruly spirits.
In such a time of trouble Taragai, the father of
Timur, died in his monastery. Most of the Barlas
men had followed the Hadji to Samarkand. Timur
was left solitary in the Green City with a few hundred
warriors.
And then, having watched events from behind his
mountains, the great Khan of the north appeared upon
the scene. He came, remembering the rebellion of a
generation ago, with a powerful host-as vultures flock
together upon a fallen horse.




CHAPTER V


TIMUR, DIPLOMAT
AT THE COMING OF THE KHAN, the Tatar amirs
drew back before the common peril. Except that
Bayazid Jalair, whose city of Khojend was the northern
gateway of all their lands and in the path of the invaders, hastened back to his people and offered gifts
and submission to the Khan.
Hadji Barlas proved as irresolute as he had been
impulsive before. He summoned all the fighting men
of the clan from around the Green City and Karshiupon the death of Taragai he claimed undisputed leadership of the clan. Then he changed his mind about
fighting and sent to Timur word that he would withdraw with the people and cattle towards Herat in the
south.
But Timur was not willing to leave the Green City
masterless in the path of the northerners. "Go whither
thou wilt," he said to his uncle. "I will ride to the
court of the Khan."
He knew that the Khan of the north, lord of the Jat
Mongols-the Border Mongols-had come down into
the fertile lands of Samarkand to reassert his old rights,
but with an inclination to plunder. And Timur meant,
somehow, to keep the marauders out of his valley.
Aljai and her infant son he sent to the court of her
brother who was advancing from the mountains of
Kabul. He might have gone with her and found
safety in this way. To resist with his few hundreds
the army of the Jat Mongols twelve thousand strong
43




44


TAMERLANE


would have been idle folly. His father and the King
Maker had both warned him not to yield to this Khan
of the north, who might be expected to put the Tatar
princes to death and install his own officers in their
place. But after all the Khan was Timur's titular
prince-the ruler of his ancestors.
There seemed to be nothing that Timur could do.
His clan, the chronicler says, was like an eagle without
wings. Fear and uncertainty reigned in the Green
City. For days warriors fled down the Samarkand road
with the best of their horses and their women. Others,
who had determined to stay with their possessions,
observed that Timur was tranquil and hurried to him
to pledge allegiance and so make claim upon his protection.
"The friends of an hour of need are not true
friends," he said. He would have none of that. A
motley and numerous following would only have afforded the Khan an excellent reason for attacking him.
Instead, he made certain preparations. With all due
honor he placed the body of his father in the burial
ground of the holy men at the Green City. He went
then to his spiritual counselor the wise Zain ad-Din,
and talked with him through the night. What passed
between them we do not know, but Timur began to
gather together the best of his movable possessionshorses of a racing breed, silver ornamented saddles, and
above all gold and jewels of all kinds. Probably Zain
ad-Din opened to him the coffers of the Church, because the northern Khan was the lineal foe of the law
and the leaders of Islam.
At once the Jat Mongols appeared.   Scouts on
shaggy hill ponies rode down the Samarkand road, long
tufted lances gleaming on their shoulders, their led
ponies already well loaded with loot. Bands of riders




TIMUR, DIPLOMAT


45


followed, moving through the fields of ripe wheat,
grazing their horses as they advanced. The officer
commanding the scouts made for the white palace, and
was astonished when Timur, youthful and undisturbed,
greeted him as a guest.
Timur gave a feast for the Jat officer, slaughtering
jsheep and cattle with a lavish hand. And the officer,
ireduced to the status of a guest, could only eye longjingly the assembled possessions of his young host. He
could not allow his men to loot but he demanded extravagant gifts, and Timur satisfied even his avarice.
Then Timur announced his intention of going to the
Khan. With him he took a cavalcade of his own followers in court dress, and all his remaining wealth.
Near Samarkand he encountered two other Jat officers
with the advance guard of the army. They were both
insolent and eager for gold, and Timur gave them
more than even their greed had hoped for.
Beyond Samarkand he came to the ordu or royal
encampment of the Khan, Tugluk.
Between horse herds and lines of tethered camels
white felt tents covered the plain. The wind stirred
the long horsetails of the standards and raised a dust
of dried sheep's droppings. Here the warriors were
robed in barbaric splendor, in the flowered satins of
China, their high boots resplendent with gold embroidery, and their wooden saddles covered with the
softest shagreen. The long lance and the nomad's
bow were their favorite weapons-deadly weapons in
their hands.
Tugluk sat on a white felt by his standard-a broadfaced Mongol with high cheek bones and little, shifting
eyes, and a thin beard. A suspicious soul, a magnificent
plunderer, and a dour fighter. Timur, dismounting in
front of the half circle of Jat nobles, found himself




46


TAMERLANE


before the likeness of his own ancestors. In due form
he went through the karnash, the greeting to his prince.
"O Father, my Khan, Lord of the Ordu," he said,
"I am Timur chieftain of the Barlas men and of the
Green City."
The Khan was struck by his fearlessness, by the richness of his silver inlaid mail. Timur boasted when he
announced himself leader of the Barlas warriors-who
were mostly fleeing with Hadji Barlas. But it was
no time for half-titles. And his gifts to the Khan
were magnificent. It was apparent even to the avaricious nomads that he kept nothing for himself, and
the Khan conceived a liking for him.
"I would have had more to lay before thee, O my
Father," Timur asserted boldly, "but three dogs, thy
officers, have fed their greed with my goods."
This was pure inspiration, and Tugluk Khan began
to ponder how much wealth had escaped him. He
ended by sending couriers in haste to the three offending officers with orders to restore what they had taken
from Timur. True, Tugluk bade them send the gifts
to Hadji Barlas, but this was because he wanted to
claim everything himself from the Hadji-he could
not very well take more from Timur.
"They are dogs," he assented, "but they are my
dogs, and by Allah their greed is like a hair upon my
eyeball or a splinter in my flesh."
Had Machiavelli known these children of the
steppes, he might well have written another book.
Deception was an accomplishment with them, and intrigue a fine art. They were a fighting race, but so
long accustomed to warfare that they only took up
weapons as a last resource. Timur made more than
a few friends in the encampment of Tugluk.
"The princes of Samarkand," said the Jats, "are




TIMUR, DIPLOMAT


47


scattered like quail under the shadow of a hawk. Only
Timur is here, and he is a man of sense. We should
conciliate him and rule through him."
They did nothing for the moment because the three
officers, suspecting that the Khan would strip them of
their property by way of punishment, banded together
and made off towards their own lands pillaging as
they went. Arriving at the northern border they proceeded to raise armies and stir up strife in the absence
of the Khan. Tugluk hesitated and asked advice of
Timur, who seemed to be full of resource.
"Go to thy lands," Timur urged him, with all
gravity. "There thou wilt find only one peril. Here,
thou wilt find two-one before thee and one behind."
The Khan withdrew to his own country to punish
the rebels.  Before doing so he appointed Timur
Tuman-bashi-Commander of Ten Thousand-giving
him a written authority and a seal. This was the
dignity held by Timur's fathers in the old regime of
the Mongols.:Timur had saved his valley and its cities from devastation, and he had now the Khan's appointment as head
of his own clan. And, with the lifting of the mutual
peril, the Tatar princes returned to their feuds with
alacrity. The next three years are a vista of kaleidoscopic changes.
Hadji Barlas and the Jalair chieftain again joined
forces and decided to eliminate Timur by killing him.
They invited the young warrior to their pavilions.
But when he found armed men sitting with the princes
he scented treachery. Pretending that he was troubled
with a sudden nose bleed he went on through the inner
compartments until he reached his own followers.
They went at once to the horses and made off. Bayazid




48


TAMERLANE


Jalair afterwards felt ashamed of the plot and expressed regret to Timur. But the Hadji was a dour
soul. He marched upon the Green City to take possession of the valley.
Timur was in no mood to give it up, especially now
when he had the Khan's grant in his pocket and several thousand men at his back. He mustered his followers and the armies of nephew and uncle skirmished
briefly on the Samarkand road-Hadji Barlas withdrawing   suddenly toward     the great city.    Elated,
Timur followed him up. But the next day nearly all
his followers deserted him to go over to the Hadji,
who had prevailed upon them to join the main body
of the clan.
Timur then rode off to ally himself with Amir Hussayn, the brother of Aljai, who had come over with
his mountain clans and Afghans from the region of
Kabul. This fighting between the clans went on 1 until
Tugluk appeared again, "Like a stone dropping among
birds."
This time his mood was sterner. He had decided
to reconquer everything, and he put to death Bayazid
Jalair at once. Hadji Barlas fled again with his men
to the south but lost his life soon after at the hands
of thieves. Amir Hussayn dared meet the Jat horde
in the field and was soundly trounced and forced to flee
for his life. Timur stood his ground at the Green City.
Tugluk Khan sated with victory left his son Ilias
as ruler of the Tatar countries, with the Jat general
Bikijuk to see that he was obeyed. The Khan named
1 This warfare in the heart of Central Asia is an old story, and is very
much the same to-day. On a modern map, the lands of the Tatar princes
would include Afghanistan above Kabul and the northeast portion of Persia, all of Bokhara and Transcaucasia and most of Russian Turkestan. At
least a hundred thousand men were under arms, but to give details of the
strife would require a whole book. Only the thread of Timur's adventures
is followed here. Between 1360 and I369 he was occupied incessantly in
the civil wars of the Tatars.




TIMUR, DIPLOMAT


49


Timur prince of Samarkand, under the two Jats. This
was dignity enough, and a shrewd brain might have
found in it opportunity to gain goods and power.
Timur protested being placed under the authority
of the northerners, but the Khan reminded him of
the agreement between their ancestors-that the family of Genghis Khan should rule, and the family
of the Gurigan should serve. "Thus it was said between thy forefather Kayouli and my ancestor Kabul
Khan." An agreement made by one of his family
Timur held to be binding upon himself. Angered, he
tried to make the best of things in the Green City.
But the Jat general Bikijuk proceeded to ravage all
of Samarkand and Prince Ilias was more than satisfied
with plunder. Timur heard that the girl children of
Samarkand had been sent off as slaves, with the venerable sayyids as captives. Zain ad-Din, the spokesman
of the Church, cried out in wrath, and Timur sent a
missive to the Khan complaining of the marauders.
This having no effect, he assembled his followers and
rode north, setting free by force many of the captives.
It was reported to the Khan that Timur had rebelled,
and Tugluk gave an order for his death.
Word of this reached Timur. Weary of wrangling
and heartsick over the ruin of his country, he consigned
diplomacy to the devil, and mounted his horse to go
into the desert.
It was a happy choice. As with Bruce of Scotland,
outlawry suited him better than conspiracy.




CHAPTER VI


THE WANDERER
W      ESTWARD stretched the desert floor, red and barren
and bare. Red clay, gashed and cracked by the
baking of the sun, glared underfoot. Hot puffs of
wind stirred the surface sand and lifted it in a haze of
dust. This haze wavered about the crests of rotting
sandstone like the spray of a dry sea. Only in the early
morning and late afternoon could objects be seen
clearly because in the middle of the day this haze and
the shimmering furnace of the sky overhead made sight
a torment.
But it was not the true desert, because empty riverbeds twisted among outcroppings of gray granite,
toward the wide river Amu. The yellow water of the
river-that had made a paradise of Sali Sarai four
thousand feet above this plain-bred a sterile kind of
growth about it. Near it the clay banks were covered
with reeds and a scum of saxaul, sometimes half buried
in sand, sometimes projecting upward grotesquely with
its gnarled roots exposed.
Besides the river, there were wells with water good
enough for the animals but unfit for humans. Wherever the water was sweet the camps of the desert
dwellers could be found-nomad Turkomans guarding
their sheep with an eye out for a passing caravan that
might be weakly guarded enough to raid. And men
who had fled from blood-guilt to the barren land.
Across the Red Sands, as they called this clay steppe
-Timur made his way. He had brought Aljai with
50




THE WANDERER


51


him, and a score of followers who had chosen to make
trial of adversity with him. They had pack horses with
spare armor, some weapons and odds and ends of
jewels by way of wealth. They had ample water skins
and they traveled swiftly, being strong enough to guard
the horses that grazed nightly on the dry grass of the
hillocks. They went from one well to another until
they found Aljai's brother, Amir Hussayn. He also
was a fugitive, a lean and obstinate man, courageous
enough and avaricious. At Kabul he had been the
prince of a reigning house, and his chief desire was to
regain what he had lost.
Secretly Hussayn thought himself superior to Timur
-he was a little older —but he appreciated the magnificent fighting ability of the Tatar. Timur on the
other hand could not understand Hussayn's greed, but
he was glad of an ally.
Aljai was the bond between them. She was a true
grandchild of the King Maker; she could laugh at
adversity, even while her quick brain pondered its
problems. She never complained of their hardships,
and her high spirits banished Timur's moodiness.
The four of them-Hussayn had brought with him
one of his wives, Dilshad Agha, a notable beauty —discussed the situation while they camped at the well
where they had met. They had now sixty men well
mounted, and they decided to go on to the west, where
they would find the trade roads and large cities below
the Sea of Kharesm, now called the Sea of Aral.
Timur led them to Khiva, where the governor recognized his unexpected guests. He seemed more than
willing to pillage them and sell them to the Jat Mongols. It was no tarrying place for the fugitives and
they set out into the plain. They were pursued by
several hundred horsemen and the governor himself.




52


TAMERLANE


Riding off to the summit of a ridge, Timur and
Hussayn turned on the Khivans in spite of the odds
against them, and their headlong charge down the
slope surprised the assailants.
There followed one of the bitter struggles between
horsemen in which the Tatars were at home. They
thrust their small round shields high on their left arms.
Their powerful, double curved bows sped the heavy,
steel tipped arrows with force enough to smash through
chain mail. And these warriors could wield a bow
with either hand, and shoot to the back as well as the
front.
They carried their bows ready strung in open sheaths
at one hip, the arrow case also open at the other. The
bows were often strengthened with iron and horn, and
had the range and impact of the English long-bow of
the time. With such weapons under their finger tips
the Tatars were almost as formidable as modern cavalry armed with the revolvers of three generations ago.
Drawing the bow with one hand, the arrow with the
other, in a single motion, they could shoot as quickly,
and did not need to stop to reload a cylinder. In fact
the open sheaths are similar to the modern belt holster,
the iron forearm pieces to the leather cuff of the range
rider of to-day.
The small shield bound to the biceps, and the short
bow enabled them to shoot around the head of a horse
with ease.
They guided their quick footed ponies in and out
among the Khivans, weaving through their more numerous foemen, bending over their saddle horns, yelling as they rode. They rushed in groups of twelve,
scattered among the Khivans and retreated as swiftly
as they had come. Only at need did they draw their
scimitars or short battle maces. With edged steel they




THE WANDERER                  53
were ferocious, but the bow was their favorite weapon.
Saddles emptied rapidly on both sides. The various
leaders kept out of the heart of the struggle, knowing
that they would be surrounded and cut down at all
cost if they ventured in. Riders unhorsed had to look
out for themselves, and get another mount if they
could. But one of the Tatars, Elchi Bahatur, stood
his ground on foot with such recklessness that Timur
rode up and snatched away his bow, cutting the cord so
that he would be forced to go and look for safety.
At this moment Amir Hussayn charged through the
Khivans toward the governor. He cut down the
standard bearer but was hemmed in by foemen, and
was circling desperately when Timur saw him, and
went to aid him. Timur's sudden onset made the
Khivans turn to meet him, and Hussayn slipped out
from among them unhurt, while the young Tatar
reined back his horse, defending himself with his sword
on either hand, until several of his men came up and
the Khivan riders scattered.
It was the moment for a charge and Timur shouted
to his warriors. Hussayn's horse was struck by an
arrow and threw its master. Dilshad Agha, the amir's
wife, saw him fall and galloped up, dismounting to
offer him her horse. Again in the saddle, Hussayn
joined the Tatars.
Timur made for the Khiva governor and shot an
arrow at him. The shaft smashed into the man's cheek
and knocked him to the ground. Bending down from
the saddle, Timur picked up a short spear without
drawing rein, and drove it through the Khivan's body.
At the death of their leader the assailants scattered,
the Tatars following them up with arrows until their
arrow cases were empty. Then Timur mounted
Dilshad Agha on the same horse with Aljai, and drew




54


TAM[ERLIANE


back to the ridge with the women and the survivors
of the conflict.
Only seven men remained alive upon the ridge, and
most of these were slightly hurt. The Khivans dismounted in the plain and consulted for a while. It was
near sunset and Timur decided to strike off into the
desert, the Khivans following but missing them in the
darkness.
"Nay," Timur laughed at his companions, "we have
not yet come to the end of our road."
Blindly they wandered through the night and came
upon a well by sheer good fortune, finding there also
three of their men, soldiers from Balkh who had
escaped on foot. While the rest slept, refreshedthe water of the well proved to be sweet-Timur and
Hussayn discussed the situation and agreed to separate
to avoid the chance of recognition again.
In the first daylight they found that the three
Balkhis were gone, with three of the seven horses.
They divided the remaining mounts, agreeing to meet
again, if possible, far to the south in Hussayn's homeland. Timur watched Hussayn ride away, and then
loaded what remained of his baggage on one pony, giving the better horse to Aljai. He had kept only one
man with him, and Aljai smiled, seeing him trudging
through the sand who had never gone from his house
unless in the saddle.
"Surely," she cried, "our fate cannot be worse than
this-that we should be obliged to walk."
They had no food but they noticed goat herders in
the distance and turned off to buy several goats, roasting the quarters of one at once, rejoicing in the food.
The others they dressed on stones and added to the
packs. Timur asked the herders if there was any trail
out of the country and they pointed to a path.




THE WANDERER


55


"It leads to the huts of some Turkomans."
They followed the path and found the huts, which
seemed to be deserted. Timur took possession of one
of the dwellings, when outcry rose around them. The
Turkomans, it seems, were in some of the other shelters
and had taken Timur's party for thieves. Placing Aljai
behind them in the hut, Timur ran to the entrance
with his solitary follower. Lacking arrows, they made
pretense of using their bows, but the nomads ran in to
attack them.
Drawing his sword and throwing down his useless
bow, Timur stepped out to meet them. As he did so
the leader of the Turkomans recognized him, having
known him in the Green City. He called off his men
and went up to embrace the young Tatar and to ask
questions.
"Yah allah!" he cried. "This is verily the lord of
Beyond the River."
The Turkomans, lank men in evil smelling sheepskins, being rid of suspicion, clustered around to kneel
and ask forgiveness. That night they killed a sheep
and feasted. The young Tatars ate from the common
pot, and even the children of the tribe came as near the
fire as they dared to stare and listen. Timur was
plagued with questions about what was happening in
the rest of the world, and had no sleep until daylight.
This was an unexpected source of news to the nomads,
as well as honor, and they made the most of it.
The next day Timur gave the Turkoman khan valuable presents-a ruby of price, and two suits, pearlsewn. To return the courtesy the khan presented him
with three horses chosen from the tribal string and a
guide for the southern road.
In twelve days they crossed the desert, seeking the
great Khorassan road. The first village they reached




TAMERLANE


was deserted, ruined. It was necessary to dig for
water, and when they had done so, to stay in the ruins
to rest the horses.
And here new disaster came upon them. They were
seen by men of a neighboring clan, who rode up and
carried them off to the chieftain, a certain Ali Beg.
He saw a chance for profit in Timur's capture, and took
all the Tatar's belongings, putting him and his wife
in a cowshed full of vermin.
Timur was not inclined to submit to such quarters
for Aljai, but the guards overpowered him, and there
they were for sixty and two days during the end of
the dry season when the heat was a torment. Afterward Timur swore that, guilty or not, he would never
keep a man in prison.
Ali Beg's bargaining for his captives brought about
their release in an unexpected way. The brother of
Ali Beg, a Persian chieftain, heard what was passing
and wrote to the tribesman sending gifts to Timur and
pointing out the folly of meddling between the lord of
the Green City and the Jats.
After a long delay Ali Beg obeyed his brother and
released his prisoners but with an ill grace. He kept
the presents, and provided Timur and Aljai with no
more than a sorry looking horse and a mangy camel.
Still Aljai of the dark tresses could smile at continued misfortune. "0 my Lord, this is not the end
of the road."




CHAPTER VII


A CAMEL AND A HORSE
T WAS THE BEGINNING of the autumn rains, and
Timur's rendezvous with Hussayn was far to the
south, below the Amu river. But he could not resist
making a wide circle back to visit his home. Besides,
he did not want to join Hussayn empty handed. Near
the Amu he had picked up some fifteen followers and
horses at the residence of a friendly chieftain-Aljai
could now ride in a horse litter. The sickly pony and
the ignoble camel were given away to beggars.
We have a glimpse here of the young Tatar's devotion to his princess. He had set out ahead of Aljai
with a few men, intending to go alone on his excursion
around Samarkand. But when he came to the ford of
the Amu, where armed parties were passing back and
forth, he ordered his men to wait, saying that the
heat was too great for travel. Accordingly they halted
under some poplars within sight of the road a week or
so until Aljai's slower cavalcade came up.
Aljai was astonished at the sudden appearance of
her champion, but Timur, cautious now that his princess was to be safeguarded, became anxious at sight of
fresh dust arising along the road. He ordered horses
and litter into the river, fording and swimming the
swift current between the sand bars until the danger
point was passed and he had put the river between Aljai
and the distant riders.
When he had hidden her away in a suburb, he entered Samarkand unnoticed with his followers at the
57




58               TAMERLANE
time of evening prayer. For forty-eight days he remained here under the eyes of the Jats who were still
hunting him. At night he went to the sarais to listen
to the talk of the roads; he visited the houses of his
friends secretly, with an idea of heading a sudden rising
in the city where it was least expected. More than
once, standing in the crowds of the mosque courtyards
he saw the Jat prince ride past with his officers.
He risked his life to no purpose. Nothing could
be done at the moment. The Jats had the country
firmly under their hand. Overbearing and exacting,
the northerners were still the visible representatives of
the authority of Genghis Khan. Moreover, they were
victorious.
The Tatar princes around Samarkand were accustomed to follow a military leader. They were not
fanatic Muhammadans, but men trained to war, and
thinking of little else. To any man who could rouse
them and restrain them and give them a taste of victory they would be faithful. But the Jalairs had submitted to Ilias-Hussayn was a fugitive, with a Jat
prince sitting in the hall of his palace at Kabul. And
they saw no hope as yet in following the youthful
Timur.
They warned Timur that his presence was known to
the Jats. Again the scion of the house of Barlas had
to take to his horse and escape at night.
He did not go alone. A small following had collected around him-masterless' men, wandering troopers, lovers of hazard and loot, wild Turkomans and adventurous Arabs. They were poor material for an
army but they made splendid partisans for the road.
They laughed when Timur led them within sight of
the Green City, and camped in the abandoned summer
pastureland above the white dome of his palace where




A CAMEL AND A HORSE9


59


the Jats could be watched, riding out to look for him.
They boasted of his deeds to the Barlas bahaturs who
had wind of his presence and arrived to salute himElchi Bahatur, he of the broken bow, and white haired
Jaku Barlas who had a raven's instinct for scenting out
happenings.
And these veterans of the King Maker's camp emptied many a cup with the young outlaw. "When God's
earth is so wide," they said, "why dwell within walls?"
"Words!" Timur cried. "What will your deeds be?
Are you crows, to feed from the crumbs of the Jat's
table, or hawks to strike down your prey?"
"Y'allah!" The two Barlas men made answer.
"We are not crows."
When Aljai joined them they saluted the princess
respectfully. Had she not taken part in the battles of
her lord? When Timur broke camp late that autumn
and moved south toward the mountains to meet Hussayn they went with him.
It was no road for weaklings. For five hundred
miles it twisted among the ranges that were the very
bulwark of the sky-down through modern Afghanistan, vaguely mapped and only partially explored
to-day. It followed a river gorge upward until-the
river became a bed of ice, and they had to force a path
through knee deep snow.
The road led them under the glaciers of the Father
of Mountains, still rising to wind swept plateaus where
they pitched their round cloth tents under echoing cliffs.
By day they moved in the glare of snow fields in the
higher altitudes, except where the wind had cleared
the pebble-strewn bed of the valley before them.
The horses wore felt blankets and the riders were
wrapped in wolfskins and sables. When they came to
timber they cut enough fuel to load on sledges and




60


TAMERLANE


carry with them. At times they passed below the
watch towers of a tribal citadel, where unseen sentinels
wailed at them and dogs barked a thousand feet overhead.
More than once they were attacked by Afghans who
did not know the men they had to deal with. Timur
and his men emerged the richer by these raids. They
crossed the twelve thousand foot pass between the snow
summits of the Hindu Koh, and slid and clambered
down the precipice path that brought them to the valley of Kabul.
This meant no respite for them, because they had to
circle the city. After buying fresh horses and sheep in
the villages they took the Kandahar trail which was
easier going, being nearly free from snow. They
reached the lower valleys of the south, and found Amir
Hussayn waiting for them at the rendezvous withan
army that was twin to Timur's but more numerous.
During the end of the winter they rested, and were
heartened by an ambassador who came with gifts from
the ruler of the nearby ranges.
There had been, it seemed, a rebellion among his
people of Sijistan, and he had lost most of his hill forts.
He promised reward to Timur and Hussayn if they
would join him in ousting the rebels. The allies accepted the overture-Hussayn with the idea of making
himself master of this southern province, Timur eager
to be in the saddle again.
When the roads were passable they joined the lord
of Sijistan and marched off to fight his battles-being
for the moment no more than soldiers of fortune. This
was the sort of thing Timur relished. They captured
most of the belligerent strongholds, surprising some,
storming the others on ladders.




TIMUR CROSSING THE AMU. THE WARRIORS
ARE LEAVING THE BARGES TO MOUNT
THEIR HORSES. CRESSETS HAVE BEEN
LIGHTED IN THE CAMP AND THE GREAT
SIGNAL-HORNS ARE IN EVIDENCE. CONTEMPORANEOUS. (Schulz)




t
- -           I




A CAMEL AND A HORSE


Hussayn, however, caused trouble by pillaging the
villages and then putting his own men in as garrisons.
Timur was indifferent, but the Sijistanis were not
pleased and the remaining rebels profited from the
strained relations, sending a message to their ruler.
"We bear thee no ill-will; bethink thee, if the Tatars
are allowed to take our places, they will keep the whole
country for themselves."
The master of Sijistan marched off at night without
word to the adventurers, and joined forces with the
former rebels. It was a typical about-face of the mountain clans, always suspicious, and uncertain of strangers.
They attacked Timur who beat them off and charged
into their array.
In this conflict, with no more than twelve warriors
around him at the time, he was a target for the arrows
of the Sijistanis. One shaft splintered the bones of his
hand, another struck him in the foot. He paid no heed
to the wounds, beyond breaking the arrows and pulling
them out, but afterward they proved serious and he
was forced to keep to his tent.
The Sijistanis had been defeated, and the allies
gained new property and followers from the victory.
Hussayn set out to the north with the bulk of the newi
army, leaving Timur to rest in the hills and recover
from his injury.
Here he was joined by Aljai, and for a brief space
the dark haired princess had the Tatar lord to herself
in the camp where no one could summon him to war.
Their pavilions stood among vineyards where the air
was always cool, and the horses tasted of paradise in
the lush grass. At night under the full moon of the
month of Shawwal they lay on carpets looking down
into the shadows of the lowlands. For this moon Aljai




62               TAMERLANE
could watch Timur sitting with his boy child, the World
Gripper.
And she counted the days, when Timur limped restlessly around the camp, trying his injured foot. It
pained him a good deal, though he stood straight as before. And when-too soon for Aljai's love-Timur
called for his armor and his saddle horse, she brought
out his sword and girdled it over his loins, her dark
eyes impassive with the grief that a young wife must
not show before her lord.
"May God shield thee, O my husband."




CHAPTER VIII


AT THE STONE BRIDGE
THERE WAS NEED OF TIMUR in the north. Hussayn,
overconfident, had engaged the nearest host of
the Jats and had been trounced, his men scattered. This
was against Timur's advice, and the Tatar was angered.
It meant that he must turn aside to the mountain clans
to rally Hussayn's followers and gain new men. And
his hand was not yet healed, so that he could not manage the reins and his weapons at the same time.
In a grim mood he rode with his small band, killing
game for food. He was camped near the upper Amu,
waiting for Hussayn, when he was discovered. The
chronicle gives us a clear picture of this incident.
Timur's tents were at the edge of a stream, under
the bank of a ridge. After several days of waiting, his
impatience would not let him sleep. The night was
clear, the moon bright, and he paced along the stream
-his new habit of forcing himself to walk upon the
foot that never would be quite healed. He could not
grow accustomed to this wound.
When he returned to the hill the moon was dim,
and the eastern sky streaked with yellow light. Timur
knelt to make the dawn prayer, and when he rose —he,
saw armed men riding past on the other side of the
ridge, an arrow's flight away. They were coming from
the direction of Balkh, now a Jat stronghold, and
Timur went down at once to his tents, rousing his men
and calling for his horse.
Alone he rode out to challenge the strangers. When
63




64


TAMERLANE


they saw him they halted and for a moment stared at
him in the dim light.
"Whence come ye?" he called to them. "And
whither go ye?"
"We are the servants of Lord Timur," some one answered, "and have come out in search of him. We
cannot find him, although we heard he left Kumrud
and came to this valley."
Timur did not know the voice, nor could he distinguish anything of the warriors. "I also am one of the
amir's servants," he responded. "If it is your wish, I
will lead you to him."
A rider detached himself from the column and galloped up to where its leaders waited, listening. "We
have found a guide," Timur heard him say, "who will
take us to the amir."
He rode forward then, slowly, until he could make
out the faces of the officers. They were three chieftains of the Barlas clan and they had with them three
troops of horsemen. They called to the strange guide
to come nearer, but when they recognized Timur they
alighted from their horses, bent their knees and kissed
his stirrup.
Timur also dismounted and could not restrain himself from making gifts to them at once-his helmet to
one, his girdle to another, and his coat to a third. They
sat down together and game was brought in and a feast
prepared on the spot. They shared the salt and Timur
soon had proof of their loyalty. He sent a scout from
their ranks over the river to discover what the Jats
were doing. The warrior tried to swim the Amu; his
horse went down and was drowned, but he himself
reached a sand bar and gained the far bank. He returned with word that a Jat army some twenty thou



AT THE STONE BRIDGE


sand strong was on the road from the Green City and
was laying waste the country.
The man himself had passed near his home, but had
not stopped, although it lay in the path of the foragers.
"Nay," he said, "when my Lord has no home, how
should I go to mine?"
The news put Timur into a fever of impatience. Up
to their old tricks the Jats were pillaging, now that a
force was in the field against them; he knew that the
clans across the river would resent this instantly and
would side with him. Meanwhile his strength was less
than a quarter of the Jat general's-Bikijuk's. The old
Mongol was a master at this kind of warfare, and he
moved his forces on the north bank to cover all the
fords.
To attempt to force a crossing in the face of such
strength was a task beyond even Timur's desperation.
But he did get-across.
For a month he led Bikijuk upstream, until the Amu
narrowed and became shallow. Here at a stone bridge
he halted. The Jats, having all the advantage, were
not disposed to push over the bridge, and Timur went
into camp ostentatiously. That night he told off five
hundred men and placed them under the orders of
Mouava, an officer who could be depended upon, and
Amir Musa, the ablest of Hussayn's lieutenants.
He left the five hundred to hold the camp and the
bridge, himself riding off with the bulk of his forces.
Close to the Jat camp he crossed the river, going on
without stopping into the hills beyond that formed a
rude half-circle facing the stream.
Promptly the next day the Jat scouts found his tracks,
and it was clear to Bikijuk that a strong division had
crossed. Apparently the numbers in Timur's old camp




66


TAMERLANE


were still undiminished. If Bikijuk attacked the bridge,
Mouava and Amir Musa were to resist and hold on,
while Timur charged the rear of the Mongols.
But sagacious Bikijuk scented danger and remained
quiet during the day. That night Timur scattered his
men through the hills with orders to light any number
of fires on three sides of the hostile camp.
Sight of these fires was too much for the cautious
northerners and they left their position hurriedly before dawn, Timur collecting his men and charging into
their line of march. The Jats broke and fled, Timur
pursuing relentlessly.
Amir Hussayn, who had taken no part in the battle
of the river, now rejoined Timur with a strong following, more than ready to offer advice.
"It is a bad plan," he said, "to pursue defeated
troops."
"'They are not yet defeated," Timur replied, and
kept on. He greeted the clans who came out from
hiding, the warriors circling their horses in joy, the
women waving their loose sleeves. He slept little, because it was his task to appoint new leaders of his yetto-be-formed army, he must conciliate old feuds,
apportion the spoil gleaned from the Jats, pay compensation to the families of the slain and an allowance to
the wounded. All the while he was in the saddle directing the movements of his cavalry columns northward, hastening to any point of resistance.
With such a scorching at their heels the Jat armies
evacuated the country between the Amu and the Syr.
Prince Ilias, assembling his divisions in the northern
plain, was approached by two riders from his home-land
beyond the mountains. They dismounted, and saluted
him as Khan, saying that his father Tugluk had left
the land of the living and had gone beyond, into the




AT THE STONE BRIDGE


67


spirit world of the sky. Then they took the reins of
his horse and led him back to his tent.
Perforce Ilias Khan rode off to Almalyk, his city
on the road to Cathay. Bikijuk and two other Mongol
generals had been taken captive by Timur in a personal encounter-a swift flurry of weapons and hard
lashed ponies-and the new lord of Beyond the River
was tremendously content. He ordered a feast for the
veteran officers in his tent-praised them for their fidelity to the salt of the Khan, and asked curiously what
they wished him to do with them.
"It is for thee to decide," they answered him calmly.
"If we are put to death, many will seek revenge; if we
are permitted to live, many will befriend thee. It is
all one to us-when we girded our loins and put on our
armor we looked for death to come."
Amir Hussayn cautioned Timur that it would be a
mistake to spare a captured enemy, but it pleased the
young victor, having taken the Mongols with his own
hand and feasted them, to give them horses and set
them free.
Meanwhile he had retaken his Green City by a trick
he had learned from the desert men. Coming within
sight of the walls, he had scattered his men over the
countryside, ordering them to ride in all directions.
Some, becoming enthusiastic, had cut branches from
the poplar groves, and a prodigious dust arose. The
Jat garrison, beholding all the indications of scouts and
foragers in advance of a strong column, retreated at
once, and the Green City was spared a siege.
One of Timur's chroniclers pauses to remark that
"The Lord Timur, always fortunate in war, in this
year defeated an army by fire and captured a city by
dust."
Success, as always with the restless Tatars, became




68               TAMERLANE
more trying than adversity. Hussayn, resentful of
Timur's impetuosity, exacted money and privileges by
way of compensation, and Timur, moody, led the prince
of Kabul to a shrine and made him swear to remain
faithful to his comradeship. This Hussayn did, but
he resented being asked to give the oath. Both were
over-weary, and oppressed by their responsibilities and
the quarreling of their followers.
The chronicle adds that "To their camp came the
illustrious princess Aljai, who nursed the sick lords."




CHAPTER IX


THE BATTLE OF THE RAIN
THAT ILIAS KHAN SHOULD COME back was inevitable, and Timur went forward to meet him halfway-on the plain north of the Syr where the Mongols
liked to graze and refit their horses before launching
down into the Tatar countries. Ilias Khan came with
all the strength of the north, a disciplined and veteran
array, mounted on the best horses of Asia, well officered,
well armed-their horned standards shining above the
close packed squadrons of leather clad horsemen.
They were less numerous than the Tatars, but Timur
knew their worth and kept in touch with them by his
scouts until Amir Hussayn arrived on the scene with
his mountain clans.
For once all the power of the Tatars was united in
the field-the Barlas clan and the desert riders, the
Jalair chieftains, the troops of the great house of Selduz, Hussayn's warriors with the Ghur clans and Afghan volunteers who had scented the war from afar.
The helmeted men and the bahaturs had rallied to the
standards.
Nearly all were mounted-only the servants and
some regiments of spearmen and the herders guarded
the camp behind trenches. And they were not the irregular light cavalry that modern imagination associates
with Asia.
They wore armor, the fine steel mesh of Persian
make, pointed helmets with steel drop and coif to fasten
under the nose or chin to protect the throat. Double
69




70


TAMERLANE


mail or plates covered their shoulders. Some of the
horses had leather or mail body curtains and light steel
headpieces.
Besides the universal bow or bows, strengthened with
horn or spliced with steel, they carried scimitars, long
tulwars or the straight two-edged Persian blades. Their
spears were sometimes the light ten-foot lance with a
small tip, sometimes the shorter and heavier weapon
with an iron knob on the butt, intended for smashing
through armor. Most of the riders carried iron maces.
Their unit was the squadron, the hazara and the
regiment, commanded by ming-bashis, colonels. The
amirs were scattered throughout the array, and upon
them rested the burden of leadership in the actual fighting. About Timur and Hussayn were grouped the
amirs of their personal following, the tavachis, or courier officers-aides-de-camp.
Timur had divided his host into right wing, center
and left wing, and each in turn was drawn up in two
bodies, the main body and reserve. The right wing,
that he had made the stronger purposely-was under
Hussayn's command. The point of greatest danger,
the weaker left wing Timur took himself. With him
he had the Barlas lords, Amir Jaku and his fellows.
Timur was hopeful, exultant in this decisive test of
strength. The Tatars, beholding their own numbers,
and the dignity of their array became filled with confidence. And then it rained. A true spring storm of
the high steppes, lashing the ground and the men with
torrents and waging a battle of its own in the sky with
thunder chasing lightning. The ground, soft in the
beginning, became a morass of mud; the horses, chilled
and weakened, splashed around in mud up to their
bellies. The river added to the inundation by flooding
the gullies and lowlands. The men went about in




THE BATTLE OF THE RAIN


71


soggy garments, protecting their weapons as best they
could.
The chronicler explains sadly that this rain was a
trick of the Jat Mongols, whose magicians produced it
with the Yeddah stone.' And he adds that the Jats,
forewarned as to what was coming, had prepared themselves with heavy felt shelters and felt blankets for the
horses, and that they dug canals to drain their position.
Which is his way of saying that the invaders came
through the deluge of several days in much better condition than Timur's men. At all events, they mounted
fresh ponies and moved toward the Tatar camp.
Timur advanced to meet them, and after the usual
skirmishing of individual swordsmen, the advanced
regiments of his left flank charged the right wing of
the enemy. At once the Tatars were broken and driven
back. The Jats came in a mass at their heels, and
Timur's reserve cavalry wavered.
Faced by swift disaster, Timur ordered his drums to
sound an advance and plunged forward with his Barlas
men. Upon the sea of mud, the disordered regiments
lost all cohesion and separated into yelling groups, maddened by uncertainty.
Bows were useless in that wet-horses slid on their
rumps and the channels of yellow water became red
with blood. Steel was the only weapon that served,
and the clanging of blades, the screaming of horses, the
shouting of the warriors, and the war cry of the Tatars
-— Dar u gar!" made a bedlam of the plain.
Timur headed in toward the standard of the Jat wing
commander, and got close enough to strike at the Mongol general with his ax. The blow was parried by his
foeman's shield, and the Mongol rose in his stirrups to
It was an old tradition that the Mongols were apt at magic. The
chronicler proves the case to his own satisfaction, by explaining that the
next day when one of the magicians was killed, the rain ceased.




72


TAMERLANE


cut at Timur with his sword, when Jaku, who had kept
behind his lord, thrust the officer through with his
spear. The standard came down.
Again Timur sent word to sound his saddle drums
and cymbals, and the Mongols-always disheartened
by the loss of a standard-began to retreat. On that
plain no orderly retreat was possible, and the northern
riders broke, drawing clear after a time on their fresher
horses.
Riding to a hill, Timur tried to see what was happening elsewhere. Amir Hussayn had fared badly and
had been driven far back, only the stubborn resistance
of his reserve holding the Mongols in check. The centers of both armies had merged into this phase of the
conflict.
Timur signaled his men to reform, but this was slow
work. Too impatient to delay, he took what squadrons
were intact near him and charged into the right of the
Mongols who were engaging Hussayn. He had advanced so far that he was able to strike them almost
from the rear. At this unexpected onset they drew off.
Meanwhile Ilias Khan cautiously held back his reserve
and seemed disposed to retire altogether.
It was a glorious opportunity and Timur sent his own
courier to Hussayn to urge him to reform his divisions
without delay and advance.
"Am I a coward," Hussayn cried, "that he summons
me before my men?" He struck Timur's messenger in
the face and returned no answer.
Time was passing and Timur mastered his anger and
sent two officers who were relatives of the amir to Hussayn, to explain that Ilias was on the point of giving
way and that they must advance at once.
"Have I fled?"  Hussayn swore at them. "Why




MONGOL CLANS IN BATTLE. AN EXTREMELY EARLY EXAMPLE OF THE CHINO-PERSIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING
THAT DEVELOPED DURING TIMUR'S REIGN, REACHING
ITS ZENITH UNDER HIS SUCCESSORS, THE TIMURIDS.
Goloulb'w  Collection, Boston Mus'eul  of Fine Arts.  (Schulz)








THE BATTLE OF THE RAIN


73


then does he press me to go forward?, Give me time
to assemble my men."
"Khoudsarma," the messengers replied, "0 my Lord,
Timur is now engaged with the enemy's reserve.
Look!"
Either Hussayn's jealousy was aroused, or it was
impossible for him to get forward. Eventually Timur
had to draw back, before darkness set in. He camped
in the field, and, overcome by moodiness, would neither
go to see Hussayn nor listen to the amir's messengers.
He determined then that he would never go into battle
again with Hussayn as joint commander.
The next day brought more rain, but Timur still embittered went forward and engaged Ilias, alone. He
was beset by separate divisions of Mongols, and forced
to retreat. The ride back through the storm over the
marshes and flooded inlets covered with the masses of
the dead was rendered dismal by memory of his losses.
Chilled, shaken by bitterness he rode in silence, his
Barlas men following him at a distance. He had been
soundly defeated and he never forgave Hussayn for his
failure to support him.
Hussayn sent officers to him with various plans for
retiring into India but Timur in his present mood would
have none of that. "Let your road be to India or the
seven hells," he said. "What is it to me?"
He retired on Samarkand and saw that the city was
provisioned for a siege, then went on to his own valley
to recruit a fresh army while the Jats were occupied
with Samarkand.
And he found Aljai dead of a sudden sickness, buried
in her white shroud in a garden of his house.




CHAPTER X


THE TWO AMIRS
T   HE PASSING OF PRINCESS ALJAI removed the tie
that had held Timur and Hussayn together for
the last five years. Hussayn had treated his sister spitefully on more than one occasion, and Timur remembered it. He always brooded over personal grievances,
and now he mourned his wife. Taking his son Jahangir he moved south with the men of his clan, over the
river again, near to the spot where he had rested that
last summer with Aljai.
"To God we belong," the pious Zain ad-Din wrote
to him, "and to God we must return. To each of us
there is a place and an hour appointed for death."
But Timur was not a fatalist. The zeal of the mullahs and the imams roused no answering fire in him.
Outwardly, his calm seemed to be the peace of the
true believer, who admits that a man's destiny unrolls
before him and that salvation lies in the Law propounded by Muhammad; inwardly, Timur was tormented by questions he could not answer, and by the
savage desires that were his heritage from his ancestors.
He prayed at the appointed hours, and he took his
place in the ranks at the mosque readings, gravely attentive. For hours during the nights he sat at the chess
board, moving the miniature horsemen and ivory castles and elephants over the squares-as often as not
without a companion. When he played with an opponent he almost always won, and this was not policy
on the part of his officers. Timur was a master player.
74,.|




THE TWO AMIRS


75


To satisfy his study of the game he had a new board
made with double the number of squares and pieces.
On this he worked out new combinations, while the
five year old World Gripper sat by him on the carpet,
watching with dark eyes the maneuvers of the strange
and glittering toys that engrossed his father's attention.
And to Timur thus occupied came in haste mullahs
-the eyes and the secretaries of Islam-from Samarkand with a message.
"God hath lifted the collar of oppression from the
neck of the believer," they said. "Reverend and courageous expounders of the Law came from Bokhara to
Samarkand and roused the people of the city to bear
arms against the oppressors of the faithful-until our
Lords the princes should gain sufficient strength to resist them. Although the accursed enemy entered into
the suburbs, the inhabitants of Samarkand, even without their two princes, defended the wall and the streets,
so that the accursed enemy was driven out.
"Then by the will of God a plague spread among
the horses of the Jats. Three-fourths of the horses
died, so that they lacked even mounts for the couriers.
They retired from the country, most of them with their
quivers and packs on their backs and their swords on
their shoulders. Surely never before in this world was
an army of Jats seen walking afoot."
After the mullahs came officers of Timur who had
been watching events, and they confirmed the fact that
the townspeople of Samarkand had kept the city until
the Jats withdrew, adding that the disease among the
horses was so bad that Tatar cavalry following them up
had avoided the infected districts.
This sudden stroke of fortune brought Hussayn
back into the country. He made a triumphal entry
into Samarkand, the people-full of their own success




76


TAMERLANE


in beating off so formidable an enemy —exulting in
the occasion. Carpets were hung from windows and
roof parapets, the mosques were crowded and music
greeted the amir in every garden.
Hussayn and Timur were now the virtual rulers
from India to the Sea of Aral. Timur had, morally,
an equal claim with Hussayn. He had been the real
leader of the army, and his following was as great.
But Hussayn was the grandson of the King Maker and
son of a reigning prince. He chose the puppet Khan,
the figurehead whose one virtue was that he was a
tura, a descendant of Genghis Khan. With all the
proper ceremonies the Khan was seated in his palace,
and Hussayn undertook to rule as his grandfather had
done.
Timur, by force of circumstances, was now inferior
to Hussayn, who collected the taxes, gave judgments
and apportioned out land. One thing Timur insisted
upon-he must have his valley, and the district from
the Green City to his river.
"As far as the river is mine," he said decisively.
He bore himself with dignity, and his generosity
would endure no quarreling over exactions. When
Hussayn imposed a heavy head tax upon the Barlas
men, Timur protested that they had lost most of their
property at the last battle, but he himself paid Hussayn
the full amount, including by need or by moodiness
even the jewels of Aljai-the earrings and the pearl
necklaces she had worn on her bridal night. Hussayn
recognized the jewels but accepted them without comment.
The final quarrel between the leaders was brought
about by the turbulent amirs, their vassals. Hussayn,
in setting up his puppet khan, had given the Jats new
cause for invasion and in trying to reduce the amirs




THE TWO AMIRS


77


he made new enemies. When his companionship with
Timur ceased-by whose immediate fault, no one
knows-the result was civil war, and intrigue, castigated by periodic incursions of the Jats. For six years
the lands of the Tatars were an armed camp.
Through the dark days of struggle, Timur moved
like a disembodied spirit of war. His cold recklessness,
his utter disregard for his own safety and his open
handed generosity are unmistakable. Around the fires
at night the caravan people told tales of Lord Timur.
"Verily," said they, "he is well named, for there is
iron in him-yea, unbending iron."
Perhaps the favorite story in bazaar and camp was
of the taking of Karshi.
This was the city of the Veiled Prophet-now long
in his grave-of Khorassan. A certain man of religion
who had aroused the wonder and fanaticism of a multitude by showing them nightly at the bottom of his
well the rising moon-when there was no moon in the
sky. So they named him the Moon Maker, whom history knows as a trouble maker.
In Karshi Timur had built a stone fortress, and had
taken some pride in it. At this particular time Hussayn's forces were in possession of Karshi, citadel and
all. And Timur's men knew well the strength of the
place. Amir Musa commanded the three or four thousand men holding Karshi, and they knew Musa too.
He had held the stone bridge against Bikijuk. He
was an experienced soldier, too fond of wine and the
good things of the table, often careless but always to
be relied upon in a crisis.
Timur had with him at the time about two hundred
and forty men, and his officers, Amir Jaku, and Mouava
-who had fought beside Musa at the bridge —ad




78


TAMERLANE


Amir Daoud, a lover of hazard. But when he explained to them that he meant to take and hold Karshi
they were incredulous. They said it was too hot a
season to think of such action, and they had their families to safeguard.
"<O ye men of small wit," Timur railed at them,
"have I not sworn that your families shall be protected?"
"Nay, that is true," responded one of the amirs, "but
they are not behind walls."
"There are walls around Karshi," Timur laughed.
"Think ye-if we be masters of Karshi!"
They did think, but the prospect rendered even
Daoud silent, and Jaku shook his head. "Let us first
gather more strength, O my Lord. There is a time
for rashness and a time for caution and thought. Musa
hath followed the standards too long to be taken like
a woman on a camel."
"Then go thou to the women and ask to be taught!"
Timur said in his deep voice. "And I will keep with
me those who held the bridge against the Horde.
Thou, Mouava, and thou, Elchi! Are there others?"
Many voices proclaimed that they also had crossed
the river with Timur, and had made the Jats flee without their saddles.
"Then go ye to where your families wait. Nay, go
to the markets and boast thus of what is past. I will
draw my reins to Karshi with others."
They knew that he would, indeed, do this if they
hung back and they went off to discuss it together.
Once he had decided to do something, Timur was not
to be dissuaded. When he gave an order he never
changed it. This singleness of purpose caused loss of
life and misfortune at times that might well have been




THE TWO AMIRS


79


avoided; but it gave to Timur's decisions something
of the immutability of fate.
When his nobles came back to join him, Jaku held
in one hand a Koran, in the other a sword. "We have
sworn to follow thee, O my Lord, and here is the Koran
upon which we took oath. Here is a sword, and if we
obey thee not, strike life from us."
So they sat down again with zeal, to discuss ways of
drawing out Musa.
"O ye of little wit," Timur laughed, after he had
listened a while. "If ye induce the Amir to come out
with his three thousand, and ye but a hundred and another hundred and forty what will be the gain?"
"It would be better," spoke up Daoud, seeing his
companions silent, "to go secretly at night, and enter
Karshi and surprise Musa in his bed. Thus we could
take him."
"Yea, indeed it would be better," assented Timur
grimly. "And after that, will you go also to the beds
of his three thousand?"
"All things are in the hands of God," Daoud defended himself. "Musa knows well that we are here,
and he will not be drawn out while we are here. His
Lord ordered him to maintain Karshi and Musa will
do nothing otherwise."
"If I," Timur mused aloud, "should send a summons to Musa to go down to the meadows by the river
and satisfy his thirst with wine, and his discomfort with
coolness, would he do so?"
Daoud smiled, because it was the middle of the dry
season, and they-free to choose the open camping
places of the plain-were sitting coatless and damp
with sweat, while Karshi must have been intolerable
behind the walls. The citadel was a winter, not a summer resort, and Musa's fondness for the jug and feast



80


TAMERLANE


ing was well known. "God forbid," he said. "He
would like to go, but he would not."
"Then I will not invite him," Timur made response.
And he said nothing more to his companions. In
fact he seemed to change his mind about making an
attempt at Karshi, because he sent couriers with greeting and gifts to the Malik of Herat in the south. He
moved with his men down to the Khorassan road leading to Herat. There on the plain of ridged yellow
clay along the edge of the sand dunes, he pitched his
tents in spite of the heat, by the Well of Isaac.
For a month, until his galloper came back, he halted
at the well all north-bound caravans. His messenger
as he had expected brought back return gifts and a letter of salutation from the Malik, bidding Timur visit
him. There was by that time quite a concourse about
the well, and the news proclaimed by the messenger
became common property.
The next day, Timur released the caravans and made
evident preparations himself for departure. The merchants begged him for an escort to protect them from
other bodies of his men, and he explained that he had
no followers on the road to Karshi. Then he rode off
swiftly to the south with his two hundred and fortythe caravans going on to the north, to cross the Amu
and arrive at Karshi.
There Musa questioned them and learned that
Timur had undoubtedly gone on toward Herat, evidently planning to take refuge with the Malik. Immediately Musa moved out to a pleasanter site, in the
meadows Timur had mentioned, where, according to
the chronicle, he "unrolled the carpet of feasting and
unsealed the wine jar of intoxication." But he left his
son with several hundred men to hold the fortress of
Karshi.




THE TWO AMIRS


8i


Timur waited at his next camp a week or so, to give
the caravans time to reach Karshi, then he returned to
the Amu by a single forced march. He did not stop
at the river, but urged his horse at once into the current and swam across, forty of his riders daring to follow him.
Then boats were sent back for the others, the forty
jeering at them when they came up. They spent that
night out of sight of the road-a score of men being
sent at dawn to hold up all travelers on the way to
Karshi. After the next sunset they mounted again and
rode through the night across the open plain to a well
near the outskirts of Karshi. Here they halted as long
as daylight lasted, hidden in the wormwood and tamarisk growth. All of Musa's people who happened to
visit the well were kept there as prisoners, and Timur
set his own men and the captives to work making ladders of sorts and ropes. When darkness set in, they
mounted, taking the ladders but leaving the prisoners
under guard.
"We have come very fast," Jaku said, "and not all
our people are up with us. This venture is important,
and so it would be well to move forward slowly and
take no risks."
"Do thou bring the men on slowly," Timur assented,
"and I will ride ahead to look at the wall and select
a place for the ladders."
Accompanied by only two men he galloped on, until
they saw the loom of the towers through the trees, and
dismounted. One of the warriors remained with the
horses, but Timur's servant Abdullah would not leave
him. The two walked forward until they saw the
water of the moat gleaming before their feet. For a
while they listened, hearing nothing from within the
place.




82


TAMERLANE


Following the edge of the moat they came to the
spot where the open aqueduct of the fort crossed it-a
stone trough, knee deep in water. Into this Timur
climbed, Abdullah following. From the aqueduct he
dropped to the edge of earth that projected under the
wall on the castle side.
Along this he felt his way until he reached the
wooden framework of a gate. After listening for some
time, he knocked on the gate. What deviltry inspired
him to do so is not apparent. At all events he found
the gate to be walled up within and no one answered
his knock.
Resuming his prowl he searched until he made certain of a place where the wall had breached at the top,
an easy point of access. He then showed it to Abdullah, and assured himself that his servant would find it
again. Not until then did he return to his horse, and
ride back to his men who were waiting beyond the
walls. Forty-three of them were told off to guard the
horses-leaving about a hundred for the storming
party.
Timur again left them, to seek his breach, while Abdullah ushered up separate groups to the aqueduct and
guided them across. They found Timur sitting on the
wall, and he gave them orders what to do next.
Some were sent to round up whatever sentries might
be inside the wall. They found all Musa's watchers
asleep, at that hour near dawn. There was some fighting at the citadel itself, but Timur assembled all his
men there and-it being now sunrise —sounded his
horns from the tower.
All the inhabitants of Karshi rolled out of their quilts
to hurry to the flat housetops and learn the meaning
of this strange reveille. Not knowing what Timur's
strength might be, and utterly taken by surprise, most




THE TWO AMIRS


83


of Musa's officers came in to the citadel to offer submission, and when Timur had talked with them, they
agreed to join him. Only Musa's son resisted, defending his house. But when fire was thrown in through
the embrasures he came out with his sword around his
neck and yielded himself.
Timur praised his bravery, but kept him in Karshisending out the rest of Musa's family to the amir down
in the meadows.
"Our Lord's good fortune gave us the city," Jaku
said afterward. "And we who follow him have increased our glory."
It seemed to them little less than miraculous that
Timur was able, thereafter, to hold the fortress of
Karshi against Hussayn's thousands. Victory, in their
minds, was the gift of God, and defeat not otherwise.
The venerable Zain ad-Din and his mullahs warned
them of this, ceaselessly.
But these lords of Tatary were incorrigibly wayward; for hours they would sit entranced in front of
a dirty dervish who, intoxicated with fervor, screamed
at them of sanctity and the wonders of Muhammad's
paradise; at other moments they spat and gibed at all
mullahs: "It takes two preachers to make a man; one
makes only a woman."
They were troubled by visions. They would take to
horse and flee from the portent of an evil dream, or an
omen. And yet, faced by inevitable death during battle, they would cast off their helmets and shout aloud,
that others might envy them their moment of glory.
They were jealous of their personal honor, and shame,
to their spirits, was more trying than suffering. "What
is profit without honor?" they echoed the saying of the
Arabs.




CHAPTER XI


ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
IN THESE UNCERTAIN YEARS OF STRIFE they turned
their eyes more and more to Timur. His personal
daring stirred their admiration; his escapades and triumphs became their gossip. Even they who were in
the field against him liked to listen to the tales of Lord
Timur. His courage was the one solid thing in their
restless fancies.
Several of them grew tired of Hussayn and came
over to his standard. Mangali Boga, one of the older
nomad chieftains of Mongol stock, rode up without so
much as announcing himself and sat down among
Timur's lords. Mangali had been one of his most impetuous opponents-had offered once to bring Timur
in a captive, if six thousand men were given him.
"Now that I have eaten Lord Timur's salt," he said,
"I will not turn my face to any other man."
Upon no greater thing than Timur's reckless leadership and the loyalty of these men was founded the dominion that history knows as Tamerlane's empire.
It was Mangali who won a battle for Timur indlater
years by his quick wit. The Tatars, an isolated division of them, were engaged with Kara Yussuf, chieftain of the Black Sheep Turkomans. Timur's men
were hard pressed on all sides and felt the issue going
against them, when Mangali withdrew from his officers and searched the ground until he found what he
wanted, a Turkoman's severed head with its long beard
and shaven pate.
84




ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD


85


This head Mangali thrust upon his lance tip and
spurred into the leading Tatar ranks, shouting that
Kara Yussuf was slain. The Tatars were encouraged
and all the foemen within hearing correspondingly depressed. Before long the Turkomans gave way, carrying back with them in their flight the very much alive
and angry Kara Yussuf.
More than once these sagacious and headstrong Tatar
lords saved their master at the edge of the grave. A
story is told of Elchi Bahatur, the Valiant Envoy. Like
Prince Murat of Napoleon's suite, he was fond of
plumed head-gear and gilded boots. Perhaps on account of the magnificence of his appearance, perhaps
because of his bravado he was often chosen to go to
other courts as ambassador. But he appears regularly
throughout the fighting —plumes, boots and all.
On this particular occasion Timur had returned from
beating off a raid of the Jats, and was searching for the
hostile forces of the kings of Badakshan, in the higher
ranges where the Amur takes its rise.
The mountain kings drew back steadily, up into the
treeless solitude where the snow lay deep, and the projecting rocks were worn by ages of storms. Here in
the gorges glaciers crawled like inanimate snakes, and
the schist of the gorge walls gleaming red and purple.
And here the two small armies played at hide-andseek around the peaks, sliding down thousand foot
slopes, and sitting out snow flurries huddled together
like sheep.
A courier reached Timur with word that his advance
guard had been cut off and captured by the Badakshanis
who were retiring with their prisoners by still another
ravine.
It was part of the rigid code of the Tatars that no
leader should abandon his men while it was humanly




86


TAMERLANE


possible to reach them. But the warriors with Timur
could see no chance of aiding their comrades. Timur
was stirred into a passion by their weariness and lack of
hope. He summoned them to mount and set out with
the courier for a guide, to seek for a way along the
heights that would bring him out in the ravine the
Badakshanis were moving down.
His men lagged along the ice-coated paths, where
every now and then a horse and rider would slip and
slide head over tail into eternity. Timur pressed ahead
so rapidly that only thirteen were with him when he
came out in the gorge and hastened to seize the summit
of a pass before the Badakshan forces could reach it.
With his thirteen, among them Elchi Bahatur,-he took
up his position in the rocks along the ridge and engaged
the advance of the mountaineers with bows.
Only fifty warriors were in the first party of the
enemy, but two hundred more appeared down the ravine. Elchi Bahatur at this point executed a flank
movement of his own, riding alone down the side of the
ravine, and loping toward the oncoming two hundred.
Sight of him in his sable cloak, bound with a flaming
girdle, and his bearskin head-gear made them pause.
He came, apparently, from nowhere and he was undoubtedly riding a blood stallion. His bow was in
its case, his sword in its sheath of ivory inlaid with
gold.
"Hai, ye sons of many fathers," Elchi hailed them.
"Draw rein and look. That man up there is Lord
Timur."
Riding in among them, as if a battle were the least
thing in his mind, the Tatar pointed out to them carefully the figure of Timur in the familiar crested helmet, among the flying arrows.
"Think," Elchi advised them gravely, "if ye are




ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD


87


slain, even your families will call you fools. What
good to be slain here-now-when Lord Timur is between you and safety?, It would be better to make a
truce. Much better to gather together the captives and
thus gain his good-will by sending them to him."
So Elchi blandished them. And they, all uncertain,
dismounted to bow before him-convinced that the
Tatars were in strength, if a lord like this came among
them unescorted. Elchi dismounted also, and stroked
-so the chronicle has it-the backs of their necks.
Soon the arrows ceased, and the captives were brought
forward to Elchi who eyed them critically.
"Will ye send his own men to Lord Timur like
cattle, without their swords?" he reproved the Badakshanis. "They had swords when ye took them."
The mountaineers were sadly bewildered. They
could see the dreaded Timur over there on the ridge,
apparently awaiting them. Their road to safety was
blocked. In the end they did all that Elchi had advised-the plundered weapons were restored-and
Elchi led his six hundred rescued Tatars over the ridge,
and announced to Timur that the Badakshanis were
waiting to kiss his stirrup.
At once Timur went down, and the men of Badakshan who had been more frightened than hostile in the
beginning, swore a peace on their bow-cases. Timur
and Elchi kept them occupied in talk until the lagging
contingents of Tatars came up.
"This is not a fit place for sitting down," the fastidious ambassador then said. "Here there is nothing
to eat or sleep in but the snow."
The Badakshani chieftains suggested that they all
go to the villages, and so they trooped down from the
roof of the world to feast.
This affair of Elchi the Valiant is pure gasconade.




88


TAMERLANE


One is reminded of Marshal Murat waving his handkerchief at the Austrians upon the bridge of Vienna,
and coming over to sit on the Austrian cannon while
his Frenchmen removed the mines that had been placed
under the bridge.
A year or so later Elchi Bahatur died attempting to
swim his horse across a river.
They knew, these lords of Tatary, that their lives
would not long endure under Timur's leadership.
But he shared their risks and his body bore as many
wounds as theirs. Days passed with him were filled
with exulting, and his nobles went singing into conflict, as the Viking berserks had done before them.
"It is a time," he said to them once, "of dancing for
warriors. The dancing ground is the field of battle,
the music is the battle shout and the whining of steel,
and the wine poured out is the blood of your enemies."
At the end of the six years the majority of the Tatar
lords had sworn allegiance to Timur. In the beginning he had been called a kazak, a wandering fighter
who did not stay more than twenty-four hours in one
spot-a word that survives to-day in the Cossacks of
these same steppes. Now he was warlord, leader of a
host. When Musa's people, the Jalairs, joined his
standard the end was in sight. The Jalairs were half
Mongol, and they could gather together an army as
numerous and formidable as the army of England that
had won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers less than a
generation before. And Timur's eldest son had been
born of a Jalair mother.
In the face of such a host led by such a warrior as
Timur, the power of Hussayn melted away as snow
melts before the spring rains. He was driven south of
the Amu, hunted through the hills, cornered in Balkh.
s9.




STORMING A MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLD. SUCH
FORTRESSES WERE CONSTANTLY IN THE
PATH OF THE TATAR CONQUEROR, ESPECIALLY IN BADAKSHAN AND KHORASSAN
AND THE CAUCASUS. A CONTEMPORANEOUS
PAINTING. (Schulz)
'6  '_4f




i~I




ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD


89


The city fell almost at once, and Hussayn, hidden in
the ruins, sent a last overture to Timur-a pledge that
he would abandon his country and go off to Mecca, a
pilgrim.
Accounts vary as to what followed. Some say that
Timur promised Hussayn his life if he would come in
and give himself up; but Hussayn, changing his mind
at the last moment, disguised himself and hid anew in
the minaret balcony of a mosque-where he was found
either by the caller-to-prayer who ascended the tower
the next dawn, or by a soldier who had lost his horse
and had gone to the tower to look for it.
How Hussayn met his dekth is equally uncertain.
It seems that the Tatar leaders gathered in council to
discuss his fate and that Timur left the council, saying,
"Amir Hussayn and I vowed friendship, and he is safe
from harm at my hand." A second version is that
Mouava and another officer slipped away from the
gathering without letting Timur know their purpose
and slew Hussayn after pretending to let him escape.
The truth of the matter is that Timur allowed his
rival to be put to death. The chronicle says, "It was
the hour and the place appointed for Hussayn and no
man may escape his fate."




CHAPTER XII


ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS
TIMUR LINGERED AT BALKH with a purpose. In
this heat-ridden valley where sugar-cane grew by
the dry beds of streams, caravans plodded past Indiabound from the Land of the Sun, and the mountain
kings came down from their trails. It was a place of
memories and the dust of centuries hung in the air.
Somewhere under the clay and rubble of soft stone
lay the remnants of a temple built by fire worshipers in
the beginning of time. Strewn around underfoot were
the particles of a figure of Buddha that had stood once
in a court filled with a concourse of yellow-robed pilgrims. Men called this place the Mother of CitiesAlexander had known it as Bactria-and now it was
spoken of as Kubat al Islam, the Metropolis of Islam.
The horde of Genghis Khan had left it a vast and uninhabited ruin, around which new shrines and mosques
had grown up-a place of graves. Subsequently Timur
rebuilt it.
Now he waited near where Hussayn lay in his
shroud, his sightless eyes turned toward Mecca. With
Hussayn dead, the Tatar chieftains must choose a new
prince. Such was the law laid down by Genghis Khan.
The law also said that the prince must be a descendant
of the Mongol Kha Khan-a tura of the blood of Genghis Khan.
To this kurultai, this council of the heads of clans,
hastened all the petty rulers from the passes of India
to the steppes of the northern hordes. And down to
90




ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS


91


the council marched imposingly the turbaned folk, the
Iranian princes, the ulama or learned council of Bokhara-heads of academies, servants of the Church and
masters of disputing. With them appeared the imams,
the leaders of the faithful, among these Zain ad-Din in
his white robes and voluminous turban, his shrewd eyes
a little dimmed by age. Also his companion, the venerable monk Khoja Beha ad-Din, who was revered as
a saint in the lands of Beyond the River. While the
army and the church gathered to discuss him, Timur
remained apart with his son Jahangir.
Some princes dared oppose Timur's election. "Let
us now divide the lands in a brotherly manner," said
the spokesman of the Badakshan clans, "each ruling his
own province and uniting together to resist invasion."
Timur's veteran amirs pointed out the folly of that.
"An elder brother is needed," they said. "If you divide, and form separate kingdoms the Jats will come
and overwhelm you."
The strongest chieftains desired to return to the old
order of things. "It is contrary to our code of law that
any of us should be ruler; we should choose some one
of the posterity of Genghis Khan to be our head, and
Timur to be his deputy."
Whereupon a monk whose name was The Father of
Blessings arose and made clear the choice of the church.
"It is contrary to the law of Muhammad," he began,
"that his followers should be servants of you who are
infidels.1 As to Genghis Khan, he was a dweller in the
desert who by violence and his sword conquered the
Muhammadans. Now, at this moment, the sword of
Timur is not less than Genghis Khan's."
1 They were Jalair and Selduz chieftains, Tatars of the old strain. To
such men the code of Genghis Khan was still the law. At this council of
Balkh for the first time in the hundred and forty years since the death of
Genghis Khan, the Tatar princes voluntarily departed from the old custom.




92               TAMERLANE
And he harangued the warriors, until out of their
silent meditation grew enthusiasm.
"You all fled from Hussayn, concealing yourselves
in the desert. Not until Timur advanced against him
did you quit your hiding corners. He did not ask for
your help to subdue his enemy, nor does he now ask
it. I have spoken to you hitherto as Tatars, but I know
you are also Muhammadans. And I, who am descendant of the grandson of Muhammad, in consultation with
the other descendants and the leaders of the faith, look
upon Timur as Lord of Beyond the River-yea and all
the plains of Turan."
So spoke the church, not because Timur was a devout
follower of Muhammad but because he alone seemed
able to restore order out of chaos, and to resist the
northern hordes who were the old enemies of Islam.
What made Timur's election inevitable was the desire
of the warriors-the men of the ranks-who insisted
upon no other ruler.
The next day all the princes and the elders of the
tribes waited upon Timur at his pavilion and bent the
knee to him, taking him by the arms and leading him
to the white felt upon which he was to sit as their lord
and master. This was the old ritual of the Mongol
clans. Thus the helmeted men gave their allegiance.
But the church had its hand in what we may call the
coronation. Zain ad-Din carried from one amir to
another a copy of the Koran and asked them to swear
to obey no man except Timur. We moderns would
call this a gesture, of submission, of acknowledgment
-since Timur was already virtually their leader. But
such a gesture, to these men, meant much.
From now on Timur the warrior would be Timur
the Amir, and they would eat of his salt. Fidelity to
him would be their honor, and treachery would bring




ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS


93


shame upon their names and the spirits of their sons.
Timur would be arbiter of their quarrels, guardian of
their property. If he failed them, they were privileged to hold another council, and choose another Amir.
Standing on the carpet before the new Amir, Zainad-Din lifted his voice: "It is the will of God that thou
shouldst conquer; thou wilt grow in power, and Islam
through thee."
But the man who sat upright in the low ebony throne
on the white felt, smiled at the noisy disputation of the
monks from Bokhara and the assemblage of the sayyids,
as to which should have the position nearest his right
hand. There was no mark of Islam upon him; his
head was not shaved, and he wore armor-linked bands
of polished steel and spreading shoulder pieces and a
black helmet that came down over his ears and neck,
inlaid with gold.
To his new vassals he made gifts of all he had,
blooded horses, robes, weapons and rich saddles. To
their pavilions that night he sent trays of food and
fruit. And the sayyids who had thronged into his tent
to make manifest their affection for him, protested at
his lavishness in giving.
"If I am indeed the King," he answered them, "all
wealth is mine. And if I am not the King, what will
it avail me to keep what I already have?"
The following day he appointed his new ministers
and officers and the members of his council. Among
the men chosen appear familiar names. Amir Daoud
received the government of Samarkand and became
leader of the divan or council. Amir Jaku of the Barlas clan, now gray with age, was honored with a standard and the right of beating drums before him, and was
appointed one of the tavachis, or aides-de-camp.




94


TAMIERLANE


In the list of regimental commanders the names of
two strangers are mentioned, one of Mongol, the other
of Arab descent-Khitai Bahatur, and Shaikh Ali
Bahatur.
One thing was apparent from the beginning. Amir
Timur would have no favorites. Many like Zain adDin had the right of entrance to his quarters at all
times, but they influenced him no more than others.
He kept all the reins of his government in his own
hands, and he allowed himself to be advised but never
overruled. This singleness of purpose was unusual in
an Asiatic monarch, and unexpected in Timur, who had
been careless of his private affairs until now.
And he was swift to strike at any opposition. Adherents of Hussayn were attacked before the court left
Balkh, and the captives were chained or beheaded, their
buildings burned or pulled down until nothing remained of their strongholds. He had been keeping a
wary eye on the Jat Mongols, and now yearly expeditions were launched into the northern mountains, with
orders to use steel and fire unsparingly. Timur was
evidently convinced that the best defense of his border
was an attack. And he found that a Jat Mongol on the
defensive was not as formidable as one attacking.
Given a taste of their own medicine, the Jat clans
abandoned the frontier valleys and moved north over
the passes toward their citadel, Almalyk. Thither
Timur did not follow them for the present. A new
order of things was taking shape under his hand between the river Syr and India, and his wayward Tatars
were given an altogether novel idea of discipline. Two
of his amirs had been sent north to punish certain Jat
clans; finding the pasture lands of these tribes abandoned, the amirs naturally turned back to the court, believing their mission at an end.




ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS


95


While they were fording the Syr, cheerful in anticipation of rest and feasting after their fruitless jaunt,
they encountered a cavalry division very much like their
own moving north. They asked whither it was bound.
"Verily," they were told, "to find the Jat hordes
you did not find."
At first the amirs were angry, then they became
thoughtful. Instead of going on to Timur they turned
about and accompanied the second division. It was a
year later that the united force appeared at Samarkand
after staying out the winter in the higher ranges. But
they brought back with them the cattle of the Jats and
a tally of heads and devastated villages. Timur praised
them all and rewarded them all alike, saying nothing
about the failure of the first attempt of the two amirs.
If he had done so they would have considered themselves dishonored, and would have withdrawn with
their men from his following to start a blood feud.
Other chieftains, being aggrieved or feeling independent, did go off to their strongholds, only to find
within a month or so regiments of Timur's riders quartered about their walls. They were herded out of their
retirement and brought to the carpet of the Amir —and
given presents. An officer who fled from a battle was
sought out and deprived of his weapons-bound upon
the pack saddle of an ass, face to tail. For days he
was paraded in this manner through the streets of
Samarkand, listening to laughter and jeers.
Prince Kaikosru of Katlan, a Persian of a distinguished family, abandoned Timur before the enemy
in the desert of Khiva. The hard fighting Tatars went
on into battle-it was here that Elchi Bahatur died,
swimming his horse across the river at the heels of
Shaikh Ali Bahatur and Khitai Bahatur-and were victorious. But Kaikosru was hunted down, seized and




96


TAMERLANE


brought to trial by the amirs and judges, and without
delay he was put to death.
"It is good to obey our Lord," the Tatars who had
served Timur before now assured the new vassals.
"They lie, who say otherwise."
Among the newcomers were sons of the Jat Mongols
who had found resistance useless-Bayan, son of Bikijuk, who remembered that his father's life had been
spared by the man who was now Amir, and Khitai
Bahatur, the Valiant Cathayan, a morose and quick
tempered chieftain who wore a leather tunic with a
horse's mane falling from its shoulders. In a curious
way he struck up an enduring comradeship with the
equally hot tempered Shaikh Ali.
The two of them were in command of an advance
division searching for the Jats, who were at last discovered encamped in force across a small river. The
bahaturs halted on the near bank, and after some days
sat down together to discuss what was to be done.
Khitai believed in caution, and explained various
maneuvers that would bring them across the stream
without coming into conflict with the Jat horsemen.
Shaikh Ali listened in silence, evidently having no
plan of his own. But Khitai took his silence for disapproval and perhaps for suspicion-Khitai being of
Mongol descent.
"What is in thy mind?" he asked bluntly.
"By Allah," the shaikh responded idly, "I think
that is how a Mongol fights."
Blood darkened the face of the warrior from the
steppes, and he rose from his place. "Look," he said
grimly, "and thou wilt see how a Mongol bears himself."
While Shaikh Ali raised himself to an elbow to
watch, Khitai called for his horse, and without saddling




ZAIN AD-DIN SPEAKS


97


it, started across the river. He rode in among the
surprised Jats, and cut down the two first men he met.
Then he was attacked and hemmed in by a number of
riders.
Shaikh Ali's curiosity changed to astonishment. He
sprang up, shouting to his servants to bring his horse.
Swinging himself into the saddle he plunged through
the stream. Scimitar in hand he flung himself among
the circling horsemen until he was at Khitai's side.
"Thou art mad," he shouted at the Cathayan, "to
draw thy rein hither. Go back!"
"Nay-go thou back."
With a muttered "God forbid," Shaikh Ali took his
stand beside Khitai, and the Jats closed in around the
two of them, until their followers who had scrambled
after them could cut them free and lead them back.
Then they sat down together again, their spirits
calmed by action, and resumed the discussion in perfect accord.




CHAPTER XIII


THE AFFAIR OF THE SUFIS
T   O CURB SUCH MEN and lead them, was Timur's
task. It needed wisdom and an unbending will.
They said of him approvingly, "He judges rightly,
and he rewards greatly." And they waited expectantly
to see how he would receive the envoys sent to greet
him-and to spy upon him-by his neighbors across
the desert.
These neighbors were powerful and had long profited by raiding the Tatars during the years of anarchy.
One, the Sufi of Kharesm, lord of Khiva and Urganj
and the Sea of Aral, owed allegiance after a fashion
to the Jat Khans, and he was a Jalair by birth. But
he remembered Timur only as a wanderer who had
struggled for life with the Turkoman tribesmen in
the red sands. The city of Urganj at the mouth of
the Amu was a flourishing center of trade, its walls
were high and the Sufi did not lack pride.
He sent costly gifts, and Timur gave to his envoy
still richer presents, requesting that Khan Zade, the
daughter of the Sufi who was noted for beauty, should
be given as a wife to his son Jahangir. Friendly as this
suggestion seemed, it meant that Timur chose to look
upon the Sufi as his vassal-that Timur intended to
claim the privileges of the Jat Khan, and the old
boundaries of the Khanship.
"I have conquered Kharesm with the sword," the
Sufi sent response, "and only with the sword can it
be won from me."
98




THE AFFAIR OF THE SUFIS


99


Timur would have marched at once into the desert,
but a certain devout Muhammadan persuaded the lord
of Samarkand to wait until he could go and urge the
Sufi to come to agreement with the Tatars. The emissary of the church was imprisoned by the Sufi, and
Timur was no longer to be restrained.
He summoned his amirs to the standard, retraced
the course of his former wandering-was deserted by
Kaikosru of Katlan and stormed the city of Khiva
without engines of any kind. His men filled the dry
ditch with brush and mounted on ladders.
Shaikh Ali, the chronicle says, was the first to put
his hand over the rampart, when the officer behind him,
jealous of his achievement, seized him by the ankle
and pulled him down into the ditch-going himself to
the summit of the wall and holding off the Khivans
until his companions had a footing beside him. By this
mad onrush Khiva fell to Timur, and he moved against
Urganj where the Sufi had taken refuge. Here siege
engines were needed, stone casters and mangonels, and
while they were building, a message came to his camp
from the Sufi.
"Why destroy so many of our followers? Let thou
and I decide our quarrel with no man's hand between
us. Let him be victor upon whose hand blood runs
from the sword channels."
The Sufi's envoy named an hour for the duel, and
a place-the level ground outside one of the main gates
of the city.
All of Timur's amirs within hearing protested instantly. Bayan, the son of Bikijuk cried out: "Prince,
it is now our task to fight; your place is the throne
and the canopy of command, and it is not fitting you
should leave it."
All of them begged for permission to take his place




100


TAMERLANE


in this contest, but Timur pointed out that the prince
of Kharesm had challenged him, not an officer. To
the envoy he announced that he would be before the
gate, alone.
Under the troubled eyes of his amirs when the appointed time came, Timur put on light link mail-his
swordbearer thrust the shield high on his left arm,
and girdled the scimitar above his hips. Timur placed
the familiar black and gold helmet on his head and
shoulders and limped out to his horse, supremely
happy.
He was riding off when the aged Saif ad-Din ran out
from among the officers and caught his rein, falling
on his knees and crying that Timur should not go out
to fight like a common man. The Amir made no response. Drawing his sword he struck at his too-zealous
servant with the flat of the blade. Saif ad-Din released the rein and fell back to avoid the blow.
Alone Timur trotted out of his camp, through the
line of the siege engines, already thronged with silent
watchers, across the intervening plain to the closed gate
of Urganj.
"Say to thy lord, Yussuf Sufi," he called to the
Khivans who crowded the gate towers, "that the Amir
awaits him."
It was a mad kind of daring, obstinate and admirable.
Timur, the Amir, was still the lover of combat-too
reckless to think of issues greater than his own mood.
Sitting so in the saddle of his bay charger, Brown Lad,
under a hundred bows, waiting impatiently for his
enemy to appear, we see the true Timur, at once the
greatness and the failing of him.
Yussuf Sufi never came forth. Timur called out at
length, "He who breaks his word shall lose his life."
Then, he wheeled his horse and paced back to his




THE AFFAIR OF THE SUFIS


101


own lines. He must have been chagrined and far
from content, but at his coming his amirs and lords of
the regiments streamed out to meet him, and from the
thousands who had watched him swelled a roaring
greeting. Kettledrums thundered through the clashing of cymbals and the deep clamor of the long battle
trumpets, until horses neighed and reared and cattle
bellowed. There was no mistaking the feeling of his
men.
Timur's angry words proved prophetic, because
Yussuf Sufi fell sick presently and at his death the city
was given up. It was agreed that the girl Khan Zade
should be sent to the conquerors as Jahangir's bride,
and Kharesm with the great city of Urganj was made
into a province to be administered by Timur's eldest
son. In this way the dominion once ruled by the
King Maker was extended west and north. And the
western Jalairs were united to their cousins of Beyond
the River.
So it was with a larger army that Timur advanced
before long to pay his respects to his neighbor in the
south, across the river. At least fifty thousand men
trotted through the echoing defile that was called the
Iron Gate, their baggage carts rumbling after them
between the sheer walls of red sandstone.
The affair had begun with the usual punctilious
diplomacy. The Malik of Herat was a youth named
Ghiath ad-Din, the son of that Malik who had taken
refuge with the King Maker aforetime. In due course
Timur invited Ghiath ad-Din to attend one of his
yearly councils, and this invitation meant that the Amir
was ready to receive the Malik as a vassal.
Whereupon the lord of Herat expressed his pleasure
at such a request and said that he would gladly go to




102


TAMERLANE


Samarkand if the venerable Saif ad-Din were sent to
escort him. So Timur dispatched the eldest of his
amirs to Herat. But Saif ad-Din returned alone to
say that the Malik had only made pretense of getting
presents together, and had really no intention of coming. Instead he was building a new wall around Herat.
Timur then sent an ambassador who was detained
by the prudent Ghiath ad-Din. The Tatar standards
were lifted, and the host of the helmeted men moved
south, building a bridge of boats over the Amu, highly
elated at making war outside their own provinces.
They grazed their horses in the spring meadows,
climbed over the mountain passes, and turned aside
to sit down before Fushanj-the stronghold of Herat
where Ghiath ad-Din had placed a garrison. Timur
was in no mood to delay, and a direct assault began
at once-the water ditch covered over with planks, and
ladders placed under a barrage of missiles.
To encourage his men Timur went among them
without his armor and was wounded twice with arrows.
At the heads of the storming parties Shaikh Ali, and
Mubarak-the officer who had pulled him down at
Urganj-and the son of Elchi were at their old rivalry. Under the steady din of the drums, the Tatars
swarmed at the walls, until some of their number,
prowling about the ditch, discovered or broke into an
aqueduct and waded into the city sword in hand.
Others surged through the opening and cleared a section of the wall. Fushanj was a scene of headlong
pillage, the garrison cut down, the inhabitants flying.
Its fate brought gloom to Herat, and when Timur's
host met and drove back the sallies of the Malik's men,
Ghiath ad-Din the unfortunate began to bargain for
peace. He was received with honor, sent to Samarkand-his new wall razed, and his city ransomed.




THE AFFAIR OF THE SUFIS


103


The gates of Herat were carried off to the Green City,
with the treasure of the Maliks-silver money, uncut
precious stones, brocades and the gold thrones of the
dynasty.
The taking of Herat added a great city to Timur's
growing dominion, a true metropolis, nine thousand
paces in circuit, housing a quarter million souls. The
tally of the conquerors showed that there were in the
city several hundred colleges, and three thousand bath
houses, and nearly ten thousand shops. (At this time
London and Paris had certainly no more than sixty
thousand inhabitants each, and while there were schools
in Paris, history has no record of hot baths.) But the
Tatars were most astonished by the mills that were
turned by wind instead of water.
The chronicle says that after this victory Timur's
dominion became so secure that luxury was its only
enemy. These wars in miniature, the driving away of
the Jats, the overthrow of Yussuf Sufi and Ghiath adDin, were domestic affairs wherein gallantry and tactics
played their parts and strategy not at all. They demonstrated merely that Timur had become an exceptional leader, and that he had been prompt to make
himself master of the nearby powers that might have
threatened him-for in the beginning he was less strong
than the Malik of Herat. If he had fled years ago
from Hussayn to the protection of the Malik, instead
of turning back to KarshiBut in Timur there had arisen a leader who had
the instinct of a conqueror, and who was now in the
fullness of his strength. He was thirty-four when he
sat upon the white felt at Balkh, in the year 1369.
And beyond his borders, in all the quarters of the four
winds, warfare smoldered. Upon the track of the
Black Plague that swept from Asia into Europe earlier




104              TAMERLANE
in the century, unrest stirred, and dynasties fell. The
trade caravans turned aside into new channels. Men
sought the armed camps, and horsemen appeared in
deserted fields, and flame moved through the darkness.
Into this vaster battleground it was inevitable that
Timur should go.




Part Two


CHAPTER XIV
SAMARKAND
T WAS NOW EXPEDIENT that Timur should go to
Samarkand. The Green City had been the fairest
spot in Beyond the River, but Timur was now Amir of
a wide dominion, and Samarkand facing the gates of
the north was now the central point of his landswhich stretched, more or less, five hundred miles in
every direction.
Before moving his court, the Amir adorned his native
city. Over the grave of his father he built a small
tomb with a gilt dome; he tore down the old clay
palace where Aljai's beauty had made the hours resplendent. Upon the site he constructed a greater
edifice with courtyards and a lofty entrance arch. It
was made of white brick and the Tatars called it Ak
Sarai the White Palace. Hither came the Amir to pass
his winters when he was not out in the world with his
army. He was always glad to see the sun-filled
meadows of his own valley, and the snow peak that was
the Majesty of Solomon gleaming through the mists.
Tradition drew him to Samarkand and its halfruined palaces, rather than to Bokhara, then a smaller
place, with its academies and libraries. In Samarkand
in other years Alexander reveled and slew Clytus.
Here Genghis Khan had quartered his horde a hundred and fifty years ago.
"It is," said Ibn Batuta, who had traveled over more
I05




1o6


TAMERLANE


of the world than Marco Polo, "one of the greatest, the
fairest and the most magnificent of cities. It stands
on the bank of a river called the Potters' River, covered with water-mills and canals that water the gardens. At this river the people gather after the late
afternoon prayer, to amuse themselves and walk about.
Here there are balconies and sitting places, and stalls
where fruit is sold. Here are also large palaces and
monuments that bear witness to the high spirit of the
inhabitants. The greater part are ruined and a portion
of the city is also devastated-it has no wall or gates,
and there are no gardens outside the city itself."
So Timur found Samarkand, among its orchards and
mulberry groves. Warmed by the sheer sunlight of
the mountains, refreshed by the bracing northern air,
its people lived pleasantly. Because the tawny soil
yielded four crops a year, and clear water flowed in
the canals-and through the great aqueduct on the
embankment and from leaden pipes into every housethey had no great need to labor. They listened to the
clicking of their looms that wove the red cloth desired
in Europe-kirimzi, or cramoisy, that gave both color
and name to our crimson-and the dripping of their
water clocks. They made the finest paper in the world,
and the trade of the ends of the world passed through
their gates. It was equally good to listen to the astrologer who set up shop under an arch, or to sit and watch
the dancing of a trained goat. As for the ruins, they
were ruins. "What God has done," said the people of
Samarkand, "is well done."
They thronged to greet Timur out of policy, and
called him Lion and Conqueror and Lord of Good
Fortune. His splendor widened their eyes, but they
were connoisseurs in matters of apparel and they remembered that ten years ago he had passed among




t


A STIt' PRINCE ENTERTAINED BY HIS WOMEN.
(Blochlt)


t




'*.`- -.-~?
T. r" ~-;~,li~.,~-':;"""'' '-;
``` i
~,.?. g I




SAMARKAND


107


them like a shadow out of nowhere. Also that theyaided it is true by an epidemic-had driven off the
Border Mongols. They rejoiced, the silk-robed nobles,
and the saddlers and porcelain makers and horse merchants and slave traders, when Timur freed them from
taxation. But he requisitioned them for labor as well.
Under his eye the breached wall was repaired, and
wide avenues built from the city gates to the central
market-thoroughfares paved with stone flagging.
At his impatient command the hill to the south was
cleared of its rambling dwellings and the foundations
of a citadel laid.
Where his army camped in the suburbs from the city
to the river, roads were built and gardens walled off,
and cement tanks sunk into the ground. Stone-gray
granite-was dragged down on ox sleds from the
distant blue mountains, and craftsmen thronged into
Samarkand escorted by Tatar cavalry from Urganj or
Herat. Ambassadors moved sedately into the avenues
between the lines of poplars, and the hostelries of the
city were filled.
Even the color of the city changed, because blue was
the favorite color of the Tatars-being the hue of the
limitless sky and the deepest water and the highest
mountain ranges. Timur had seen the glazed blue
tiles of Herat, and instead of the dull clay brick, his
new buildings gleamed forth in fagades of turquoise
threaded through with gold and white lettering.
So the city was spoken of as the Gok-kand, the Blue
City.
And the men of Samarkand reflected that the Lord
Timur was not as other lords. "Under the hand of
Iron (Timur)" became a proverb. They drew aside
now when he rode down the avenues on his charger,
the long-limbed, golden-hued pacer Brown Lad, with




lo8


TAMERLANE


his lords of divisions and masters of wisdom at his
heels, crimson and silver flashing through the dust.
Seldom did they dare go before him for judgment
when he emerged from the inner door of a mosque
and stood in the shade of the arched entrance while
long-robed mullahs praised him and beggars appealed
shrilly to the Provider. For the tall Amir was patient
only with those who served him in war, and if two
citizens accused each other before him, his judgment
would be swift and the head of one might be slashed
off by a swordsman of the guard.
Long did the men of Samarkand remember the coming of Khan Zade, the King's Daughter, from Urganj
on the Aral sea. That day the highway from the west
was covered with carpets, and the soil of Timur's camp
with brocades.
Khan Zade came, veiled, in the litter of a white
camel, surrounded by swordsmen, followed by horses
and camels bearing her gifts. To meet her rode the
tavachis and amirs, under wind whipped standards and
billowing canopies.
That sunset when the dry wind swayed the pavilions,
yellow lanterns lighted the acacia trees in flower, and
the smoke of sandal and ambergris curled around the
mighty poles of the tents. Timur walked among the
feasters, his slaves scattered gold and pearls on the
turbaned heads of the guests.
"It was all surprising," cries the chronicler, "and
there was no place for melancholy, anywhere. The
ceiling of the great pavilion was made like the blue
sky in which shone stars of precious stones. The chamber of the bride was divided off by a curtain of gold
brocade, and it is true that the princess' bed was beautiful as that of Kaydesa, the queen of the Amazons."
The presents that the princess Khan Zade brought




SAMARKAND


o109


to her husband Jahangir were displayed, and Timur
filled the chambers of another pavilion with gifts on
behalf of his son-girdles of gold, money, uncut rubies,
musk, amber, silver brocades and satins, and worked
gold and silks of Cathay, robes, and the finest horses
and women slaves. The chronicler pauses to mention
these admiringly and to add that every day of the
festival one of these chambers was emptied.
Did Timur, watching his son and the dark haired
princess of Kharesm, remember that other night when
Aljai had come to him in the war camp, and the kettledrums had roared? Aljai had smiled when he walked
alone with her in the desert —"Surely our fate cannot
'be worse than this, that we should have to walk!"
Khan Zade's fate was otherwise. The first wife
of Jahangir, eldest son of a conqueror, master of a
court of his own, proud of her beauty, she dared rouse
Timur's anger.
"O my Lord," she said, "a conqueror is he who
pardons equally kings and beggars, and if they have
been guilty forgives them-because when an enemy
asks forgiveness he should no longer be looked upon
as an enemy. A conqueror when he gives, does not
seek for any return; he does not lean upon the friendship of any one man, or cast the weight of his anger
upon any one enemy, for all are beneath him and he
alone has power."
"Nay," Timur responded, "for I, who am served
by chieftains, am troubled by the words of a hermit."
He liked Khan Zade's wit, though he knew she
was pleading for his favor on behalf of her own kinsmen. It pleased him that Jahangir's first child by her
should be a son.
He himself had taken to wife Sarai Khanum, whose
husband had been Amir Hussayn. This was the cus



110


TAMERLANE


tom of the older Mongols-that the women of the
royal family should be taken into the household of the
new ruler when their husbands were slain. And Sarai
Khanum had in her veins the blood of Genghis Khan.
She was his consort, the great princess, mistress of
the household "behind the tent walls." When Timur
was in the field the court paid honor to her dignity.
She was virile as all the Tatar noblewomen of that day,
and often she rode to the hunts; about her silent fidelity
to the Amir centered the loyalty of the infant grandchildren.
The men of Samarkand saw little of Timur. But
tidings of him came in daily by courier or a camel
rider of the frontier patrol, or with the wagon train
that brought the tribute of a city that had opened its
gates to him. Quiet had settled upon Beyond the
River. He marched yearly to the west, along the
great Khorassan road, past Nisapur and the domes of
Meshed, to that other sea, the Caspian. Samarkand
heard that he had put an end to the strange monks, the
Sebsevars —Heads-to-the-Gibbet-who had played the
part of brigands, too long.
Less was known of his march to the north. But this
time he penetrated to the city of the Jat Mongols and
beyond, and tales were told in the caravan sarais of
Samarkand about the plains of the moving sands-the
Gobi. Kamar ad-Din, the last Mongol who dared
face him in battle, had been overthrown, even his horse
captured, and had fled alone.
"Before, we stamped out the sparks of a conflagration," Timur sent word to his son Jahangir who had not
gone to the north, "now we have put out the fire."
Upon the day of his return, down the thousand miles
of the north road to Cathay, the men of Samarkand




SAMARKAND


111,


went beyond the outer gardens to greet him. They
waited silently, clad in dark garments.
Saif ad-Din, oldest of the amirs, led a party of officers toward Timur. Upon their black cloaks they had
scattered dust. Timur reined in at sight of them, and
Saif ad-Din dismounted, going on foot to his stirrup
and clasping it without looking up.
"Dost thou fear?" said Timur. "Then speak!"
"There is no fear in my heart," responded Saif adDin. "In his youth, before his strength was full, thy
son is gone. Like a blown rose at the wind's touch, he
is gone from thee."
Jahangir's illness had not been reported to the Amir
his father, and he had died a few days before Timur's
return. Saif ad-Din, the prince's preceptor, had ventured to tell Timur of his loss.
"Mount, and take the place that is thine,' Timur
said presently. When the old amir had done so, the
signal was given to go forward, and at a foot pace-for
the news spread at once through the ranks-the army
entered Samarkand.
That night Jahangir's nakaras, the kettledrums
that had announced his coming since he had held rank,
were brought before Timur and broken, so that they
could not be sounded again by other hands. For an
instant pain tightened the wide lips of the Tatar. More
than anything else that belonged to him, he had loved
Jahangir.




CHAPTER XV


THE GOLDEN HORDE
T   O UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED now it is necessary to turn back nearly a hundred years and look
at Kubilai Khan. Or rather at the Mongol empires
of the day of Kubilai Khan.
The conquests of Genghis Khan had been too sudden
and too huge for any single man to dominate for long.
Although his grandson Kubilai was still the Kha Khan,
still the great Khan, overlord of his brethren, he was
actually master of no more than Cathay. From his
city of Kambalu he ruled the Gobi desert, China proper
and Korea. Elsewhere the other grandsons were at
war.
It was domestic war, savage and ceaseless and usually
without result. The various appanages of the Mongols remained intact, envoys came and went between
them, and trade flowed steadily along the caravan
routes. The long north road from Rome to Moscow,
over the steppes to Almalyk and across the desert to
Kambalu, was still open. So was the highway from
Bagdad to Kambalu. A generation after the death
of Kubilai a venturesome Arab marabout Ibn Batuta
outwandered Marco Polo. In I340 nuncios of the
Pope Benoit XII traveled to the court of the great
Khan in Cathay. At Almalyk, the reigning city of the
Jat Khans, there was an almost forgotten but flourishing Christian mission.
But already one link of the Mongol chain of empire
had snapped. Down in the southwest the Il-Khans
1I2




THE GOLDEN HORDE


113


had ruled from Jerusalem to India. To these IIKhans as late as 1305 we find ambassadors journeying
from Edward I of England and James II of Aragon,
and the Greek Emperor of Constantinople and the
King of the Armenians-to retain the good-will of the
"very great and illustrious Mongol Lord."
At this time, softened by luxury and attacked by the
Iranian princes-Arab and Mamluk and Persian-the
Il-Khans fell. Anarchy succeeded. Meanwhile the
great Khan in Cathay had been cast out by the Chinese,
and his Mongols driven back slowly into their native
steppes, the Gobi. Their strength sapped by Chinese
civilization, they had lost the secret of victory; surprised and obstinate, they were penned beyond the
great wall again, to rebel at times but never to march
as conquerors upon the highways.
The smallest of the Mongol appanages had been
that of the Jats-as the descendants of Chagatai, son
of Genghis Khan, came to be called. The King Maker
had lopped off the southern half of their lands around
Samarkand. And now, in I375, Timur the Amir had
ousted them from their mountains around Almalyk.
Timur in his advance north had not only crossed the
mountain barriers, he had put himself astride the great
highways of Asia. Without knowing about it, or probably caring in the least, he had marked the end of the
barbarian inroads from north Asia. Scythians, Alans
and Huns-Turks and Mongols, they had all come
out of the limbo of the steppes. They had been his
ancestors, and he had prevailed over his foster brothers.
The gentleman was driving the barbarian into the
desert.
In this decade, 1370-1380, three quarters of the old
Mongol dominion vanished from the map, and the
highways were closed. But the most formidable quar



114


TAMERLANE


ter remained intact. This was to the north and east
of Timur and it was called the Golden Horde.
It had grown up around Juchi, the eldest son of
Genghis Khan. It had been dubbed the Golden Horde
because Batu the Splendid, the son of Juchi, had covered his great domed tent with cloth-of-gold. It had
fared well indeed because the steppes of mid-Asia and
Russia were perfectly suited to the needs of these nomads; it had increased and its cattle had multiplied and
it had worried Europe exceedingly for a hundred and
fifty years.
At Timur's birth the Golden Horde was at the
height of its power. Life in the open plains, seasoned
by constant raiding, had kept these nomad clans fit and
more than aggressive.
They wandered over the snow countries, whipped by
the winds from the northern tundras-the women and
children keeping to the covered carts that were towed
by oxen, the warriors riding beside them. Whole cities
moved in this fashion, smoking kitchens on wagons,
domed mosques of gray felt adorned with banners.
Sometimes they retired to a many-towered fortress of
pine logs, up north where the blue timber marks the
limit of the grasslands.
They were half pagan. Long-haired shamans, girdled with strings of iron images, squatted beside mullahs, and the tame bears of conjurers slept under
the mosque wagons. Uncounted horse herds filled
their changing pastures, and the sheep were numbered
by the dogs that drove them.
Only the ruling families were Mongols. The rest
were the offspring of all the north that our ancestors
called the Land of Darkness. Their names sound like
the roll call of the Hyperboreans-Kipchaks (Desert




THE GOLDEN HORDE


115


Men), Kankalis (High Carts), and Kazak Kirghiz,
Mordvas, Bulgars, Alans. Among them were gypsies
and Genoese-merchant traders-wanderers out of
Europe, a few Armenians, and plenty of Russians.
They were largely Turks and Tatars, but it is simplest
to call them men of the Golden Horde.
They were cousins of Timur's Tatars-slant-eyed
and thin-bearded, nervous and acquisitive.  They
dressed in sables and padded silks and had excellent
armor. And they were less barbaric than the Russians
of their day-they minted coins for the Russians to pay
back to them as tribute, and supplied the counting
machines to calculate what was due them, and the paper
on which they made out the charters of the Russian
grand princes.
Russia was ruled by them from a distance-from
their city of Sarai on the Volga, and Astrakhan. To
them went the Russian princes with gifts and tribute,
and as a rule they only entered Russia when the tribute
failed, to burn and slay and fill their saddle bags with
what they fancied.
The political balance of eastern Europe was in their
hands, and not long since they had raided suddenly
into the heart of Poland, under a Khan who had married the daughter of a Greek Emperor. To their court
at Sarai went the agents of the industrious Venetians
and Genoese who had established trading posts
throughout their territory.
The only check to their power was given by Dmitri,
the great prince of Moscow who had recruited a host
of I5o,ooo Russians, boyards and swordsmen. At the
river Don he arrayed his standards against Mamai of
the Golden Horde and defeated him. A glorious day
for the Russians, but a day soon ended. And they had
cause to say "We who have taken up the sword have




n16


TAMERLANE


suffered more than our fathers who bent the neck of
submission."
It happened at this time that one Toktamish, a prince
of the Crimea, fled from his kinsmen of the Golden
Horde. For refuge he went to Timur. And at his
heels came a chieftain on a white horse, the ambassador
of the Golden Horde.
"O Tamerlane,"1 cried the herald, "thus says Urus
Khan, lord of the east and west, lord of Sarai and
Astrakhan, master of the Blue Horde and the White
Horde, and the Khans of Sibir-thus says he: 'Toktamish has killed my son and sought refuge with you.
Surrender him to me, or I will make war upon you,
and a battlefield will be chosen."'
Nothing could have suited Timur better. Already
his conquests overlapped those of the Hordes, and a
struggle for mastery was inevitable. To have a prince
of the royal house of Genghis Khan on his side was
a stroke of sheer good fortune, and in any case Timur
would never have given up a man who had sought
sanctuary with him.
"Toktamish," he replied, "has put himself under
my protection. I will defend him against you. Go
back to Urus Khan and tell him that I have heard
his words and I am ready."
He feasted Toktamish, and called him his songave him two fortresses on the northern frontier, and
officers and men to aid him. The two cities, it happened, Timur had taken from the Hordes. To all this
he added an imperial outfit-weapons, gold, furniture
and arms, camels, tents, drums and banners.
1 Outside his own borders Timur was spoken of as Timur-i-lang, Timur
the Limper. Only two rulers presumed to address him so to his face, and
one of them was Urus Khan. At this time Urus was Khan of the White
Horde, lying east of the Golden, where Mamai still ruled, but the two peoples were presently united under Toktamish.




THE GOLDEN HORDE


117


Thus equipped Toktamish sallied forth, and was
soundly whipped by the Hordes. Again Timur outfitted him, and again he was trounced, swimming back
alone across the Syr on Timur's charger, Brown Lad,
hiding wounded in the brushwood until an officer of the
Barlas clan on scout duty found him and assisted him
to the court. Then the wheel of fortune turned.
Urus Khan died, and Toktamish became the chief
claimant of the throne of the Golden Horde. Supported now by half the northern clans, strengthened
by part of Timur's host, he began to taste victory.
Headlong, cruel and untroubled by scruples, he passed
across the steppes like a black wind storm. He drove
out Mamai and took up his quarters at the reigning city,
Sarai on the Volga.
He demanded tribute from the Russian princes, who
were too mindful of their victory of two years ago
at the Don to play the part of submission again. By
fire and blood Toktamish sealed his mastery over them,
marching through the smoke of burning villages
toward Moscow, which he besieged, tricked and sacked,
leaving the Grand Prince grieving. To Toktamish at
Sarai then came the sons of the Russian princes as
hostages, and the Genoese and Venetian nobles to sue
for trade privileges.
Again the wheel revolved. Toktamish, master of
the Golden Horde, was not Toktamish the fugitive.
He had seen the majesty of Samarkand and the pavilions of the Tatars. He turned upon Timur without
warning and without concerning himself about such an
abstract thing as gratitude.
Some of his nobles, it seemed, advised against this.
"Timur's friendship hath aided thee. Only God knows




.~ V


118             TAMERLANE
if thy fortune may not change again, and thou wilt
not have need of his friendship."
But Toktamish felt assured of the result-moreover Timur had taken Urganj that had belonged in
times past to the Golden Horde. Toktamish moved
to war with all the caution and the careful preparation
that had been taught by the tradition of his race. Some
detached forces of the Golden Horde appeared near the
Caspian sea where Timur was then engaged. But
presently into Timur's camp galloped a courier weary
and swaying in the saddle. He had come nine hundred
miles, from Samarkand, in seven days. And he reported that Toktamish with the main body of the
Horde had crossed the Syr and was invading Timur's
home-land, a few marches from Samarkand.
So swiftly did Timur return along the great Khorassan highway, leaving foundered horses in his wake,
that he appeared upon the scene before Toktamish
could reach Samarkand.
Several of the frontier fortresses had held out against
the invaders from the north. Omar Shaikh, the eldest
of Timur's sons, had encountered them in battle and
had shown rare bravery, although he was defeated, his
men scattered into the hills. Tidings of Timur's approach found Toktamish's divisions separated, their
work half done. They burned a palace in the suburbs
of Bokhara, and withdrew beyond the Syr.
But Timur's home-land had been invaded and partially laid waste-crops trampled, horses and captives
carried off. And when the horned standards of the
Horde appeared, other standards were raised in revolt. On Timur's left, the Sufis of Urganj-Khan
Zade's relatives-took the field. On his right in the
high valleys of the ranges the Jat clans mounted their
horses and rode down to pillage.




THE GOLDEN HORDE


119


The real struggle for mastery was at hand. Toktamish, born of the seed of Genghis Khan, upholder of
the Yassa, champion of the nomads, arrayed at his
side the Mongol powers. Timur, son of the chieftain
of a small clan, had at his back no more than his own
following of clans bound by loyalty to him.
Meanwhile Toktamish had vanished into his steppes
as swiftly as a fox slips into a covert. Where he would
strike again, there was no telling.
Timur called before him all those who had held
command and had been defeated by the Horde. He
rewarded the leaders who had shown daring, and one
who had fled from the battle he ordered punished in
his own way —trimming the offender's hair like a
woman's, painting his face red and white and sending
him barefoot and in woman's garments to walk the
streets of Samarkand.
Then, in the worst of a bitter winter, Toktamish
came down with a formidable host toward the river
Syr. A European monarch in Timur's situation would
have withdrawn into Samarkand and left the outlying
districts to take care of themselves. But Timur had
never once allowed himself-not even when defending
Karshi-to be penned behind walls.
He had only a portion of the army with him-the
rest were off clearing the eastern passes of Jats. To
retire on Samarkand and leave the Golden Horde to
face the rigors of the winter in the open seemed obviously the safest course. But to give a leader like
Toktamish the run of the country would have meant
disaster; the northerners were quite at home in winter
marching, and the Sufis and the Jat Khans would have
joined them. Timur's amirs advised retiring to the
south and waiting until he could gather together the
scattered divisions.
_~''  ''  ' '.r




120


TAMERLANE


"Wait!" cried their Amir. "Wait-for what? Is
this a time to wait for the morrow?"
Himself at their head, he divided his forces, and
ordered them up to the Syr. They rode through rain
and snow, the horses up to their bellies in the drifts.
They attacked the outposts of the Horde, filtered
through the divisions of Toktamish, and drove in his
foragers. Under Timur's maneuvering they appeared
to be the advance of a yet greater host.
When Toktamish found them circling to his rear, he
was certain that stronger bodies must be supporting
them. Unwilling to risk being cut off from the northern road in such a season, he withdrew swiftly, and
Timur ordered detachments to follow and keep in
touch with him.
When the roads had dried out in the spring Timur
moved out himself, but to the west. He struck into the
country of the Sufis and laid siege to Urganj. Regardless of slaughter, the great city was carried, and
given to the sword. No dueling upon this occasion!
The walls were mined and torn down, the palaces and
hospitals burned, and the site left in smoking ruins
filled with charred bodies. The surviving inhabitants
were taken to Samarkand.
With them he turned back, and passed into the east,
harrying the Jat clans before him to Almalyk, driving
them so far that for years they would not cause trouble
on his borders.
Not until this was done, his flanks cleared, did he
devote himself to the struggle with Toktamish. And
instead of awaiting the Golden Horde in his own
country, he mustered his regiments and reviewed them
on the great plain by Samarkand. There he explained
to them his purpose. He meant to ride north into
the lands of the Golden Horde, and there meet Toktamish.




CHAPTER XVI


THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES
THIS DECISION invited certain disaster. Napoleon
doing likewise more than four hundred years
later left the grande arme' of France dead in the snows
of Russia and Poland, although he took Moscow.
Timur had not yet encountered the Golden Horde
in the field. Toktamish's host was more numerous
than his own, and slightly more mobile —since it would
have an immense stock of fresh horses to draw upon.
Timur's men were capable of living off the country —
given some water and any kind of grazing. But the
Golden Horde had lived off that country for generations.
To enter it Timur would have to feel his way
through sand deserts and clay steppes and sterile hills;
over such terrain it would not be possible to transport
provisions to serve for more than two or three months.
And if then he met Toktamish he would be obliged
to give battle with the barren lands at his back. A
defeat would mean the inevitable loss of the greater
part of his host, and in all probability his own death.
Peter the Great sent a Russian army in I716 south
over this country against Khiva and the Turkomans,
and the Russian general Prince Bekovitch Cherkassi
(the Circassian) died in the desert with most of his
men, the rest being made slaves. A century later
another army under Count Perovski tried it in winter
when an ample water supply was assured —and the
survivors came back the year after, leaving ten theo,
12I




122


TAMERLANE


sand camels and as many carts and a large part of its
men in the icy plains behind it.
These wastes of Asia are still forbidden ground to
expeditionary forces of any size. And Timur could not
go around. By marching due west, around the Caspian, he could strike the cities of the Golden Horde.
But nothing was more certain than that Toktamish
would be master of Samarkand before Timur had
penetrated the Caucasus valleys. And Timur could
have no idea where Toktamish might choose to meet
him-at the edge of the border deserts, or fifteen
hundred miles away at the Black sea, or up near the
Baltic, or even under the rising sun where the Gobi
lies. As a matter of fact Toktamish chose to do something quite different and equally unexpected. And
Timur's service of information had failed, his provisions given out and he and his army had entirely
lost their way before he saw the horned standards of
the Golden Horde.
By all the canons of military strategy Timur invited
failure. But he was right. He acted upon his knowledge of human nature, and not by bravado. A moment's reflection will recall that Toktamish had lived
at his court for some years, and had twice fled from
a pitched battle. Timur understood thoroughly the
strength and weakness of the Mongol temperament,
and plan of action.
He must have known that in the end he could never
win a defensive war against a cavalry leader like the
Khan; that as long as Toktamish held power in the
north, Samarkand would be menaced. Timur simply
chose to risk everything to bring the struggle to a
final issue in the country of the Golden Horde where
Toktamish least expected him.
Nothing is more clear than that throughout his




THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES 123
career the Amir of Tatary followed three fixed rules:
never to involve his own country in the maneuvering
of any campaign; never to allow himself to be put upon
the defensive; always to attack as swiftly as hard
driven horses can travel.
"It is better," he said once, "to be at the right place
with ten men than absent with ten thousand." And
again, "It is good to go swiftly and break an enemy's
power, before he has mustered his full strength. No
greater army should be taken than can be maintained
on the way."
In the beginning, until they left the muddy Syr behind them they were on familiar ground. They passed
from one frontier fortress to another and moved slowly
through the barrier range, the Kara tagh. Here-it
was the end of February-deluges of snow and rain
held them up in camp, and hither came envoys from
Toktamish to present Timur with nine splendid horses
and a falcon with a jeweled gorget.
Timur took the falcon on his wrist and listened in
silence to the tale of the ambassadors. Toktamish, it
seemed, admitted his obligation to the Amir of Samarkand, and his error in making war, and wished to enter
into a peaceable alliance with Timur. This was no
more than a feint at diplomacy, to be treated as such.
"When your master," Timur replied to the ambassadors, "was wounded and oppressed by his enemies it is
well known that I aided him and called him my son.
I took his part against Urus Khan, and many of my
horsemen died. All this he forgot when he saw himself powerful. When I was in Persia he betrayed me,
and destroyed my towns. Since then he sent another
great army into our country. And now, when we march
against him, he would save himself from punishment.
Too often has he broken his oaths. If now he sin



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cerely desires peace, he must send Aly Bey to negotiate
with my amirs."
Aly Bey, the chief minister of the Golden Horde,
was not forthcoming, and the march northward was
not delayed. The women of the royal court were sent
home with the officers who were to defend Samarkand,
and Timur's host moved out from the shelter of the
hills into the White Sands.
For three weeks it marched over the wind-billowed
dunes, still bleak with the passing of winter. In the
cold before dawn the kourroun, the seven-foot trumpets,
sounded their summons and the divisions saddled up
and mounted. Tents were stowed in the heavy carts
that had wheels higher than a man's head. Beside the
carts moved the strings of baggage camels, grunting
and snarling under their loads. In the carts also were
the equipments of the squads-ten men were in a tent
-two spades, a saw and pickax, sickle and ax, a coil of
heavy cord, a cooking pan and an oxhide. Provisions
were of the lightest-flour, barley, dried fruit and the
like. On entering the White Sands, each man was limited to some sixteen pounds of flour a month.
Every soldier had been furnished an extra horse.
All were mounted and armed with cuirass of link mail,
helmet, shield and two bows-one for long distance,
one for rapid shooting. Each man had thirty arrows,
scimitar or two-edged sword and whatever smaller sidearms suited his fancy. Most of the regiments carried long lances slung at their shoulders; some had the
heavier javelin, or thrusting spear.
The divisions moved in a set formation-it would
have been suicidal to divide, and they camped in the
same order. Every officer could be found in a certain
position and a certain distance from the amir's standard. So there was little confusion even in the dark



THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES 125
ness. Although they rode at ease, the amirs of tumans
-lords of divisions-kept their regiments in approximate battle position. This wide-flung array allowed
the horses to take advantage of what little grazing was
to be had, where a green scum was appearing in the
sand.
An hour or so before noon the kourroun sounded
again and they halted to rest the horses. Already the
weaker beasts were dying off from lack of water.
Late in the afternoon they made camp in a region
picked out by the scouts in advance. Timur's horsetail standard surmounted by the gold half-moon was
set up in front of his pavilion poles, and his curtained
tent palaces rose around it.
Then followed a rather stirring thing, the Tatar retreat. As each lord of division brought up his regiments and encamped, his kettledrums rolled. Mounting again and assembling his divisional officers, he rode
to the central standard, his drummers going before him
with the band-flutes, pipes and horns.
At the piercing note of the pipes, shrill and so swift
that the ear could hardly follow it, the horses pranced
and were reined in cruelly. Cymbals clashed, and a
band of chosen singers, heads thrown back and eyes
shut, wailed a chant of daring and delight of war.
In the red glow of sunset, trotting over the dark
sands, their wild, fur-tipped heads tossing above the
manes of the horses the amirs sought the standard.
Steel gleaming under crimson and sable cloaks, shrill
song echoing the thudding hoofs, they passed before
Timur. With a jangling of silver-weighted reins and
a single deep throated cry they greeted him:
"Hour-ra!"
When the last division commander had come and
trotted by, his thin dark face alight with pride in his




126


TAMERLANE


own splendor and the magnificence of his lord, Timur
dismounted and went to dine with his entourage. Even
in the desert he was dressed in the richest embroidered
silks and the finest of brocades.
After dark to his quarters came the supervisors of
the march lighted by lanterns with reports from the
scouts who had been miles out on the wings and in advance. Timur was told the condition of the horses,
and the number of sick.
He pushed over the sands rapidly, and tolerated
neither delay nor straggling. A man who fell behind
had his shoes filled with sand and hung about his neck,
and was obliged to walk afoot the next march. If he
lagged again, he died.
At the end of three weeks they entered rolling grassland, where mists filled the gullies. Here, upon the
bank of a river in flood they camped to rest the horses,
and they swam the river by divisions. They called it
the Sari Su, which means the Yellow Water.'
They were amazed at the extent of the prairies,
which seemed to them like the sea itself in its rolling
monotony. When they neared two mountains that they
christened the Big and Little, they halted while Timur
climbed the larger elevation and stared with his officers at the vista of the green steppes stretching to the
skyline beyond the purple shadow of the mountain. It
was then early in April, the grass tinged with the blue
of cornflowers. Partridges ran through the wild wheat,
eagles circled overhead. Through the veils of mist
shone the gold of distant freshet lakes. And in all
this time, the chronicle says, they had not seen a man or
any cultivated land.
1 There were no maps, of course, and these steppes are only vaguely
landmarked to-day. Timur's actual course is a matter of conjecture after
he crossed the Sari Su. Apparently he turned a little west at this point,
toward the Urals.




THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES              127
Some traces were visble-camel tracks in the damp
earth, charred remains of a fire, or the dung of a horse
herd. Here and there they rode over human bones,
washed out of a shallow grave by the winter storms.
Daily now the Tatars hunted in advance of the army.
They brought in wild boars, wolves and a few antelope.
Meat was very scarce-a sheep sold for a hundred
dinars kopeghi, dog dollars. Timur ordered that no
meat should be baked, or bread. The common fare was
a kind of stew of meat and flour. This in turn yielded
to a thick soup seasoned with herbs.
To hearten the men, who were beginning to suffer,
the amirs ate with them out of the common pot. The
gleanings of the hunters, an occasional trove of birds'
eggs, and an increasing amount of herbs went into the
soup, which was soon limited to one dish a day. The
army marched with an eye to the earth for roots and
quail. The ration of flour was almost exhausted.
The horses, thanks to the excellent grazing, were in
tolerably good condition, but they could not be sacrificed for the pot. A man dismounted was a man out
of action in this country, and to lose any large number
of horses meant disaster. As the situation grew worse
the officers began to ponder what lay ahead of them.
To turn back now would be hazardous, because it meant
recrossing the deserts with weakened men, and the near
certainty that the Golden Horde would appear out of
its limbo of invisibility and make of the retreat a nightmare. In this crisis Timur gave orders to his tavachis
to permit the commanders of the wings to throw out
the great hunting circle.
Hitherto scattered riders had brought in what game
could be shot ahead of the divisions. Now a hundred
thousand men spread themselves in a thirty-mile line.




128


TAMERLANE


While the center remained stationary, the distant ends
of the line galloped in a half-circle, driving all fourfooted beasts inward. Other regiments moved around
the wings, to close the narrowing gap in the north.
Once the circle was closed, it moved inward upon
itself. Not even a hare could slip past the half-starved
Tatars, and as the beasts felt themselves driven there
began a mad tumult of racing deer, charging boarsgray wolves slipping through the brush, bears lumbering away from the riders, stags racing with antelope.
Some of the things that turned up within the closing
net surprised the Tatars. The chronicle mentions a
kind of stag larger than a buffalo that they had never
seen before-almost certainly elk. Timur entered the
circle first, as the rule of the hunt ordained, and shot
with his arrows some antelope, and deer. His mastery
of the bow always roused his followers to admiration.
Most of them could only draw the long bow to their
chests, but Timur's great strength of arm and shoulder
could draw the feathered end of an arrow to his ear.
For once meat was plentiful. The Tatars slew only
the fatter beasts, and feasted memorably.
Timur gave them no time to taste idleness. The
next day the tavachis rode out with orders to assemble
the divisions for review. And an hour later Timur appeared, garbed for ceremony, his white ermine headgear gleaming with rubies, the ivory baton tipped with
a gold ox skull in his hand, and his staff at his heels.
At his coming the lords of divisions dismounted and
bowed to his stirrup, following him on foot down the
length of their commands, beseeching him to notice the
stature and strength of their men, and the good condition of the weapons. He looked into dark faces familiar
to him-the bronzed Barlas men, the lean Selduz
Turks, the soldierly Jalair clansmen, and the wild hill



THE WAY OVER THE STEPPES              129
men of Badakshan with whom he had fought on the
Roof of the World.
He was not content with this. Later in the day the
great kettledrum by the standard sounded its thunder,
bred of a six-foot brass basin and taut bull's-hide. The
drums of the encampment answered, and at once the
mounted division separated into regiments that moved
into battle formation. Probably never before or since
did these steppes of Siberia witness a review of such a
host. The officers galloped to their new posts and from
one wing to the other, miles distant, arose the shout
that heralds a charge.
"Hour-ra!"
The army was fit and in excellent spirit, and the next
day it took up the march again.




CHAPTER XVII


THE LAND OF SHADOWS
OG ROLLING AWAY BEFORE THEM, green-gray wisps
of alders hemming in the streams, yielding moss
and treacherous swamps underfoot, red creepers twining over gray rocks. It was a place of silence. Hawks
winged over the tree-growth, but no songbirds greeted
the sun. The sky was no longer the royal blue of Samarkand. Sometimes shallow mounds loomed in the
mist-graves or barrows of some voiceless and vanished
men.
"It is called the Land of Shadows," Ibn Batuta said
of this place, "and the merchants that venture hither
leave their goods and go away, returning to find furs
and leather in place of what they left. No one sees
the people who live in this place. Here the days are
long in summer and the nights are long in winter."
It was the abode of the Cimmerians, the country of
the Hyperboreans, the dwellers of the north. And
the wandering tribes, supposing that they existed at all,
must have fled from the approach of Timur's host. In
the south Toktamish had taken pains to clear men and
cattle from his path, but here the army was entering
a region seemingly uninhabited.1
All the scouts, the chronicle says, sent out for information wandered like vagabonds in this great desert.
It was not, of course, a desert; but to the Tatars accus1 They were approaching the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, which lies on
this continent north of Lake Winnipeg. Apparently they crossed the Tobol
north of its springs. It is conjectured that the next river was the Ural.
At the Ural they turned due west, crossing what is now the boundary of
Europe.
130


(




THE LAND OF SHADOWS


131


tomed to the burning light of the clay barrens with
their familiar wells and river cities, this gray and wet
expanse without human life appeared more formidable.
Especially were the mullahs upset, who found it impossible to follow the daily routine of prayer.
The early dawns-no sun being visible for hoursbrought them out with the cry to prayer before the
hours of the night were done; between the twilight and
the sleep prayer hours passed, and the short darkness
gave the men little rest.
Whereupon the imams held a solemn council at which
it was decided that the routine of the prayers could be
changed. Meanwhile Timur had detached a division
twenty thousand strong to look for the Golden Horde.
Nearly every officer of the host volunteered to go with
this advance, but Timur gave the command to that
youthful warrior Omar Shaikh, his son. The twenty
thousand disappeared over the plains, and after a few
days a courier rode back with word that they had come
upon a large river, and another following at his heels
reported the discovery of five or six fires not yet quite
extinguished.
This was the first tangible clew to the enemy, and
Timur acted upon it instantly. He summoned experienced scouts, sent them at a gallop after his son, to
comb the prairies-himself riding after them with a
small escort. The river proved to be the Tobol, that
flows into the Arctic, and the fires were upon the far
bank, to the west. Timur swam the river, joined his
advance and took command.
The scouts came in with tidings that some seventy
fires had been lighted nearby within the last day or so,
and horses had passed over the ground. Timur then
called upon Shaikh David, a Turkoman with a name
for raiding and unexpected deeds, to search the country




132


TAMERLANE


to the west. The Shaikh departed at a gallop and
after two days and nights found what he sought, a
group of thatched huts. He rode around the place
and lay hidden for a night, being rewarded at daybreak
by seeing a horseman ride out toward him.
He overpowered the man, bound him and drove him
back to the advance division which had drawn closer.
But the captive knew nothing of Toktamish-had only
seen ten riders in armor camped in the brush near his
dwelling.
Sixty Tatars were detached with spare horses to
round up the ten riders. At last Timur had information to act upon. The prisoners told him that the
Golden Horde was camped a week's ride to the west.
Timur's long march to the north would puzzle a
modern strategist, but this was warfare without rules
and without palliation. To display weakness or to
leave himself open to a surprise attack by the Horde
would have been fatal. He knew that unseen eyes had
watched his advance, and that the Khan was well informed of his movements. Time meant everything to
Timur, who must force the Horde to battle, or bring
his own army into cultivated land before the end of the
summer; delay was Toktamish's finest weapon and he
made full use of it.
By his rapid movement to the far north Timur disconcerted the Horde which was forced to move opposite him and keep between him and its home-land, while
the tribes were assembling from the far western steppes,
from the Volga and the Black sea. With his full
strength Toktamish would have double the number in
Timur's host.
Then began the wary maneuvering of armies bred in
the steppes. Caution was all-important in the face of




THE LAND OF SHADOWS


133


an enemy who could cover a hundred miles in a daywho would remain invisible until he had chosen the
moment to attack.
Timur's actions show that he realized the hazard he
faced, his men suffering from privation. For six days
he moved west by forced marches, and reached the
bank of the Ural river. From his prisoners he learned
that there were three fords within a short distance, but
after looking at one he gave command to swim the
river elsewhere, at the point where the army had halted
-going over himself with the advance and penetrating
at once into the scattered woods.
Here they took more prisoners who said that they
had been sent to join Toktamish at the river but had
not found him. Two days were needed to bring the
Tatar host across. When his men were all over, Timur
investigated, and found that a multitude had encamped
at each of the three fords. Toktamish had lain there
in ambush, hidden in the fringe of beech and alders,
and had retreated when Timur crossed elsewhere.
But the Horde was never more dangerous than when
it seemed to be retreating.
Timur ordered his men to remain within their regimental lines, to light no fires at night. As soon as
darkness set in cavalry detachments were sent out to
circle the camp. For days they pushed westward
through the shallow valleys of the Urals, forcing their
way through marshes. Out in the open again they
made forced marches, until the day when all the bands
broke into frenzied tumult and the warriors rode forward singing.
The scouts had come up with the rearguard of Toktamish. But not with Toktamish himself. The master
of the Golden Horde had the fresher horses and the
better stock of provisions, and a last trick in his quiver.
i




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TA~MERLANE


While his rearguard skirmished daily with Timur's
scouts, the Golden Horde turned north again. It could
not shake off the Tatars now but it could keep ahead of
them, clearing the country of game as it rode farther
beyond civilization, deeper into the land of shadows.
The tree-growth through which the armies passed was
no longer beech and oak, but birch and dark evergreens.
And the forests began to yield to the damp tundras.
Timur's men were gnawed by hunger and depressed
by the slaying of three chieftains and many men who
had been cut off by the riders of the Horde. They
knew the issue now was one of extermination, either
way. But they had everlasting faith in Timur.
Then rain came, and snow-although it was the middle of June. For six days the hosts were held in their
tents. Timur was first afield. Omar Shaikh's twenty
thousand riding ahead and sweeping away the outposts
of the Horde, he made a forced march and at the end
of the seventh day saw for the first time the horned
standards, the massed herds, the domed tents and the
throngs of his enemy. His divisions being already in
battle formation, it was only necessary to give one order.
And the order he gave was to dismount, set up the
tents and cook all remaining food for a hearty meal.
His march of eighteen weeks and nearly eighteen
hundred miles was ended. Half a mile distant the
Horde massed for battle, its wagons moving to the
rear. Neither army could disengage now-one of two
swordsmen who had crossed blades could not turn and
run. Toktamish's men were amazed when the Tatars
went into camp as indifferently as if they had all the
northern tundras to themselves; but Timur was resting
his horses and strengthening his men.
His outposts were vigilant enough, and he allowed
no lights to show after darkness set in; but he held no




THE LAND OF SHADOWS


'135


last hour council. The lords of his personal following
slept on the carpets around him, the couriers stood by
their horses with the entrance guard. Timur sat by an
oil lamp in his armor, dozing at times, passing the hours
with his miniature warriors of the chessboard.
All arrangements had been made-the army was
drawn up in seven divisions, as it had been so often on
the march. The left wing had its advance and main
bodies, likewise the center; behind the center Timur
held aloof with the regiments of his guards and picked
veterans. The worst of the army held the center, but
on the right wing, under nominal command of Timur's
young son Miran Shah, were the distinguished amirs,
leaders of the heavy cavalry. Here too were the berserks, the fellowship of the death-seekers, Shaikh Ali
Bahatur and the rest of the tulu bahatur, the "madly
valiant."
And here, upon Timur's strong right flank, he had
directed the first attack to be made at dawn. Grayhaired Saif ad-Din led five thousand riders forward
in a headlong charge, to the cry of "Dar u gar!""Hold and slay!"
Toktamish's line extended in a half-circle, its wings
overlapping the Tatar flanks. And the extreme left
of the Horde swung in and drove at Saif ad-Din.
Even the seven-foot horns and the great kettledrum of
Timur's headquarters could not penetrate through the
tumult to those two-mile-distant flanks. The battle, except where Timur could appear in person was in the
hands of the amirs, the lords of divisions.
Another corps charged in to support Saif ad-Din, and
the whole right flank moved forward at a gallop behind
flights of arrows.2 The Horde gave way before the
2 Timur had formed his veteran Tatar cavalry on the right wing as
usual. It had its own advance and reserves, and the ablest generals were
always to be found in its leading lines. It maneuvered by divisions, and




136


TAMERLANE


impact of the heavy cavalry. Timur ordered his center forward to support Miran Shah.
What happened at the center is uncertain. Over the
whole plain masses of horsemen were locked, swirling
and meeting with a rending impact of steel and smitten
flesh, under the deadly flashing of arrows. Wounded
men clung grimly to the saddle; the dying still wielded
their weapons. No mercy was looked for-men struggled until the blood drained out of them and their bodies were tossed at last from the saddle, to be trampled
into the soft earth.
On the left the Tatars, outnumbered, drew back
under successive charges; the Selduz clan was scattered
and broken; Omar Shaikh still defended his standard.
To this point rushed the headlong Toktamish, penetrating to the rear of the Tatar center.
Timur, who had followed up the advance of his
center, saw the horned standards between him and the
battle on the left.
He turned back with his reserve and smashed into
Toktamish's flank. Under this sudden impact, beholding the horsetail standard approaching him over the
gleaming helmets of Timur's guards, Toktamish felt
that the end was at hand. With the nobles who were
near him, he turned and forced his way out of the
struggle, racing to the west without thought of the
as a rule it broke the opposing left wing completely. The Tatar conqueror
was apt to hold his left wing refused, until the right had completed its
advance. He himself commanded strong reserves in the rear of the center.
With his reserves he could either follow up the charge of the right wing,
or move to the support of the weaker left. He seldom was in motion at
all until near the end of a battle. His center was apt to be entrenched, and
Timur used it mainly to go forward after the smashing impact of his
splendid cavalry.
He liked nothing better than a ranged battle on an open plain, and he
was capable of swinging the whole front, on the pivot of his reserves, to
advance obliquely after the right wing, the left following the center. The
formation of his main army was a permanent one, and every division knew
its position and duties.




THE LAND OF SHADOWS               137
thousands of his men still on the field. He was racing with the shadow of death.
And at his going, the great horned standard of the
Horde fell.




CHAPTER XVIII


MOSCOW
HE TATARS MARCHED AT LEISURE. They had captured Toktamish's camp and no longer lacked for
horses or provisions. Seven regiments out of ten had
been told off to pursue the fugitives-for the other
nobles of the Golden Horde had fled with their men
when the standard went down. The remnants of the
Horde were harried east to the marshes of the Volga,
where multitudes perished under the Tatar swords.
The chronicle says that a hundred thousand died in
the battle and the flight; however this may be, the
slaughter was great.
Again the hunting line was thrown out, but this time
to comb the country on either side the Volga for loot.
Down to the warmer south the Tatars moved, gathering up the herds of oxen, sheep and camels, swelling
the masses of their horses. They took the ripe wheat
from the fields, and examined every wooden village
for beautiful girls and young boys. Swinging around
through Russia they found wealth that surprised them
-bars of gold and silver, white ermine skins and black
sables-more than enough to last each soldier and his
children for their lives.
Every man had by now a mule load of woven cloth,
and silver fox and vair skins, and a string of unshod
colts. In fact, every man had more than he could
manage, and had to abandon a good deal. The various commands united again in the lower steppes, and
Timur gave permission for a week's festival.
138




MOSCOW


139


The place delighted them-the high grass through
which the warm wind rustled, the whisper of the great
river. The mist was a thing of the past, and under a
brilliant moon every blade of grass stood out distinct,
and the clouds that passed over the sea of grass cast
shadows.
The monotone of night insects, the gentle flight of
stray birds, the warm fragrance of the earth made a
luxury of idleness, and Timur did not gainsay them.
He sat with his amirs in the pavilion that he had taken
from Toktamish, silk hung, its poles plated with gold.
Rose water was sprinkled upon the silk underfoot, and
meat was served to the warriors by the captives.
They called in the minstrels with lutes and twostringed guitars, and they made a song of their deeds"Tidings of the Conquest of the Desert" they called it.
But when the food was taken away and the wine cups
were brought out, the music changed. It softened, sank
to the low strumming of the balalaika and the wailing
of the flute.
Wine was carried in then to the victors in golden
bowls, honey mead, date wine and spirits. And the
bowls were brought by the hands of captive women,
hundreds chosen for their bright faces and fine figures.
As was customary, their garments had been taken from
them, their dark hair loosened upon their shoulders.
And they were made to sing the love songs of their
people before the Tatar lords took them off and violated them.
When the days of festival were ended at the Volga,
Timur left the army to follow him under command
of Saif ad-Din, and returned to Samarkand by forced
marches. And the city, that had had no news of him
for eight months, thronged out to greet him exultantly.




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The menace of invasion had passed, and from this
year men spoke of Samarkand as The Protected.
Timur had left Toktamish to his own devices and
the vast northern portion of the empire of the Golden
Horde to the mercy of Providence. He had, it is
true, chosen a Mongol officer for Khan of the subjected
regions. But this was no more than a gesture of authority. And the consequence was that Toktamish returned.
We find him three years later harrying Timur's frontier which was now north of the Caspian. To him
Timur wrote in exasperation:
"What devil is in thee, that thou canst not keep
within thy border? Hast thou forgotten the last war?
Thou knowest the tale of my victories, and that peace
and war are alike to me. Thou hast made proof alike
of my friendship and my enmity. Choose, and send
to me word of thy choice."
Again the dour Toktamish tried the issue of battle,
and never was Timur so near defeat. We have a
glimpse of him cut off with a few men, his sword
broken, so hard pressed that his men dismounted and
formed a ring about him, until a Tatar named Nur
ad-Din brought up three of the enemies' carts and
formed of them a sort of barrier that Timur defended
until aid could reach him. His son Miran Shah and
the great amir Saif ad-Din were both wounded in this
battle.
But it was the end of the Golden Horde. Toktamish
fled to the northern forests; his clans scattered-moved
out bodily, some to the Crimea, some to Adrianople,
and even into Hungary. Many joined Timur.
Ghastly was the fate of mighty Sarai on the Volga.
This time Timur did not spare the cities. He retraced
his steps, drove the inhabitants of Sarai out to perish




MOSCOW


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in the mid-winter cold and made a flaming torch of
the wooden buildings. He stormed Astrakhan at the
Volga's mouth-defended, tradition says, by a massive
wall of ice blocks upon which the inhabitants cast water
until the whole froze together. Reminding the garrison that they were to die in revenge for the burning of
the Bokhara palace, he put them all to the sword, and
thrust the governor under the ice of the river.
Moscow had reason to be afraid when Timur's standards moved along the Don. The Russian grand prince
and the army took the field with little hope. And
sleighs sped to Vishaigorod, to fetch the ancient image
of the Virgin. In procession, the image was drawn
back to Moscow between lines of kneeling people who
cried out as it passed.
"Mother of God, save Russia."
And to this the Russians attribute their deliverance.
For Timur turned back at the Don.' No one knows
just why. Moscow's gain was the loss of the European
settlements on the sea of Azov. The soldiery of the
Venetians, Genoese, Catalans and Basques fell under
the Tatar sword, and in their slave ports and trading
posts crowed the red cock-fire.
Under a gray sky and a winter sun, Timur marched
over the ruins of the Mongol empire. It was the twilight of the Golden Horde that the seed of Juchi had
1 It must be remembered that Toktamish's army had gutted Moscow
seven years ago, and that Timur had in turn despoiled the Golden Horde
of its possessions. Moscow, with its fifty thousand-odd inhabitants was
no more than a roadside town, to his mind. The majority of histories
persist in saying that he sacked Moscow, but the Russian annals are clear
on this point.
What did happen, however, four years later, was that Witold, Duke of
Lithuania, led a kind of mad crusade against the Tatars remaining in
southern Russia, and two khans of Timur's court terribly defeated the host
of Lithuanians, Poles, Galicians and the Grand Master of the Teutonic
Knights. (Further details of this little-mentioned battle are given in the
notes.)
It was Timur's sword that made it possible for the Russians to cast off
the Mongol yoke.




I142


TAMERLANE


ruled-the passing of the law of Genghis Khan. Except in the Gobi desert and the northern tundras the
Mongol Khans were no longer masters.
Leaving the far north for the last time it pleased
Timur to complete the march around the Caspian, to
open a way through the barrier of the Caucasus.
With new additions to his host-the Kipchak, desert
men, and the Karluk, the dwellers in the snows-he
moved down upon the gorges and forested walls that
had proved an invulnerable bulwark to other armies.
It was necessary to cut a road as he went, and storm
the rock nests of the warlike Georgians, who disputed
his path with their usual courage.
It took all of one summer to do this, for Timur
had called upon his men to accomplish what seemed beyond human skill. The forest at one place-great firs
towering above the lesser growth and the trunks of
fallen giants, amid a lacework of creepers and fernswas so dense that the wind did not penetrate it, and
except for spots of sunlight the murk of twilight hid
the ground. Here a way had to be cut through the
heavy timber.
Nearby, a mountain clan had withdrawn to a place
that looked impregnable. It was a height, with cliffs
on every side and the summit so high that the Tatars
became dizzy looking up at it, and no man could shoot
an arrow to it. Timur refused to pass it by-to leave
one stronghold intact upon his new road.
He called on his Badakshan men to examine it for
a possible approach. They were bred to the mountains,
and had hunted horned sheep over such cliffs. From
crevice to ridge they went and returned to Timur to
report failure. Still the Amir would not go on. He




MOSCOW


143


studied the place from another height, and ordered ladders to be built and roped together.
The ladders were raised against the three-hundredfoot cliff by ropes led from the taller trees. The tops
of the ladders reached a ledge part way up, and from
this ledge the Tatars raised the ladders again to another
foothold. They helped each other by ropes-those
who were not knocked off by the stones cast down by
the defenders.
Some of them climbed to a pinnacle from which they
could reach the cliff summit with their arrows, and
when others gained a footing on the height the Georgians surrendered.
In this way the army penetrated to the long valleys
that led down to the sea. Before them lay Al Burz,
the barrier range of northern Persia, with fortresses as
strong as those of Georgia. One by one Timur summoned them to submit, sparing the people who did so.
Two of his sieges here are memorable in tradition
-Kalat and Takrit. The first was a mountain tableland, having springs of good water on the summit and
grazing ground for herds. It sprang out of a nest
of gorges that made impossible the encampment of an
army beneath it. The gorges proved impassable and
the cliffs impregnable and the summit beyond reach.
Here in later years Nadir Shah stored his treasures.
Assault failing, Timur posted detachments of his men
in all the gorges and went on. Eventually an epidemic
drove down the defenders, and the place was taken,
and its gates and paths restored for future use.
The other citadel, Takrit, was built on solid rock
facing the river Tigris. It belonged to an independent
clan that raided the highways with impunity. Takrit
had never been taken by assault.




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TAMERLANE


When Timur approached, the chieftains of the castle
decided that they would not yield the place to him.
All avenues up the rock were stoned in and cemented.
At once the Tatar drums rolled for the attack. The
outworks below the ridge were carried quickly enough,
and the defenders withdrew into the castle. Timur's
engineers then set to work to build stone casters. Long
timbers were bolted in place, and the machines set up.
It was found that these mangonels could send their
rock projectiles over the wall, and one by one the roofs
of the buildings were broken down.
But this kind of a barrage did not bother the defenders very much. At that height the stones could do
no damage to the massive wall itself. On the third
night the regiment of a certain Sayyid Khoja ascended
the tower of an outer bastion and took it, but did not
gain a footing near the wall.
Under cover of temporary roofing that was raised
higher on posts, the Tatar engineers and miners went
to work, erecting a scaffolding until they could stand
directly under the foundation of the wall along the
face of the rock.
Different sectors were told off to the separate divisions of Tatars, and seventy-two thousand men began
to labor at the rock with steel bars and sledges. They
excavated by relays, keeping at the task day and night.
One division tunneled about twenty feet into the rock,
shoring up the top as it advanced.
The besieged were alarmed by the mining, and sent
out gifts to the Amir of the Tatars. But Timur said
that the chieftain, one Hassan of Takrit, must come
forth and give himself up. This Hassan did not see
fit to do.
So the great kettledrum sounded the assault, the
props under one portion of the wall were soaked in oil




MOSCOW


145


and buttressed with piles of brush and set on fire. The
heavy timbers burned through and that sector of the
wall collapsed, bringing down with it many of the defenders. The Tatars charged up the mass of rubble,
but encountered desperate resistance. Timur ordered
the timbers to be burned under two other sections, and
black smoke welled up around the doomed citadel.
When the new breaches were opened, the heavily armored regiments carried the attack through them, and
the men of Takrit fled to the height behind the halfruined castle. Hither they were pursued, Hassan
bound hand and foot and lugged down. The civilians
were separated from the soldiers and spared, but the
warriors of Takrit were divided among the Tatars and
put to death.
Their heads were cut from the bodies, and of the
heads two pyramidal towers were built, cemented with
clay from the river. Upon the foundation stones of
the towers this legend appeared. Behold the fate of
lawless men and evil doers-although truth might have
written, Behold the fate of those who opposed Timur's
will. The breached wall was left standing, and men
journeyed hither by day to gaze upon the handiwork
of the Tatar, and the testimony to his power. But not
by night, for it was said that spirit fires appeared upon
the summits of the skull towers, and only the wild boars
rooting through the brush visited the site of Takrit
after darkness.
In seventeen days Takrit the impregnable had fallen
to Timur.
He was master of the north, of the Aral and Caspian
seas, of the mountain region of Persia and the Caucasus.
For twenty-two hundred miles the great Khorassan
road ran through his lands. Fourteen cities, from
Nisapur to Almalyk paid him tribute.




146


TAMERLANE


But this had taken its toll of life. The council of
the amirs had thinned; the fellowship of the bahaturs
had grown less. Khitai Bahatur had fallen in the snows
of the Syr-Shaikh Ali Bahatur, who had flung his helmet at the Golden Horde, had been stabbed by a Turkoman spy. And Omar Shaikh, Timur's second son, had
been struck down by an arrow in the Caucasus. Death,
that seemed miraculously to spare the conqueror, had
taken another child from his side.
This time Timur showed no emotion when he was
told of the fate of Omar Shaikh.
"God gave, and God has taken away," he said, and
issued orders to return to Samarkand.
On the way he stopped at the great Ak Sarai, the
white palace now finished in all its detail, in the meadow
near the Green City. Here for some time he rested
quietly and would have nothing of the court.
He went over to inspect the tomb he had built for
Jahangir, his first-born, and ordered that it should be
enlarged for the body of Omar Shaikh. JIn the last
years Timur had grown more silent, more inclined to
brood over his chessboard, and he spent less time than
ever in Samarkand. He said nothing to any one of his
plans, but after the death of Omar Shaikh, he started
on the first of his far-flung invasions.




CHAPTER XIX


THE CUP COMPANIONS
UNTIL NOW the Tatar conqueror had not looked to
the south. With India, beyond the Hindu Koh,
he had little concern except in the way of trade. And
the chain of salt deserts separated him from the land
of Iran.
And Iran was a seat of grandeur, mostly in ruins.
Witty and wine-loving princes sat upon the marble
throne-stones of the dead who had been giants of Islam
-jackals in the lair of lions.
Naked pilgrims, drying themselves in the sundervishes whirling to the patter of drums, but mindful
of coins cast into their bowls-lords of men riding on
mules under slave-borne canopies. Too often the silk
prayer carpets were wine soaked, and white beards
stained with hemp juice.
It was a brittle land, dust plagued, a land of sheer
beauty when the full moon rose over its walled gardens, and an abomination when the fever wind blew in
from the desert floor, rattling through the shade trees.
Within it stood the mass of pillars that had been Persepolis, and the yellow marble floors where the girl
slaves of Semiramis had danced.
Hafiz of Shiraz said of his country that it had rare
musicians, because only a rare musician could play a
tune for the drunk and the sober to dance to at the
same time.
Iran-the Persia of to-day-had endured wealth
too long. The rich were suspicious, the poor arrogant.
I47




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A king blinded his sons, and smiled at his brother's
death, saying that now at last they truly shared the
earth-he above and his brother below it. Here, said
one satirist, the fool is fortune's favorite, and the learned
man is one who has not sense enough to earn his own
living-a lady is one who has many lovers, and a housewife one who has few.1
Here wool-clad Sufis debated mysticism with the
poets. And here were found the sakis, the cup companions.
Mummers, rhapsodists, jugglers of words and praise,
beggars in silk-these were the cup companions of
princes. And among them a fellowship of inspired
poets. These pleasure loving Persians gave homage to
the forbidden Daughter of the Grape, and they loved
better to sing of chivalry than to put on armor.
"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In midnight by the Master of the Show."
They could stone a mocker of their faith, and still
dispute over the cup the futility of faith. They were
the Greeks of Asia, the sybarites and, in another moment, the fanatics. The Tatars they hated, calling
them heretics.
The late Shah, the patron of Hafiz, had had more
than the usual fondness for the wines of Shiraz and
for a life of backgammon, beauties and candles. Near
the end of his days he recalled that he had sworn an
alliance with Timur long since.  He made solemn
preparations for his own funeral-watching the making
of his shroud, and the building of his coffin. And to
1 From Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion, by E. G. Browne.




THE CUP COMPANIONS


149


Timur whom he had never seen, between whiles he
dictated a letter, dwelling impressively upon his coming death:
"Great men are aware that the world is the theater
of inconstancy. Men of learning are never given to
trifles-nor transitory pleasures and beauties-because
they know the passing away of all things...
"As to the treaty between us, designing never to
break it, I look upon the gaining of the Imperial Friendship as a great conquest, and my chief wish-dare I say
it-is to have in my hand this treaty with you at the
Day of Judgment, so that you should not reproach me
with breaking my word....
"Now I am called before the tribunal of the Sovereign Master of the Universe, and I thank the Divine Majesty that I have done nothing wherewith my
conscience can reproach me-notwithstanding the faults
and sins which are inseparable from life and the depraved nature of man-and I have tasted all the pleasures I could reasonably expect during the fifty-three
years I have stayed upon earth...
"In brief, I die as I have lived, and I have abandoned all the vanities of the world. And I pray God
to give his blessing to this monarch [Timur] as wise as
Solomon and as great as Alexander. Although it is not
at all necessary to commend to you my loved son Zain
al Abaidin-God grant him a long life under the shadow
of your protection-I leave him to the care of God and
your Majesty. How could I doubt that you will keep
this treaty?
"I also beg of you to say the final prayer for your
devoted friend, who is happy in departing out of this
life in friendship with you, that through the prayers
of a Prince so great and fortunate, God may be merciful




l5o


TAMERLANE


to me and raise me up among the saints. This is what
we pray your Majesty to carry out, as our last will, for
which you will be answerable in the next world."
It seems that a similar letter was sent with similar
presents to the Sultan of Bagdad. In due course of
time the Shah of Persia died, and ten princes began to
scramble for the pieces of the kingdom. One got Isfahan, another Fars, another Shiraz and so on. They set
up shop as monarchs; some coined money but all raised
taxes and fought for what they had not already claimed.
These princes were of the family of Muzaffars and they
gave new point to the proverb, "To hate like cousins."
Then in the year I386, when the hazy sun of winter
dimmed the glare of the desert floor, down came Timur
from the north. He was accompanied by seventy veteran divisions marching at ease, and the splendor of the
first city, Isfahan, widened their eyes —a place of domes
and arch-shaded streets, and bazaar-crowded bridges.
Ibn Batuta who passed that way before them said of
the imperial city, "We journeyed among orchards and
streamlets and fair villages where the road was bordered with pigeon towers. This is a very great and
beautiful city, although suffering from the wars of religious sects, We found here splendid apricots, melons
and quinces that the people preserve like our figs of
Africa. The people of Isfahan are of fine stature; their
skin is light and tinted with rouge. They are, otherwise, amiable and rival each other in the feasts they
give. In truth, they invite you to share only their
bread and milk, but upon their silk-covered dishes you
will find the costliest sweetmeats."
Timur approached Isfahan prepared for war, but
not inclined to it. He remembered the Shah's exhortation, but his only grievance was that the Muzaffars




THE CUP COMPANIONS


S151


had detained his ambassador without cause. For some
years he had watched their discords and had decided to
come down to look for himself.
Out to greet him advanced the grandees of Isfahan,
the uncle of Zain al Abaidin at their head. They were
given presents and seated on the carpet of the Amir,
while the fate of Isfahan was discussed.
"Thy people are granted their lives," Timur said,
breaking through the fencing of courtesy, "and thy city
will be spared from plundering, if a ransom is paid."
The ransom was agreed upon —the Muzaffars understanding perfectly that an army of this size would not
come a thousand miles to go back empty-handed. They
asked that envoys be sent in, to receive the money, and
a noble from each Tatar division was told off to go to
each quarter of the city. A high amir went with them,
to take charge of the transaction.
The next day Timur made a formal entry, riding in
state through the main avenue, and out again to his
camp, leaving detachments in command of the city
gates.
All went well enough until that night. Seventy
thousand soldiers had marched for two months or so
without anything in particular to divert them, and they
looked longingly at the lights of Isfahan. Detachments that were sent in on duty, lingered in the bazaars,
and many of their comrades in the camps invented cause
why they should visit the city. More and more filtered in, to the wine shops.
What happened next is variously told. It seems that
some of the more unruly spirits among the Persians assembled under the leadership of a blacksmith. A drum
was beaten, and shouting was heard-the rallying cry
of Islam.
"Ho, Muslimin!"




152


TAMERLANE


At this the people came out of their houses, and
mobs formed in the streets. Fighting began at once
between these throngs and the until-then-peaceable
Tatar soldiery. In some quarters of the city Timur's
commissioners were protected by the more responsible
spirits, in others they were put to the sword.
Having started blood flowing, the mob went on to
greater things. It cleared the streets and fell upon the
guards at the gates, who were cut to pieces, and the
portals closed.
When this was reported to Timur the next morning,
he fell into a violent rage. Apparently some three
thousand Tatars had died, among them a favorite amir,
and the son of Shaikh Ali Bahatur. He ordered an
immediate advance on the walls. The Persian grandees
in his camp tried to mediate, but went unheeded. The
mob, having played at warfare, now had to defend itself.
But the Tatars stormed the gates, and Timur ordered a massacre, bidding every man of his army bring
out the head of a Persian. The quarters of the city
that had not joined in the rioting were not molested,
and some attempt was made to safeguard the sharifs
and venerable men. Elsewhere the citizens were
hunted down. The slaying lasted through the day,
and the unfortunates who had hidden in the darkness
and fled from the walls were tracked through the snow
the next morning and cut down.
Many Tatars who wished to have no hand in the
massacre bought heads from the soldiers. The chronicle relates that the price paid at first was twenty dog
ducats, but that this fell to half a dinar when the quota
was reached, and then to nothing at all. The grim
trophies were at first piled on the walls, then made
into towers along the main avenues.


y   ax, a




THE ASSAULT OF A CITY GATE. THE TATARS
HAVE BUILT AN INCLINE AGAINST THE
WALL AND ARE ADVANCING UNDER COVER
OF MAKESHIFT WOODEN SHIELDS, PROTECTED BY ARROW FIRE. (Schulz)




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THE CUP COMPANIONS


153


In this way died seventy thousand or more of the
people of Isfahan. The slaughter had not been planned
beforehand. Timur was forced to take vengeance for
the deaths of his men; but his vengeance had been
ruthless beyond all anticipation. It frightened the
other Muzaffar princes into silence and surrender-except for Mansur, who rode off to the mountains.
Shiraz and the rest paid ransom quietly; Timur's
name was read in the kutbeh, or public prayer for the
king, and to each Muzaffar he gave a grant of authority,
signed with the tamgha, or red hand print. They were
now his governors, and he their liege lord. The lands
of Iran were theirs indeed, but by his sufferance. He
discovered that the Iranians had been taxed too heavily, and this he remedied.
And at Shiraz, tradition says, he sent for Hafiz, the
illustrious poet, to come before him. The Persian man
of letters appeared in plain garments as a token of
poverty before the conqueror.
"Thou hast written a verse," Timur said sternly, "in
this manner:
'If my mistress of Shiraz would take my heart in her hand,
I would lay before her feet Bokhara or Samarkand.'"
"0 Lord of Kings," Hafiz responded, "that is my
verse."
"With my sword," Timur mused, "and after years of
conflict have I taken Samarkand; now I am taking
from other cities great ornaments for Samarkand. How
is it that thou wouldst bestow it upon a wench of
Shiraz?"
The poet hesitated, then smiled. "0 Lord, by reason of that same prodigality I have fallen into the sorry
plight in which you see me."




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TAIMERLANE


The ready answer pleased Timur and he sent Hafiz
richer from his presence.
More than one of the minstrels of Iran went back
with him to Samarkand. But he had reason to regret
the cup companions of the south. Miran Shah, his
third son, had always been headstrong, given to wine
and skepticism-brave enough upon occasion but savagely cruel. Only when he joined the army under
Timur did he keep himself within bounds.
Years later Timur gave the government of the Caspian region to Miran Shah, only to hear when returning
from a year's campaign in India that his son was nearly
insane. The Tatar officers reported mad deeds in the
great cities-wealth scattered from windows to the
mobs, and drinking bouts held within the mosques.
They explained that Miran Shah had suffered from a
fall from his horse, and had said, "I am the son of the
man who rules the earth. Is there no deed by which I
also may be remembered?"
And he had given orders to pull down the walls of
the hospitals and palaces of Tabriz and Sultaniah. The
word of Timur's son was unalterable law to the Tatars
and the demolition began, to be followed by wilder
whims. At his command the body of a celebrated Persian philosopher was dug up and reinterred in the
Jews' cemetery. Miran Shah's mind was unsettled by
the fire of wine and the poison of drugs.
"Nay," said the officers, "he is afflicted of Allahdid he not strike his head upon the earth when he fell
from the saddle?"
When they had left, a woman came to Timur's gate.
She was veiled and clad in dark garments and without
attendants. But one whispered word opened the doors
to her, and bent the heads of the guard and sent the
chamberlain of the palace in haste to Timur.




THE CUP COMPANIONS


155


"The King's Daughter waits to greet thee," they
said, "alone."
It was Khan Zade who appeared in this manner to
Timur —she who had been the bride of his first-born,
Jahangir. She had hastened to his quarters, waiting
impatiently until the officers had been dismissed. And
the black robes of fresh mourning showed to advantage
the fair face when she drew aside her veil and threw
herself down at his feet.
"0 Amir of amirs," she cried, "I have come in from
the city of thy son, thy son Miran Shah."
Boldly she spoke to the conqueror, she who had used
her wit to safeguard her kinsmen who had been scattered by the Tatar storm long since. In her voice
echoed the triumph that she dared not put in words.
With her attendants and personal court she had taken
up her quarters in a city under the protection of Miran
Shah. She had remonstrated with Timur's son when
his mad humor became destructive. In spite of the resistance of her men, he had taken her into his house.
He had fed his mad hunger upon her beauty. And
then had taunted her with wantonness.
"Lord Timur," she cried, "of thee I seek protection
and the justice of a king."
Khan Zade's husband was no longer living-he
whom Timur had loved and had looked upon as his
successor. By the code of the Tatars, the throne should
now revert to Miran Shah, the eldest living son. Since
the days of the desert khans it had been ordained that
the first four sons born to a ruler should be his heirs.
Jahangir and Omar Shaikh were in their graves, and
there remained Miran Shah and the youngest, Shah
Rukh, son of the empress Sarai Khanum, the Princess
of the Palace. But Shah Rukh was little older than
Khan Zade's children-born of Jahangir. And he was




56


TAMERLANE


unlike his brothers, a gentle boy who loved his books
better than the conflict of authority.
The succession lay between Miran Shah and Khan
Zade's sons. Timur had entrusted to the elder prince
a wide government-and Miran Shah made havoc with
debauchery. Perhaps Khan Zade had planned beforehand the fruits of her visit to Miran Shah-perhaps
her beauty had been the flame that caused the conflagration.
Years later there centered about the youthful Khalil
a struggle that not even Khan Zade could have foreseen.
For the present, her courage was admirable. She
had appealed to Cesar, against his own son. Fearless,
she stood before Timur. And he did not delay judgment. To Khan Zade he gave what she had lost in
property-and new retainers to serve her, and he paid
her the honor due to the wife of Jahangir. Although
he had just come in from a hard journey, he ordered
his officers to prepare at once to ride to Sultaniah.
There, after he had investigated the havoc wrought
by Miran Shah he condemned his son to death. The
high amirs intervened-even they who had suffered at
the hand of the wayward prince. Miran Shah was
brought before his father, a rope around his neck.
And Timur consented to let him live; but all authority was taken from him. Broken in spirit, a shadow
without power, he was compelled to remain in this
province where others now ruled.
Soon afterward the good knight Ruy de Gonzales
Clavijo, journeying from the court of Castile to Samarkand, passed through Sultaniah and what he heard
there he has related simply in this fashion:
"When Miran Shah did these things, he had a
woman with him named Gansada. She left him in dis



THE CUP COMPANIONS                157
guise and traveled day and night until she came to
Lord Timur, whom she informed of what his son had
done; for which he deprived his son of the government.
This Gansada remained with Timur and he treated her
hoinorably, not allowing her to return; but Miran Shah
had by her a son, named Khalil Sultan."
Upon the companions of Miran Shah the wrath of
the conqueror fell without restraint.  Rhapsodists,
jesters-distinguished poets as well-the cup companions were hailed to the execution platform. And there
the jester turned to his more notable fellows, by the
steps that led to the swordsman's block. Even at this
moment he must have his quip.
"You had precedence in the company of the Princego before me also here."




CHAPTER XX


DOMINION
IN THE YEAR 1388, at the age of fifty-three years,
Timur was undisputed master of that breeding
ground of revolt, Central Asia and Iran. He was emperor in everything but in name. His only title was
Amir Timur Gurigan-Lord Timur, the Splendid.
His nominal sovereign was still the Khan, the tura, of
the blood of Genghis Khan.
This puppet khan had nothing whatever to do. He
commanded, it seems, a division of the army, and a
palace had been fitted up for him at Samarkand. No
doubt he appeared at certain ceremonies-the sacrifice
of a white horse when an alliance was to be made binding, or the yearly review of the army when two hundred thousand men rode past the horsetail standards.
But his name appears only rarely in the annals, and his
prestige dimmed steadily before the brilliance of the
lame conqueror. He lived happily enough with his
fleshpots, enjoying the martial pageantry in which his
own part diminished with each year.
Nor had Timur's growing empire a name. He was
still addressed as the Amir of Ma-vara'n-nahr-Lord of
Beyond the River, although his name was read in the
public prayers throughout his still-to-be-christened dominion.
His mastery was due to a simple thing. The men
of Central Asia had been ruled by the chieftains of the
tribes. If they did not like their own "white beard"
158




DOMINION,159


they migrated to another's domain, and placed their
lives between the hands of the new lord. Dissatisfied,
they might select one of their own fellowship as leader
-themselves partakers of his salt. Then they would
fight furiously in defense of their new choice.
Proud of their own name, and clan-intensely jealous of their personal liberty and whatever privileges
custom accorded them-they were yet at home with
despotism and intolerant of anything else. Children
of nomads, worshipers of kings, they could recite-the
worst looters of the lot, squatting like vultures by the
hill trails-the glories of Solomon, and the deeds of
Alexander whom they called Duhl-carnin, "Of the Two
Worlds," and tales of Mahmoud, he of the golden
throne. They traced their pedigrees with satisfaction
back to Noah, and claimed descent from the patriarchs.
They knew every tomb and its history, along the
great pilgrim roads, and the Old Testament they knew
also. Their ability to quote matched their range of
vituperation, which was not surprising since it included
pedigrees that dated to the Flood. For written law
they cared not a jot, but they would shed blood for intangible tradition. At usury they mocked, and an oppressive tax collector would die with a knife in his back.
They had fought Timur until even they had seen
the uselessness of it, and then they had come in to share
his salt. To govern them a hand of iron was needed.
Never before had they been united. Mahmoud held
many of them together around his standard; Genghis
Khan rode through them and gathered them together,
until, at his death, they divided again under new chieftains.
In only one thing were they united now-in willingness to obey Timur. To bring them together was like
leashing wolves. No code of laws would serve the jade




16o0


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hunters of Kashgar, the predatory hillmen of the
Hindu Koh, the warlike remnants of the Jat and
Golden Hordes, the Iranian knighthood of the Land of
the Sun, and the chivalrous Arabs.
To hold them in check Timur became himself the
law. All commands came from him direct to his new
peoples. All who dared had access to him; he would
allow no favorites to govern for him. When a kingdom was conquered, or when it submitted of its own
accord, it was given to one of his sons or a high amir
of the army as an appanage-a feudal grant.
It became a province of the new empire, governed
by a daroga or administrator who was responsible to
Timur. A magistrate as well as the daroga was appointed. The warriors who joined the army went of
their own consent, but laborers and artisans were impressed at need. The former rulers or princes were
taken to the court and given independent rank and
duties to perform. If then they caused trouble they
were put in chains or slain.
Timur's restless energy was impatient of failure.
Where he passed over a ruined bridge, the governor of
the district was ordered to repair it. Old caravan
sarais were put in order, and new road houses built.
The roads themselves were kept open in winter, and
guard stations erected at intervals along them. The
officers of the road guards were responsible for the post
horses, and for the safety of caravans journeying along
their stretch of the highway. These caravans had to
pay a sum in silver for the protection given them.
The Spanish envoy Clavijo has left a description of
the great Khorassan road.
"They [the travelers] slept in large buildings erected
by the roadside, where no people live. Water was




DOMINION


161


brought to these buildings from a great distance by
pipes underground.
"The road was very level, and there was not a single stone to be found on it. When they arrived at a
stopping place they were given plenty of meat and
fresh horses. The lord ' had horses waiting at the end
of each day's journey, at some places one hundred, and
at others two hundred; and thus the posts were arranged as far as Samarkand.
"Those whom the lord sent in any direction, or who
were sent to him, went on these horses as fast as they
could, day and night. He also had horses in deserts,
and he caused great houses to be built in uninhabited
places, where horses and provisions were supplied by
the nearest villages. Men appointed to take care of
these horses were called Anchos.
"When ambassadors arrive, these men take their
horses, remove the saddles and place them on fresh
horses, and one or two of these Anchos go with them
to take care of the horses. At the next post they return.
"If a horse becomes tired on the road, and they meet
another at any place belonging to any other man, they
take it in exchange for the tired horse. The custom is
that even merchants, lords or ambassadors must give
up their mounts for the service of any one who is going
to the great lord, and if a man refuses, it costs him his
head, for such are the commands of Lord Timur.
"They even take horses from the troops, or from the
son or the wife of the great lord himself.
"Not only was the road thus supplied with post
horses, but there were messengers on all the roads so
that news could come from every province in a few
days. The lord is better pleased with him who travels
a day and a night for fifty leagues and kills two horses
1 Timur.




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than with one who does the distance in three days.
The great lord, considering that the leagues were very
long in his empire of Samarkand, divided each league
into two, and placed small pillars on the roads to mark
each league; ordering all his Zagatais to ride twelve or
at least ten of these leagues, in each day's journey.2
Each of these leagues was equal to two leagues of
Castile.
"In truth it would scarcely be believed unless it were
seen, the distances which these fellows travel, day and
night; they sometimes go over fifteen and twenty
leagues in a day and night. When their horses are
knocked up they kill and sell them; we found many
dead horses on the road which had been killed by hard
riding."
Clavijo adds that at some of the post stations they
saw fountains which were packed with ice in the hot
season, with brass jugs placed in readiness for any one
to drink from.
Up and down the post roads couriers carried messages to Timur-reports from      the camel corps on the
frontier, dispatches from generals beyond the border,
tidings from the darogas of the cities. Throughout
every province, and in the caravan cities outside the
empire, secret service men wrote periodic reports to the
Amir, giving him    the gist of what was happeningwhat caravans were on the roads and what actions had
taken place. What his officers did was related truthfully-any one who falsified such a chronicle was killed
out of hand.
2 Fifty to seventy-two miles. Clavijo's Zagatais are the Chagatais or
Jats of the annals. This account of the post roads is quoted, slightly condensed, from Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy de Gonzales Clavijo to the
Court of Timur at Samarkand, A. D. 1402-403. A publication of the
Hakluyt Society. This account is apparently the source of the strange
statement to be found in some general histories, that Timur ordered every
noble in his empire to ride sixty miles every day.




DOMINION


163


Timur's service of information was complete, and
probably swifter than anything of the kind until the
days of railroads.
He dealt with the question of land and property as
decisively. His soldiers received their pay from the
army treasurers, and were not allowed to levy tribute
on the inhabitants. No soldier could enter a civilian's
house without cause.
Waste land, and real property left without heirs, belonged to the throne. A farmer or man of means who
undertook to irrigate and cultivate waste land-to build
dwellings or bridges-was entitled to possess the land
without taxation the first year. The second year he
might pay what he thought just; the third year he was
assessed.
Taxes were collected after the crops were taken in.
The usual rate was one third of all produce, or its
value in silver. It was higher upon irrigated land, and
lower upon crops that depended upon rain. Farmers
also paid for the use of the large reservoirs.
Merchants coming into the empire with goods paid
duty as well as the road tax, and this became quite a
source of income because at that time the caravans from
the far east bound for Europe avoided Egypt, where
the Mamluks were bitterly hostile to the Christians
and all pertaining to them.
Trade was carried westward over the great north
road through the Gobi, past Almalyk, to Samarkand,
and thence through Sultaniah and Tabriz to the 'Black
sea and Constantinople. This was the great Khorassan
road. It branched also more to the north, to Urganj
or across the Caspian to the Genoese posts along the
Russian frontier. A third route ran south through
Persia to the ports near India.




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There was little commerce by sea. At times the
Arabs navigated around India to the Golden Chersonese
and Cathay, and Chinese vessels frequently hugged the
coast as far as Bengal. But these were intermittent
ventures of ship owners and wealthy travelers. On the
other hand river traffic was heavy-down the Amu to
Urganj, down the Indus throughout the length of
India to the sea, and also upon the Tigris and Euphrates.
By now Timur had opened two gateways into India
-from Kabul through the Khyber pass, and from Kandahar into the barren gorges that led to the Indus. In
a single campaign he had subdued the king of Sijistan,
whom he had once served as gentleman-adventurer
and in whose service he had been lamed for life.
In another campaign he had crossed the desert country from Shiraz to the ports on the Persian gulf. From
these ports ships went up to Bagdad and down to the
mouth of the Indus.
To the west, he had stormed the citadel of the Black
Sheep Turkomans, and the marble city of Mosul. So
he held the strongholds of the upper Tigris, fifteen
hundred miles from Samarkand. Here he could consolidate into his empire the great entrepot of trade,
Tabriz. This was a metropolis of more than a million
souls, where the north-and-south trade crossed the
Khorassan route. And from Tabriz alone he gained
revenues that were larger than the yearly revenues of
the king of France.8
Apparently in such a city the inhabitants paid no
head tax, but the city council gave a yearly sum to
8 All available evidence indicates that Tabriz was the largest city in the
world, outside China, at that time. Samarkand, Damascus and Bagdad
were smaller, although their public buildings were more notable. But
these surpassed Rome or Venice in size and splendor at the end of the
fourteenth century.




DOMINION


a165


Timur's daroga. It was tribute, but so long as it was
paid the city was not molested.
To the merchants of the caravans Timur's government was a boon, because they could travel through
his lands, under effective guard, for five months and
pay only one customs tax.
To the small landholder and peasant, his coming was
a benefit to the extent that it brought freedom from oppression at the hands of the nobles. Timur was clear
enough on this point. A ruined man was of no use to
anybody; a devastated kingdom was no gain to his
treasury. By the treasury the army was strengthened.
And the army was the fabric of the new empire. It
took water where it wished and marched over cultivated lands-gathered in crops along its line of march
when it needed grain. And the peasant suffered accordingly.
Timur was intolerant of weakness. He tried to lay
the swarm of beggars that infested every city by forbidding them to beg and granting them doles of bread and
meat. They took the doles as largesse and went out
to the streets again with their whining cry-"Ya huk!
Ya hak! Allah u kerim!" and their bowls into which
the devout tossed bits of food at cooking time. Dervish
and mountebank, blind man, leper and rogue, they still
begged. For this was the unalterable custom of Islam,
and Timur's soldiers slew them in vain.
With thieves he was more successful. Every magistrate in the towns and every captain of the road guards
he made responsible for theft within their district. Any
article stolen they had to replace themselves.
But Timur's code of law amounted to no more than
his own will. Outside his own country his regulations
were still new, and not established as yet. Here and
there revolt simmered, and he was constantly on the




166             TAMERLANE
march to quiet unrest. Under his dynamic energy the
army grew into a disciplined machine, accustomed to
victory and guided by veteran commanders.
This was his pride and by it he had now determined
to conquer all of Asia.




CHAPTER XXI


IN THE SADDLE
IN THESE YEARS the lame conqueror tasted to the full
the truth of the proverb, "He who sets his foot in
the stirrup must mount to the saddle."
Seldom now could he be found at Samarkand, or
hunting in the hills. The first empress, Sarai Khanum,
moved in dignity, black slaves bearing her train, and
her maidens supporting the jeweled feathers of her
head-dress on either side. Under her feet new courtyards came into being, blue-tiled, immense. And
Timur, who had planned them with Persian architects,
would appear for no more than a few days, to stir his
builders into a fever of activity, to receive the ambassadors from China and India and Bagdad, to listen to the
salutation of his grandsons, to feast hugely and be off
again.
When he was on the road, he made use of two sets
of pavilions, sleeping in the first curtained palace, while
the second was carried on by pack animals, to be set up
at the next stage. So he would always find the imperial quarters erected, the carpets spread, the barrier
curtains up on the bamboo posts, the silk ropes taut and
the wide fly hoisted into place against the heat of the
sun. About his quarters would be the tents of the
kulchis, the twelve thousand warriors of the guard.
The officers of the guard were chosen from the
bahaturs, the mighty men of prowess. They were
spared no ordeal, and never went without an inspiring
reward.
"The soldier of long years," Timur once said,
I67




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"should not lack either rank or payment. For these
men, who give up permanent happiness for perishable
honor, are worthy of reward." He was insistent upon
that. As he had once written down the names of the
thousand who followed him, he now caused to be recorded the personnel of his divisions, and even their
sons. Any action of distinction was placed upon the
service record by the secretaries.
The man of the ranks was promoted to be a leader
of ten for personal bravery; the leader of a squad became captain of a company. And certain insignia were
awarded-a girdle, or an embroidered coat with a collar. Sometimes a horse and sword. To the regimental commanders a standard and drum were given, and
to the high amirs, or marshals, a divisional standard
and a lion standard, and drum. Such amirs were entitled to take with them a hundred horses.
When they gained a victory these amirs were accorded more material reward-the feudal grant of a
city with its revenues, or in some cases a province. Promotion was by merit only, although the high amirs seem
to have been men of royal blood. Old Jaku Barlas was
one of the few to survive and be retired in splendorthe rank of Lord of Amirs and the government of
Balkh being his perquisites.
Timur disliked the man who made excuses for failure, or who hung back in a crisis, or made certain of a
way of retreat before going forward. And he was impatient of stupidity, saying more than once, "A wise
enemy is less harmful than a foolish friend."
A certain chronicler called the Arab has drawn a clear
picture of him, at this time.
"This conqueror was tall. He had a massive head,
a high forehead. He was as remarkable for his phys



IN THE SADDLE


169


ical strength as for his courage. And by nature he had
been well endowed. His skin was white, and his complexion vivid. He had stalwart limbs, the shoulders
large, the fingers powerful. His beard was long, his
hand dry. He limped with the right leg, and he had a
deep voice.
"In middle age his spirit was as firm and his body as
vigorous, and his soul as daring as in the past-like
enduring rock. He disliked lying and jesting. But
he looked for truth even when it was disagreeable to
himself. He was not depressed by misfortune, and
prosperity did not stir in him any exultation.
"He carried for device upon his seal two Persian
words, Rasti Rousti, that is —Strength is in right. He
was very taciturn in conversation, and never spoke of
slaughter, of pillage or the violation of women's sanctuaries. He loved brave soldiers."
Timur's hair turned white at an early age. Others
speak of his skin as dark, but to an Arab it would have
appeared light. It is interesting that this description
is given by Ibn Arabshah who had been carried off as
a captive by Timur and who hated him.
Few names upon the rolls of Timur's host were honored as unexpectedly as that of a certain Tatar berserk,
Ak Boga-the White Paladin. He was, it seems, a
warrior remarkable for stature and strength, who carried an iron shield, and a heavy five-foot bow. A
leader of ten, but master of only one horse-notable
for his ability to drink down a ram's horn full of mare's
milk mixed with spirits.
It is said of him that in the second Persian campaign
Ak Boga without any companions had quartered himself upon a roadside village-more exactly, in the tav



170


TAMERLANE


ern. Being in enemy country his horse was kept saddled at the door. To him thus ensconced at table with
loosened girdle, came one of the headmen in haste
saying that forty or fifty Persian riders were dismounting near the village tank.
"Well," responded Ak Boga, "go and gather your
fighting men and then we will attack them."
The headman protested that the horsemen were too
numerous, and that Ak Boga himself would better think
of flight. But the Tatar paladin had not thought of
this at all.
"If we do not attack them," he pointed out, "how
can we seize their horses and their saddles? By Allah,
you have no wit. These Iranis are jackals; they will
run at sight of a wolf like me. I have seen them run.
Go, and bring your men to this place."
While he finished his potations the villagers talked
it over. They were afraid of the horsemen, but they
were in awe of the armored giant. In the end a score
of them came to the tavern on their ponies, and Ak
Boga adjusted his girdle, put on his helmet, tied the
leather flaps under his beard and thrust his shield on
his arm. "When I give the war shout," he explained
to his new recruits, "ride in like devils-don't stop to
pick dust out of your eyes."
With the villagers following him he rode down the
street to the mosque and the roadside tank. At sight
of the Persians watering their horses he began to ply
his whip and roared out his battle cry.
"Hour-ra!"
But the prospect of facing bare weapons was too
much for the villagers, and they turned and raced back
the way they had come. The berserk, now thoroughly
roused, was in no mood to turn back. He carried out
his charge alone.




I)


ONE OF TIMUR'S PERSIAN FOLLOWERS. THE
LIGHT WEAPONS ARE IN DISTINCT CONTRAST TO THE HEAVIER ARMS AND LONG
BOWS OF THE TATARS. (Schulz,)




^rr
r
i,,
~~ ''




IN THE SADDLE,171


Either the Persian detachment thought that he was
the advance point of a strong body of Tatars, or they
were thrown into panic by the sudden shout. They
mounted in haste and fled the other way. Ak Boga
galloped after them, lashing his horse. The riders
scattered and drew away, being better horsed-so the
story runs-and although Ak Boga shouted to them to
pull up and fight, he had to turn back in the end, victorious but empty-handed.
"The Iranis are jackals," he told the villagers, "but
you are hares."
In this campaign Timur was marching rapidly south
into Persia. The Muzaffar princes, left as governors
of the different cities, had plunged into civil war again.
Out of the confusion Shah Mansur emerged master of
Isfahan and Shiraz. He was the one who had not come
in to submit to Timur, and now he had made himself
overlord of his cousins-had taken captive and blinded
with a heated iron the luckless prince Zain al Abaidin.
On his way to quench the fire of revolt, Timur had
stopped to exterminate a nest of the curious assassins
of the mountain country, who gained their courage from
hashish, and whose daggers were feared by the rulers
of near-Asia. With him he had no more than three
divisions, one commanded by Shah Rukh, the others
by his eldest grandsons, born of Khan Zade.
At his coming Shah Mansur threw half of his men
under one of his lieutenants into the White Castle, the
sanctuary of Iran that had proved impregnable since
the day of the mythical Rustam. Here also the blind
Zain al Abaidin was confined, and hither Timur directed his march.
1 The Ismaelites, as the followers of this sect were called, had troubled
the crusaders from Europe, who coined the word assassin-hashishin-to
describe them. Marco Polo, journeying past their strongholds, spoke of
their leader as the Old Man of the Mountain-Shaikh al Jabal. At this
time Timur was also engaged in subduing the Arab and Kurdish clans.




172


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The White Castle was actually the summit of a
mountain and the chronicle describes it clearly:
"The Persians put their trust in this place because it
was the top of a rock mountain and it was reached by
only one narrow road. This mountain summit was a
beautiful smooth plain, a league long and as broad.
Here are rivers, and fountains, fruit trees and cultivated ground, and all kinds of beasts and birds.
"The princes had built here many pleasure houses,
where they had no reason to fear fire or flood-much
less mines or assaults by battering rams and engines.
No king had ever undertaken to besiege it, because of
its height and the impossibility of bringing up battering
rams. Its hard rock could not be dug, and it seemed
inaccessible and impregnable. The way which leads to
the top of the mountain is so planned that in any narrow place three men may withstand a thousand.
"Not content with its natural strength, the Persians
had fortified the turnings of the road with great stones
joined with mortar. As the cultivated ground could
yield food enough for its inhabitants, and the cattle and
fowl had enough to subsist on, they could not be starved
out. Only death had power over its people."
Timur attacked the White Castle the day his forces
came beneath it. His camp was pitched on the summit
of an adjoining ridge, and then his Tatars rode up the
slope to the place where sheer rock walls rise. They
dismounted and divided, spreading like ants over the
detritus, and assailing the lowest towers at the turning
of the road.
From his height the Amir could look down upon the
tiny helmets creeping upward where arrows glinted in
the sun, and the heat rose in exhalation from the maw


I




IN THE SADDLE


173


of the valley. Beside him the kettledrums thundered,
and from time to time there was audible the swelling
shout of his men as they clung to their footholds beneath the arrows and the rocks that the defenders cast
down.
At nightfall nothing had been gained. No other
path up had been discovered, and the officers looked
grim when they counted the bodies carried down from
the ground under the towers. The Tatars spent the
night in their positions or rather perches under and on
the face of the cliff. And at sunrise the officers led
them to the assault again, wielding pick-axes among
the men, until they fell and were carried into the valley bed. Again Timur's kettledrums urged them on.
Then men who had climbed abreast one of the towers
heard a stentorian shout high over their heads.
"Our Lord conquers! The dogs of Iranis are
spayed!"
On the summit of the cliff two hundred feet above
them and beyond arrow shot of the road stood Ak
Boga. He had forced his way up a crevice at a place
that had gone unheeded by Persians and Tatars alike
because it looked unclimable. But Ak Boga, his shield
and his'bow slung on his back, had climbed it and was
announcing the fact to all who could hear.
Propping his shield against the rocks in front of him,
he made such good use of his bow that he held off
the Persians who happened to be near. At sight of him
thus situated, Shah Rukh who had joined the men on
the road, ordered an immediate attack on the towers,
to hold their defenders in place, while the Tatars nearest the ceft scrambled up to support Ak Boga.
They found the summit deserted, the Persians fleeing and Ak Boga trundling in pursuit, sword in hand.
When they appeared on the skyline, Shah Rukh's




174


TAMERLANE


standards were lifted under the towers and the drums
in the valley roared that the end was in sight.
The Persians left the towers to go up to the height,
but they were taken in the rear by Timur's men who
had climbed the cliff and they were picked up and
thrown, man after man, from the summit. Shah Mansur's officer followed them, and lay, a lifeless bundle of
garments on the rocks below. The White Castle had
fallen.
When the fighting had ceased Ak Boga was searched
for, found, and brought to Timur. He was given silver money, rolls of brocade and silk, tents and fair
women slaves and any number of horses, mules and
camels so that he departed from the presence of his
lord in a daze, shaking his head when he looked at
what followed him. When he was stopped and praised
by others he said:
"God be my witness, yesterday I had no more than
one horse and how can all this be mine now?"
He was promoted to the command of the rearguard
of Muhammad Sultan's division, and he rode in magnificence for the rest of his life; and from that day he
would never turn his back upon the place where Timur
was. Whenever he made ready to sleep, he was careful to place his feet toward the pavilion of the Amir,
and he requested that when he died his body should
be laid with its feet toward the abiding place of his
lord.
When Timur took up the pursuit of the Muzaffars
it was reported to him that Shah Mansur had fled.
After detaching the right and left divisions, his two
grandsons, Muhammad Sultan and Pir Muhammad,
commanding, he hastened toward Shiraz with the main
body, thirty thousand strong. Shah Rukh who always




IN THE SADDLE


175


attended him was with his staff as usual. They were
astonished to come upon three or four thousand Persians drawn up in the gardens outside a village. These
cavalry regiments were armored, the men wearing
breastplates of leather lined with iron, the horses barded
with quilted silk.
What had happened was that Shah Mansur, fleeing
toward Shiraz with this mounted force, had stopped at
the village and asked what the people of Shiraz were
saying of him.
"By Allah," he was told, "they are saying that some
who carried big shields and heavy quivers have fled
like goats before wolves, leaving their families to the
foe."
Enraged by the taunt, Mansur had wheeled his horse
and led his men back along the road. In desperation
he now hurled his cavalry against Timur. Some of his
regiments fell away in disorder, but two thousand broke
through the Tatar array and gained heights in the rear.
Not content with this, he charged back at Timur's
standard.
The Amir had drawn a little apart with some of his
staff to watch this unexpected onset, and Mansur turned
toward him. At once the Tatar officers around Timur
were locked in hand-to-hand fighting with the Persian
horsemen.
Timur stretched back his hand for his lance that was
always carried behind him; but the lance bearer had
been beset and had gone off, taking the weapon with
him. Before he could draw his sword, Mansur rode
against him.
Twice the Persian prince slashed with his sword at
the Tatar conqueror. Timur bent his head, and the
sword's edge glanced off the steel helmet, sliding harmlessly down his mailed arms. Timur kept motionless




176             TAMERLANE
in the saddle, until one of his bodyguard thrust a shield
over his head, and another lashed his horse between
the daring Mansur and his foe.
Mansur turned at last to escape but was hunted down
by some of Shah Rukh's followers, and Shah Rukh rode
back with the severed head of the prince, casting it
down before Timur's horse.
It was the end of resistance in Persia, and the doom
of the Muzaffars. Timur ordered that all the survivors of the family should be sought out and chained.
Later they were put to death.
Only Zain al Abaidin and Chelabi-who had also
been blinded by their kinsmen-were kindly treated
and sent back to Samarkand where land and dwellings
were allotted to them and they could enjoy peace. Out
of Shiraz and Isfahan the skilled mechanics, the artists
and distinguished men of letters were gathered and
sent to Samarkand to Timur's growing court.




CHAPTER XXII


SULTAN AHMED OF BAGDAD
IT WAS INEVITABLE that an alliance should be formed
against Timur. Too often had he come out of the
east, out of his deserts, sweeping over cities like the
black wind storm, and leaving them dismantled. Like
the wind, his coming could never be anticipated.
Ambassadors hurried between the kings of the west.
The Emperor of the Turks, off in Europe, was indifferent for the moment, but the Sultan of Egypt-master of Syria, Damascus and Jerusalem-and the Sultan
of Bagdad exchanged pledges to withstand Timur.
And Kara Yussuf, whose Turkomans had been harried
west by Timur, was more than ready to join his standard to theirs.
Bagdad lay in the path of the Tatar's advance. The
city was no longer the heart of the Muhammadan world
as in the days when Haroun the Blessed drank with the
Barmecides; it lay, inert and massive, on the two banks
of the Tigris —still thronged with pilgrims and wealthy
merchants. It was, said the son of Jubair, filled with
vanished traces and the shadows of other years-like a
woman whose youth is past. And, like an old woman,
it looked drowsily down into the river that was the
mirror of its beauty.
Its Sultan, Ahmed the Jalair, was still called Protector of the Faithful, and still the black garments of
the Koreish were seen in the great mosque. But the
real guardian of Bagdad was the Mamluk, Sultan of
Egypt. Ahmed fed his soul with suspicion and his
I77
i




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passions by cruelty; he was afraid of the treasures that
lay in his coffers, and more afraid of the slaves that
guarded them. And in his fear he turned his eyes east
when dust swirled over the plain, to look for the coming
of Timur's Tatars.
He sent the Grand Mufti to the lame conqueror with
presents such as only he could give-and he forwarded
similar gifts to his ally at need, Kara Yussuf. One account has it that Timur sent back the Mufti with a
courteous answer, another that he sent back the head
of Shah Mansur. It might have been either way. He
did not want Ahmed's gifts-he wanted the submission
of Bagdad, with his own name read in the prayers and
stamped upon the coins.
Meanwhile Ahmed made preparations for a service
of safety. He kept in touch with his Turkoman allies
and with Damascus, and he selected with care a body of
men and swift horses to serve as escort for himself, his
family and treasure if he had to flee. And at his frontier eighty miles away he posted watchers with carrier
pigeons who were to send him word of any sign of
Timur's approach.
Apparently Timur's spies brought him the tale of
Ahmed's preparations. At any rate, he decided to take
Bagdad. First he detached a cavalry division to stir
up the Turkomans and keep them occupied. Then he
moved up himself as if to join in the campaign.
Instead of doing so, he left the highway and advanced by forced marches through the hill country. At
night his men lighted cressets and pushed into the defiles, Timur traveling in a litter. The bulk of his forces
fell behind, and he kept with him only a picked force
with a herd of remounts.
Ahmed's watchers in the hill villages saw the dust
of his coming and messenger pigeons were loosed with
\




SULTAN AHMED OF BAGDAD


179


warning that Timur was within sight. Entering the
village the Tatar had the people called before him and
asked if they had sent word to Bagdad. They were
afraid to deny it, and Timur ordered them to send a
second message.
"Say that the riders you have seen were Turkomans
escaping from the Tatars."
Again pigeons were freed, and Timur rested some
hours. Then he selected a few hundred men and the
best of the horses and rode eighty-one miles over the
plain without dismounting, into the suburbs of Bagdad.
Sultan Ahmed had started his preparations for flight
when the first message came-sending his possessions
and entourage across the river and calling his escort to
arms. The second message did not entirely deceive
him. He lingered in the ity himself until it was certain that Timur was approaching. Then he crossed the
Tigris and destroyed the bridge of boats.
Timur's troopers galloped to the palaces that had
once been the abiding place of the Kalifs. They traced
the lord of Bagdad down to the river, and swam their
horses across.
Ahmed had no more than a few hours' start, and the
race to the Syrian desert began-the Tatars finding and
sending back to their lord the splendid state galley
called the Sun in which the Sultan had feasted at night
on the water. For a day and a night and another day
the Tatars pushed their horses over the dry marshes
until they reached the reeds of the Euphrates.
Here they had to search for boats, and they rowed
across, the horses swimming beside them. Evidently
they had gained upon the fugitives, because they found
Ahmed's personal baggage and most of his treasure
abandoned, the pack horses grazing unattended. They
had passed all the villages and no remounts were avail(                   /




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able. The men of the ranks had fallen behind steadily,
being worse mounted than the leaders, and presently
the Tatars found themselves no more than forty or fifty
men, nearly all amirs and regimental commanders.
They had promised Timur to bring back Ahmed and
they kept on, into the clay ridges of the waste land.
Meanwhile the Sultan had thrown back a detachment to guard his road, and the Tatar officers found
themselves confronted by a hundred or more horsemen. With their bows they broke up a charge of the
Sultan's followers, and galloped on when the Bagdadis
retreated.
A second time they were attacked, and they dismounted, shooting over the backs of their horses until
their adversaries scattered again. After that all traces
of the fugitives were lost and the amirs, tormented by
thirst, their horses done up, had to turn aside to look
for water.
Ahmed reached Damascus alive, but his women and
sons fell into the hands of the Tatars who brought
them back to Timur. Bagdad paid a ransom, and acknowledged Timur's lordship. A governor was left
there and the invaders withdrew as suddenly as they
had come. Before they left, they poured all the wine
of Bagdad into the river. And Timur took with him
to the concourse of Samarkand all the astrologers and
architects.
The Sultan, himself a man of letters, wrote a mournful couplet upon his misfortune:
"Men say Thou wert Lame for the Fight.
But surely I proved not lame in my flight."
The storm had passed over, leaving Sultan Ahmed
nearly bare of gear and honor alike. At Cairo the lord




SULTAN AHMED OF BAGDAD


181


of Egypt sheltered him, gave him new women and
slaves. To Cairo came also envoys from the Tatar
court.
"In the days of Genghis Khan," said the envoys, "the
ancestors of our Lord fought with your ancestors.
Then a peace was agreed between them. Afterward
all Iran became the prey of misrule and civil war. Our
Lord hath restored peace in Iran, which borders upon
your dominion. So he sent ambassadors to you, that
merchants may come and go and quarrels not arise.
The praise to Him who is sole Lord and Master of
Kings."
It pleased the monarch of Egypt to put these envoys
to death. By seizing Bagdad Timur had drawn too
near the powers of the west, and the forces of the Mamluks were set in motion. At this moment they gained
an unexpected and a formidable ally.
A Tatar army had interfered in the affairs of Asia
Minor, thus drawing upon Timur the anger of Bayazid,
Sultan of the Turks. The alliance was now complete,
and it seemed that Timur's westward march had ended.
With the Turkomans and Syrian Arabs supporting their
flanks, the Sultans felt their way eastward, meeting little opposition, as far as the Euphrates and the Caspian
sea.1
The Mamluks of Egypt marched down the Tigris,
and entered Bagdad, escorting the fugitive Ahmed.
He was duly installed again in his palace, this time as
governor for Egypt. When the Mamluks had withdrawn from Bagdad, and the Turks from Mosul, sat1 This was the year when Miran Shah's drug-inspired vagaries were
making chaos of the Tatar province south of the Caspian, and Timur was
engaged elsewhere, first in- quelling the last onset of Toktamish in the
north, and then departing for the march into India. To have followed his,campaigns in chronological order would have required a route book and a
constantly changing map. As a consequence each phase had been dealt
with separately until now.




TAMERLANE


isfied with their achievements, Ahmed was left to his
own devices. He sent spies to Samarkand to gain
tidings of Timur and his men returned with strange
tales.
"We have seen what we have seen. The city is not
as it was formerly. Now it has blue domes and marble
courts where once camels were tethered. Verily we
saw the lord of the Tatars, at the building of a sarai.
He was not pleased with what the builders had done,
and he gave command to tear it down. Thereafter for
the space of twenty days he came each day upon his
horse and watched, and-God is our witness, this thing
happened as we say —in the twenty days the palace was
erected to the last stone of the arch and the bricks of
the dome. The arch is the height of twenty and four
lance lengths, and fifty men can stand in its breadth."
"And what more?" the Sultan asked.
"He sits in talk with the imams of the Sunnites and
the Alyites, saying to them-"
"What are his words to me? What doeth he?"
"By Allah and the Companions, may your highness
favor us! He hath departed into Ind."
Although he knew Timur must be more than a thousand miles away, Ahmed could not feel at ease. He
had not forgotten that mad flight over the barren lands
with the amirs at his heels. He began to distrust his
ministers and more than a few he put to death with his
own hand. He moved his quarters into the almost deserted women's palace, and surrounded himself with
Circassian Mamluks and negro swordsmen.
From the balconies, from behind the marble fretwork that had screened his wives, he watched the
throngs that passed over the bridge of boats. Secretly
he had eight horses put in a stable across the Tigris and
guarded by the few followers he trusted. Then he de



SULTAN AHMED OF BAGDAD,183


dared that no one would be admitted into his presence.
No slaves came into the chambers, and Ahmed passed
his hours going from embrasure to embrasure, distrusting those who watched for him.
His fear gained such mastery over him that at last
he had his meals brought to him on a single tray and
left at the sarai door. When the chamberlain who
brought them had departed, Ahmed opened the door
and took in the tray.
By nights he made trial of his way to safety, going
out heavily cloaked and crossing the river to where his
horses waited. To him thus guarded came a folded
missive written in beautiful Persian-a verse-of praise
from the immortal Hafiz whom he had invited long
since to visit him:
"Ahmed, son of Sultan Owaiss,
The King and son of a King!
Lover of wine-filled days,
To thee may fortune bring
The throne of Khusru and the glory of Genghis Khan."
A year passed and Ahmed had begun to feel secure
when the quiet of his solitude was broken by the roar
of a great drum.




Part Three


CHAPTER XXIII
THE PROTECTED
FOR TEN YEARS no breath of war had disturbed the
city of Samarkand. And in ten years, under the
impetus of Timur's will, much had been done.
He had taken a Samarkand of sun-dried clay and
brick and wood and made of it a Rome of Asia. He
had adorned it with whatever pleased his fancy in other
lands; he had peopled it anew with captives, and installed within it the scientists and philosophers of his
conquests. Every victory had been commemorated by
a new public building; the scholars had been provided
with academies and libraries, and the artisans with
guilds in the trading centers. There was even a
menagerie for strange beasts and birds, and an observatory for the astronomers.
This city had been Timur's dream. He had never
been too deep in a campaign to overlook any materials
or works of art that might beautify it. The white marble of Tabriz, the glazed tiles of Herat, the silver filigree work of Bagdad, the clear jade of Khoten-it was
all here now. No one knew what would turn up next,
because no one but Timur had a hand in the planning
of the new Samarkand. He loved it as an old man
loves a young mistress. At this time he was off plundering India to enrich Samarkand. The results he had
achieved in ten years are worth looking at.
At this particular time, a day in early spring, 1399,
Timur was absent in India, and he communicated with
184


I




THE PROTECTED


the city by courier, by way of the Khyber pass and
Kabul. Riding in from the south highway, from the
Green City, the couriers had passed through a plain
where the groves were filled with tents and huts. The
throngs in these camps were the overflow of late arrivals, captives, hangers-on and fortune seekers drawn
to the new Utopia-a bedlam of tongues, and a babel
of varied prayer. Here were gathered Christians, Jews,
Nestorians-Arabs, Malakites, Sunnites and Alyites.
Some looked on with haggard eyes, others were intoxicated with excitement and suspense as if with wine.
Here, too, were the picket lines of the horse and
camel traders, where armed guards sat in the windtossed chaff. On one side of the road near a well stood
a small stone building without color or dome-a church
of the Nestorian Christians. Beyond these cantonments
of strange people began the estates of the nobles, the
white of a palace wall gleaming through the light green
tendrils of elms. Still a mile from the city wall, the
couriers entered the suburbs where they could read
the giant lettering on the blue facade of a distant academy-"God is great and there is no God but He."
The road enters two lines of sentinel poplars. But
off on the left there are streams and bridges and a labyrinth of garden plots-outskirts of the palace called
Heart's Delight, where the stone cutters are still at
work. At one side within the sycamores and blossoming fruit trees, stands a wall five hundred paces long,
which is no more than one side of a square, each side
having a single ogival arched gate supported by rearing
stone lions.
Within, gardeners from Persia are at work with
pots and picks, while slaves clear away the debris of
cement. Beyond a marble colonnade rise the walls of
the central palace. It is three stories in height, and




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some celebrated architects competed in drawing the
plans.
Skilled painters are still at work upon the entrance
hall. Each artist has a segment of the wall to himself,
and a bearded Chinese who scorns color draws with a
hair brush beside a court painter of Shiraz who is nothing if not flamboyant. Beyond them stands a Hindu
who is not much at drawing but knows how to apply
gilt and silver tissue on cement. Overhead the ceiling
is a mass of flowers, but the flowers are all mosaics.
The walls shine brilliantly-white porcelain, newly
cleaned.
On the north side of the city a garden very similar
to this was completed before Timur left for India.
And the chroniclers who write down the daily transactions of their master have this to say about it:
"Our Lord erected his pavilion there for one night.
He built it for plays and festivals on days of rejoicing.
He chose a model from the designs of the architects.
Four amirs watched the building of the four pavilions
in the corners. Lord Timur was so intent upon this
building that he stayed a month and a half to make
certain it was finished swiftly. A piece of Tabriz marble was laid in each corner of the foundations.
"The walls were painted in fresco by artists of Isfahan and Bagdad with so much care that the Chinese
paintings in Timur's cabinet of curiosities are not as
fine. The court was paved with marble, and the lower
walls within as well as without were covered with porcelain like this. The name of it is the Garden of the
North."
Within the circuit of these garden palaces lies the
main city, its walls five miles in circumference. At one




THE PROTECTED


187


of the gates-the Turquoise Gate —a courier takes the
right of way from a cavalcade of priests on mules. He
is a horseman in armor, his pony dark with sweat,
flecked with foam. The man's bloodshot eyes glare
out of a mask of dust and the arm that flicks the pony's
flank with the whip moves mechanically. A courier
from the army in India.
Loiterers at the gate hasten after him, following the
way that he opens, through the quarter of the Armenians where sallow-faced men stand in dark furs, up
into the street of the saddle makers, smelling of hides
and oil, as far as the palace of one of the governors
where secretaries are waiting to copy out the dispatches.
Lingering, the throng may hear some of the news-for
rumor is never penned within walls. The dispatches,
it seems, are urgent.
"A command of our Lord." But the nature of the
order is not apparent. Officers of the governor ride
out, and tongues wag.
Armed Tatars bar the way to the citadel hill where
the imperial women have their courts. But the women
have also garden courts dedicated to each of them, and
in one of these to-day there is a festival.
The building is in a wilderness of rose and tulip
beds, and the visitor notices that it is roofed with a
Chinese pagoda-peak. One chamber opens into another
through arches, as far as a room hung with rose colored
silk-walls and ceiling ornamented with plates of silver gilt bearing designs in pearls. Silk tassels swaying
with the wind appear like a moving curtain.
Here are divans under canopies of silk supported
by spears. Rugs from Bokhara and Farghana cover the
floor. In every chamber stand tabourets of gold, cast
in a single piece, bearing vials of scent, set each with
different stones-rubies, emeralds or turquoises. Also




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gold pitchers of honey mead, clear wine or spiced wine,
the inside of the pitchers being a mass of pearls. One
of the pitchers is flanked with six cups and through the
wine in the cups gleams a ruby two fingers in width.
But the festival is in the pavilions, shaded from the
sun. There sits gray-haired Mouava, and a few Tatars,
and many Persians of royal blood, and visiting chieftains of the Afghans and Arabs. When they were all
seated and expectant, Sarai Mulkh Khanum appears.
Before the empress advance black slaves, and beside
her walk her ladies with downcast eyes. But the Princess of the Palace moves erect under the weight of her
crimson head-dress that is shaped like a helmet, heavy
with its precious stones and embroidery and the broad
circlet of gold about her brows. The summit of this
head-dress is a miniature castle from which rise white
plumes. Other feathers fall about her cheeks, and between them tiny gold chains gleam.
Crimson, too, is her loose robe, trimmed with gold
lace. Fifteen women bear in their hands the long
train. Sarai Khanum's face is coated with white lead,
and veiled after a fashion with sheer silk; her black
hair is spread behind her shoulders.
When she is seated another princess appears, younger
and less resolute, but composed and respectful to the
elder. Her dark skin and wide eyes show that she is
a Mongol-the daughter of a Mongol Khan, and
Timur's last bride.
To these ladies of the palace advance cup-bearers,
holding goblets on gold trays, white cloths wrapped
about their hands so that they should not touch even
the tray. They kneel, and when the princess has sipped
from a cup they retire backward, and others come forward to serve the amirs. And these empty their goblets, turning them upside down to show that no drops




THE PROTECTED


i89


remain within and that they had thus honored fittingly
their hostess.
Timur's residences are elsewhere, beyond the citadel
quarter. Here are the pavilions of the officers of his
staff who did not go with the army to India, and his
magistrates and the keepers of the treasury-a castle
built apart, at the edge of a ravine. This serves also
as arsenal and laboratory.
It houses collections of fine and odd weapons, and
the drafting room of the engineers, with tables covered
with models of catapults, mangonels and fire throwers
-counterweight and torsion, both. Here are the rooms
where swordsmiths weld and test new blades, and a
thousand captive artificers work steadily upon helmets
and body armor alone. At this time they are perfecting
a light helmet with a broad nasal piece that can be
pulled down to guard the face or thrust up out of the
way.
Within the treasury it is not permitted to go, but not
far away is the Hermitage, a kind of den and curio
house of white marble near the animal park where
Timur sleeps at times. In the courtyard stands a tree
that flashes in the sun-its trunk gold, its branches and
leaves worked out of silver. But the fruit! Hanging
from the boughs are lustrous pearls and selected precious stones of every color shaped like cherries and
plums. Even birds are there, of red and green enamel
upon silver, their wings extended as if they were pecking at the fruit. Inside the treasury building is a miniature castle with four towers encrusted with emeralds.
These are toys-things of fancy, but symbolic of the
wealth that lies at hand.
The traveling mosque is gone. It was a light structure of wood, blue and crimson, a high stairway lead



19o


TAMERLANE


ing to it, and light let in through colored glass. It
could be taken to pieces and packed in the great carts,
and there it is stowed at present, being set up daily for
Timur's hour of prayer alone, while he marches
through India.
By now it is mid-afternoon and the markets are hot,
crowded and full of noise and dust. The Tatars can
buy there anything from manna to a young woman;
but many of them are going past the bazaars out to the
tomb of Bibi Khanum-turning aside into the alleys
to avoid a train of camels just in from the Cathay trunk
road, bearing loads of odorous spice in hemp bales.
This spice is bound for the Hanse towns by way of
Moscow, and the bales are marked with Chinese characters and Arabic lettering, as well as the stamp of the
Tatar customs officers.
Like the larger palaces, the Bibi Khanum quarter is
on a low hill surrounded by slender poplars. The
buildings-a mosque, with its companion academy and
quarters for teachers and disciples-are so large in
scale that only from a distance can their proportions be
realized and they are not yet completed. The mosque
appears about the size of St. Peter's at Rome-without
the central dome, but with flanking towers two hundred
feet in height. To reach it, the visitors cross a stoneflagged plaza, and circle a marble tank. Here sit dignified figures, mullahs wearing the huge turbans that
the Bokhara men affect, and philosophers who have
studied natural law, and are disputing about it with the
mullahs who know only what the leaves of the book
unfold.
"Who taught Avicenna his skill in medicine?" asks a
black-robed Arab. "Did he not observe, and make
experiments?"




THE PROTECTED


191


"And write in a book also?" adds a hook-nosed philosopher from Aleppo.
"Verily, he did," assents a third. "But he had read
Aristotle's Law of Nature."
"True," put in one of the mullahs who was not too
sure of his knowledge among distinguished strangers,
"yet in the end, what was his conclusion?"
"By Allah," the Arab smiles, "I know not the end of
his book, but he came to his own end by overmuch love
of women."
"O ye of little wit!" a deep voice speaks. "What
was truly his end? The great physician, dying, ordered
that the Book should be read aloud, and thus he opened
the way of salvation."
At this the man from Aleppo lifts his head.
"Harken, ye who spoil the carpet of contemplation
with the spittle of argument-I have a story to tell of
our Lord Timur."
While heads turn in his direction, he explains that
he was present at a discussion two years ago, when the
learned men of Samarkand and the Alyites of Iran sat
before Timur in his camp. "I heard our Lord ask a
question-whether in that war his own men who died,
or the enemy would be called martyrs? Indeed, no
one dared to answer, until a kadi raised his voice and
said that Muhammad-upon whom be blessing-had
answered before them, saying that not they who fought
in defense of their lives, or they who fought because of
courage alone, or they who desired glory alone would
see his face after the day of judgment. Nay, only he
who fought for the words of the Book would see his
face."
"And what said our Lord?" demanded a mullah.
"He asked the kadi how old he was. And the kadi
said two-score years. Then our Lord said only that




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TAMERLANE


he himself was aged three-score and two. And he gave
presents to all who had argued."
For a moment the listeners meditate upon this, fixing
all the words in their minds so that they could repeat it
to other audiences.
"I think," the Arab observes, "that thou hast seen
this anecdote in Sherif ad-Din's history."
The man of Aleppo defends his own version. "What
my ears heard, I have said. Sherif ad-Din took it from
me."
"The flea said, 'This garment is mine!'"  The Arab
scoffs. "O Ahmed, were there no others at the discussion?"
"If thou doubtest the faith of our Lord Timur,"
Ahmed cries suddenly, "look!"
And his long-sleeved arm points overhead at the
fagade of the mosque of Bibi Khanum, with its turquoise tiles and gilt inlay now softened by shadowdark against the burning blue of the sky. A massive
work, clear-cut as a cliff rising from the desert floor,
and marred by no clumsy buttresses.
But the Arab is not to be outdone. "By Allah, I see.
It was built by one of his women."
She who built it-or for whom Timur raised it-lies
in a small domed tomb in an adjacent garden. The
body of Bibi Khanum is beneath a square slab of white
marble there in the entrance where throngs move in
and out, and the dark Tatar swordsmen stand on guard.
Her name is no more than that-the Blessed Princess.
The visitors have heard that the body is the well
loved Aljai Agha, brought hither from the Green City.
But some say that this princess came from China 1 and
We cannot be sure who Bibi Khanum was, so many legends have gathered about the name. Timur never married-as many histories say-a
woman of the royal family of China. But he did take as wife the daughter
of the Mongol Khan. But at the date of this marriage some of the Bibi




TIMUR HOLDS COURT TN ONE OF HIS PALACE
GARDENS. PAINTED A GENERATION AFTER
HIS DEATH. HERE, AS OPPOSED TO THE
LIFE-PORTRAIT OF THE IFRONTISII'IECE, THE
CONQUEROR HAS BEEN PERSIANIZEID, REPRESENTED WITH WHITE SKIN, TRIMMED
BEARD AND CROWN. (larltin)




1I




THE PROTECTED


193


others will tell at length how thieves came one night
to take precious stones from the casket and were struck
by a serpent that lived in the tomb, so that guards coming to take their posts the next morning found the bodies of the thieves outstretched.
The shadows grow longer across the plaza, and the
men of Samarkand make an end of discussion and the
affairs of the day. Some go off to the bath houses to
be stripped and soaked and scrubbed and shaved and
kneaded and led into the warm room to dry by degrees
while their shirts are washed, so that they may dress
again in clean garments to go forth to eat-at the palace of an amir, or into the suburbs by the river. This
is the rendezvous of all the Tatars who seek amusement. They follow their noses into booths where quarters of mutton are roasting, and rice and barley cakes
are piled up. Then on to other stalls where sugar
candy and sun-dried melons and figs may be bought
for the half of a silver coin. Usually the end of the
promenade is a wine shop where they may sit and watch
the throngs and the endless shows of the board walk.
Along the river stand the cotton booths of the shadow
plays, where puppets quarrel and strut upon a lighted
sheet, and the magic lantern throws its pictures. Rope
dancers pass over the heads of the watchers, and tumblers spread their carpets underfoot. Some of the
Tatars prefer the groves of lilac and pomegranate trees
where crimson and blue lanterns glow, and the wine
pitcher circles among the feasters kneeling about a carpet. The gossip of the day is exchanged, the news
debated. A musician improvises upon a guitar, and a
poet, looking about him, quotes a little-known astronomer who used to sign himself the Tentmaker:
Khanum buildings had been erected. Obviously it could not be the great
princess, Sarai Khanum.




194                TAMERLANE
"We are but chessmen laboring amain,
The great chess-player Heaven to entertain;
The while It moves us on the board of life —
Then into the box of death we go again."




CHAPTER XXIV


THE GREAT LADY AND THE LITTLE LADY
SAMARKAND was built according to Timur's fancy.
Unlike other conquerors of his race, he did not
copy Persian art as it existed. He looked at Persian
buildings, and carried off artisans from the south, but
the monuments of Samarkand were Tatar in conception,
not Persian. Their ruins-and the kindred ruins of
Timur's other cities-remain to-day the finest expression of Tatar art. And even the ruins have an imperishable beauty.
Grotesque at times, and often hideous in detailssometimes gleaming magnificence upon the fagades, and
unfinished cement and brick in the rear-they have
perfect simplicity in design. Timur longed for mass.
At least twice he ordered a completed work torn down
and erected again on a larger scale. He delighted in
color.
In him was the somber humor of the Tatar race, and
the almost voiceless poetic sense of the nomad. His
buildings were stark and magnificent. Timur had the
desert dweller's pleasure in foliage and running water.
It is noteworthy that his palaces were built for the gardens.
And Samarkand had its public square. A place for
prayer and talk, a concourse for politics and news, a
rendezvous for the great lords and an exchange for
the merchants. It was called the registan-the square.
On its four sides loomed the buildings created by
Timur's will, churches and academies. It covered the
195




196


TAMERLANE


summit of a low rise, under the citadel height, and it
was always gay with streamers and the dripping of
fountains. On the day after the reception of Sarai
Khanum, it was crowded at sunrise because rumor had
reported the arrival of a courier the day before.
"No word is yet known," the grandees agreed, "save
that the message was from our Lord. And this silence
-is it not a cloak to cover calamity?"
They recalled that the high amirs had been reluctant
to go to India, until roused by Timur. And that even
his grandson, Muhammad Sultan, had said: "We may
subdue Ind; yet Ind hath many ramparts. First, the
rivers; and secondly, wilderness and forests; and
thirdly, the soldiers clad in armor; and fourthly, the
elephants, destroyers of men."
"Ind," said a Tatar lord who had been there, "is a
land of sudden heat, not like our heat, but breeding
sickness and sapping strength. There, the water is bad
and the Indus speak a language that is not like ours.
What if the army should linger there too long?"
In this Tatar Forum there were wise counselors and
men who had governed kingdoms before Timur's coming shuttled them into other tasks.
"With the gold of Ind," they vouchsafed, "we could
subdue the world."
They knew that the empire beyond the mountains
was the treasure house of Asia, and that Timur meant
to gather in its resources. They suspected, too, that he
meant to open a road into China. Had not two other
Tatar divisions been sent to explore the Gobi beyond
Khoten? They had reported not long since that it was
two months' march from Khoten to Kambalu. And
they had investigated Kashmir, where the mountains
were a barrier into China.
These counselors bethought them that only recently




GREAT LADY AND LITTLE LADY                  197
Timur had taken in marriage a young daughter of the
Mongol Khan. And not long ago the emperor of
China had died.
"In the world," some one pointed out, "there are six
rulers of such power that we do not mention them by
name. So the marabout Ibn Batuta said, and he visited
all in turn."
"Six?" laughed an officer. "There is one, and his
name is Amir Timur."
"Nay," asserted the more experienced, "the marabout
was right. He described them thus: the Takfur of
Constantinople, the Sultan of Egypt, the King of Bagdad, the Lord of Tatary, the Maharaj of India, and the
Fagfur of China.1 Until now our Lord of Tatary hath
overcome no more than one other of these rulers, the
Sultan of Bagdad."
Moodily the Tatar officers pondered their wars of
forty years-the aged Saif ad-Din and Mouava were in
the registan that morning. In those forty years, only
one of the greater princes of the world, it seemed, had
fled before Timur. And now Sultan Ahmed was returned to Bagdad.
Indeed the news from the west was all bad. Revolt
simmered along the Caucasus, and the Sultans had reoccupied all Mesopotamia. If by any chance Timur
should be defeated in India! Timur's people were so
accustomed to victory, that nothing else was looked for.
Had not the army, ninety-two thousand strong, gone
down the Khyber pass, and built a bridge across the
Indus. Multan had fallen, and now Timur moved
against the Sultan of Delhi.
1 Takfur-emperor. Ibn Batuta's list would startle a European, but
except for the fact that the Greek Emperor and the Sultan of Bagdad were
exalted more by past reputation than by power, his account is accurate.
Europe, divided into a dozen small kingdoms and dukedoms, had not yet
begun its conquests. The last of its crusaders had withdrawn. The
Asiatics believed that Constantinople was the reigning city of Europe.




198


TAMERLANE


The Tatars at the head of the home government
mused upon the fighting ability of the elephants, that
they had never seen.
That morning word spread swiftly through the
registan. The courier's message was known. Had not
the citadel guards searched all night because of it?
"The message of our Lord was a command, to put to
death the courtesan Shadi Mulkh."
All Samarkand wondered who Shadi Mulkh might
be, except the few who knew, among them the old general Saif ad-Din.
This eldest of the amirs had brought back with him
from Persia a black-haired girl not long since. A creature with the full eyes and white skin of the harembred. And Khalil, the youthful son of Khan Zade, had
been intoxicated with her beauty. At his plea, Saif
ad-Din had given the girl to him. So Shadi Mulkh,
trained in the arts of a courtesan, had passed into the
arms of Timur's youngest grandson.
Khalil, stirred by the passion that filled his life, spent
his hours at the feet of his new mistress. He dreamed
of a marriage in state, before the grandees and the royal
princesses.
But this request Timur had refused instantly, and
had ordered Shadi Mulkh to be brought before him.
Frightened, the girl had fled, or Khalil had hidden her,
and then the army had gone off.
Now from India the conqueror had sent command
to put Shadi Mulkh to death. Khalil could not aid her,
nor could she hide from the search that penetrated all
of Samarkand's gardens. One sanctuary alone might
save her life. And so, veiled, she hastened to the palace of the great princess Sarai Khanum, mistress of the
court. There she flung herself down, catching at the




GREAT LADY AND LITTLE LADY 199
feet of the elder woman, begging wildly to be saved
from death. She had not the stoic courage of the
Tatars.
What passed between the women we do not know.
But the picture is clear-the beautiful girl, hennastained, tears smearing the black kohl from her eyelids
upon her cheeks-the impassive empress, stern in the
traditions of the Tatar conquerors. Shadi Mulkh, a
thing created for pleasure, maddened now by fear.
And Sarai Khanum, at once the widow and wife, the
mother and grandmother of reigning princes, about
whom had centered the anxieties and stress of fifty
years.
Shadi Mulkh at last cried out that she was with child
by Khalil.
"If that is true," the great princess said, "the Lord
Timur will spare thee."
And she sent Shadi Mulkh to the care of her own
eunuchs, forbidding her to see Khalil until her case
was brought before Timur.
A slight affair, this love of a boy for an unknown
courtesan, but upon it rested the future of an empire.
Between Sarai Khanum and Khan Zade there was bitter antagonism-for Khan Zade's influence was little
less than the prestige of the elder princess. And Khan
Zade was ambitious, and much more clever than Sarai
Khanum. Men called them the Great Lady and the
Little Lady.
It would have been much better if the Great Lady
had let Shadi Mulkh be put to death. Later, Timur
confirmed her decision and the courtesan lived.
Into Samarkand rode a courier who made no secret
of his message, for he reined in a rearing horse to shout
at guard house and sarai and gate:




200


TAMERLANE


"Victory! Our Lord has conquered!"
Others came with fuller stories, grim enough. Before meeting the Sultan of Delhi the Tatars had massacred, they said, a hundred thousand captives. They
had broken the army of India in battle, and had taken
Delhi.2  The elephants-so rumor ran-had been scattered by flame throwers.
There was festival in Samarkand, and the registan
was crowded nightly. Especially the Church rejoiced.
With northern India underfoot-the treasure house
broken into, the Hindu rajas driven into their hills, the
leaders of Islam dreamed of a new Kalifate, and a dominion that stretched from Bagdad to India. Under
Timur's protection there would be peace, and wealth,
and upon such sureties the power of the imams would
grow.
The next spring the army returned, by way of the
Green City, and the Black Throne, where a garden of
dark marble had been built upon a mountain top.
Under the Turquoise Gate of the city carpets had
been spread, and crimson cloth upon the street leading
to the citadel. From roof parapets and garden walls
flamed silks and embroidered cloths. Shop fronts were
decorated, and the people clad in their brightest colors.
Down the road went the resident amirs, the visiting
lords and the princesses, to give welcome to their lord.
Th-ther rode Sarai Khanum with her court, her eyes
searching the throngs of mailed riders for the face of
Shah Rukh, her son. And there too Khan Zade waited
the appearance of her two first-born, Prince Muhammad Sultan and Prince Pir Muhammad.         When the
2 Timur's conquest of India was no more than a short campaign. He
did not wish to besiege Delhi, so he maneuvered in the plain and entrenched himself with all the appearance of uncertainty and fear. The
Sultan of Delhi was deceived and gave battle in the open, which was just
what Timur desired. Once the Indian army was defeated he sacked Delhi
at leisure and moved south on the Hindu border cities.




GREAT LADY AND LITTLE LADY 201
princes rode past the slaves tossed into the air gleaming gold dust and pearl seed, and precious stones under
the hoofs of Timur's horse.
And then upon the watching multitude fell stark
amazement. Their great heads nodding above the
dust, their huge forms painted in many colors, appeared
the leaders of the elephants-ninety-seven teams of
them, laden with the treasure of their former masters.
So Timur made his eighth triumphal entry into Samarkand. Among his gleanings from India were plans
of the Jumna mosque and two hundred masons to help
him build one like it. The chronicle relates that the
first thing he did upon dismounting was to go to the
bath.




CHAPTER XXV


TIMUR S CATHEDRAL
TO COMMEMORATE THE CONQUEST OF INDIA, Timur
wished to build something new and notable. Evidently he had already made up his mind what it would
be, because he entered Samarkand on the twentieth of
May, and on the twenty-eighth he was superintending
the foundations of the great mosque that came to be
called the King's Church.
It was to be of cathedral size, large enough, the
chronicle says, to hold all the people of the court.
There was little sleep thereafter for architects and artisans. Five hundred stone cutters were sent to the
hill quarries, and stone blocks began to appear down
the road, dragged on massive wheels by the newly acquired motive power, the elephant teams. The problem of applying elephant power to the building itself
was laid before the engineers, and they devised hoists
and pulleys to fill the need.
When the walls were up the Indian masons were set
to work inside, all two hundred of them. Timur passed
from war to building with perfect detachment. Havingifinished with India, he thought of nothing but the
new cathedral.,, Perhaps two hundred thousand human
beings had died along the route of his battles that last
winter, but the memory did not trouble him. Victorious
generals were appointed the duty of overseeing the
erection of towers and pillars.
Within the cathedral four hundred and eighty stone
pillars went up; doors of worked brass were set in place
202




TIMUR'S CATHEDRAL


203


-a marble ceiling laid, and polished. Gilt iron and
silver went into the pulpit and reading desk. The decorations were inscriptions from the Koran.
In less than three months the caller-to-prayer was
crying from the minarets of the new towers, and from
the pulpit prayers were read in the name of the Emperor.
Timur never took to himself formally the title of
Emperor. He was still Amir Timur Gurigan-Lord
Timur, the Splendid. He did not claim to be a tura,
a ruler of imperial descent. His documents began with
the short phrase "Lord Timur hath given this command-" or even more briefly, "I, Timur, servant of
God, say this —"
But his grandsons, all born of women of the imperial line of the Tatars, bore the titles Mirza and
Sultan-Prince. To them Timur had given empires
as fiefs. Muhammad Sultan was ruler of the Jat dominion, Pir Muhammad of India-Shah Rukh, his
gentle son, ruled in Khorassan and was building palaces of his own in Herat. The sons of the disgraced
Miran Shah had their court in the west, which was at
present much the worse for disorder.
Timur had given no hint whom he would name as
his successor. The aging Sarai Khanum hoped in spite
of all likelihood that her son Shah Rukh would be
given the imperial throne. Khan Zade spared no intrigue or cajolement on behalf of her youngest son
Khalil. But neither dared speak openly to the old conqueror. And to his grandsons he was an inflexible arbiter, a passionless judge.
Untroubled by the ambitions of the women, Timur
sat in the saddle watching his elephants at work. It
occurred to him that the existing bazaar was too small
for the traffic of the city, and he commanded suddenly




204


TAMERLANE


that a wide street should be opened from the registan
to the river, and fitted up as a street of trade. This,
he said, should be done in twenty days. He entrusted
the task to two nobles, promising that their heads would
fall if the work were not done as he ordered.
Naturally, the two overseers went to work. Along
the line Timur had pointed out an army fell to wrecking houses. Protests were vain-the owners fled with
their clothes and what else they could gather while
their walls came down.
Workmen were drafted from outside the city-loads
of lime and sand requisitioned. The debris was carted
off, the ground leveled, the street laid out and flagged
and drained. Laborers were divided into two shifts,
one for the day, the other to carry on by torch-light.
They seemed, the chronicle says, to be so many devils
toiling beside flames, and the noise was unending.
The broad street was finished, the arcade built over
it, the shops erected-windows pierced through the
domed roof. Merchants were summoned in haste to
cart in their goods. Before the limit of twenty days the
new street was crowded, and Timur, riding through
it, was satisfied with the work.
It had an aftermath. The ousted owners made a
plea to certain judges, and one day while they were
playing chess with Timur these judges ventured to
suggest that since he had caused the houses to be demolished, he ought to make amends to the owners.
This enraged the conqueror. "Is not the city mine?"
Fearing that they would be given to the swords of
the guards, the judges made haste to assure him that
the city was indeed his, and all he did was right. After
a moment Timur responded:
"If it is right that the people should be paid, I will
pay them as you desire."




I








BUILDING THE MOSQUE OF SAMARKAND. AN EXCELLENT
CONTEMPORANEOUS PAINTI NG, SHOWING AN ELEPHANT AND HIGH-WHEELED CART SERVING AS CARRIERS FOR THE ARAB ANI) PERSIAN ARTISANS. THE
TATAR OFFICER OVER THE DOORWAY ON T HE, RIGH
IS CLEARLY DIRECTING THE WORK. (S~chitlv-)


-~.\ V, "\,
— 2.1I
2- 1 ~




I




TIMUR'S CATHEDRAL


205


Apparently in all this time he had given no thought
to another war. In reality he had been gathering information. He had every reason to rest content with
what he possessed. He had gutted India, the north
was under his hand. True, the western line of the
Tigris had been taken from him; but no power of the
west would dare attack the heart of his dominion.
He was now sixty-four years of age. Although his
body seemed as vigorous as ever, he had been struck
down at times by illness; his mind was as alert as in
middle age, but he was given to long silences, and his
temper had hardened. He had built his cathedral, but
the leaders of the Church could not influence him. All
his life he had been troubled by an inward conflict.
The faith of his devout father, the catechizing of his
preceptor Zain ad-Din, the law of Koran-these influences were in conflict with the heritage of his nomad
ancestors, the lust for battle and the reek of destruction under his hand. And now it seemed as if he reverted to the code of the nomad. "A man's path is
only one." Struggle and victory and the glory of possession.
The kings of the west were the pillars of Islamthe Kalif was in Cairo, the Protector of the Faithful in
Bagdad, the Sword Arm of the Faith in the person of
the Emperor of the Turks. To them the Tatar was a
barbarian and more than half a pagan.
To march against them would be to divide the world
of Islam, and to put a million men under arms. The
Church was desperately urgent for peace; it called
Timur Ghazi, Victor for the Faith, and prayer for the
new Emperor echoed in the cathedral.
But there was a third side to the old Tatar's somber
character. He was still the Timur who had gone alone
to the gate of Urganj to fight a duel. He would never




206                     TAMERLANE
remain quiet if challenged. Now chieftains under his
protection had been ousted from the threshold of Asia
Minor; his son's lands had been invaded, and Bagdad
taken from his governor. All this was a clear challenge.1
In May I399, he had entered Samarkand, and in
September he set out at the head of his army. For
three years Samarkand did not see him.
1 In addition, Timur was now pondering the invasion of China. He did
not feel free to move against China in the east while the alliance in the
west was threatening his frontier.
We can see at this point, as clearly as if they were so many moves upon
a chessboard, the plans of the old Tatar. His object was first an alliance
with the Mongol khans of the Gobi, then an invasion of China. To do
this he would have to leave Samarkand for years. First he removed from
the board the Sultan of Delhi, its nearest possible enemy; with the spoils
of India he launched into the west, and cleared his frontier there. It is
clear that he did not wish a conflict with the Turks, as long as they remained in Europe. When they advanced into Asia he went to meet them.
The moment the western powers were crushed he turned back to Samarkand, and organized in two months his great expedition to China.




CHAPTER XXVI


THE WAR OF THREE YEARS
THE SITUATION confronting the Tatar conqueror
was peculiar. To reach his enemies it was necessary to move west more than a thousand miles. Here
the frontier of the allies, as it might be called, extended
along an immense half-circle from the Caucasus mountains to Bagdad.
It was like a very pliant curved bow drawn back to
the limit of its arc. And the Tatar host advancing
along the great Khorassan road was moving in from the
feathered tip of the arrow toward the head of the arrow
and the center of the bow. Timur was moving west
very much as Napoleon moved east in the summer of
1813 against the half-circle of allies, before the battle
of Leipzig and the disastrous although brilliant retreat
to Paris that overthrew the French leader and brought
to an end the First Empire.
Like Napoleon, the Tatar conqueror had the advantage of a veteran army, himself sole commander, against
a divided enemy. But the country over which they
maneuvered was not the same at all. Instead of the
level, cultivated lands of Europe with their network of
roads and open villages, Timur was faced by all western
Asia with its rivers, and mountain ranges, its deserts
and marshes.
He had a choice of few routes, and once started
along a certain road he had to keep going. And on
these main caravan roads there were fortified cities,
each with its army to defend it. Also, he had to march
with an eye on the calendar-to think of crops and
207




208


TAMERLANE


grazing for the horses. Some countries were impassable
in winter, others forbidden ground in the hot season.
Napoleon himself was turned back by one of these fortified cities, Acre, and the heat of the Syrian desert.
Along the half-circle of the frontier a dozen separate
armies awaited the Tatars-the warlike Georgians had
emerged from their fastness in the Caucasus. Next to
them, an expeditionary force of Turks occupied the
headwaters of the Euphrates. Kara Yussuf was on
the prowl as usual with his Turkomans-a powerful
Egyptian army held Syria, and down in the south lay
Bagdad. If Timur moved on Bagdad, the Turks could
attack his rear from the north; if he attempted to penetrate the lands of the Turks in Asia Minor, the Egyptian army would be at his back.
So he could not at first penetrate to the strongholds
of the Turks in Europe, or the reigning city of the
Mamluks in Egypt. He could not force either of the
two great Sultans to give battle, while they could invade Asia at any time they wished.'
Above all was the question of water. The army had
its camel trains, and Timur had brought along the elephants. But in the main it was an army of cavalry,
with an extra horse to each man. To route anywhere
from fifty thousand to a quarter million horses required
care and exact knowledge of the country. While he
marched Timur consulted his geographers and merchants daily; ahead of the main forces moved scouts,
1 The difficulty of this terrain was evidenced by the checks suffered by
the Allied powers in its invasion during the great war. The Russian
armies penetrated little farther than Erzerum from the north, while a
British army was forced to surrender near Bagdad in the south. In Syria
the British and Lawrence's Arab clans were nearly two years in capturing
Damascus.
These expeditions had command of the sea behind them and were better
equipped than the Turk, the solitary defender of x915-19i8. In Timur's
day the Turk was comparatively more powerful and was allied to the Mamluks, Circassians, Georgians and Turkomans, all formidable fighters-not
to mention the Syrian Arabs.




THE WAR OF THREE YEARS 209
and ahead of them scattered observers to report the position of the enemy and the water question. Beyond
the observers, spies went over the borders.
At first Timur advanced leisurely, and in state. Sarai
Khanum and two other imperial princesses and several
grandsons were with him. The great Khorassan road
saw the splendor of the Tatar court.
Meanwhile officers were making the city of Tabriz
into a base for operations in the west and the plain of
Karabagh a remount station for the horse herds. Timur
himself indulged in letter writing. In particular he
sent missives to the Tatar Khan who was then in power
in the Russian steppes-a certain Idiku. He received
a surprisingly frank reply.
"Lord Timur," Idiku wrote, "thou hast spoken of
friendship. For twenty years I lived at thy court, and
I know thee well, and thy tricks. If we are to be
friends, it must be with the sword in hand."
Nevertheless, the Tatars of the steppes kept out of
Timur's way and remained neutral in the coming
struggle.
To Bayazid, surnamed the Thunder, Emperor of the
Turks, Timur wrote courteously, but requested that no
aid be given to Kara Yussuf and Sultan Ahmed-who
had put themselves under the protection of the Turks,
and were then in active alliance with Bayazid. With
Bayazid as yet he had no personal quarrel; he respected
the military power of the Turks, and possibly he wished
to leave well enough alone in this quarter if the Turks
would remain in Europe.
Bayazid's answer was not conciliatory. "Know, O
bloody dog named Timur," it said in effect, "that the
Turks are not accustomed to refuse shelter to friends
or to shun battle with foes, or to resort to lies and tricks
of intrigue."




210


TAMERLANE


This drew a retort from Timur, who alluded to the
fact that the Othman Sultans were sprung from the
Turkoman nomads. "I know your origin." He added
that Bayazid should think carefully, before venturing
against elephants that would crush him-although
Turkomans were never noted for good judgment. "If
you do not follow our counsels, you will repent it.
Consider, therefore, and do as you see fit."
To this Bayazid returned a long summary of his own
victorious career-how he was conquering Europe, the
stronghold of the unbelievers, how he himself was the
son of a martyr for the faith, and the true champion of
Islam. "Long have we wished for war with you.
Now, the praise be to God, it is at hand. If you do
not come to seek us, we shall pursue you to Sultaniah.
Then will we see who will be exalted by victory and
who will be cast down by defeat."
Apparently the Tatar conqueror made no immediate
response. Later, he wrote briefly, saying that Bayazid
could avoid war if he gave up Kara Yussuf and Sultan
Ahmed at once.
The Thunder answered promptly and violently-so
much so that the chroniclers of the Tatar conqueror
have not dared to repeat the letter as it was written.
Bayazid inscribed his own name at the top in gilt illumination and wrote Timur-i-lang-Timur the Lame
-beneath in small black letters. He promised among
other things to violate Timur's favorite wife. A letter
that goaded the old Tatar into fury.
But while this animated correspondence had been
taking place, Timur had accomplished a great deal.
First sending back the imperial women with their
courts out of harm's way to Sultaniah, he left the bulk
of his forces to mobilize at Karabagh, and sent sep



THE WAR OF THREE YEARS


211


arate divisions against the Georgians in the Caucasus on
his right. Roads were cut through the wooded defiles
again, the Christian armies shattered, and the unhappy
country laid waste in a ghastly fashion with fire and
sword. Churches were burned, and even the vineyards
torn up. No terms were offered, or respite-as in
other years. In the field against massed enemies, Timur
was merciless.
In such fashion the fifteenth century dawned. With
the melting of the snows, Timur's main divisions were
on the march into Asia Minor, by way of the valley of
Erzerum. By midsummer I400 he had taken all the
cities as far as Sivas.
Sivas was the key of Asia Minor. The frontier army
of the Turks retreated in haste, while the Tatars assailed its walls, mining under them and propping up
the foundations. Then the props were burned, and
whole sections of the wall came down. The Muhammadans of the city were spared but four thousand Armenian cavalrymen who had harassed the Tatars were
buried alive in the moat.
This done Timur ordered the fortifications repaired.
He scattered contingents of Turkomans who had come
upon the scene and hastened down by forced marches,
to surprise Malayta, the gate of the south-entering
it the same day that the Turkish governor fled with his
men.
Then, instead of advancing farther into Asia Minor
he ordered his divisions to prepare to march south
against Syria. His amirs came to him in a body, to
protest. Only a year ago, they said, they had ended
the war in India, and since then their men had marched
two thousand miles, in two new campaigns. The enemy
in Syria was numerous, the cities were fortified, and
their men and beasts needed rest.




212;


TAMERLANE


"Numbers mean nothing," Timur cried. And under
the lash of his will, the army moved south.
It stormed Aintab, and found the army of the Egyptian Sultan awaiting it at Aleppo. Here it moderated
its advance, crawling forward each day, digging trenches
and building barriers around its camps. The Mamluks
and Syrians accepted this as a sign of weakness and
moved out of the walls to give battle. At once the
Tatars advanced from their barriers and attacked, the
elephants in the center-archers and flame throwers in
the elephant castles.
Before the onset the allies broke. The Tatars forced
their way into Aleppo, stormed the citadel on the height
'-and marched on, to Damascus. It was now January
I401.
Damascus bargained for terms, hoping for time in
which a second army could be got together to oppose
Timur. When the Tatars moved past, they were attacked from the rear by new forces of the allies. At
first there was confusion, but Timur formed his divisions, drove home his charges, and cleared the field.
Then he turned back upon Damascus, and the great
city was given up to the looters. Fire broke out, and
raged for days, burying in its ruins the bodies of the
slain.
The survivors of the Egyptian armies fled through
Palestine. By order of the Egyptian Sultan one last
attempt was made to check Timur. An assassin, dosed
with hashish, tried to reach the lame conqueror with
his dagger. The man was seized, thrown down and
cut to pieces.
During the carnival of destruction at Damascus,
Timur ordered that plans be drawn of a curious dome
that had caught his attention. It covered a tomb that
could be seen from the plain, and it was unlike the




THE WAR OF THREE YEARS                213
squat pointed domes that the Tatars had known. Swelling out from the base, it tapered to a slender point.
In shape it was like a pomegranate.
Apparently it differed from all other work of the
architects and its stateliness pleased the Tatar conqueror.
This bulbed dome of Damascus-destroyed in the
fire-became the pattern of Timur's later buildings and
those of his descendants. Transported in another century to India, it forms the summit of the Taj Mahal,
and the palaces of the Moghuls. In Russia it is found
upon every church.




CHAPTER XXVII


'BISHOP JOHN GOES TO EUROPE
AT DAMASCUS Timur once more executed an about
face. As he had refrained from venturing far into
the lands of the Turks, he now turned back from the
Syrian desert. One division was sent down the coast of
the Holy Land, to pursue the Egyptian contingents as
far as Akk —the Acre of the crusaders, and later the
stumbling block of Napoleon. Several more were ordered due east to invest Bagdad.
Timur himself returned the way he had come as far
as Aleppo. It was now March I40I. More slowlybecause there was a limit to the endurance of even
Tatars, he moved over to the Euphrates, and allowed
the divisions with him to hunt. The chronicle mentions that the meat of roe-buck gave to wine an added
flavor.
Here he established fuller communication with his
base, and received messages from the amirs in command there, also the reports from Samarkand and the
weekly news from Sivas-on which he bestowed some
thought. Sivas was the gateway of the Thunder, and
Timur had wasted no time in bringing his main strength
back within two hundred miles of it.
But from the amirs before Bagdad he had a message
that sent him to the southern road. The commander
at Bagdad, it seemed, had defended the city. Sultan
Ahmed had fled to join Bayazid, leaving orders that
if Timur appeared in person before the city, it was to
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0




BISHOP JOHN GOES TO EUROPE 215
be surrendered; but unless Timur came, it was to hold
out unftil the Turks could advance against the Tatars.
So the conqueror went south at once, traveling by
forced marches in a litter.
His arrival before the city was announced to the Sultan's officers within. One who knew Timur by sight
was sent out to make certain that the conqueror himself
was present at the siege. Faraj, the Sultan's commander in Bagdad, chose to disobey his master's orders.
Possibly he was afraid to yield the city after having
closed the gates against Timur-possibly, with the summer heat making a furnace of the Tigris valley, he believed that the Tatars would have to withdraw. But
he must have known that for forty years the Tatars
had not abandoned the siege of a fortress.
The men of Bagdad trusted that the massive stone
walls would hold out against the Tatars.
The last thing Timur wanted was to invest Bagdad.
For nearly two years his divisions had been in the field
without respite; his main strength was gathered at his
base, Tabriz, against the coming of the Turks, and
there he had planned to be at this time. His terrific
marching had at last failed to keep up with the sun,
and he was caught on bare, heat-ridden plaifig, faced
by shortage of food and grazing.
But Bagdad was the key of the Tigris, a rallying
point for the armies that might come out of Egypt and
the last stronghold of his enemies in Asia. In an hour
he changed his plans, and couriers galloped out from
his quarters with orders to Shah Rukh to move down
from the north with ten veteran divisions and the engineers and siege train. A corps of observation was
thrown into Asia Minor to watch the Turks, and an
order sent back to Samarkand, to Prince Muhammad
a




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TAMERLANE


to advance to the west with the army that had been left
in the reigning city.1
When Shah Rukh arrived, Timur ordered a formal
review of his mounted divisions before the walls of
Bagdad. With standards raised and bands playing a
hundred thousand Tatars paraded before the eyes of
the inhabitants. The spectacle had no effect and Timur
set to work savagely.
A bridge of boats was thrown across the Tigris below
the city, to enable the besiegers to move from one bank
to the other and to cut off escape by the river. The
suburbs were stormed and leveled and occupied; the
circuit of more than twelve miles was closely invested.
From distant forests large tree trunks were hauled and
of these pyramids were built on nearby elevations. On
the summits of the pyramids the siege engines were
placed so that stones could be shot down at the walls
and the city within.
Meanwhile the miners began their burrowing under
the foundations. In a few days whole sections of the
outer wall came down. But behind these breaches the
Bagdadis had erected inner walls of stone and cement,
defended by fire missiles.
Timur's generals begged him to order a general assault. The heat was becoming a nightmare. In that
lifeless air birds, the chronicle relates, fell dead out of
the sky. The soldiers laboring in the reflected glare of
the burned clay of the ground under the heated walls
were literally baked within their armor.
1 From the autumn of I399 to the autumn of 140o Timur's every move
was planned against the possibility of Bayazid's approach. At this time,
while Timur was preparing to besiege Bagdad, Bayazid was actually crossing leisurely from Europe to Asia. Had the Emperor of the Turks displayed more energy, and appeared upon the scene before Bagdad fell, he
would have found Tabriz-an open metropolis-deserted by the Tatars.
The Tatar corps of observation could have reported his movements to
Timur, who would have been able to unite in a few weeks with the reinforcements from Samarkand.




I'ERSIAN SWORDSMEN CASTING HEADS OF THEIR ENEMIES AT THE FEET OF THEIR PRINCE. TIMUR. IN
PUTTING AN END TO THE DYNASTY OF THE MUZAFFARS, BROUGHT TO A CLOSE A LONG PERIOD OF
ANARCHY, DURING WHICH ONE PERSIAN SHAH
BOASTED THAT HE HAD IPUT TO DEATH MORE THAN
EIG(HTY CAPTIVE5S WITHF HIS OWN HAND.




I




BISHOP JOHN GOES TO EUROPE 217
The old Tatar would not consent to have the great
kettledrum sound the general assault. A week passed,
while the siege engines kept up their battering-the
soldiers retiring to shelter between mid-morning and
late afternoon.
But it was in the full glare of noon without warning
of any kind that Timur struck his blow. At this hour
when the defenders except for a few watchers had deserted the outer wall, picked regiments of Tatars ran
out from cover with ladders. The surprise was a success. Nur ad-Din, who had saved Timur in that last
struggle with Toktamish, gained the summit of the defenses and planted there his standard of horsetails with
its crest-a gold half-moon.
Then the great drum roared and all divisions upon
that side of the city moved forward. Nur ad-Din
descended into the streets and behind him the Tatars
drove a wedge of mailed warriors. By mid-afternoon,
in all the torment of merciless heat, the Tatars were
masters of one quarter of the city, driving the Bagdadis
toward the river. The city across the river now lay
open to assault, and the scenes of terror that followed
may well be passed over in silence. Timur's men, maddened by suffering and their heavy losses, appear like
demons exulting in slaughter.
Their chronicler says that Bagdad, called Dar essalam, the Abode of Peace, might better have been
called in that day the palace of havoc and hell. Faraj,
its commander, fleeing in a boat, was killed by arrows
from the bank, and his body dragged ashore. A hundred and twenty columns were built of severed heads,
and perhaps ninety thousand human beings perished.
Timur ordered the walls to be razed and all buildings burned and pulled down except mosques and the
various edifices of the Church.




218


TAMERLANE


So passed Bagdad from the pages of history. Its
ruins were occupied later, but it remained from that
day a place of no importance in the affairs of the world.
Letters announcing its overthrow were sent to all the
cities of Timur's dominion, and to Bayazid, the Thunder.
Sultan Ahmed, its absentee master, returned after
the storm passed over. Timur, hearing of this, sent
down a cavalry column to try to capture the evanescent
prince. The chronicle relates that Ahmed fled again
in his shirt up the river, and thereafter remained safe
under Bayazid's wing.
Leaving the main army with the baggage and siege
train to follow at leisure, Timur hastened back to Tabriz with Shah Rukh and a few generals. Bagdad fell
in June, and in July I401 he was again at his base.
His grandson Prince Muhammad reported himself as
far as Nisapur on the great Khorassan road with the reinforcements from Samarkand. Shah Rukh was within
reach of the base. The first campaign was over.
Timur had marched from one end of the arc of his
enemies to the other. In fourteen months he had
fought two major battles and any number of smaller
engagements, and had taken by assault nearly a dozen
fortified cities. As a feat of arms it was remarkable,
and it eliminated all of Bayazid's allies before the
Thunder appeared on the scene.
It was now too late in the season to move against
the Turks, and the Tatars were well enough content to
postpone the reckoning until the next year. In due
course Prince Muhammad's drums were heard on the
road leading to the great camp and Timur's veterans
rode out to stare in amazement.




BISHOP JOHN GOES TO EUROPE 219
The divisions from Samarkand blazed under their
eyes in a new magnificence. Every standard was a different color-green, red and so forth, and all the horsemen of a division had cloaks and caparisoning and even
shields and bow cases of the same color. The survivors
of Timur's veterans who had galloped from India to
the Black sea and down to Palestine and back again
were loudly scornful of the new conceit, but secretly
envious.
Timur interested himself in reopening an ancient
canal that the Greeks had dug from the river Araxes.
He also made a study of the trade routes of Africa and
Europe. And by the hand of John, bishop of Sultaniah, he sent a letter to Charles VI of France —"Roydefransa," with expressions of good-will.2
To him came the far-wandering agents of Genoa,
eager to gain the good-will of the invincible Tatar before their rivals of Venice. They brought with them
a secret appeal for aid from the Christian Emperor at
Constantinople who was then at the mercy of Bayazid.
2 Nothing in Timur's two letters to the King of France justifies the
often-repeated remark that he offered to share the world with Charlesexcept the circumstance that the good Bishop John convinced Timur that
Charles was the greatest of European monarchs, as Timur was the master
of Asia. Timur said that he was marching against Bayazid, who was
Charles' enemy, and hoped that merchants could be exchanged between his
people and the French. He added that John would speak for him in everything "except matters of religion."




CHAPTER XXVIII


THE LAST CRUSADE
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT NOW HAPPENED it is necessary to look at Europe for a moment. For two
generations the Greek Emperors of Constantinopleno more than the ghosts of the old Roman Emperorshad seen their power pass to the Turks who had emerged
from Asia Minor, and were now overrunning the
Balkans, and the shores of the Black sea.
At the field of Kossova, the new conquerors, the Othman Turks, crushed the stalwart Serbians, and thereafter penetrated into Hungary. They were dour and
disciplined fighters, full of fire and doglike in their
devotion to their emperors. Their cavalry, especially
the sipahis, was more than good, but their massed infantry, formed around the janissaries, was superb.
They had intermarried with all the Levant, and out
of their Christian slaves-Greeks and Slavs-they were
forming a new race. Bayazid had the virtues and faults
of his people. He was turbulent and courageous, able
and cruel. Upon his accession his first act had been to
strangle his brother. He was proud of his victories and
he boasted that after defeating Austria he would march
into France, and feed his horses at the altar of St.
Peter's.
He was lord of Constantinople in all but name; his
lands extended up to the city walls; his judges were
installed in several of its courts and from two minarets
in the city muezzins called the Turks to prayer. Manuel, the present Emperor of Constantinople, paid him
tribute for possession of the city. Venice and Genoa
220




THE LAST CRUSADE


221


treated with him, as its future master. To the Turks
Constantinople with its gardens and marble palaces was
the city of promise-Istamboul.
The march of Islam up from Mecca had gone around
the imperial city, which was still protected by its lofty
walls and the war galleys of the European powers. But
Bayazid was about ready to take possession-had, in
fact, prepared to besiege it-when the call to a crusade
resounded through Europe. It was to be a crusade
against the Turks. Sigismund of Hungary, being most
menaced by the approach of the Thunder, was its sponsor, and Philip of Burgundy was its advocate, for reasons of his own.
For a time there was quiet in the various kingdoms.
The issues of the day, the Great Schism, the Hundred
Years' War, the disputes of the Imperial Diets, the
yearning of the commoners for property rights after the
ordeal of the Black Death-all these were more or
less in stalemate, and the barons gave ear to the call
of the Church.
The intermittently mad king of France lent his support to the sane but apprehensive king of Hungary.
From England and the Netherlands came volunteers.
The muster-roll of these later-day crusaders sounds
like the genealogy of all Europe. The Bastard of
Savoy, the Master of the Prussian Knights, Frederick
of Hohenzollern, the grand master of Rhodes-knights
of St. John, electors, burgraves and palatines. The
strongest forces came from France. Among them were
scions of the houses of Bar and Artois, Burgundy and
St. Pol. And the marshal, the admiral and the Constable of France-all under the orders of John Valois,
Count of Nevers.1
1 Son of Philip of Burgundy and grandson of the King of France. His
birth alone gave him command of the expedition, as he was a youth without
military experience or the qualifications of leadership.




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Some twenty thousand chevaliers, including their
squires and men-at-arms, rode to the west and joined
the host of Sigismund, nearly a hundred thousand in
all. They seem to have been well supplied with women
and wine. So great was the multitude that the chevaliers boasted that if the sky were to fall they would
hold it up by their spears.
The chevaliers themselves-the French, English
and German knights-seem to have had only a hazy
idea as to what lay before them. They believed that
the Sultan of the Turks-they did not know his name
-was rallying all Islam, including Egypt, Persia and
Media, to oppose them; that he was lurking beyond
Constantinople, and their only anxiety was that they
should come up with him before he fled. After that
they would press on to Jerusalem.
Sigismund of Hungary, somewhat wiser, assured
them that "There would be no going away without the
battle." As, indeed, there was not.
Moving down the Danube at ease, they were joined
by Venetian galleys that came up the river. Matters
went very well indeed. The Turkish outposts surrendered, and the crusaders massacred numbers of the people of the country, not realizing or caring that these
were Serbians and Christians. They encamped in a fair
country, to besiege Nicopolis, and here they heard that
Bayazid with a formidable army was approaching rapidly.
At first they were incredulous. But Sigismund convinced them of the truth. The battle line was drawn
up, and Sigismund-who knew the strength of the
Turks —urged the chevaliers to form in the rear and
let his sturdy infantry, the Hungarians, Wallachians
and Croats, bear the shock of the Moslem attack.
This enraged the nobles, and the dispute grew yio



THE LAST CRUSADE


223


lent when Bayazid's skirmishers appeared. It seemed
to the French and Germans that Sigismund was tricking them into idleness while he himself gleaned the
glory of the day. Finally Philip of Artois, High Constable of France, cried out:
"The king of Hungary would have the honor of the
day. Whoever agrees with him, I shall not. We have
the advance guard and the first battle belongs to us."
Whereupon he gave command to lift his banner. "Forward, in the name of God and Saint George!"
In a mass the other lords followed him, with their
squadrons of mailed riders-after first massacring their
Turkish and Serbian prisoners. Streamers fluttering
from their lance tips, shields erect, their heavy barded
chargers thundering into a gallop, the chivalry of Europe charged. Princes, knights and men-at-arms, they
scattered the skirmishers, forced their way up a long
slope, cut to pieces the ranks of foot archers they found
there, and reformed to assail the regiments of sipahis
who now appeared.
They smashed through the sipahis, the Turkish light
cavalry, and broke them, and pressed on again. It was
a very gallant charge and it lost the battle.
These first three lines had been no more than Bayazid's advance. When they gained the next ridge the
wearied chevaliers found themselves confronted by the
flower of the Turkish army, sixty thousand strongby the white turbans of the janissaries and the armored
regiments of cavalry drawn up in a half-circle about
them. Without wasting men in a counter charge the
Turks began to shoot down the horses of the Christian
knights with their arrows. Dismounted, hindered by
their heavy armor, some of the crusaders fought on
grimly-others turned and fled before their horses
went down.




224


TAMERLANE


But with the forces of the Turks closing up around
them and their own allies outdistanced, most of the
chevaliers threw down their arms.
Meanwhile Sigismund had kept his part of the army
intact. He had pushed forward some distance to follow up the mad career of the horsemen, but he was unable to support them. Whether he hung back through
fear, or whether the reckless charge of the chevaliers
put them beyond aid, is an open question that was hotly
debated in Europe thereafter.
It is certain that the rout of the chevaliers lost the
battle beyond hope. The rush of exhausted and bloodied fugitives with the Turks at their heels shook the
courage of the infantry. On the wings, the Wallachians
drew away to save themselves. Sigismund's Hungarians and the Elector's Bavarians made a valiant stand,
but Sigismund himself and his nobles were soon galloping down to the river to seek refuge on the Venetian
galleys.
As for the captive chevaliers, Bayazid was not the
man to spare them, after their massacre of prisoners,
and the losses he had suffered at their hands. Froissart, their chronicler, says dolefully:
"Then they were all brought before him naked in their
shyrtes, and he behelde them a lytell and then turned fro them
warde and made a sygne that they shulde be all slayne and
so they were brought through the sarazyns that had redy naked
swordes in their handes, and so slayne and hewen all to peces
without mercy."
Ten thousand of them were dealt with in this way.
Bayazid was persuaded by his nobles to hold twentyfour of the Christian peers for ransom, among them the
ill-fated Count of Nevers, and Boucicaut, of France.




THE LAST CRUSADE


225


Two hundred thousand pieces of gold were required
by the Turks for the ransom of this grandson of the
king of France and his companions. And this sum,
moderate in the eyes of the Turks, strained the exchequers of Europe. Eventually it was paid, and the
surviving captives freed. Froissart tells us that Bayazid addressed to them a farewell message, bidding them
muster new hosts and prepare to face him again:
"For I am able to do dedes of armes, and redy to conquere
further into crystendom. These hygh wordes the Erie of
Nevers understode well, and so dyd his company; they thought
on it after as long as they lyved."
But only the gallant Boucicaut, now marshal of
France, came back to try conclusion with the Turks. So
ended ingloriously the last crusade, and the mourning
of the European courts was equaled by the despair of
Constantinople that had seen aid so near at hand and
now believed itself doomed.
Meanwhile-the battle of Nicopolis was in 1396 -Bayazid invested Constantinople and occupied himself
with adding Greece to his empire. Momentarily the
arrival of Boucicaut with five hundred knights and
some galleys heartened the Christians of Constantinople.
It will be recalled that the Asia half of the Turks'
dominions was separated from the European provinces
by water. At this time the fleets of Venice and Genoa
could have struck a blow at the Turks and probably
saved the city. All they needed to do was to occupy
the straits. But this they did not do.
Venice and Genoa were fighting for the trade of Asia,
and to cripple each other. Bayazid, an astute diplomat,




226


TAMERLANE


negotiated with both, and held out to both the bait of
the Asia trade. They vied with each other in making
gifts to the Sultan, and a new appeal from the Pope
for an effort to save Constantinople went unheeded.
The surviving lords of Europe were occupied in civil
war again.
We are now confronted by one of the strangest spectacles of history. The city'of the Casars, once mistress
of the world, defended by several hundred adventurous
knights and the mercenaries of the Greek nobles, so
poverty stricken and so hungry in the midst of its great
edifices that Boucicaut's voyagers had to go out and
capture Turkish galleys to feed themselves, and were
paid not at all. Manuel, its Emperor, departed on a
tour of Europe to try to raise men and money for its
defense. His entourage was so miserably clad that an
Italian noble took pity on him and outfitted him more
in keeping with his exalted rank.
From court to court this descendant of the Casars
went, and was received with all ceremony and accorded
endless sympathy but no aid at all. The crusading
spirit had died in that last mad charge of chivalry, and
the European monarchs were occupied with trade and
the political alignments of the day. The Church might
issue proclamations and the solitary Emperor might appear in person to plead, in vain.
While Manuel grew heart-sick and the men of Constantinople began to let themselves down over the
walls to go to the Turks for food, and even Boucicaut
abandoned the city, and the Emperor's nephew in Constantinople was drawing up terms for the surrender
of Constantinople to Bayazid-for the second time the
beleaguered city was granted a respite.
Unexpectedly out of the east the Tatars appeared,


l




THE LAST CRUSADE                227
and struck at Sivas and passed on. Bayazid suspended
the siege to hasten into Asia.
Then every Turkish soldier in Europe was called to
arms and ferried across the water. And the lord of
Constantinople made a treaty to surrender the city if
Bayazid should overcome Timur.




CHAPTER XXIX


TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER
EARLY THIS SUMMER of the year 1402 the conqueror
of eastern Europe mustered his strength to meet
the conqueror of Asia. The veteran regiments of Kossova and Nicopolis were mobilized at the reigning city
of the Othman Turks-Brusa, near the sea of Marmora. There the armies of Anatolia joined them, and
twenty thousand mailed cavalry under Peter Lazarus,
king of Serbia. The chronicle says of these that they
were so covered with steel that only their eyes could
be seen. Thither came Greeks and Wallachian infantry
to serve their new master, the Sultan. The host may
have been anywhere from 120,000 to 250,000 in numbers.
It was accustomed to a lifetime of victory. The
sipahis and janissaries were always under arms. Its
discipline was rigid, and its obedience to Bayazid slavelike. As for Sultan Bayazid he was utterly confident,
and he feasted hugely while he waited.
Timur was on the march, and this pleased the Turks.
Their main strength lay in the infantry, and the Turkish infantry was always best in a defensive action. The
greater part of Asia Minor was broken, wooded country, ideal for them. Only one road ran west from
Sivas, and upon this road they expected to meet Timur.
Slowly Bayazid moved his host east, as far as Angora. Here he established his main camp and pushed
on, crossing the river Halys and entering the hilly
country beyond. His outposts brought him word that
the Tatars were at Sivas, some sixty miles ahead of him.
228




TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER              229
Bayazid halted his advance, placed his regiments on
favorable ground, and waited.
He waited three days-a week. His scouts brought
in people from Sivas with disconcerting tidings. Only
the usual Tatar garrison was in that city. Timur and
his army had departed long since, going toward the
Turks.
But Timur was not between Sivas and the Turkish
camp. The scouts galloped through all the hills, and
returned, unable to find a trace of the Tatars. They
had vanished somewhither, taking their elephants with
them.
The situation was something of a novelty to the
Turks. They were quartered in battle formation in the
wastes of broken country in the heart of the great bend
of the Halys that rises beyond Sivas and sweeps far
south, turning north again almost within sight of Angora and emptying its waters into the Black sea. Bayazid waited where he was, determined not to move until
he had definite news of the Tatars.
At dawn of the eighth day he heard from them. A
regiment of scouts commanded by one of Timur's amirs
galloped in upon the outposts of his far right wing,
made prisoners and departed again. The Turks were
certain now that Timur was to the south of them, and
thither they moved accordingly. In two days they
reached the river, but found no Tatars. Bayazid sent
out cavalry columns of his own across the river under
command of his son Suleiman, an able leader.
Almost at once Suleiman returned with information.
Timur had evaded the Turks entirely and was now
marching rapidly toward Angora, behind them.
Startled out of his apathy, the Sultan crossed the
river and set out upon the path his enemies had made,
toward his own base.




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TAMERLANE


What Timur had done was amusingly simple. When
he had studied the hilly country west of Sivas, and
found it unsuitable for his cavalry, he had turned off
to the south and marched along the valley of the Halys,
keeping the river between himself and the Turks. So
he was moving around the outer bend of the river,
while Bayazid waited in the center.
At that season the crops were ripe for gathering, and
the grazing was good for the horses. He had detached
a column under one of the high amirs to establish contact with the Turks, and now-after the brush with
Suleiman's force-he was quartered in the village of
Kuch Hissar, lecturing his grandsons and officers upon
the subject of strategy.
"There are," he told them, "two courses to follow
now. We can wait here, refresh the horses, and stand
against the Turks. Or we can push on into their country, laying it waste and compelling them to follow.
Their army is mostly infantry, and marching will tire
them."
And after a moment's pause, he added, "That is what
we will do."
From this village Timur's routine of march changed.
He left a strong rearguard in the village, and dispatched ahead a cavalry division under two amirs, with
details of infantry that were to dig wells on the sites
selected for the daily camps, while the horsemen of the
advance gathered in the grain in readiness for the main
body.
The Tatars found the country more open herethey had turned away from the river-and the water
supply sufficient. Moreover-and this was really ideal
— they learned that Bayazid's main camp was near
Angora in their path. So Timur hastened his marches,
covering the hundred miles to Angora in three days.




TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER                231
He put on his armor, which he seldom did in these
later years, and rode around the city to inspect it. The
Turks within prepared to defend it, and Timur ordered
an assault-going off himself to look at Bayazid's base
camp, deserted now by the followers the Turks had
left there.
Angora lay in the center of a wide plain, and Timur
decided that the position Bayazid had picked out was
as good as any other. So his Tatars made their quarters in the tents of the Turks. At the order of their
Amir, they dammed up the small river that flows into
Angora, changing its course to run behind their new
position.
The only other water available to the oncoming
Turks was a spring, and this Timur ordered destroyed,
and the water polluted. Before his men could make
any impression on the walls of Angora, his scouts reported that Bayazid was approaching, twelve miles
away.
Timur abandoned the attempt to take the city-even
ordering some Tatars down from a bastion they had
stormed. That night he intrenched his camp, and kept
fires burning bright. His cavalry patrolled the plain.
But the Turks did not come up until morning.
They had marched rapidly for a week, with little
water, and less grain, along the devastated swathe left
by the Tatars; they were weary and suffering from
thirst, and the heat of the plain. They found the
Tatars installed in their own base, with ample supplies.
Worst of all, there was no water to be had anywhere
except behind the Tatar line. They had only one alternative and that was to attack Timur.
Bayazid was forced to do what he least desired-to
launch his inferior cavalry against the masses of horsemen from Central Asia. His men went into battle




232


TAMERLANE


weakened by thirst. He had been outmaneuvered and
finally led back to Angora as if on a string. And the
battle was lost before the first sword flashed in the sun.
At ten o'clock in the morning under a burning sun,
the Turks moved forward with the stubborn courage
that has so often proved invincible. The front of the
two armies extended for more than fifteen miles over
the plain, one wing of the Tatars resting upon the small
river, the other-invisible in the distance-upon a fortified height. The chronicle adds that the Turks came
on with a thunder of drums and a clamor of cymbals
while the squadrons of Tatars waited in a great silence.
Timur did not mount his horse until the last moment. The battle for the present was in the hands of
his generals. He had with him no more than forty
troops of cavalry, upon a ridge with the infantry, in the
rear of the massed horsemen. Prince Muhammad, his
grandson, commanded the center, with the host of Samarkand and eighty regiments with colonels from most
of Asia. Here too were the elephants in their armor of
painted leather-more for moral effect, it seems, than
for any tactical purpose.
Upon the far right of the Tatars, Suleiman, Bayazid's son, launched a cavalry charge, leading himself
the horsemen of Asia Minor. They were met by a
devastating fire of arrows and flaming naphtha-horses
and men going down in masses under the rising curtain
of dust and smoke.
While the Turks were in disorder, the first line of
the Tatar right charged, and Nur ad-Din, the ablest of
Timur's amirs, followed with the main body of that
wing.
In the first hour the advance of the Turks was
checked, and the Tatars took the offensive. Nur ad



TI;
H
/1/




I




TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER 233
Din broke up Suleiman's wing so thoroughly that some
divisions of the Turks withdrew from the field. A
contingent of Tatars from Asia Minor, impressed into
service by Bayazid, discovered that their own lords were
with Timur, and took advantage of the confusion to
desert the Turks.
When Nur ad-Din had things well in hand upon the
right, the left wing of the Tatar cavalry advanced in
three waves, breaking through the Turkish skirmishers, and overthrowing the poorly mounted Turkish cavalry at this point. They went so far that Timur could
no longer see them.
It was then that Prince Muhammad galloped back
to his grandfather, and dismounted. Throwing himself on his knees he begged permission to advance with
the Tatar center upon the masses of Bayazid's infantry.
This consent Timur would not give.
Instead he ordered Muhammad to take the Samarkand corps and a division of the bahaturs-the picked
men of the Tatars-and go at once to support the left
wing that had overreached itself.
So the favorite grandson of the old conqueror lifted
his red standard, and galloped off, followed by the
flower of Timur's army. And at a gallop he struck into
the most serious fighting of the day-where the mailed
Serbian cavalry, caught motionless by the Tatars, struggled for life, and the groups of stalwart European infantry held every hillock. Here fell King Peter of
Serbia and here the gallant Muhammad was so injured
that he had to dismount. But Bayazid's right wing
was crumpled up.
Bayazid was left with the mass of his infantry, without intrenchment of any kind, while the Tatar horsemen closed in upon the right and left. Then Timur
took command of the Tatar center and advanced.




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The splendid Othmanli infantry-the corps d'elite,
the janissaries-had not struck a blow. They were predoomed, their situation hopeless, their emperor helpless before the maneuvering of the great chess player
of Asia. Regiments in the rear fled while the way to
safety was still open. Others, broken by successive
charges, took their stand wherever they found any rising ground. Through them moved the armored elephants, liquid fire descending from the castles on the
giant beasts. In a wrack of dust and din, on that suntortured plain, the weary Turks died. Even many who
fled, fell dead from exhaustion.
Bayazid, with a thousand of his janissaries, drove the
Tatar horsemen from a hill and fought there grimly
throughout the afternoon, taking an ax himself and
standing with his men. As one battalion of the Old
Guard held its ground on the field of Waterloo when
Napoleon's army had become a rout of fugitives, these
household soldiers of the Sultan died weapon in hand.
Late in the afternoon Bayazid took to horse and with
a few mounted followers tried to escape through the
Tatars. He was pursued, his companions shot down
and his own horse brought to earth with arrows. Then
he was bound and escorted back to Timur's pavilion at
the hour of sunset.
Legend has it that Timur was then playing chess
with Shah Rukh. When he saw the bearded Turk, still
majestic in calamity, he rose and went to the entrance.
A smile lighted his dark face.
"It is ill," cried Bayazid, who lacked neither pride
nor courage, "to mock one whom God hath afflicted."
"I smiled," Timur answered slowly, "that God
should have given the mastery of the world to a lame
man like me, and a blind man like thee." And he
added gravely: "It is well known what would have




TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER 235
been my fate and the fate of my men, if thou hadst
prevailed over us."
To this Bayazid made no response. Timur ordered
that his bonds should be taken off, and seated him at
his side within the pavilion. It pleased the aged conqueror to have the great Sultan a prisoner under his
hand, and he treated Bayazid courteously.1 The captive asked that search be made for his sons, and Timur
commanded that this should be done. One of them,
Musa, was brought in a prisoner, and given a robe of
honor and seated by his father. Another, who died in
the battle, was never found. The rest had escaped.
Timur's divisions had been sent to pursue the remnants of the Turks in all directions as far as the sea.
After Nur ad-Din captured Brusa, the reigning city of
the Othmans, he sent back to his Amir the personal
treasure of the Sultan, and Bayazid's women slaves who
were both numerous and beautiful. The chronicle relates that the Tatars found them skilled in music and
dancing. And the Tatar troopers returned to Timur's
headquarters with all manner of spoil. The customary
feast was held, adorned this time by European wines
and women.
To this feast Bayazid was invited and came perforce.
He was seated near Timur, and the old Tatar commanded that his imperial regalia-part of the loot of
Brusa-be brought to him. Perforce the dour Turk
put on the jeweled turban and took in his hand the
gold mace that had been the symbol of his conquests.
IThe well-known story that Bayazid was put into a cage and carried
around like an animal is found in Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great."
It rests upon no greater contemporary authority than Ibn Arabshah's verse
"The son of Osman fell into a hunter's snare and was confined like a bird
in a cage." Herbert Adams Gibbons explains that it was probably a barred
litter; but Bayazid fell sick soon after his capture and undoubtedly had
to be carried in a litter. Timur sent physicians to treat him, and seems
to have acted toward him with courtesy except in compelling him to be
present at the festival after the victory.




236


TAMERLANE


Thus attired, he was offered his own wines and the
drugs to which he had been accustomed. But he tasted
nothing. Before his eyes his fairest women, stripped
of their clothing, waited on the conquerors.
He saw among them his favorite, the Despina, sister of the dead Peter of Serbia-a Christian girl to
whom he had been so devoted that he had not compelled her to turn Muhammadan.
He had to sit impassive and voiceless while through
the clouds of incense smoke passed the white figures of
the women he had held in his arms-that he had
chosen as fancy impelled him from a dozen captive
people. Among them were dark-haired Armenians,
and golden Circassians, the heavier beauties of Russia
and clear-eyed Greeks. These women had not, before
now, been seen outside the harem, the sanctuary.
Upon Bayazid were the eyes of the lords of Asia,
curious, mocking and intolerant. Bayazid had reason
then to reflect upon the letters he had written a year
ago to the lord of these Tatars. His fierce pride hid
the rage that gripped him like a fever. But he could
not eat.
Was Timur merely indifferent-curious perhaps to
see Bayazid attired in the robes of state? Did he really
think he was honoring his distinguished prisoner? Or
was this feast a subtle mockery? No one knew, and
the Sultan, it seems, was past caring. The Tatar war
drums roared in his ears, and the wild pipes whined,
while the minstrels of the steppes made a song of their
victory.
Still Bayazid gripped his golden mace, his massive
body shaken with agony. But when the Tatars ordered
in his own bayaderes, his singing girls, and bade them
sing the love songs of the Turks, Bayazid's will gave
way. Rising, he made a gesture toward the entrance.




TIMUR MEETS THE THUNDER               237
They let him go, then. Two Tatar officers sprang
up and caught his arms, and led him through the feasters, his turbaned head sunk on his chest.
Later, Timur ordered the Despina to be sent in to
Bayazid with the message that he was returning to the
Sultan his favorite wife.
So passed the Thunder. His strength sapped by debauchery and the ordeal of battle, his pride broken, he
died a few months later.




CHAPTER XXX


AT THE GATES OF EUROPE
SO UTTERLY HAD THE TURKS BEEN CRUSHED that
no second battle took place. Angora yieldedBrusa and Nicea were carried by the rush of the Tatar
pursuit. Down to the sea on all sides of the peninsula of Asia Minor the fleeing Turks thronged, princes,
pashas and officers at the head of the fugitives. Fishing boats and pleasure barges carried crowds of them to
the islands. Even the galleys of the Greeks and Genoese aided the wrack of the Sultan's host to cross into
Europe.
What induced the Christians to help their former
oppressors to safety is not clear. Perhaps they were
paid a price-perhaps it was the old policy of the
Greeks, to ingratiate themselves with all powers. Their
agents had pledged Timur aid with money and ships
if he advanced against the Sultan, and their double
dealing enraged the old Tatar, especially when they
refused to ferry over his divisions after the Turks.
In a month there was not an armed Turk in Asia.
On the other hand, there was not a Tatar in Europe.
The horsemen from Samarkand rode down to the shore
and looked across at the gold domes of Constantinople.
They galloped over the long-buried ruins of Troy
where Helen once held court. Later they discovered
the citadel of the Knights of St. John at Smyrna. It
was winter then, a season of heavy rains, but Timur,
hearing that Smyrna had withstood Bayazid's siege for
six years, went to look at it.
238




AT THE GATES OF EUROPE


239


The Christian knights in the fortress-which was
upon a height at the edge of the bay-refused to surrender and Timur invested the place, building wooden
platforms out over the water, and covering his miners
with a barrage of arrows and naphtha bombs. He also
started building a mole to close the narrow entrance
of the bay. Two weeks of this was enough for the
Europeans and they fought their way down from the
height to their galleys, before the way to the sea could
be blocked. Some three thousand of them escaped to
the ships, beating off with swords and oars the wretched
townspeople who tried to follow them. The next day
a relieving fleet appeared from Rhodes.
When the galleys of the knights came in close to
the shore the Tatars now quartered in the citadel
greeted them in ghastly fashion. The head of a slain
crusader was placed in one of the catapults and shot
into the nearest galley. The Christian fleet drew off
and the Tatars abandoned Smyrna, leaving behind them
as a monument two pyramids of heads.
In the evacuation of Asia Minor the two muchhunted princes, Kara Yussuf and Sultan Ahmed fled by
different paths. The lord of Bagdad took refuge at
the Mamluk court in Egypt, while the Turkoman khan
chose the Arabian desert. The desert proved to be
safer than the court. Egypt, open now to invasion by
the Tatars, hastened to send its submission, and an offer
of tribute and Timur's name was read in the public
prayers. The unfortunate Ahmed was chained and
thrown into prison.
The monarchs of Europe were in a mixed state of
mind-vastly curious, arid astonished, somewhat gratified and more than a little fearful. Such an upheaval
at their threshold bewildered them. Where the Turks
had been lords for a century, a Tatar conqueror had




240


TAMERLANE


appeared, out of the depths of the east. Bayazid and
his armies had vanished, quite.
Henry IV of England wrote to Timur congratulating
him as one sportsman to another on his victory. Charles
VI, Dei gratia rex francorum, remembered the message
John of Sultaniah had brought from the Tatars, and
summoned the bishop to an audience, entrusting to him
letters and gifts for Timur.
The wandering Emperor, Manuel, hastened back rejoicing to his city of Constantinople, from which he sent
his submission and an offer to pay tribute to Timur.
The destitute heir of the Caesars had found a patron
greater than any European king. Across the Golden
Horn, the Genoese flew Timur's standard from the
towers of Pera.
But it remained for the Spaniards to establish actual
contact with the lord of Tatary. A little while ago
Henry III of Castile had sent two military observers
to the east, to report upon the plans and powers of the
Turks. These two knights Pelayo de Sotomayor and
Fernando de Palazuelos wandered through Asia Minor
and ended up in Timur's army in time to watch the battle of Angora. Timur gave them an audience, and
made them gifts of two Christian women that he had
sorted out of Bayazid's captives-the chronicle records
them as Angelina, daughter of John, Count of Hungary (a celebrated beauty), and Maria, a Greek. With
the Spaniards, Timur sent an envoy of his own.
To return the courtesy, Don Henry dispatched three
ambassadors to escort this "Tartarian knight" back to
his lord, Timur. The leader of the ambassadors was
Henry's chamberlain, the good Ruy de Gonzalez de
Clavijo.
With his companions and Timur's officer, Clavijo set
forth in a carrack from the port of Saint Mary, in May




AT THE GATES OF EUROPE


241


I403. But when he reached Constantinople he learned
that the Tatars were gone. In obedience to his orders
he departed after them. And his search led him on to
Samarkand.
Timur had made no effort to enter Europe. The
way over the straits was closed to him, but he was
capable of marching around the Black sea-in fact, he
had visited the Crimea not many years ago. An incentive, however, was lacking. His men longed to return
to Samarkand. And Bayazid's cities had yielded great
wealth-among other things the silver gates of Brusa
adorned with the figures of the Saints, Peter and Paul,
and the Byzantine library that had fallen into the hands
of the Sultan. All this Timur took away with him.
For a while he busied himself with politics, arranging tribute payments, appointing new governors of the
Turkish provinces, receiving embassies. Meanwhile
Bayazid died, and Timur was pondering another conquest.
And at this time he suffered a loss as unexpected as
grievous. Officers came to tell him that Prince Muhammad who had never recovered from the injuries
received at Angora, was dying. Timur set out at once
to go to his grandson, and ordered the most skillful of
the Arab physicians to attend him. But when he
reached Muhammad's camp, he found the young prince
speechless, and the end at hand. It was then that
Timur ordered the great drum to sound the muster and
the regiments to be collected for the march back to
Samarkand.
In turn he had lost Jahangir, his first-born, and Omar
Shaikh. Miran Shah had proved himself an unworthy
son, and in Shah Rukh-now past the prime of lifethere was apparent a mildness and indifference to war.




242


TAMERLANE


Timur's favorite of these last years had been his courageous grandson, Prince Muhammad, the idol of the
army.
The body of the youth who had died in the hour of
victory was embalmed and carried back by the divisions
that had followed him from Samarkand, their gay coloring changed to somber black. To the wailing grief
of Khan Zade, the mother of Muhammad, Timur listened unmoved; but when he noticed Muhammad's infant sons among those who had come out of Tabriz to
receive the cortige, sorrow weighed upon him and he
remained some days solitary in his pavilion.
It seemed to the Tatar conqueror, brooding as aged
men do upon the past, that some power greater than his
own will had taken from him in turn all those who
could best serve him. The great amirs of his early conquests were in their tombs-Saif ad-Din the righteous,
Jaku Barlas the faithful, and this son of his first-born.
Even the devoted Ak Boga, who had risen to the government of Herat, and had contributed sons of his own
to the army, was dead.
In their places he saw now Nur ad-Din and Shah
Malik, brilliant leaders in war, but incapable of handling the reins of civil government. And always the
imams of the Church thronged about him with their
prayers and prophecies and condolences for the dead
that he carried with him back to Samarkand. His sleep
was troubled by strange dreams. Visions of long dead
Khans who had led the hordes across the desert to
Cathay.
Even when he ordered Bagdad and the ruined cities
built up again, these fancies lingered in his brain.
When he gave to Shah Rukh the government of Khorassan, and India to Muhammad's brother, he medi



AT THE GATES OF EUROPE


243


tated upon the Gobi and the tales he had heard when he
was a youth, hunting deer about the Green City.
And out of these dreams he had formed a plan. He
would lead the army into the Gobi; he would break
through the great wall that guarded Cathay, and overcome the last power in the world that could oppose
him.
He said nothing of this to his officers. Perforce he
had to hold the army in winter quarters at Tabriz,
where he threw himself into the work of bringing order
out of the wrack of the campaigns. With the coming
of the first grass he was on the march east to Samarkand with the army and the great court.
In August he was back in his city, quartered in the
garden called Heart's Delight. He rode past the new
cathedral and reproached the architect because the inner
gallery had not been made larger. He sat in judgment
upon the ministers who had governed in his absence,
hanging some and rewarding others. A fever of energy seemed to animate his aged body. He planned a
new tomb for Prince Muhammad, with a dome of gold
and white marble, and under the lash of his will a new
garden palace rose-built of black and white stone and
ebony and ivory, supported by silver pillars.
He was working against time. His sight had failed
steadily in the last two years; his eyelids had fallen so
that he looked as if he were asleep. He was sixty-nine
years old, and he knew that his life was near its end.
"For two moons," he commanded, "there will be
festival. Let no man say to another, 'Why have ye
done this?'
To Samarkand, to this festival of the conqueror
came ambassadors from twenty kingdoms, among them
dark faced envoys of the Mongols of the Gobi-who




244


2TAMERLANE


had been driven out of Cathay. With them Timur had
long talks.
And he found time to greet Ruy de Clavijo, chamberlain of the king of Spain, who had followed him
hither from Constantinople. This interview the good
knight gives in his own words.
"On Monday the 8th of September the ambassadors1
departed from the garden where they had been lodged,
and went to the city of Samarkand. When they arrived
they dismounted and entered a garden of a palace, where
two knights came to them and said they were to give
up the presents they had brought. So the ambassadors
placed the presents in the arms of the men who were to
carry them respectfully before the lord, and the ambassador from the Sultan did the same.
"The entrance to this garden was very high and
broad, and beautifully adorned with glazed tiles, in
blue and gold. At the gate were many porters with
maces in their hands. The ambassadors came to six
elephants, with wooden castles on their backs, and men
in the castles.
"Then the ambassadors were grasped by the arm pits
and led forward, and the envoy that Lord Timur had
sent to the king of Castile was with them, and the Tatars who saw him laughed at him because he was dressed
in the costume of Castile.
"The ambassadors were conducted to an aged knight
who was seated in an ante-room, and they bowed reverentially before him. They were then brought before
some small boys, grandsons of the lord. Here the letter that they carried from the king to Lord Timur was
1 Clavijo speaks of himself and his companions as the ambassadors, and
calls Timur the lord. The Sultan mentioned here is the Sultan of Egypt.
This account is taken, slightly condensed, from the narrative translated by
Clements Markham and published by the Hakluyt Society.




AT THE GATES OF EUROPE


245


demanded, and they presented it to one of the boys
who took it, and carried it within, to the lord who desired that the ambassadors be brought before him.
"Lord Timur was seated in a portal, in front of the
entrance of a beautiful palace, and he was sitting on
the ground. Before him there was a fountain where
red apples floated, and which threw up the water very
high. The lord was seated cross-legged on silken embroidered carpets among round pillows. He wore a
robe of silk with a high white hat on his head-on the
top of the hat a spinal ruby with pearls and precious
stones round it.
"As soon as the ambassadors saw the lord, they made
a reverential bow, placing the knee on the ground and
crossing the arms on the breast; then they went forward and made another; and then a third, remaining
with their knees on the ground.
"The lord ordered them to rise and come forward;
and the knights who had held them until then let them
go. The princes who stood by the lord, among them
Nur ad-Din, then took the ambassadors by the arms and
led them before the lord that he might see them better
-for, being so old, his eyesight was bad.
"He did not give them his hand to kiss, for that is
not the custom; but he asked after the king, saying,
'How is my son the king? Is he in good health?'
"Then he turned to the knights seated around him,
among them a son of Toktamish the former emperor of
Tatary, and several of the blood of the late emperor
of Samarkand2 and said, 'Behold, here are the ambassadors sent by my son the king of Spain who is the
2 The Jat Khan, driven out by Timur. Clavijo gained a pretty accurate
idea of events in Asia. He was the only western European to visit Samarkand before the nineteenth century, and by then great palaces that Timur
had meant to endure for ages were ruined for the most part by weather
and earthquakes.




246             TAMERLANE
greatest king of the Franks and lives at the end of the
world.'
"So saying, he took the letter from the hand of his
grandson and opened it, declaring that he would hear
it presently. The ambassadors were taken to a chamber on the right of the place where the lord sat, and
the princes who held them by the arms made them take
their places below an ambassador whom the emperor
of Cathay had sent to Lord Timur.
"When the lord saw the ambassadors seated below
the envoy from Cathay, he ordered that they should be
seated above him, and he below them, saying that they
were from the king of Spain his son and friend, and the
envoy of Cathay was from a thief and a bad man."




CHAPTER XXXI


THE WHITE WORLD
THE OLD CONQUEROR had built his Utopia-an encampment, a city and a garden in one. And in it
he feasted magnificently. In these two months, when
the dim sun of autumn sank closer to the blue ridges of
the mountains Samarkand must have seemed a city
visited by the genii.
It seemed so to the wondering Clavijo, who beheld
courts covered with flowers and ripe fruit, and litters
moving through the streets flaming with precious stones,
within them singing girls, escorted by lute players and
tigers and goats with golden horns that were not beasts
but other fair girls thus attired by the skinners of Samarkand. He wandered through a castle higher than
the mosque towers-built of crimson cloth by the weavers. He saw elephants fight, and Tatar princes arrive
from India and the Gobi, bringing their gifts to Timur.
"No one," he said, "could describe it, without gazing and walking everywhere with slow steps."
And then, abruptly, the ambassadors were dismissed,
the carnival ended.
Timur summoned before him the council of princes
and amirs. "We have conquered," he told them, "all
of Asia except Cathay. We have overthrown such
mighty kings that our deeds will be remembered always. You have been my companions in many wars,
and never has victory failed you. To overthrow the
pagans of Cathay not much strength or power will be
needed, and thither you shall march with me."
247




248


TAMERLANE


So he harangued them, his mind made up, his deep
voice vibrant with purpose. This was to be his last
campaign —to cross the home-land of his ancestors and
the great wall of Cathay. And they, who had rested
no more than three months, cried out to lift the standards.
Little more was needed-so great a multitude of
warriors was gathered at Samarkand. Two hundred
thousand moved off in different corps to cantonments
along the road. It was the beginning of winter, and
they would have to wait out the snows on the roof of
the world; but Timur would not delay for the spring.
He sent Prince Khalil with the right wing of the
army to the north, and went himself with the center
that Muhammad had commanded. They moved out
with great trains that were like a wooden city, because
they had to take their supplies with them, and Timur
had seen to it that they did not lack.
They crossed the river of Samarkand, and Timur
turned in the saddle toward the city, but said nothing.
He could no longer see the domes and the spires of
the minarets.
It was then November, and bitter cold. When they
passed through the open gorge that was known thereafter as the Gates of Tamerlane, snow began to fall.
The winds from the northern steppes swept the plain,
and, numbed by a blizzard, they went into camp.
When they moved out again, it was into a world
white with snow. Streams were ice coated, the roads
heavy with drifts. Some men and horses died, but
Timur would not turn back.
Nor would he go into winter quarters where Khalil
had quartered his men in huts to wait out the cold, at
the Stone City. The aged conqueror explained that he
would go on to Otrar, the citadel of the far northern




THE WHITE WORLD


249


frontier, and he ordered his grandson to catch up with
the main body as soon as the roads were open.
They themselves had to lay felts on the snow at the
beginning of a march and trample down the surface
until the wagons and camels-a black line crawling
through the white plain-could move forward. They
found the ice three feet thick on the river Syr, and
they crossed over on the ice.
Then the winter set in, with its merciless battering.
Sleet, rain, wind and snow-the pale glare of a low
sun upon ice. They did not plunge ahead as they had
done years ago in going to meet the Golden Horde.
A few miles a day they forged on, toward Otrar and
the great north road to Cathay.
Slowly the standards moved into the mountain passes,
through dark ravines that seemed to sink deeper below
the summits, veiled in mist. Slowly as a laden animal,
they felt their way through the passes and came out
on the northern plain, and saw before them the walls of
Otrar —shelter for the winter.
Here Timur could rest. He planned to go forward
with the first warmth of spring.
And as he had ordered, the army took the road again
in March I405. The standards were lifted and the
great drum roared, the regiments were drawn up on
the plain for review. The lords of divisions assembled
their musicians for the nightly salutation to the Amir,
while the pipes shrilled and the drums echoed the
thudding hoofs.
But it was a salutation to the dead.
Timur had died at Otrar. In obedience to his will,
the host marched again toward the great north road.
His white horse, saddled, was in its post under the imperial standard. But no one was in the saddle.




250


TAMERLANE


The chronicle has left us a glimpse of Timur's last
scene. Outside the wooden walls of the castle, amirs
and officers of all ranks stood in the snow. Within the
halls sat the great empress Sarai Mulkh Khanum attended by her women. She had made the journey
from Samarkand when tidings of Timur's illness
reached the imperial city.
Outside the entrance of Timur's chamber stood
bearded imams, leaders of the Church, reciting sonorously the verses of the Koran.
"By the sun in noonday brightness, by the moon
when she followeth him in the night that enshroudeth
him-"
So had they stood for weeks, the chorus of their
prayer unceasing, and unavailing. The chief of the
physicians, Moulana of Tabriz, had said: "There is no
help. It is the day appointed."
Lying outstretched on his cushions, his lined face
gray, in the white mass of his hair, Timur gave his
final directions to the high amirs. "Keep your swords
valiantly in hand. Keep agreement among ye, for in
disorder there is ruin. Do not turn aside from the
march to Cathay."
Charcoal braziers burned near his head, and his voice
was no more than a whisper.
"Do not rend your garments and run to and fro like
madmen because I have left you. That will breed disorder."
Summoning Nur ad-Din and Shah Malik to his side,
he raised his voice. "I appoint Pir Muhammad, the
son of Jahangir as my successor. He must reside at
Samarkand and have in his hands absolute authority
over the army and civil affairs. I command you to devote your lives to him, and support him. He must rule
the distant provinces of the world as well as Samar

/




THE WHITE WORLD


251


kand, and unless you obey him utterly, there will be
conflict."
One after the other the high amirs and lords took
oath to carry out his will. They urged, however, that
Timur send for his other grandsons to hear in person
his commands.
He spoke then with a trace of the old impatience of
hesitation and delay.
"This is the last audience. God will have it so."
After a while he said as if to himself, "I would like
nothing, except to see Shah Rukh again. But that isimpossible."
It was, perhaps, the only time he had uttered that
word. The iron spirit that had cleaved its way through
life, accepted the end of life without protest.
Some of the amirs were weeping and the low wailing of the women could be heard. Into the chamber
advanced the servants of the Church. "God is one.
There is no God except the One-"




Afterword
WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT
T   HE HAND THAT HAD WELDED AN EMPIRE OUt of
fragments could do no more; the will that had
built an imperial city could no longer urge on the
Tatars.
The lords of Tatary had lost more than an emperor.
Timur had raised them to incredible power; he had
guided them, and had held in his hands all the reins of
government. Under him they had become masters of
nearly half the world. Most of them were sons of the
men who had served him, and many were grandsons.
For fifty years they had known no other will than
Timur's.
Then, too, the army and the city had been populated
with other races. Here were Mongols of the Golden
Horde, Turks, and Persians-Afghans and Syrians.
Not yet were they welded firmly into a new people.
So great was their respect for Timur and their grief
at his death that the army and the city thought only
of carrying out his commands. If his successor, Pir Muhammad, had not been absent in India-and it is a
weary way from Otrar to India and back to Samarkand
-if Shah Rukh, his ablest son, had not been intent on
his own government of Khorassan, and if the great
amirs had not tried, in blind obedience, to go on with
the march to China, the empire might have been held
together.
But no man was able to take up the reins Timur had
let fall. The great amirs at Otrar did their best. They
252




WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT 253
held a solemn council-decided not to announce Timur's
death publicly, but to elect one of his younger grandsons to command of the army and trust that the Chinese would never believe that Timur was dead if the
army appeared at the great wall. They seemed to be
sure of their ability to conquer China.
The body of the dead conqueror was sent back with
Ulugh Beg, the eldest son of Shah Rukh and a strong
escort, to where the empresses waited to receive it.
Couriers were dispatched to Pir Muhammad, with the
utmost speed. Tidings of the event were, of necessity,
sent to the governors of the distant provinces and the
princes of the family.
But almost at once the march of the main body of
the army was halted. Word reached it that the lords
of the right wing had vowed fidelity to Khalil, Miran
Shah's son, and planned to seat him on the throne of
Samarkand. At the same time the commander of the
left wing disbanded his troops and hastened back to
Samarkand.
In this crisis the great amirs, Nur ad-Din and his
fellows, held another council. They could not keep on
toward China, leaving a division of authority behind
them. They turned back, and caught up, by forced
marches, with the funeral cortege at the Syr.
They found the gates of Samarkand barred against
them-although they had with them the great empress
Sarai Mulkh Khanum, and Timur's casket and the
standard and the great drum. The governor of the
city had pledged himself to Khalil-wrote to the amirs
explaining that it was necessary to have some one on
the throne until Pir Muhammad could arrive.
But it was the youthful Khalil, the lover of Shadi
Mulkh, who arrived, with a strong following of nobles
gained by the influence of Khan Zade, who had planned




254


TAMERLANE


this long ago. The people of the city knew not what
to think. Timur had died beyond the frontier; they
had not heard his last commands. Khalil was seated
on the throne-acknowledged emperor.
Bitter was the letter the veteran Nur ad-Din sent to
the new court:
"Our hearts are torn with grief, for the most powerful of emperors, the soul of the world, is dead; and already ignorant youths whom he raised from the lowest
state to the highest honors have become traitors to him.
Forgetting the obligations they owe him, they have
disobeyed his orders and violated their oaths. How
can we dissemble our grief at so terrible a misfortune?
An emperor, who has made the kings of the earth to
serve at his gate, and has indeed earned the name of
conqueror, no sooner leaves us than his will is set aside.
Slaves have become the enemies of their benefactor.
Where is their faith? If rocks had hearts they would
mourn. Why are not stones rained down from Heaven
to punish these ungrateful wretches?
"As for us, God willing, we shall not forget our
master's wishes; we shall carry out his will, and obey
the young princes his grandchildren."
Again the amirs consulted together, and in the end
they agreed upon one thing. They went to the pavilion
where the standard stood, and ordered the great kettledrum broken. They did not want Timur's drum that
had roared out the tidings of victory to them so often
to be sounded in honor of any other man.
Khalil's first act was to marry in public the courtesan
Shadi Mulkh with whom he was infatuated.
A man too young to rule with authority, intoxicated
with the wealth under his hands, and dominated by the




WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT 255
beautiful Persian-he plunged from one feast into another, composed poems to his new empress, and gave
away the treasures of Samarkand. For a while his
splendor and thoughtless squandering earned him both
favor and followers. But he dismissed the older officers for men of his choice, Persians, courtiers, what not.
And Shadi Mulkh, who had been saved from death
by the empress dowager, now thought only of humiliating Sarai Khanum. A mad carnival reigned in the
gardens of Samarkand. Precious stones were scattered
on the earth and left for any who wished to gather
up again. Wine flowed in the fountains.
Khalil exulted and Shadi Mulkh had her revenge,
and between them they brought on civil war.
In time Pir Muhammad came up from India and was
defeated by Khalil's army. Changes followed swiftly.
With the portion of the army that had remained faithful to them, the great amirs descended on Samarkand
and overcame the new emperor, sending him into
guarded captivity and exposing Shadi Mulkh to public
shame.
With Timur, the empire had died. There was no
longer any hope of holding it together.
Stirred out of his indifference by increasing calamity,
the mighty Shah Rukh appeared at last from Khorassan, and captured the city. Thereafter Beyond the
River remained in his hands, and he bestowed Samarkand, looted of much of its treasure, upon Ulugh Beg,
his son. Between them they kept intact the core of the
empire, from India to Mesopotamia.
They were men of peace, patrons of the arts-heirs
of that other side of Timur's strange nature that built
things up again after his fury had destroyed. They
shunned war, yet they were wise enough to defend
themselves, with the help of the veteran soldiers who




256


TAMERLANE


gathered in their courts. Their cities were islands of
refuge in the chaos of dismemberment.
Under Shah Rukh and Ulugh Beg began an era of
splendor. New buildings rose on the registan, the
painters and the poets of Persia flourished under their
protection. Shah Rukh was the Augustus, and Ulugh
Beg the Marcus Aurelius of the dynasty. Ulugh Bega rare astronomer, geographer and poet-built the
great observatory at Samarkand, and plunged into a
study of the sciences. They are known as the Timurids
-probably, with the Ming dynasty of contemporary
China, the most enlightened monarchs of their day.
Their genius fulfilled half of Timur's ambition, for
Samarkand was now in reality the Rome of Asia. But
it was isolated. The continental avenues of trade had
been broken by the struggles that followed Timur's
death; once more-from  1405 to the age of the sea
penetration by Portugal, and then England-the mass
of Asia was separated from Europe. No Marco Polo
visited Samarkand. It was, more than Lhassa, a forbidden city. Not until the middle of the nineteenth
century did a Russian army advance that far, and scientists rush in eagerly, to search among other things
for the Byzantine library that Timur carried back from
Brusa. They searched in vain.
Time and frost and a burning sun and earthquakes
had reduced the registan and the Bibi Khanum quarter
to ruins. The walls that Timur had meant to be indestructible were falling year by year. Even to-day no
tourists and very few travelers reach the public square
that Lord Curzon has called the noblest in the world.
Yet time has given to the ruins the imperishable beauty
of the past.
The literature of this Augustan age of the Tatars
has, for the most part, not been translated, and so is not




IN THE TOMB OF THE AMIR. TIMUR'S BODY
IIES UNDER THE DARK CENOTAPH. From a
Painting by f vcrvstchagin.


I-;     \.V    I
I__,,,,,,




I\




WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT 257
fully known. But the great grandsons of Shah Rukh
and Ulugh Beg created new glory of their own. They
went down, out of Samarkand into India and there
founded the dynasty known to us as the great Moghuls.
Like the advent of Genghis Khan, the westward
march of Timur changed the political scheme of things,
and affected the destinies of Europe.
He opened again the transcontinental trade routes,
which had been blocked for a hundred years; he made
Tabriz, within reach of the Europeans, the center of the
commerce of the near-east, instead of the remoter
Bagdad; the upheaval after his death caused the great
Asia trade to dwindle, and this was one of the reasons
why Columbus and Vasco da Gama set out to open a
new road over the sea to far Asia.
The Golden Horde was crushed, and the way opened
for the Russians to make themselves a free people.
The Muzaffars were exterminated in Persia, and two
centuries later under Shah Abbas, Persia became itself
a notable empire. The Othman Turks were broken
and scattered, but so impotent was Europe to free itself
from their adhesion that they regained their power and
took Constantinople in 1453.
For the rest, the Mamluk Sultan promptly forgot his
oath of allegiance. That strange pair, Kara Yussuf and
Sultan Ahmed hastened back to Mesopotamia to quarrel
anew.
In the north, the Mongol and Tatar elements of the
army under Nur ad-Din and other amirs retired to the
steppes and frontier citadels where their descendants
to-day —the Kirghiz and Kalmuk Tatars, so calledgraze their sheep and horses by the ruins of the towers
that Timur built. His death caused the helmeted men,
the warriors of Turan, to separate in this fashion from




258


TAMERLANE


the turbaned men of the south, the cultured peoples of
Iran.
As for the Church of Islam, it never recovered.
With the passing of Timur the dream of a universal
kalifate ended. The leaders of Islam had sought to
build up their power upon the Tatar's conquests. But
they discovered that Timur's wars had shattered the
foundation of Islam. Timur had never shaped his
plans to the pressure of the imams, and in the end it
is clear that he cared little for them.
The new empire of Persia was schismatic-always
at odds with the orthodox Othman Turks. Timur's descendants, the Moghuls of India, were, like himself,
Muhammadans in name but tolerant of other religions.
The kalif of Cairo was no more than a shadow of the
Commander of the Faithful who feasted in Bagdad
aforetime. Probably no human power can ever unite
the Muhammadans of the various nations into one
political unit.
No man since Timur has attempted to dominate the
world. He accomplished all that Alexander was able
to do-Alexander of Macedon who followed on the
heels of Cyrus the Great, as the Tatar conqueror followed Genghis Khan. And he was the last of the great
conquerors. It is not likely that any human being will
win such power by the sword again.
Throughout Asia to-day, if you go there, you will
be told that three men conquered the world-Iskander
(Alexander) and Genghis Khan and Timur.
And if you go to Samarkand you will notice a great
dome rising above a grove of trees near the citadel.
The dome is still blue in spots, and the sun gleams upon
its fragments of turquoise tiles. The masonry of the
walls is pitted with bullets fired by Russian rifles, and
all the arches but one are down in ruins.




WHAT CAME OF THE ATTEMPT 259
In the vestibule you will find three aged mullahs
sitting on a carpet and, if you wish, one of them will
rise and light a candle and lead you to the inner chamber where the light coming through the carved alabaster embrasures is dim.
Within a lattice work of stone, there are two cenotaphs, one white and one greenish black. The white
tombstone covers the body of Mir Sayyid, a servant
of Islam, who was Timur's friend. The dark stone
above it, the mullah will explain, is jade and it was sent
to the tomb by a Mongolian princess. Under it
Timur's body lies.
If you ask the mullah in the tattered robe and the
white turban who Timur was, he will reflect, while the
candle flickers in his thin fingers. And very probably
he will say,
"Tura, I do not know. He lived before my birth,
and before the birth of my father. It was a long time
ago. But, verily, he was The Lord."




Part Four: NVotes


I
THE WISE MEN AT THE BATTLE
TIMUR was almost constantly on the march and
usually took part of his court with him to a campaign. Arabshah says that he was in the habit of having books read to him in the evenings, especially histories. Even in the hard campaign against the Golden
Horde, one of his princesses accompanied him. During the invasion of India there was a good deal of uncertainty and moodiness in the army when they were
about to face the power of Mahmoud of Delhi, and the
elephants. Sherif ad-Din says:
"The soldiers were not greatly disturbed about the
Indian army, but as they had never seen elephants before, they imagined that the arrow and the saber had
no effect on these animals, and that in battle they would
toss both horse and horseman into the air. When the
posts were appointed, for the officers and lords, Timur
asked the men of learning where they would prefer
to remain during the battle.
"Several of these educated men, who had heard of
the elephants, answered at once: 'If it please our Lord,
we choose to be near the ladies."'
Timur was aware of this dread in the army and made
careful preparations to meet the elephants. A ditch
was dug along the center of the line, and a rampart,
260




THE WISE MEN AT THE BATTLE 261
strengthened with shields, built behind it. Stakes were
driven into the ground and great, three-pronged hooks
fastened to the heads of the stakes. Buffaloes were
lined up under the stakes, bound together by the necks,
and brambles and hay bundled into their horns, in
readiness to be set on fire. But these defenses were not
needed.


4




II


BOWS, IN THE EAST AND WEST
IT IS A QUITE GENERAL SUPPOSITION that the horse
archer of Asia used a light bow that proved ineffective against the heavy armor of Europeans. As a matter of fact the Turks, Tatars and Mongols made use
of both the short and long bow.
In the time of Timur and the earlier day of Genghis
Khan the horsemen usually carried both-the long bow
for destructive fire on foot, the shorter weapon for use
in a charge and in fighting from the saddle at close
quarters. The bow was their favorite arm and the
Mongols, for instance, never discarded it unless compelled to in a press of men and horses. The contemporary chronicles of Europe bear witness to the devastating fire of the Asiatics, stating that great numbers
of the Christian men and horses were slain before the
"battle" began.
The Tatars were equipped with arrows of varied
lengths and weights, and different kinds of headssome designed for piercing armor, and some for arrow
grenades and flaming naphtha. An idea of the length
and weight of the Tatar bow can be gained from the
illustration on page 40. The writer has seen among
the test bows used by candidates for the Peking guards
-Manchus of one to two centuries ago-bows of
twelve "strengths" or about I56 pounds pull. These
were over five feet in length and very heavy.
The longest shot on record seems to have been made
by a member of the Turkish embassy in England, in
262




BOWS, IN THE EAST AND WEST 263
I795. This was either 467 or 482 yards. A few years
ago a modern archer nearly equaled it, but he used a
Turkish bow in his attempt.
A decided superiority in fire-portable mangonels
and catapults being carried on pack animals by both
Mongols and Timur's army-an inflexible discipline,
and lifelor-, familiarity with battle tactics combined
with the genius of their leaders gave the Mongols and
Tatars such advantage over the motley and ill-led
armies of thirteenth and fourteenth century Europe
that the record of their encounters is one of almost
continuous disaster for Europe. The spirit of the
Christian man-at-arms was excellent, but he was accustomed to go to battle as if to a general tournamentto march at ease to the scene of conflict, to make camp
and prepare at leisure, and to abide by the issue of an
hour's hand-to-hand fighting. Such things as artillery
preparation, night attacks, and pursuit that destroyed
all elements of an army filled him with superstitious
dread. He died on the field or in futile flight usually
without having had a chance to wield his sword or pike.
His leaders were ignorant of strategy, and sometimesas in the case of King Bela of Hungary in I24I, and
Duke Witold of Lithuania in 399 —saw that the issue
was lost and abandoned their men to save their lives.
From the ghastly defeat of the Russians in 1221 by
the marshals of Genghis Khan, and the downfall of
Louis of France before the Mamluks of Egypt, to the
overthrow of the European chivalry by Bayazid at
Nicopolis, the arms of Asia prevailed. There were
exceptions-the minor successes of the Catalans, professional soldiers under experienced leaders, around
Constantinople in 1309, and the defeat of the Arabs in
Spain.
The most effective arm of the Europeans during




264


LTAMERLANE


these centuries of disaster was the cross-bow, which the
Mongols and Tatars treated with respect. Except in
sieges and in the hands of the Venetians and Genoese
it played only a small part in the struggle. The long
bow was not used at the time of the early crusades, and
reached its great effectiveness in the hands of the English in the Crecy-Agincourt period, from 1300 to I450.
The writer has been asked how the English archer
of this time compared with the Tatar mounted bowman.
He can only point out that they never met in ranged
battle, and we can only conjecture what the result of
such a meeting would have been. The English long
bow had a range as great as the Tatar-destructive
from two to three hundred yards-and the English
yeoman could shoot his arrows as swiftly. Timur's men
were not equipped with the elaborate plate armor of the
French chivalry, and one may add that they would
certainly never have charged the front of the English
as foolishly as the knights of France.
Outside of individual valor and their skill as bowmen, the English were no better qualified to meet the
Tatars than the Teutonic knights or the Knights of St.
John. Against fire preparation and attack upon the
wings and rear, the Black Prince would have been as
helpless as his European cousins.




III


THE FLAME THROWERS
THAT TIMUR'S ARMY made use of flame projectors
of various kinds is clear. But the contemporary
accounts give no description of the weapons themselves,
and in translation only "fire pots" appear.
We know that the Chinese, centuries before Timur's
day, made use of gunpowder in war. It is not generally understood that the Chinese were familiar with
the detonating effect of gunpowder. There are several
references to this. A Chinese annalist says of the siege
of Kaifong in I232 by the Mongols:
"As the Mongols had dug themselves pits under the
earth where they were sheltered from missiles, we decided to bind with iron the machines called chin-tien-lei
(a kind of fire projector) and lowered them into the
places where the Mongol sappers were; they exploded
and blew into pieces men and shields."
The Mongols made some use of these Chinese inventions and Genghis Khan in his invasion of the west
in 1220 had with him a corps of Chinese artillerymen
and machines called ho pao-fire projectors. Timur's
Tatars were familiar with these. And also with the
uses to which the Arabs and Persians put naphtha.
During the crusades the Arabs made use of various
inventions-a fire mace, with a glass ball for a head,
filled with naphtha. A fuse leading to this was lighted
and the mace thrown at an enemy or broken over his
265




266               TAMERLANE
armor, the flaming naphtha running down his body.
Their trebuchets and mangonae cast heavy shells of
clay filled with naphtha or Greek fire. These were
used in sieges.
A grim story is told of one siege, where the crusaders
had built wooden towers over against the walls. The
Arab machines cast against these towers a number of
shells that broke and soaked everything with a liquid,
but caused no damage. The Christians mocked the
efforts of the besieged, who continued to soak down the
wooden towers, until a flaming torch was tossed out,
and men and towers went up in fire. The liquid was
naphtha.l
1 For fuller details, consult John Hewitt, Ancient Armour, and Captain
Fave and M. Reinaud, Le feu gregeois.




IV


ANGORA
IN JUSTICE to the memory of a great soldier, it must
be pointed out that European accounts of Timur's
victory at Angora have been, in the past, very prejudiced. They were taken mainly from Othman Turkish
and Greek accounts, seldom from sources and almost
never from Tatar sources. The standard version is
Von Hammer's, edited by Prof. Creasy, author of
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.  In its
essential point it is as follows:
"Timour's secret agents were sent to the Ottoman
camp and urged, on the numerous soldiers of Tartar
race who served there that they ought not to fight
against Timour, who was the true chief of all Tartar
warriors.... Bajazet 1 advanced with about 20o,oo000
men against the far superior forces of Timour which
were posted near Sivas.     The  Mongol emperor
manoeuvered so as to ensure that the battle should take
place on ground advantageous for cavalry and on which
he could avail himself most fully of his numerical
superiority.  By  an  able forced  march   through
Kaisyraiah and Kirschehr he evaded Bajazet and reached
the city and plain of Angora. As he had expected the
Ottoman sultan hurried to the rescue of Angora....
Notwithstanding the immense preponderance of numbers which he possessed, the Mongol sovereign ob1 Hammer wrote Bajazet for Bayazid. The Turkish lettering is much
the same, but the word is Bai-zid. He speaks of Timur, as many do, as
a Mongol ruler.
267




268


6TAMERLANE


served  all military  precautions... Bajazet...
seemed to have lost all the generalship which he usually exhibited.... He camped first to the north of
Timour's position; and then, to show his contempt for
his enemy, he marched his whole army away to the
high grounds in the neighborhood, and employed them
in a grand hunting. Unfortunately the districts in
which Bajazet made this, his last chase, were destitute
of water....Five thousand of the Ottoman soldiers
perished with thirst and fatigue. After this imperial
folly Bajazet marched back to his enemy, but he found
that the camp which he had left was now occupied by
the Tartars, and that the only stream of water to which
the Ottoman army could gain access, had been turned
and filled up by Timour's orders.
"Bajazet was thus obliged to seek a battle. The
Mongol army is said to have exceeded 800,000 men,
and it certainly was far more numerous than that led
by Bajazet, who could not have brought more than
oo00,000 men into the field; and not only in numbers
but in equipment, in zeal, and in the skill with which
they were directed, the superiority was on the side of
the Mongols."
Von Hammer and Creasy add that some of the Ottoman princes of Asia followed the Tatars over to
Timur's side, and that only the Serbians and janissaries made effective resistance to the fierce and frequent charges of the Mongol cavalry.
Lane-Poole, in his Turkey, follows the above version
closely, adding this observation:
"On the one side were men thirsty and exhausted,
inferior in numbers, and discontented with their leader:
on the other, a vast host, strongly posted, splendidly




ANGORA


269


generalled, neglecting no precaution of war, and possessing every advantage of numbers, discipline and
physical condition... The valour of the Janissaries
and the Serbs could avail little against Timur's numbers, and the end was utter route."
As to the battle itself, Lane-Poole quotes quaint old
Knolles who wrote in i603.
This spectacle of the Turkish army disbanded to go
hunting in barren country, under the eyes of the Tatars
drawn up for battle, owes its origin to the Turkish historians of a later day, whose object was to explain the
overthrow of their sultan. It is supported by no contemporary evidence, and common sense alone would
indicate that if Bayazid had been insane enough to
attempt it, Timur would never have stood by as a
spectator to await his return. That men like Von
Hammer, Creasy and Lane-Poole accept the story is
amazing.
As to Bayazid's desertion by his Tatar allies, there
is no record on the Tatar side that Timur intrigued with
the offending chieftains. There is an account of several tribes of Black Tatars who drifted into Asia Minor
and were enrolled in the Turkish army. These presumably were in Bayazid's host and went over to the
Tatars during the battle. Their numbers were small,
and Timur seems not to have held communication with
them until after the conflict, when he forced them to
go back with him to Samarkand.
As to Timur's host of 800,000, it never existed. An
army of that size could not have lived off the country
in Asia Minor, much less maneuvered as Timur's didand the Othman accounts are clear that Bayazid saw
nothing of the Tatar troops until they had gone past




270


TAMERLANE


him. Furthermore there is no evidence that Timur
ever assembled more than 200,000 men at any one
place. The Tatar records only mention numbers occasionally —72,000 men in the later campaign in Persia,
90,000 that went into India, 200,000 mustered for
the last campaign into China.
Timur only advanced into Asia Minor after four
years of almost constant war; he left some forces at
Samarkand-after Prince Muhammad joined himand was forced to guard his communications over a vast
territory. Another army was at Tabriz, and several
divisions in Syria. The list of the various amirs and
commanders at the battle of Angora would indicate a
strength of from 80,ooo to I60,000.
Apparently Bayazid's army was the more numerous.
It is doubtful if Timur would have accepted a defensive position in the beginning unless this had been
the case. Knolles says that the Turks advanced in a
half-moon formation, which-if true-would indicate
that their wings overlapped the Tatar line.
Herbert Adams Gibbons says, "Bayezid would have
weathered the Tartar storm, had he been the same man
he was at Nicopolis. In facing a Tartar invasion, the
advantage was all on Bayezid's side. He failed because
his mental and physical faculties, which rivalled, if
they did not surpass, those of any man of his age, had
become impaired by a life of debauchery."
Had Bayazid been the victor at Angora, and had
Constantinople fallen to him as it must, thereafter, he
would have appeared in the pages of history as the
dominant figure of the fifteenth century-a Napoleon
of the early ages. It is clear that he was completely
outgeneraled by the Tatar, then nearly seventy years
of age, and in the heart of the Turkish empire, more
than two thousand miles from Samarkand. In the




ANGORA


271


Tatar accounts, Angora appears as a minor battle of
only passing importance, and Bayazid as a general
inferior to Toktamish.
Clavijo, an impartial witness, tells the story in his
own way:2
"When the Turk knew that Lord Timour was in his
territory he marched with his army to a strong castle
called Angora. As soon as Lord Timour heard of this
sagacious movement of the Turk, he left the road by
which he was marching, and led his army over a high
mountain. When the Turk, therefore, found that
Timour had left the road, he thought that he had
fled, and marched after him as fast as he could.
"Lord Timour, after marching through the mountains for eight days, returned to the plain and came
to the castle of Angora, where the Turk had left all
his baggage, and he pillaged it. When the Turk heard
this, he came back as fast as he could and when he arrived, his men were tired.
"Lord Timour had made this movement to throw
his enemy into disorder; and they fought and the Turk
was taken prisoner."
2 He heard of it from the two Spanish envoys who were present. For
additional details, consult The History of the Ottoman Turks by Professor Creasy; Turkey, by Stanley Lane-Poole; The Foundation of the
Ottoman Empire, by Herbert Adams Gibbons-also Clavijo, Sherif adDin and Arabshah.




V


DUKE WITOLD AND THE TATARS
LESS THAN THREE YEARS after the chivalry of
western Europe had gone down before Bayazid at
Nicopolis, the host of eastern Europe encountered the
Tatars in a curious way. This was in I399.
Mad Witold,1 Duke of Lithuania, had allied himself with the king of Poland, and had launched forth
into southern Russia, capturing Kiev and Smolensk.
This brought him into contact with the Tatars, after
Timur's last battle with Toktamish. To Witold and
his Christian host Toktamish fled for refuge. Meanwhile Timur had withdrawn from Russia.
Two Tatar chieftains who had helped him against
Toktamish and had resided some years at his court now
took possession of the Volga and the steppes. They
were Idiku of the Nogai clan and his protege, Timur
Kutluk Khan. It occurred to them to send to Witold's
court a request that Toktamish be surrendered to them.
And Witold, who was a cousin of the Polish king and
father-in-law of the Grand Prince of Moscow, became
fired with the idea of leading a crusade against the
Tatar Khan.
Judging from the Polish annals, Witold thought that
he was going against the great Timur of Samarkand.
At all events, mustering his Lithuanian nobles, and
Polish allies, and a contingent of five hundred Teutonic Knights of the Cross, he set out.
"Why dost thou march against me?" Timur Kutluk
1 "Vitut (Witold) was no doubt the most powerful monarch in Europe"
-Sir Henry Howorth.
272




DUKE WITOLD AND THE TATARS 273
sent a message of remonstrance. "Never have I invaded your land."
"God hath appointed me master of the world,"
Witold responded. "This choice is open to thee: be
my son and vassal, or my slave." He also demanded,
it seems, that Timur Kutluk should stamp the Lithuanian arms upon the Tatar coins.
The Tatar Khan demurred, although he sent gifts
to the Christian duke when the two hosts were in sight
of each other in the plains. He delayed until his older
ally, Idiku, arrived with the Nogais. And Idiku would
have nothing of the Christian's terms. He asked for a
conference with Witold and the two leaders met at a
small river.
"Prince," said Idiku, who was not without a sense
of humor, "our Khan has rightly recognized thee as
his father, since thou art the elder. But as thou art
younger than I, recognize me and put my picture on
the coins of Lithuania."
Witold returned.to his quarters in a rage, and would
not heed the warning of the palatine of Cracow that he
must be cautious. The vainglorious Lithuanian knights
taunted the lord of Cracow: "If thou fearest death,
do not stand in our way, who seek glory."
The Lithuanians and Witold prevailed and the host
advanced on the Tatars. The Christians were furnished with some cannon or hand-guns, and expected
to break up the Tatar array with these new weapons.
But the clumsy firearms had no effect on the rapidly
shifting Tatar horsemen who fought in open order.
And the close-packed mass of Witold's men was thrown
into confusion when Timur Kutluk attacked them in
the rear. The confusion became a route and Witold
fled headlong with the survivors of the Lithuanian
nobles who had boasted before the battle, leaving two



274              TAMERLANE
thirds of his host dead upon the field-among the slain
the brave palatine of Cracow, and the princes of
Smolensk and Galicia. The pursuit was terrible, and
lasted as far as the Dnieper. Kiev paid tribute to the
Tatars, and the Tatars did not turn back until they
had ravaged Witold's country as far as Poland.
Ignored by the general historians, this battle caused
changes in the progress of Europe. The defeat of the
Poles and Lithuanians eliminated the greatest foe of
the Russians, who feared them more than the Tatars.
And Witold recoiled upon Prussia and the Teutonic
Knights, breaking-with the king of Poland-their
power forever.




VI


THE TWO MASTERS OF WAR
F TIMUR, Sir Percy Sykes says this: "No Asiatic
conqueror in historical times has performed such
feats of arms as these, and consequently none is entitled to the fame of Tamerlane. His achievements
seemed almost to border on the superhuman."
Timur, in common with Genghis Khan, had that
strange genius for war that made them appear supermen. Much as we admire the campaigns of a Cesar,
the exploits of a Hannibal, or the inspired strategy of
a Napoleon, upon reflection it is becoming clear that
these two conquerors from Asia are, with Alexander,
the masters of war upon the stage of the world. Their
feats of arms may have been duplicated by others in
miniature, but never upon the earth as a whole.
Genghis Khan remains to-day a good deal of a mystery, and there is much in Timur that we cannot understand. Did Genghis Khan have a profound plan for
the conquest of the world, or was he an inspired barbarian? We only know that he was wise, with a wisdom that proved terrible to the world we live in. And
we can measure Timur's mighty achievement and ponder it, and still search in vain for the secret of his
success.
Alexander we understand; he was the son of Philip
of Macedon, heir to a mighty army, and in his conquest
he swept without check over the area opened by the
Persian empire that preceded him and which he overthrew. But between us and these two warriors of Asia
2735




276


TAMERLANE


there is the veil of distance and the strangeness of another world.
Some things we can say with assurance. Like Alexander they had immense endurance and a driving
energy that would check at nothing. There the similarity ceases. Genghis Khan was patient, Timur impetuous; the great Mongol directed his campaigns from
his headquarters, after his early years, but the lord of
Samarkand could usually be found upon the scene of
action. The nomad of the Gobi shared his responsibility among ministers and generals; the Tatar leader
accepted all responsibilities himself.
Was this policy? Or was Genghis Khan better
served? It would seem so. His Chinese ministers, and
those four sons of war, Subotai, Chepe Noyon, Bayan
and Muhuli, were more than able to carry on a campaign themselves. After his death they-the survivors
of them-enlarged the empire. Saif ad-Din, Jaku
Barlas, Shaikh Ali Bahatur, and the rest never accomplished such results for Timur.
The Mongols of the thirteenth century had a natural
aptitude for leadership in war, and a bee-like coherence
that made cooperation perfect between them; the
Tatar soldiers of the fifteenth century, like Hannibal's,
were only partially welded together. Without Timur's
presence they lost half their efficiency. The Mongols
could maneuver in widely separated army corps; in the
face of a powerful enemy, Timur always moved with
a single army.
Genghis Khan had rare skill in the organization and
the movement of men; he planned a campaign to its
remotest details and discussed it for weeks with his
marshals before setting out; a master strategist, he
avoided battle when unnecessary, and moved directly
to the annihilation of the center of resistance, and the
death of the opposing leader. Terror and secrecy sur



THE TWO MASTERS OF WAR


277


rounded his movements and behind him he left a
hideous toll of dead.
The paralysis of fear inspired by the approach of the
Mongols is almost beyond our conception. It is said
that in one captured town a single Mongol warrior
gathered together some twenty captives preparatory to
putting them to death. Then he found that he had
forgotten to bring his sword with him, and he ordered
the twenty to wait there until he could find it and bring
it back. They did so-all but one. He was the man
who told about it.
Timur's Tatars were different. The case of Ak Boga
charging two score Persians by himself is not a solitary
incident. His men believed themselves invincible;
his almost transcendental ability seemed to them to be
fate itself.
Timur was as careful in preparation as Genghis
Khan, but he was not so consummate a strategist as the
Mongol. Genghis Khan avoided difficulties, where
Timur met them and overcame them. The Mongol
would never have galloped ahead of his army into
Bagdad with only a few hundred men, or have climbed
alone to the wall of Karshi.
In China, Genghis Khan first laid waste entire provinces, to maneuver through the chaos thus created.
Timur would allow an enemy to concentrate and then
advance to give battle, and he was always victorious
in later life. Like Napoleon, he marched prepared for
all contingencies, and relied on his own ability to do
the right thing at the right time to break the power of
an enemy. No problem seemed to disconcert him.
We do not know how Genghis Khan developed such
strategic insight, or how he perfected such a military
organization in his desert. And Timur's secret of victory still remains a riddle.




VII


THE POETS
T    HE SUDDEN APPEARANCE of Timur at the threshold of Europe and his equally abrupt vanishing
with all his pomp and power kindled the imagination
of the European poets. Tamerlane, or Tamberlain,
became a legend-a fantasy shaped out of the garbled
stories of the Greeks and the Turks.
We find some early references to Tamerlane, the
enemy of Bajazet, as the sixteenth-century Germans
called the Othmanli Sultan. In contemporary history
he emerges as the grand Cham of Tartary, descended
from-an echo of Herodotus-the Scythian shepherds. All of which is not so ridiculous as some later
histories. But for a long time Timur, in the minds of
the European writers, was associated only with the
Turks, and vaguely with the conquest of "Natolia," and
victories over the "Soldans of Egypt, Jerusalem and
Babylon."
Christopher Marlowe, in the early Elizabethan age,
knew no more about him than this. He saw in Tamerlane an irresistible power, and all the grandeur of the
unknown east. And he put this imagery into resounding rhetoric-the first play to be written in English
verse. His "Tamburlaine the Great" is built up out of
imagination, its foundation no more than the annals
of the ancient Graco-Persian world.'
I We may search the play in vain for any authentic detail, or even a
real personage-barring Timur and Bayazid-in the cast of characters.
There is only one name with a true oriental ring to it, "Usumcasane."
Bergeron's Traicte des Sarasins I635, mentions an Usumcassan who
served Timur, apparently a Turiroman of the White Sheep. Marlowe
278




THE POETS


279


Tamburlaine appears upon the scene in the nowfamous coach and kings:
Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia!
What, can ye draw but twenty miles a-day
And have so proud a chariot at your heels,
And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine,
But from Asphaltis, where I conquer'd you,
To Byron here, where thus I honour you?
This play, written in 1586, is immortal, but only by
reason of the fire and energy of the English poet.
Tamburlaine resembles Timur only in his unbreakable
will power and love of magnificence-and that is because Marlowe himself loved both power and magnificence. It is evident that he had not seen the Spanish
publication of Clavijo's journal, which appeared in
1582 with some slight additional accounts of Timur.
But from that time Timur is a more frequent figure,
much distorted, in the European histories. Leunclavius mentions him in I588, and Perondinus in  600.
Jean de Bek published the mythical account of an unknown Alhazen (Al Hussayn?) in I595. Good Richard Knolles incorporates him within the voluminous
annals of the Turks, published in 1603. Many of these
early accounts are collected in Purchas, his Pilgrimes,
1625. Magnon, in 1647, wrote his quaint Le Grand
Tamerlan et Bajazet. In 1634 appeared Pierre Bergeron's collection of Voyages en Tartarie with a good
deal of rather accurate information about the Tatars
and Muhammadan peoples. This was the beginning
of real knowledge, increased shortly by the translation
does mention the kings of Amasia and Soria, probably Syria. Amasia
and Syria were real provinces but lacked rulers. An Uzun Hassan was
chief of the White Sheep Turkomans and married a Greek princess, but
he lived two generations after Timur.




280


TAMERLANE


of Ahmed Arabshah's history by Vattier, published at
Paris in i658.
We find a reflection of this legendary Tamerlane in
Milton's Satan-the great trumpets summoning the
armed host to battle, the upraised standards, the marshaled battalions of the powers of darkness at the gates
of paradise, and all the contemporary imagery of oriental splendor. For a long time Tamerlane figured in
European literature as the typical oriental despot, to
be joined later on by the concept of the great Moghul,
and —during the Voltaire era in France by the image
of the Chinese Emperor. He took the niche once occupied by the "Grand Kaan of Tatary" who owed his
prestige to Marco Polo. All this had very little to
do with real history and real men.
Not until Petis de la Croix translated Sherif ad-Din's
long chronicle, "The Book of the Victories of Lord
Timur the Splendid," early in the eighteenth century,
was more accurate knowledge available.
Poe's poem, which deals in reality with human love,
reveals no more of Tamerlane than
The pageantry of monarchy
And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar. telling
Of human battle..




VIII


MONGOL
HE WORD MONGOL is applied to so many things
by non-Asiatic writers that it is necessary to look
back at the beginning of things to understand what it
means.
In the beginning it was mong-ku, or mung-kuwhich meant either the brave people, or the silver
people. They were descended from the Tungusi, one
of the aboriginal tribes of elder Siberia; and from the
ancient Turks. Except that they conquered China, they
had no relation to the Chinese of their day.
They were nomads, tall and hardy, illiterate, living
upon their herds and hunting and following the grassdesert dwellers, in the plateaus of the Gobi and the tundras of the north. They were the Scythians of Herodotus, cousins of the Huns and Alans who migrated
westward, to the sorrow of Europe. They were horsemen then and the remnants of them are horsemen
to-day.
The Chinese called them, long ago, the Hiung-nu,
and various kinds of devils, and built the great wall to
keep them out. Just as Alexander a little earlier-so
legend has it-built the porta, Caspiae to keep these
nomads out of his empire. They were the riders of
high Asia, the breeding ground of conquerors. These
horse-riding, flesh-eating, milk-drinking nomads were
called Scythians by Herodotus, Huns by the later Romans, and Hiung-nu by the Chinese. All these words
were used to describe a race.
28i




282


TAMERLANE


Hiung-nu meant the mass of the nomads-we cannot very well say confederacy, because they were almost
always at war. Now, at the time of Genghis Khan,
I 162 A.D., this mass was composed of a score of nations.
Such as-from east to west-the ancestors of Manchus,
the Tatars, Mongols, Karaits, Jalairs and Uigurs.
Genghis Khan, the chieftain of the Mongols, overcame
the others and created out of them the heart of the
Mongol empire.
Genghis Khan was the founder of the empire; his
Mongols were his immediate followers; the massed
nomads were his first conquered peoples. With them
he overcame and entered China. With them and the
Chinese he overcame the Turks of Central Asia, and
then a large part of the rest of the world.
So the word Mongol to-day means one of two
things-a resident of the great Mongol empire of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, or a descendant of
the original Mongol people. In this last sense the
word is used in this book.1
1 For a fuller discussion, consult A Thousand Years of the Tartars, by
E. H. Parker; The Ancient History of China, by Friedrich Hirth; the
Histoire genealogique des Tartars of Abulghazi Bahadur Khan; the Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. IV.




IX


TATAR
THE WORD TATAR has been even more mixed up
with other things than the word Mongol. In the
beginning it was the name of a small nomad people
living east of the Mongols proper, and very much like
them. Whether the word originated in the name of
an early chieftain Tatur, or in the Chinese term T'a T'a
we do not know.'
But the Tatars were the clan or nation nearest the
Chinese and so it happened that the Chinese spoke of
the rest of the nomads also as Tatars, or rather as
Ta-ta-erh. The name stuck; the mass of the Chinese
use it to-day. It stuck so fast that Europeans have used
it persistently for all of the nomads, in spite of the
fact that the first Europeans to visit the nomad empire,
in the thirteenth century, were warned by the Mongols
not to use the word Tatar in speaking of them, since
the Tatars were one of the peoples they had conquered.
The Norman of twelfth-century Britain did not relish
being called a Saxon.
Being conquered by the Mongols, the Tatars to all
general purposes vanished, after 1200 A.D. They
were merged into the mass of the armed men of the
empire.
1 There is a tendency among scholars to-day to restore the word to its
old form Tartar. The argument is that the Mongol word tar means something, and repeated for emphasis, is tar-tar. And that the Chinese who
cannot assimilate an "r" write it and speak it as T'a-t'a-erh. Early European travelers all wrote it as Tartar. On the other hand, the Arab and
Persian historians did not, and modern Tatars do not usually pronounce
it so. The root tar means wanderer or riser-up. It may be related to the
root tir or tur which appears in Turan, and Tur-ki, but this is doubtful.
283




284


TAMERLANE


Now in the mind of the Asiatic a thing is more important than its name. To European historians Genghis Khan was the emperor of the Mongols-to his own
subjects he was Kha Khan of the world, the Great
King. It was not good form to mention him by name.
His empire was what he possessed-the name did not
matter. The Mongols and Tatars proper did not
write at that time; they had foreign secretaries and
the written language was different from the spoken.
In their communications to Europe, these secretaries
have written down the names and titles of the Great
Khans as (I) a blank, (2) the representative of Heaven
upon earth, (3) the ruler of the world, or the emperor
of all men. The word Mongol was almost never used.
Marco Polo came back with the word Tartar, and
Tartary.
Apart from this, and by circumstances unknown to
us, the Russians who had the first and most lasting contact with the nomad conquerors, of their own accord
adopted the word Tatar, and stuck to it. Howorth
suggests that Tatars may have formed the advance
guard of the first Mongol controlled army to invade
Russia. From contact with Russia, the Europeans
adopted the word, and also knew China as KhitaiCathay. Cathay was dropped after a while, but the
nomad peoples who moved out into the world under
the Mongols are still called Tatars, and it is too late
to change.
The Barlas clan, Timur's ancestors, had nothing
whatever to do with the original Tatars who hunted
around Buyar Lake, and elsewhere. The Barlas men
were more what we call ancient Turk than anything
else.
But we have no better name for them than Tatar.
Sherif ad-Din uses the word, as do Mir-Kwand and




TATARB


285


Kwand-Amir. So does Abul Ghazi. Other Persian
and Arab writers of a later day name them Tatars and
Turks. Among modern scholars, Sir Henry Howorth
accepts Tatar as the best alternative; Edward G.
Browne does likewise. For reasons of their own, Leon
Cahun and Arminius Vambery are emphatic that only
Turk is correct.
In this book Tatar is used, not in a racial or historical sense, but as a better word than the others, to
describe Timur's people. After all, it is the thing that
matters, not the word. The Jats and the Golden Horde
are described as Mongols because they were still ruled
by the direct descendants of the Mongol Khans.2
2 For additional details, consult Howorth, Vol. II; The Turks of Central Asia, by M. A. Czaplicka; The Mohammadan Dynasties by Stanley
Lane-Poole; La Lutte des Civilisations et des Langues dans lAsie centrale,
by P. Kuznietzoff; and the discussion of the words Turk and Tatar by
S. W. Koelle in J. R. A. S., New Series, Vol. XIV.


a




x


TURK
THE WORD TURK has been the football of linguists,
ethnologists and historians, and archeologistsand the Pan-Turkish politicians for many weary years.
One can no longer see the football for the dust.
The legends of a she wolf and a "Turk, son of
Japhet" and a vanished empire enjoying a high culture, especially in working metals and horse trading in
Central Asia long ago, are interesting but not entirely
convincing-although there is said to be a movement
on foot to replace the crescent of Constantinople with
a golden wolf's head. It seems that before the fifth
century of our era nothing was known of the Turks.
Thereafter, a clan, breaking away from the mass
of the Hiung-nu settled under the Golden mountains
between China and the Gobi. Its families were called
Assena, but sometimes Turk-which meant helmetbecause they resided near a dome-shaped hill, or because they wore helmets. The Chinese, it is said, called
them Tou-kie, because the Chinese could not pronounce
the "r." But Tou-kie apparently used to mean insolent
dogs, and still means foreign dogs as many of us can
testify. It does not seem quite clear whether the Chinese heard the word spoken by the Assena nomads, or
whether they were calling the nomads names.
At any rate, drawing largely from the Chinese annals, European scholars have given to most of the other
great clans kindred to the Assena (Turks) the racial
designation of Turks. In the eastern part of the mass,
the Uigurs and Jalairs are so christened, and in the
286




TURK


287


west our friends who later formed the nucleus of the
Golden Horde-Karluks, Kankali, Kara Kalpak, Kipchak-Snow Dwellers, High Carts, Black Hats, and
Desert Men.
They have been so christened because they spoke the
same-or nearly the same-language. And this language is now called Turkish. But it is not the Turkish-of Constantinople. In the beginning some of its
dialects were very similar to Mongol.
So the European men of letters have taken the name
-what they have accepted as the name-of one small
tribe to designate a number of great clans. One is reminded of that early Lithuanian prince who turned
Christian and summoned his people to be baptized, by
groups. One group he christened Peter, another Paul.
At all events, there were the Turks, off in the back
door of China, meat eaters, silk wearers, milk drinkers,
their valiant men of war called bagaturs, their princesses khatuns, their chieftains kha khans. They had
horn bows, and whistling arrows, coats of mail, and a
vugh-tugh, which is a wolf's head standard-a golden
wolf's head, emblem of the lin kha khan, the wolf
chieftain. Only a king could have such a standard,
and only he the right of beating kettledrums five times
a day. We recognize the ancestors of Timur.
This was about the seventh century, when the Mongols were still wearers of skins, both fish and animal,
and filthy eaters. They were still dwellers in the Sibir
-the north, our Siberia. What happened next was
complicated. These great clans who had little in common except a similarity in the language that we call
Turkish (which, by the way, seemed to be written down
only in some form of dog-Sanscrit and Syriac, at that
time) moved away for various reasons mostly having
to do with war.




288


TAMERLANE


And they moved west and they scattered, widely.
Upon the vast expanse of Central Asia empires merged
together and parted, under a kind of theoretical Chinese overlordship, and the harrying of the newly-great
Arabs. The so-called Turks, of course, were pagans.
The Uigurs and Karluks and Black Cathayans all had
their day, and then came the Mongols of Genghis Khan
and scattered them some more, and then gathered most
of them in the Mongol Horde.
All these clans had kept their own names, although
the names tended to vary as they merged and parted
company. Some, like the Kirghiz and the Karait survive to-day. The Barlas clan was in all the fighting,
and it ended up in Beyond the River. There is a legend
that one of its chiefs was the karachar or commander-inchief of one of the mighty Mongol princes.
At this time-after the death of Genghis Khan and
before the birth of Timur-these clans christened Turks
by the men of letters and called Tatars by their neighbors of that day, were nominally Mongols pro tern.
But like the clans of Scotland they stuck to their family
names. They learned to write in different letterings,
and a lot of them were converted, to some degree, into
Muhammadans. Others, Buddhists. They energed
into the pages of history in various countries, and nearly
always caused trouble. Timur rounded up most of
them.
It does seem as if there never was a Turkish empire
or even a nation of Turks. The Othmanlis-pronounced also Osmanlis, and often written Ottomanswere wandering Turkomans, who were not descended
from the reigning clans. They conquered and intermarried with part of Europe and most of the near
east; their language was largely compounded of Arabic
and Persian. They were never Turks.




"THE PAGEANTRY OF MONARCHY." THE COURT OF AURANGZEB, DESCENDANT OF TIMUR, AND LAST OF THE
GREAT MOGHU,S TO ENJOY THE FULL POWER OF
EMPEROR. THIS EUROPEAN ENGRAVING, INSPIRED
LARGELY BY TRAVELERS' TALES, REFLECTS CHRISTENDOM'S IDEA OF ASIATIC POMP AS LATE AS 1699.


i.
It
I








TURK                        289
Good William    of Tyre, the chronicler of the crusades, came very close to the heart of the riddle when
he said that the word Turk meant a lord, and Turkonan meant a vagabond.
The situation of the Othmanlis was rather absurd.
They were called Turks by the Europeans, and so in
time they were forced to accept the name, to some extent. The Turkey of our histories was not Turkey to its
present occupants. It was, until this decade, Osmanli
vilayeti, the country of the Othmans.1
1 For additional discussion, consult Leon Cahun, E. H. Parker, Abul
Ghazi Bahadur Khan. Also, Arminius Vambery, Das Turkenvolk; E.
Chavannes, Les Tou-kiue occidentaux; Herbert Adams Gibbons, The
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire.




XI


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
W   HEN HE WAS PASSING THROUGH PERSIA, Messer
Marco Polo heard the various stories related
about the followers of Hassan ibn Saba who were known
as Assassins. There is more truth than fancy in his account, and it is worth looking at.1
"The Old Man was called in their language Aloadin. He had caused a certain valley between two mountains to be enclosed, and had turned it into a garden,
the largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled
with every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions
and palaces the most elegant that can be imagined, all
covered with gilding and exquisite painting.
"And there were runnels too, flowing freely with
wine and milk and honey and water; and numbers of
ladies and of the most beautiful damsels in the world,
who could play on all manner of instruments and sing
most sweetly, and danced in a manner that was charming to behold. For the Old Man desired to make his
people believe that this was actually Paradise.
"So he had fashioned it after the description Mahommet gave of his Paradise, to wit, that it should be
a beautiful garden running with conduits of wine and
milk and honey and water, and full of lovely women
1 The Old Man of the Mountain is literally the meaning of Shaikh al
Jabal-the lords of mountain strongholds who gained their power by threat
of the assassin's dagger. In the account of an unknown Jesuit who knew
the east, they are described as 'Execrandos et fugiendos rnomine Assassinos.. salutem et vitam hominis paruipendunt."  Marco Polo's story is
quoted from the Yule-Cordier edition of the immortal Venetian.
290




THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 291
for the delectation of its inmates. And sure enough
the Saracens of those parts believed that it was Paradise.
"Now, no man was allowed to enter the Garden save
those whom he intended to be his Ashishin. There was
a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough
to resist all the world, and there was no other way to
get in. He kept at his court a number of the youths
of the country, from I2 to 20 years of age, such as
had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used to tell
tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont
to do, and they believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he would introduce them
into his garden, some four or six, or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast
them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be
lifted and carried in. So when they awoke they found
themselves in the Garden.
"When therefore they awoke and found themselves
in a place so charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied
with them to their heart's content, so that they had
what young men would have; and with their own good
will, they never would have quitted the place.
"Now this Prince whom we call the Old One kept
his court in grand and noble style, and made those simple hill folks about him believe firmly that he was a
great prophet. And when he wanted one of his Ashishin 2 to send on any mission, he would cause that potion whereof I spoke to be given to one of the youths in
the garden and then had him carried into his palace.
"So when the young man awoke, he found himself
in the Castle and no longer in that Paradise; whereat
2 Hashish eaters. Apparently this is the origin of the word Assassin,
which was brought back by the crusaders, as appears in the acount of the
Jesuit, written about I330.




292


TAMERLANE


he was not over well pleased. He was then conducted
to the Old Man's presence, and bowed before him with
great veneration as believing himself to be in the presence of a true Prophet. The Prince would then ask
whence he came, and he would reply that he came from
Paradise! and that it was exactly such as Mahommet
had described it in the Law. This of course gave the
others who stood by and who had not been admitted,
the greatest desire to enter therein.
"So when the Old Man would have any Prince slain,
he would say to such a youth: 'Go thou and slay So
and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear
thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless
even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into
Paradise.' So he caused them to believe; and thus
there was no order of his that they would not affront
any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to
get back into that Paradise of his. And in this manner
the Old One got his people to murder any one whom
he desired to get rid of. Thus, too, the great dread
that he inspired all Princes withal, made them become
his tributaries in order that he might abide at peace
and amity with them." 8
s The list of Asiatic dignitaries killed by the Assassins is long indeed.
It included a Kalif of Egypt, and princes of Aleppo, Damascus and Mosul
-also Raymond, Count of Tripoli, and Conrad of Montserrat. The last
being attributed for a long time to the hand of King Richard. The Assassins made the mistake of killing a Mongol prince and most of their
strongholds were demolished by the Mongols. Timur completed the work.
For further particulars consult the Yule-Cordier Marco Polo, the travels
of Odoric, the chronicle of Joinville. Also Quatremere's translation of
Rashid ad-Din's history of the Mongols of Persia.




XII


THE GREAT AND NOBLE CITY OF TABRIZ
IT NEEDS, perhaps, an effort of imagination to realize
the true size of such a metropolis of Asia. To-day
Tabriz is no more than a ruinous and drowsy town,
tucked between Armenia and the Caspian-its name
more obscure than that of its neighbor Mosul which is
mentioned in dispatches by virtue of a controversy over
oil rights.
In Timur's day Tabriz-sometimes written Tauriz
by the early Europeans-was an entrepot of the world's
trade, where the great Khorassan road joined the southern route to Bagdad, Persia and the gulf. Looking at
it through the eyes of men who visited it in that age,
we find the following:
Marco Polo says, about the year I270, "Tauris is a
great and noble city... having such a good position
that trade is brought here from Bagdad, India and the
hot regions. In it there are Armenians, Nestorians,
Jacobites, Georgians, Persians, and finally natives of
the city themselves who are worshippers of Muhammad."
Turning to the Venetian archives, we find that in
1341 the Genoese had a factory there, with a council
of twenty-four merchants-the word factory here
meaning rather a warehouse station than a manufacturing plant.
Rashid ad-Din, a celebrated Persian historian living
about 1300, says: "At Tabriz there were gathered under
the eyes of the Emperor of Islam (Ghazan, the I1 -Khan) philosophers, astronomers, scholars, historiansof all religions, of all sects. And people of Cathay,
293




294


TAMERLANE


of India and Kashmir, of Tibet, of the Uigur and other
Turkish nations, Arabs and Franks (Europeans)."
From Ibn Sayyid and Mustawfi we learn that with
its suburbs it was 25,000 paces around the outer wall,
that its public buildings-mosques, academies and hospitals-were faced with glazed tile and often made of
marble and limestone. It had 2oo,ooo houses besides
the inns and sarais for travelers, which means a population of about a million and a quarter. We hear that
40,000 may have died in a single earthquake.
Ibn Batuta mentions that even the sellers of musk
and ambergris had separate markets, and that when he
walked through the bazaar of the jewelers his eyes
were dazzled by the precious stones that richly dressed
slaves offered to the Tatar ladies.
Of the priest-voyagers, the good Jourdain de Severac says, in 1320, "Thauris quod est civitas permaxima... ibi habemus ecclesiam satis pulchram et bene
mille personas conversas ad fidem nostram."
And Fra Oderic, writing at almost the same time:
"This city, I tell you, is the finest in the world, for
trade. Every article is found here in abundance. It
is so marvellous that you would scarcely believe everything unless you saw it.... The Christians of this
place say that the revenue it pays to its emperor is
greater than the revenue all of France pays to its king."
As late as the seventeenth century the explorer Chardin estimated its population-which had steadily decreased-at 552,000.
It was larger than Samarkand, which measured, without the suburbs, some Io,ooo paces around the walls.
Clavijo says there were about I50,000 people in the
Ark of Samarkand, by which he means the arak or citadel alone.




XIII


CLAVIJO AT TABRIZ
CLAVIJO, the chamberlain of the King of Castile,
passed through Tabriz, and gave a full description of it. This is one of the few clear accounts of a
city under Timur's rule-the Tatar conqueror first entered Tabriz fifteen years before Clavijo's visit.
And Clavijo's description is important, not only in
revealing how one of the great cities of Asia impressed
a European, but in showing that Timur was capable of
preserving and improving a captured metropolis. European histories have mentioned in particular the burning of more than one building whose stones remain intact to-day without evidence of fire. Terrible as was
the havoc wrought in his invasions, it will be recalled
that he retained unharmed the cities that submitted
without resistance. In nearly every case he ordered
the public buildings spared-the mosques, academies,
water systems and schools and tombs. And in the majority of cases, he ordered the ruined places to be rebuilt. So we often find Asiatic travelers giving descriptions of cities populous and apparently little the
worse for war, after his death, while these same places
are presented to us in European histories as no more
than charred ruins.
There is a reason for this misunderstanding. European narrators were most familiar with the provinces
most remote from Samarkand-southern Russia, western Asia Minor, the coast of Syria, the extreme south
of Persia, and India. Timur had little interest in re295




296                   TAMERLANE
pairing damages here. Instead he carried off whatever
was most valuable to Samarkand. It was part of his
policy to leave the frontiers a waste and build up within
the empire. And this was the foundation of the splendor of the Shah Rukh's empire, in Persia and Samarkand, and what is now Afghanistan. It resulted in the
golden age of Persian architecture, over the two thousand miles from    Ghazni to Tabriz-which is about the
length of Europe proper. And this may be termed the
area of Timur's building. Except for Tabriz it was
an area almost unknown to the Europeans for centuries.l
Clavijo says:
"From the hills on the right a great river descends
to the city, and is divided into many channels which
flow through the streets. The streets are well ordered,
with very large buildings with many doors within which
are shops guarded by officers. Here they sell many
things-cloth, silk, cotton and other stuffs-and this
city has a great trade.
"In one place there are men who sell certain scents
and coloring for women, and hither come the women
to paint and anoint themselves. These women go about
covered with a white sheet, a horse-hair net hanging
over their eyes.
"The grand edifices are ornamented very skilfully
1 In this volume no attempt has been made, consciously, to ignore the
cruel side of Timur's character, or the destruction he wrought. He has
been presented to us so often in the past as an architect only of pyramids
of skulls, and as a barbarian destroyer, that an effort must be made to
realize what the man actually was. One noted historian of to-day characterizes him briefly as "more terrible than Genghis Khan"-at the same time
that orientalists are making known to us the high culture prevailing among
the Timurids.
To take an opposite case, Harun ar-Rashid, thanks to the "Arabian
Nights," has impressed us as a most benevolent monarch; but the annals
of Asia reveal him as not less cruel and destructive than Timur, upon a
smaller scale. Muir says, "The witchery of oriental romance has cast an
adventitious glow about the name of Harun al Rashid."




CLAVIJO AT TABRIZ                297
with mosaics and blue and gold work made in Greece.
They say that these great works were made by very rich
men, who were jealous of each other, and each strove
to erect the most wonderful work and in this way they
spent their wealth. Among these buildings is a great
house, which was surrounded by a wall, very beautiful
and rich, in which there are a multitude of chambers
and apartments; and they say this house was built by
Sultan Owais with the treasure that was paid him by
the Sultan of Babylon.
"The city of Tabriz is very rich by reason of the
great quantity of merchandise that passes through it
every day. They say in former days it was more populous; but even now there are more than two hundred
thousand inhabited houses. There are also many market places in which they sell very clean and well-dressed
meat, cooked in a variety of ways, and plenty of fruit.
"In the streets and squares of this city there are
many fountains, and in summer they fill them with
pieces of ice, and put brass and copper jugs near them,
so that the people can come and drink. The magistrate
of Tabriz, called the Darogah 2 received the ambassadors very honorably.
"Here are many rich and beautiful mosques, and
the finest baths that, I believe, can be seen in the whole
world. When the ambassadors wished to depart, horses
were provided for themselves and their retinue. From
this place the ruler of the country had horses in readiness, that those who are coming to him might travel
night and day, in relays, and thus the post is arranged
all along the road as far as the city of Samarkand."
2 The civil governor.




XIV


THE AMIR'S PAVILION
CLAVIJO gives an excellent description of one of
Timur's tent palaces-he calls it a great and lofty
pavilion:
"It was a hundred paces broad, and had four corners
and the ceiling was round, like a vault. It was pitched
upon twelve poles, each as large around as a man's
chest, and each painted gold and blue and other colors. When they pitched the tent, they used wheels
like those of a cart, which were turned by men and they
have ropes fixed in various directions to assist them.
"From the vault of the ceiling of the pavilion silken
cloths descended, making an arch from side to side.
Outside this square pavilion there were porticoes, and
from it at least five hundred red cords were stretched.
Inside there was a crimson carpet embroidered with
gold threads. In the four corners were the figures of
four eagles with their wings closed. The outside of
the pavilion was covered with silk stripes, black, white
and yellow.
"At each corner was a high pole with a copper ball
and the figure of a crescent, and on the top of the pavilion there was a tower of silken cloths, with turrets
and an entrance door.
"This pavilion was so large and high that from a
distance it looked like a castle, and it was a very wonderful thing to see and possessed more beauty than it
is possible to describe."
298




XV


THE GREAT DOME
BEFORE TIMUR'S LIFETIME the domes of Persian
architecture were of the pointed variety and did
not swell outward from the base. Timur's earlier buildings showed no change from this plan. But both the
Bibi Khanum and his own tomb, the Gur Amir, have
the majestic swelling dome that appeared later in the
buildings of the Moghul era in India and much later
in Russia, where it was exaggerated to a great degree.
K. A. C. Cresswell, in The History and Evolution of
the Dome in Persia, maintains that no such domes could
have been seen by Timur in his invasion of India, because the tombs of northern India did not have this
feature of design. The only one in existence was on
the great Umayyad mosque in Damascus, and it was
built of wood-and burned in the fire that destroyed
the city. It was immense and majestic, towering over
the plain, and for at least a month Timur camped where
he could see it.
"Timur cannot fail to have been impressed, keenly
appreciating architecture as he did, with this great building, in his day one of the wonders of medieval Islam.
He was much more likely to have some of its most
striking features reproduced for him at Samarkand
than he was to copy a tope in India. There is ample
evidence that Timur greatly appreciated architecture.
He was impressed by the Juma Musjid at Old Delhi,
and took a model of it home. He admired the Kutb
299




300


TAMERLANE


Minar and carried off workmen to construct a similar
one in Samarkand, which intention, however, was never
carried out."
Mr. Cresswell explains that the measurements of the
Bibi Khanum dome and the one destroyed at Damascus are similar-that the Bibi Khanum tomb was the
first building completed after Timur's return from Damascus-it had been in construction for two or three
years. And that there can be little doubt that Timur
copied it from the only example known, at Damascus.
Ibn Batuta says of it, "From whatever direction you
approach the city you see this dome, above everything,
as if suspended in the air."
This bulbed dome, preserved by Timur's fancy, and
rebuilt by the enormous resources at his disposal, was
carried out in the splendid buildings of his children. It
was transported to India by the Moghuls, his descendants, appearing there for the first time in the mausoleum of Humayun, and eventually in that masterpiece, the Taj Mahal.
'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, I914.




XVI


THE PYRAMIDS OF SKULLS
IN EUROPEAN HISTORY the towers of the heads of
enemies slain by the Tatar conqueror have been always associated with the name of Timur. They were
terrible, and grimly picturesque, and so they appear in
the pages of most histories. But Timur cannot be
judged by the milder civilization of to-day.
Turning back to his own time, we find that the Maliks
of Herat and other princes erected such monuments of
victory. They differed from Timur's only in being
smaller.
The same is true of the massacres. It must be remembered that the Tatar conqueror lived where mercy
was usually looked upon as a sign of weakness. We
find the European princes of his day little more inclined to mercy-the Black Prince made a shambles of
Limoges, and Charles of Burgundy killed like a wolf
among sheep at Dinant. At Agincourt the English
killed French prisoners in order to be rid of them for
the final phase of the battle; at Nicopolis, the English,
German and French crusaders massacred the Serbian
and Turkish prisoners before the battle. The massacres
ordered by Timur differed only in being on a vaster
scale.
Colonel Sykes explains that the massacres ordered by
Timur were due to imperative military necessity.
While this is doubtful, it is clear that the Lord of Samarkand was more tolerant than most of the rulers of his
day. A story is told that in every siege his tent was
30I




302


TAMERLANE


hung with white banners the first day, to indicate to
the people within the city that they might surrender
and be spared; with red the second day, to show that
if they surrendered now their leaders must die; with
black thereafter, to warn them to look for nothing but
burial. This story has no good authority to support
it, but is typical of the man.
In the case of Herat, it was treated leniently in the
first siege, and with terrible rigor in the second. Bagdad got off with a ransom the first time, and was destroyed the second. We read that Urganj was made
into a mass of ruins, but farther on we learn that it was
built up again.
If Timur had been possessed by the ferocity of a
Genghis Khan, no second siege would have been needed.
But he was pitiless in subduing revolt.
His own followers did not find him cruel; his enemies found him remorseless. The historians ef Asia
comment on the splendor of his achievements rather
than upon his cruelty-with the exception of Arabshah,.
who hated him. Timur squandered the lives of others,
but he was reckless of his own.




XVII


TIMUR'S CHARACTER
FEW MEN IN HISTORY have been so hated and so loved
as the Lord of Samarkand. The two chroniclers
who lived at his court present him as a demon, and as a
matchless hero.
Ibn Arabshah calls him a merciless slayer, a master
trickster, and a very devil of malignity.
Sherif ad-Din says: "Courage raised him to be the
supreme Emperor of Tartary, and subjected all Asia
to him, from the frontiers of China to those of Greece...he governed the state himself, without availing
himself of a minister; he succeeded in all his enterprises. To every one he was generous and courteous,
iexcept to those who did not obey him-he punished
ithem with the utmost rigor. He loved justice, and no
one who played the tyrant in his dominion went unpunished; he esteemed learning and learned men. He labored constantly to aid the fine arts. He was utterly
courageous in planning, and carrying out a plan. To
those who served him, he was kind."
Of modern commentators, Sir Percy Sykes and Leon
Cahun hold to Sherif ad-Din's view, as does Arminius
Vambery. Edward G. Browne quotes this opinion
from Sir John Malcolm:
"Such a leader as Timbur must have been idolized
by his soldiers... he was careless of the opinion of
other classes in the community. The object of this
monarch was fame as a conqueror; and a noble city
303




304


3TAMERLANE


was laid in ashes, or the inhabitants of a province massacred on a cold calculation that a dreadful impression
would be made which would facilitate the purposes of
his ambition.... Timour, though one of the greatest
of warriors, was one of the worst of monarchs. He was
able, brave and generous; but ambitious, cruel and oppressive. He considered the happiness of every human
being as a feather in the scale... against his personal
glory. The vast fabric of his power had no foundation,
it was upheld by his individual fame and the moment
that he died, his empire dissolved. Some fragments of
it were seized by his children; but it was in India alone
that they retained dominion for any length of time.
In that country we yet perceive a faint and expiring
trace of the former splendor of the Moghul dynasty;
we view in him the gradual decline of human greatness,
and wonder at the state to which a few centuries have
reduced the lineal descendants of the great Timour." 1
1 Malcolm wrote while a puppet emperor was still on the throne of India.
He, like Browne, was chiefly interested in Persia, and naturally judged
Timur only in the light of a conqueror. In the present volume an attempt
has been made to show the mighty Timur from the viewpoint of his own
people, not through the eyes of captives who hated him, or through the
historians of Europe, Persia and India.




XVIII


TIMUR AND THE CHURCH
IT IS SELF-EVIDENT that the Tatar conqueror was notj
a devout Muhammadan, but a man who followed
his own ideas. We cannot be sure of his true feeling
about religion. But it has been said so often that he
was a Muhammadan animated by zeal for the glorification of Islam, that it is necessary to consider the evidence. And his own deeds are the clearest evidence
we can have.
He never accepted an Islamic sur-name, which was
customary with devout believers, as, for example, with
Harun ar-Rashid-Aaron the Blessed-such a name as
Nur ad-Din, Light of the Faith. Nor did he so name
his sons. Jahangir is the World Gripper, and Shah
Rukh, the Soul of a King. Only in his grandsons,
whom he did not name, appear the Islamic titles-Pir
Muhammad, etc.
He never shaved his head, wore a turban, or clad
himself in the dress ordained by the Church. He and
his Tatars were called half-Muhammadans by their
neighbors, and often heretics and pagans. The true
leaders of Islam were the Kalif in Egypt and the orthodox Sultan of the Othmanlis. These emphatically
looked upon Timur as a pagan, a barbarian (which he
was not) and an enemy to be dreaded. The Tatars
were newly converted, and they were soldiers before
they were churchmen.
Timur tried to establish friendly relations with the
Christian princes of Europe. This the Turks refused
305




306


TAM3ERLANE


to do, at that time. And in his communications he did
not style himself a monarch of Islam, which is almost
invariably the case with Muhammadan rulers. He
paid no attention to the various holy cities, Meshed,
Mecca, and Jerusalem, although he did make a habit
of visiting shrines on his line of march, whether from
policy or inclination.
The fact that he complied with the routine of the
church and spared the buildings of the church from
demolition, and built mosques of his own fancy means
very little. As in the Europe of that day, the routine
of daily life conformed to the rules of the church.
Most of the public buildings were mosques, tombs,
academies, and it would have been sacrilege to destroy
them; most of Timur's soldiers were devout Muhammadans and he shaped his conduct to their opinion.
In two instances he massacred the Christian element
when he spared the Muhammadan of a garrison that
had held out against him and this would have been significant, but for the fact that these particular Christians
had been the cause of heavy loss among the Tatars and
he made an example of them. On the other hand, at
least three times-near Moscow, and Constantinople,
and southern India, he could have earned for himself
the title of Ghazi-Conqueror for Faith-by turning
aside long enough to make war on a Christian or Hindu
people. He did not do so. The Christian Georgians
were in his path, and he trampled on them. Smyrna
was a stronghold of Asia Minor and he advanced upon
it to reduce it accordingly.
Evidence is clear that there were colonies of Jews,
Nestorian Christians, Malakites, and so forth in Samarkand and Tabriz, and their churches also. At least
once he made use of a Christian bishop as envoy. But
the most decisive point is brought out by his Muham



TIMUR AND THE CHURCH               307
madan panegyrists, who did everything possible to make
him out a devout believer. Some of them maintain
that he was a Sunnite (orthodox) and some that he was
an Alyite (schismatic). He himself wrote only, "I,
Timur, servant of God."




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Bibliography
THE SOURCES
IN THE LATER PART OF HIS REIGN Timur ordered his
men of letters to keep a daily record of events, and
anecdotes.' The greater part of them were written,
apparently, in Uigur and in Persian.
To a writer of Bagdad named Nizam-i-Shams, who
joined his court at the end of I400, Timur entrusted
these records, with the order that Nizam-i-Shams
should write from this material a history of his reign
in a simple style, without ostentation. Nizam's work
was finished a year before the death of the conqueror
and presented to Timur entitled Zafar Nama-Book of
Victory. It was in Persian, and only one copy is known
to-day, still untranslated, in the British Museum.
A distinguished Persian, Ali of Yazd, sur-named
Sherif ad-Din, who had traveled about with the Tatar
I Browne I83, Bouvat 20, Blochet 88. Sherif ad-Din states that Timur
always kept secretaries with him to note down events, and that officers and
lords who had been present at any happening were expected to give an
account of it, and all these were collected. And Timur-"eut la patience
de les arranger lui meme, apres quoi il les fit verifier en sa presence de la
maniere suivante. Un lecteur lisoit un de ces memoires; et lorsqu'il en
etoit sur quelque fait important, ou quelque action remarquable, il s'arretoit,
les temoins oculaires faisoient leur rapport, et verifioient les circonstances
du fait, les rapportant telles qu'ils les avoient vues; alors l'Empereur
examinoit lui-meme la verite du fait, et ayant bien confronte ce que les
temoins rapportoient avec le contenu des memoires, il dictoit aux secretaires la maniere dont ils devoient l'inserer dans le corps de l'ouvrage, et
se le faisoit relire ensuite, pour voir s'il etoit tel qu'on ne pufit y rien
trouver, ajouter, ni a diminuer."  Histoire de Timur-Bcc, preface of the
author.
309




310


TAMERLANE


conqueror and had been present at several of his later
battles, wrote a second history. It was also in Persian,
and it was also called the Zafar Nama. Sherif ad-Din
practically rewrote Nizam's history, with all its detail,
apparently, and added to it his own observations, bringing in the events following Timur's death. Sherif adDin lived at Shah Rukh's court, wrote under his patronage; his history is marred by fulsome praise of every
act of Timur, and by a style that is hideously ornate.
It gives, however, a wealth of detail of Timur's reign.
It was completed in 1425, and was translated into
French by Petis de la Croix, L'Histoire du Timur-bec
connu sous le nom du gran Tamerlan, Paris, I722-and
from the French into English-The History of TimurBec, Known by the Name of Tamerlain the Great, Emperor of the Moguls and Tatars, London, 1723.
Before this, appeared the Asahot Tavarikh or "Exact
Chronicle" of a certain Muhammad ibn Fazallah Musavi, in I412-I414. Then the Zubditot Tavarikh or
"Excellent Chronicle" of Hafiz Abru, who accompanied
Timur on his last campaigns, and wrote, in 1423-1424,
by order of one of Timur's grandsons. This is a very
large compilation, written in a clear style; but it has
not yet been edited or translated.
Then came the work of Ahmed ibn Arabshah, a former secretary of Sultan Ahmed, who was carried off to
Samarkand. His Adjab al-Makdur ft Nawab Timur,
is bitterly hostile to the Tatar, and at times is pure
satire. The style is concise and clear, and the work is
valuable for its details of the last campaigns, its appraisal of Timur's character, and especially its description of Samarkand after the death of the conqueror: It
is available in a Latin translation, Ahmedis Arabsiada?
Vita, by Samuel Manger, Leovardiae, 767-I772, and
in a rather indifferent French version, Histoire du Gran




THE SOURCES


311


Tamerlan avec la suite de son histoire, by Pierre Vattier, Paris, i658.
Upon these four works subsequent histories by Asiatic scholars were based in large part. Among these
the best-known are the Ruzata-Safa of Mir Khwand,
who died in 1498, and the Habiba Siyar of his grandson Khwand Amir, I525. The last gives much fresh
and valuable information about Timur, especially the
dealings with Egypt and Syria. It is summarized in
La Bibliotheque orientale of D'Herbelot, I780.
In Timur's case one of the greatest puzzles of oriental research has arisen. That is, the "Memoirs" and
"Institutes" that were believed to be his own. Early
in the seventeenth century a certain Abu Talib al-Hussayni came forward in India with a long work in Persian, which he claimed to be Timur's memoirs and notes
written by his own hand. The text proved to be clear
and apparently without question authentic. And its
authenticity has been debated for about a hundred and
fifty years.
Briefly the arguments in favor of it are: that its substance proves its authenticity; that its discoverer would
have no motive in writing himself such a long work
and attributing it to Timur; that it is, or was, accepted
by Asiatic scholars. That it is written in a terse and
beautifully clear style, unlike anything ever set down
by a Persian, or by any other Asiatic writer of history.
The arguments against it are: that contemporaneous
writers-Nizam, Sherif ad-Din and the rest-make no
mention of it; that-granting it could have remained
hidden for two centuries after Timur's death-its discoverer never produced the original from which the
Persian translation was made.
This Mulfuzat and Tuzukat-i-Timuri were brought




312


'TAMERLANE


to Europe in a manuscript copy. In 1783 text and
translation were published-Institutes Political and
Military written originally in the Mogul Language by
the Great Timour, improperly called Tamerlane-by
Major Davy and Joseph White. In 1787 Professor
Langles published a French translation.
The Mulfuzat Timury, or Autobiographical Memoirs of the Moghul Emperor Timur, written in the
Jagtay Turky Language, turned into Persian by Abu
Talib Hussyny was published by Major Charles Stewart, London, 1830.
Until the last of the nineteenth century their authenticity was generally accepted. Arminius Vambery and
Leon Cahun do not question them. Scholars of the
last decade do not accept the Memoirs; Rieu rejects
them, and Browne and Bouvat question them.
No new evidence for or against has turned up, but
it seems improbable that Timur wrote such a work with
his own hand, and extremely improbable that if he did
so Sherif ad-Din and the others would not have known
about it, and said something about it. Two of the three
arguments in support of Abu Talib's document are answered by the fact that he wrote in the reign of Shah
Jahan, a descendant of Timur, who valued such a work
-and in the matter of style, the Memoirs probably
imitated the splendid Memoirs of Babar, the first of
the Moghuls and Shah Jahan's ancestor.
The third argument, that the Memoirs prove their
own worth, is not yet satisfactorily answered. The answer may lie in the original material gathered by
Timur's secretaries and turned over in part to Nizam.
And this is probably lost beyond recovery.2
2 The present writer has compared the Mulfuzat with Babar's Memoirs
in the Erskine-Leyden translation, and has found the style almost identical
in some incidents. Some things, however, in the Mulfuzat are puzzling
if we are to accept them as the concoction of a panegyrist who lived two




THE SOURCES                            313
centuries later: (z) certain incidents are repeated elsewhere by the author,
who did not seem to realize he was saying over the same thing-this would
seem to indicate that he was translating or working from material not of
his own making: (2) it is stated frankly that Timur was not a tura, or
descendant of the reigning Mongols-a fact that Sherif ad-Din glosses
over-and it is difficult to understand why a panegyrist would put this
in a history to be presented to one of Timur's descendants.
In this volume, the data of the Mulfuzat has not been accepted as coming from Timur. Some of the incidents have been set down as apparently
authentic.




II


EUROPEAN SOURCES AND TRAVELERS
BERGERON, PIERRE. Relation des voyages en Tartarie
Plus un traicte des Tartares, de leur origine,
mcnurs, religion, conquestes, Empire, Chams,
Hordes. Avec vn abrege de l'histoire des Sarasins. Paris, I634.
(Remarkably good for its day-unfortunately, excessively rare. The present writer values highly the
copy in his collection, which includes more than half
the titles given in this bibliography.)
3 CLAVIJO, RUY GONZALEZ DE. Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of
Timour, at Samarkand, A.D. I403-6. Translated
by Clements R. Markham. Hakluyt Society,
1859.
(The invaluable story of the Spanish chamberlain
who journeyed to Timur's court at the end of his reign.)
CONTARINI. Travels to Tana and Persia, by Josafa
I    Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini-Hakluyt Society, 1873.
Q DE SACY, SILVESTRE. Memoire sur une correspondance inedite de Tamerlan avec Charles VI-Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, Tome Sixieame. Paris, 1822.
(An analysis of the letters that passed between Timur
and the French king. De Sacy believes Timur's letter
was written before the battle of Angora.)
FROISSART. Chroniques. Paris, 83 5.
(A detailed account of the crusade against the
Turks.)
314




EUROPEAN SOURCES31


315


HAITHON, JOHN. Les Fleurs des kistoires de la terre
d'orient compille'es par fredre Hayton... cousin
du Roy Darmw'nie. Translated by Nicholas Salcon. Paris, I475.
(A valuable summary of the a~ffairs in the east at that
time.)
H-istoria Tartarorum. In MSS., Leyden.
PERONDINO, PIETRO. Magni Tamerlanis Scytharum
imperatoris vita. Florence, 1553.
PODESTA, BAPTISTA. De gestis Tamerlanis.
(This, like the above, is an early European viewpoint,
with extracts from the Turkish sources. Of little
value.)
RIEtU, C. P. H. Catalogue of Persian Mss. in British
Museum. London, I 8 7 9- 83.(The Persian sources and the "Memoirs" discussed.)
SCHILTBERGER, JOHANNES. Gejangenschaft in der
Turckey. Frankfort, I557. Published by Hakluyt Society, i879-The Bondage and Travels of
Johann Schiltberger.
(The crudely told story of a young German who was
taken prisoner at the battle of Nicopolis, and served
Timur's son, and the Tatar Khan Idiku.)
SEADEDDIN. Tajul-Tavariklz. Translated by Kollai',
Seaddini anna/es Turcici usque ad Murad. Vi-.
enna, 1755.                           e
SEvMiAC, JOURDAIN CATALANI. Mirabilia Descripta
sequitur de Mlagno Tartaro. Translated by Cordier, Les Merveilles de L'Asie. Paris, 1925.
TURNER, T. HUDSON. Unpublished Notices of the
Times of Edward I and of his Relations with the
Moghul Sovereigns of Persia. Arch. Journ. YIII.
London, i851.




III


SECONDARY ASIATIC SOURCES
ABULGHAZI BAHADUR KHAN. Historia Mongolorum
et Tatarorum nunc primum tatarice edita. Kazan,
I825.
(A chronicle of the Tatar Khans of the Caspian
region, written two centuries after the death of Timur
by an Uzbek Khan.)
BABAR. Memoirs, translated by Leyden and Erskine.
London, 1826.
(These autobiographical memoirs of the first of the
so-called great Moghuls, Timur's descendant, refer occasionally to Timur's works but are important in showing Samarkand and the golden age of literature that
came after the great conqueror.)
HAIDAR, MIRZA. Tarikh-i-Rashidi. Edited by N.
Elias, translated by E. Dennison Ross. London,
I895.
(A history of his own people, written by a Mongol
Khan of the Chagatai or Jat branch. A beautiful translation.)
IBN BATUTA. Travels, translated by Defremery and
Sanguinetti. Paris, 1853.
(Batuta passed through Persia and Beyond the River,
at the time of Timur's birth.)
IBN KHALDOUN. By Baron de Slane. Journal Asiatique, IV Serie, III.
(An account of the meeting at Damascus between
Timur and this celebrated historian of Egypt.)
KHWAND AMIR. Histoire des khans moguls de la
Transoxiana.  Defremery.    Paris, I853.
316




SECONDARY ASIATIC SOURCES 317
MEYNARD, BARBIER DE, Extraits de la Chronique Persane D'Herat. Journal Asiatique, V Serie, XVII.
(The chronicle of the Maliks of Herat.)
MIR AL CHIR NEVAII. Extraits et traduction. Journal Asiatique, V Serie, VII.




IV


GENERAL HISTORIES
BouvAT, LuCIEN. L'Empire Mongol (2 e'me phase).
Paris, 1927.
(A resume' of the Mongol empire after Genghis
Khan.)
CAHUN, LEON. Introduction a l'istoire de l'Asie:
Tu~rcs et Mongols, des origines a' 1405. Paris,
1896.
(The chapter devoted to Timur is marred by harping
upon the Turks. The viewpoint of a brilliant scholar.)
DE GuIGNEs. Histoire generale des Huns des Turcs
des Mogols. Paris, 1756.
(An exhaustive work in its day.)
FERISHTA. A History of the Rise of the Mahommedan Power in India till the year        161I2 A.D.
Translated by J. Briggs. Calcutta, 1 910.
(A full account of the dynasties in India.)
GIBBONS, HERBERT ADAMs. The Foundation of the
Ottoman Empire. New York, 1916.
(A good modern account of the Othmans, and Baya..
zid.)
HAMMER-PURGSTALL, J. VON. Geschichte des Osmanischen R eicizes. Vienna, i 8 3 5.
Gesclhiclhte der Goldenen Horde. Buda, 1 840.
(Important works on the Turks and the Khans of
the Golden Horde based largely on the Othman and
Byzantine chronicles.)
3i8




GENERAL HISTORIES


319


HOWORTH, SIR HENRY. History of the Mongols.
London, I 876-88.
(A full account of the Khans of the Golden Horde
in Vol. II, and of the Muzaffars and Sultan Ahmed in
Vol. III.)
LANE-POOLE, STANLEY. The Mohammedan Dynasties. London, I894.
(Genealogical tables, following Howorth largely
where the Tatars are concerned.)
LEVCHINE, ALEXIS DE. Description des Hordes et des
Steppes des Kirghiz-Kazaks. Traduite du russe
par M. Ferry de Pigny. Paris, i 841.
MAKRISI. Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks de lPEgypte.
Translated by M. Quatremere. Paris, i837.
MALCOLM, SIR JOHN. History of Persia. London,
i829.
(One of the best appreciations of Timur's character.)
MUIR, SIR WILLIAM. The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline and Fall. London, i 892.
(The Arab powers before Timur's day.)
PRICE.   Chronological Retrospect.  London, i 8 IiI821.
(Vol. III, Part I gives an abstract of Timur's campaigns.)
RAMBAUD, ALFRED. Histoire de la Russie. Paris,
I914.
(Excellent in its account of the relations of the grand
princes with Lithuania and Poland.)
SKRINE, and DENNISON Ross. The Heart of Asia, a
History of Russian Turkestan and the Central
Asian Khanates from the earliest times. London,
1899.
(A good summary of the political changes in Central
Asia.)




320                 TAMERLANE
SYKES, LIEUT. COL. P. M. A History of Persia. London, 191I5
(A good modern sketch of Timur,1 his military feats,
and an appreciation of the architecture of his day.)
VAMB~RY, ARMINIUS.       History of Bokhara, from    the
earliest period down to the present. London,
I873.
(The two chapters devoted to Amir Timur are uneven-careless and yet colored with real understanding.)
WEIL, GUSTAV. Geschichte der chalifen. Mannheim.
1846-1862.
WVOLFF. Geschichte der Mongolen.        Breslau, I872.
1 The histories of this group have very little to say about Timur. Only
Malcolm and Vamb6ry discuss him with some detail.




V


SAMARKAND AND ARCHEOLOGY
BLANC, E. A ntiquize's de Samarkande. Revue des
Deux Mondes., 1893.
Mausole'e de Tamerlan a Samarkande. Acad6 -mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, i 896, pp.
272-303.
CRESSWELL., K. A. C. The History and Evolution of
the Dome in Persia. journal R. A. S., 1914.
CROZIER. Les Monuments du Samarkande de l'Jpoque
des Timourides. Paris, 1891.
CURTIS, WILLIAM ELERoy. Turkestan: "The Heart
of Asia." New York., 1911I.
KHIANIKOFF, N. DE. Samarkand. Bull. de la Soc. de
Geog. 1896, V Se'rie, T. XVII.
LECLERQ, JULES. Les Monuments de Samarcande.
Soc. Roy. Beige de Geog. Bull. XIII, i 8go, VI,
pp. 6I3-32.
LE STRANGE, Guy. The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate-Mesopotamia and Central Asia from the
Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur. Cambridge, I1905.
(An exceedingly valuable work, giving a description
of the cities, roads and trade of all but the northern
portion of Timur's empire. Taken from Asiatic sources,
Batuta, Mustawfi, Abul Fida, etc.)
MORDOWTZEFF, D. In the capital of Tamerlan. Picturesque Russia, 1901, I.' (In Russian.)
1-The author is fortunate in having entrusted to him some of the MS.
notes of Daniel Mordowtzeff, unpublished as yet.
32I




322               TAMERLANE
RADLOFF, W. W. Ancient architectural remains in
Samarkand.   Mem. I. R. G. S.    i880 VI. (In
Russian.)
SCHUYLER, EUGENE. Turkistan, Notes of a Journey
in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara and
Kuldja. New York, 1876.
(In addition to the description of the ruins, Prof.
Schuyler launches upon a lively criticism of Vambery's
history.)




VI


MISCELLANEOUS
BEAZLEY, CHARLES RAYMOND. The Dawn of Modern
Geography. London, I897-I906.
(Contains notices of the fourteenth and fifteenth
century travelers into Asia, and a slight account of the
cities.)
BELL, M. S. The Great Central Asian Trade Route
from Peking to Kashgar. Proc. R. G. S. I890.
BLOCHET, E. Introduction a l'histoire des Mongols
de Fadl Allah Rashid ed-Din. Leyden, 191o.
(Details of the correspondence between Timur and
the Ming dynasty.)
BRETSCHNEIDER, E. Notes on the medieval geography
and history of Central and Western Asia. Journal
of the North China Branch R. A. S.
BROWNE, EDWARD G. A History of Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion (A.D. I265-I502).
Cambridge, 1920.
(An exceedingly valuable work, giving the contrast
between the Persians and the Tatars. A brief discussion of Timur.)
CAHUN, LEON.     Formation   territoriale de PAsie.
Timur et le Second Empire Mongol. (L'Histoire
Generale-E. Lavisse and A. Rambaud.)
CZAPLICKA, M. A. The Turks in Central Asia. Oxford, I918.
(A very full bibliography.)
DUBEUX, Louis. Tartarie. Paris, i840.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, eleventh edition. (Ar323




324


TAMERLANE


tides on Mongols, Golden Horde, Turks, Samarkand, Henry IV of England, Bagdad, Moscow.)
HELLWALD, FREDERICK VON. The Russians in Central Asia. A critical examination down to the
present time of the geography and history of Central Asia. (Translated by Theodore Wirgman.)
London, 1874.
HOLDEN, EDWARD S. The Mogul Emperors of Hindustan. New York, I 895.
MANOUCHI. The History of Tamerlane the Great,
Emperor of the Mogols and Tartars. With an
Account of his Court. London, 1722.
(Of little value.)
MARGAT. Histoire de Tamerlan, Empereur des Mogols et Conquerant de L'Asie. Paris, I739.
(A well meant attempt to combine the works of
Arabshah and Sherif ad-Din.)
NEAVE, FELIX. Expose des guerres de Tamerlan et de
Schah-Rokh   dans l'Asie centrale.   Bruxelles,
I86o.
(Important in that it is based on Thomas of Mezdoph.)
PoPowsKI. The Rival Powers in Central Asia. London, 1893.
RICKMERS, W. RICKMER. The Duab of Turkestan.
Cambridge, 1913.
(The physiography of Timur's country.)
STEIN, SIR MARCUS. Serindia. Oxford, I921.
(Archeology of Central Asia and Western China.)
YULE, SIR HENRY. Cathay and the Way Thither.
Hakluyt Soc. 2nd Series, Nos. 33, 37, 38, 41.
(Important discussion of early travelers, and routes.)
ZIMINE, L. Details of the death of Timur. (Protocols and Communications of the Archeological Society of Turkestan, VIII year.)




MISCELLANEOUS                     325
(Special bibliographies: The Persian sources are discussed in Bouvat. The early history of the Turks and
Tatars, and the archeology of Samarkand, in Czaplicka. The Othman campaign and the situation in
Europe, in Gibbons. For maps, Le Strange is most
valuable. Howorth, Vol. I contains a general map of
the period before Timur. Mirza Haidar an excellent
map of Central Asia at that time.)




VII


PICTORIAL SOURCES
BLOCHET, E. Peintures de manuscrits arabes, persans
et turcs de la Bibliotheqiue Nationale. Paris.
(A collection rich in sidelights on medieval customs
in Persia and Turkey.)
MARTIN, F. R. Painting and Painters of Persia, India
and Turkey. London, 19I2.
(The age of Timur and his successors is portrayed in
its plates which reproduce miniatures by the Persian and
Indian masters.)
SCHULZ, PH. WALTER.          Die  Persische-islamische
Miniaturmalerei.   Leipzig, I 94.
(A survey of the costume and manners of the times
more extensive, if possible, than Martin's monumental
work.)
SYKES, LIEUT. COL. P. M. A History of Persia.
London, 1915.
(Contains reproductions of Verestchagin's paintings
of Timur's tomb, exterior and interior, and of views of
Samarkand.)
WETZEL, H. E. Persian and Indian Paintings in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Art in America," Vol. 3. New York, I915 -(Interesting comment on Mongolian and early Persian art.)




Index


A


Abbas, Shah, 2 57
Abdullah, 8 i
Abul Ghazi Bahadur Khan, 282,
note; 285; 289, note
Acre (see Akka)
Adrianople, '140
Afghanistan, 5 9
Agincourt, 3 01
Ahmed the Jalair, Sultan of Bagdad, x5o, 177 et seq., 197,
209, 210) 214, zi8,:257
captured,:239
fear of Tamerlane, 182-183
flight, 179 et seq.
in Cairo, x8o-x8i
reinstalled in Bagdad, 181- et
seq.
Aintab, 2 12
Ak Boga, 242, 277
at White Castle, 173
'bravery, i69-170
rewarded, 174
Akka, 214
Ak Sarai, 105, 146
Alans, 11i5
Al Burz, 143
Aleppo, 212, 214
Alexander, xo5, 159, 258
war genius, 275 et seq.
Ali Bahatur, Shaikh, 94, 95, 99)
102, 135, 146, 152, 276
and Khitai Bahatur, 96-97
Ali Beg, 5 6
Ali of Zazd (see Sherif ad&Din)
Aljai Khatun Agha (first wife of
Tamerlane), 36, 49, 50, 53,
59, 6i, 62, 68, 105, 109, 192
appearance, 3 7


Aljai Khatun Agha (Cont.)
character, 54
death, 73
imprisoned, 5 6
marriage, 3 7 et seq.
Tamerlane's love for, 39, 5 7
Almalyk, 67, 94, 113, 1120, 145)
163
Christian mission, I 12
Aly Bey, 124
Amasia, 279, note
Amu River,:20, 4I, 50, 63, 66,
So, 8i, 98, i02) z64
Anatolia, 7218
Ancient Armour, John Hewitt,
z66
Ancient History of China, The,
Friedrich Hirth, 282, note
Angelina (daughter of John of
Hungary),:240
Angora, 2,28, 229, 230
accounts of battle, 267 et seq.
conquered, 23 8
Arabs, i6o, 263
admired by Barlas Clan, 25
Arabshah, Ibn, 26o; 271, note;
302
description of Tamerlane,, 168 -169
on Tamnerlane's character, 303
Aral Sea, 51, 76, 98, zoS, 145
Araxes River, 219g
Arctic Ocean, 131
Armenia, 293
Armenians, I 13
Armor, 2z5
Army, importance, 1 6
Artois, house of, 2 211
Asia, characteristics of people,
158-159




327




328


TAMERLANE


Asia Minor, 21II, 220, 270
subdued, 23 8
Assassin, notes on pages 171, 2-91,
292
Assena, 286
Astrakhan, 115, I41
Azov Sea, 141
B
Badakshan, Tamerlane in, 85 et
seq.
Badakshani, 142
Bagdad, i64, note; 184, 207,
2,08, -214, 277, 302 -Ahmed reinstalled in, 181 et
seq.
called "Abode of Peace," 217
first conquest, 178 et seq.
ransomed, i 8o
second conquest, 215 et seq.
Ba/zatu~r, 35, 59, 69, 96, 146, i67,
2 33, 287
Balalaika, 139
Balkans, 220
Balkh, 54, 63, 88, i68
described, 90
names of, 90
Baltic Sea, 122
Bar, house of, 221
Barlas, Hadj i (uncle of Tamerlane), 28, 40
claim to Samarkand, 42
death, 48
fight i4rith Tamerlane, 48
Tamerlane's life attempted, 47
Barlas Clan, 22, 93) 284, 288
appearance, 24
hospitality, 2 6
Kazgan's rule, 34
names given to, 24, note
rejoining with Tamerlane, 64
sports, 25
Basques, 141
Batuta, Ibn, I12, '197, 294, 300
description of Land of ShadOW52 130


Batuta, Ibn (Cont.)
Isfahan described, i~o,
on Samarkand, io5-xo6
Batu the Splendid, ix4
Bavarians, 2:24.
Bayaderes, 23 6
Bayan (son of Bikijuk), 96, 99,
276
Bayazid, Sultan of the Turks,
177, i8i, 209, 210) 214;
216, note; 218, 220 et seq..,
227; 235, note; 263, 269;
278, note; 305
captured, 2,34.
character, 220 o
death, 237, 2411
engagement with Tamerlane,
228 et seq.
names, 267, note
size of army, 270
Bayazid Jalair, A-Mir, 40
attempt to kill Tamerlane, 47
claim to Samarkand, 42
death, 48
submission to the Khan, 43
Bek, jean de, 279
Bela of Hungary, King, 263
Benoit XII, Pope, 112
Bergeron, Pierre, 2,79
Berserks, 13 5
Beyond the River, 91, 10I) 105,
xio, i58, 288
Bibi Khanum, 190 et seq.; 192,
note; 256, 299, 300
Bibliography, archeology, 321
Asiatic primary sources, 308 et
seq.                   [317
Asiatic secondary sources, 316 -European sources, 31i4 et seq.
general histories, 31i8 et seq.
miscellaneous, 3 23
Samarkand, 3 21
Big Mountain, 12.6
Bikijuk, 48, 49, 96
at Stone Bridge, 65 et seq.
Bismarck, Prince, 19
Black Cathayans, 288




INDEX


329


Black Death, 2z2i
Black Plague, 103
Black Prince, 301
Black Sea, I22, 132, 163, 22031
241
Black Throne, 200
Bokhara, 1105, x1i8 141
Book of the Victories of Lord
Timur the Splendid, Sherif
ad-Din, 28o
Boucicaut of France, Marshal,
224k 225
Bows, 5 z
English long, 2164.
European cross, 2z64
longest shot, 263
short, 2~62
Tatar long, 2z62
Browne, E. G., 14.8, note; 285,
303
Brown Lad (Tamerlane's horse),
107, 1 I7
Brusa, 228, 241!,2~56
conquered, 235, 238
Bulgars, 115
Burgundy, house of, 2.21
Buyar Lake, 284
Byzantine library, 2,41, 256
C
Caesar, Julius, 275
Cahun, Leon, 289, note; 303
Cairo, i8o, -i~i
Cambridge Medieval History, Vol.
IV, 2823, note
Caravans, 23
Caspian Sea, -ixo, xi8, 1222 140,
142, 145, 163, x81, 293
Catalans, 141., ~63
Cathay, 27, II12) 164, 197, 2.8t
called Khitai, 284
designs on,:243, 147
gunpowder, 265
invasion, 2o6, note
Tatars march to, 24.8-249
Cattle, 10o


Caucasus Mountains, 121, I45s
207, 2o8
Tatars march through, 142 el
seq.
Chagatai (son of Genghis Khan),
27, 34
Chagatais (see Jats)
Chardin, 294 -Charles of Burgundy, 30!
Charles VI of France, King, 17,
219
letter to Tamerlane, 240
Chavannes, E., 289, note
Chelabi, 176
Chepe' Noyon, 276
Cherkassi, Prince Bekovitch, izz
Chess, Tamerlane's skill, 74-7S
China (see Cathay)
Chin-tien-lei, 265
Cimmerians, I130
Civilization, Chinese, i 13
Herat, 103
Clavijo, Ruy de Gonzales,:240;
245, note; 2,71, note; 279,
194.
at Tabriz, 2 95 et seq.
in Samarkand, 24.7
interview with Tamerlane, 144.
et seq.
Khorassan road described, i 6o
et seq.
on Miran Shah's madness, 156 -'57
on Tamerlane's pavilion, 298
on battle of Angora, 217
report on Tamerlane, 18g
Constantinople,:17, 163., zz6, 157,
306
submission, 240
threatened by Turks, 120-22!1
Cordova, 1 7
Cracow, palatine of, 273, 2,74
Creasy, Professor, 267, 2a69; 27!,
note
Cresswell, K. A. C., 19 9
Crimea, 14.0, 241
Croats, 122




330


TAMERLANE


Croix, Pitis de la, 280
Crusade, last, against Turks, 220
ot seq.
Cup companions of Iran, 148 et
seq., I57
Cyrus the Great, 258
Czaplicka, M. A., 285, note
D
Damascus, 164, note; I77, i8o
bulbed dome of, 213
conquered, 2 2
Umayyad mosque, 299
Daoud, Amir, 78, 93
Daroga, x 60
Das Turkenvolk, Vambery, 289,
note
David, Shaikh, 131-132
Delhi, Sultan of, 197
Delhi, 200
Juma Musjid, 299
Despina (sister of Peter of Serbia), 236, 237
Dilshad Agha, 53
wife of Hussayn, 5i
Dinant, 301
Dinars kopeghi, 127
Divan, 93
Dmitri of Moscow, ix5
Dnieper River, 274
Dogs, 22
Don River, xI5, 117, 141
Duhl-carnin (see Alexander)
Duty, a source of income, 163
E
Edward I of England, King, 113
Egypt, Sultan of (see Mamluk)
Egypt, submission, 239
reception of Tamerlane's envoys, 181
Egyptians, 208
Elchi Bahatur, 53, 59, 78, 85
death, 88, 95
strategy, 86-87


Elephants, 196, 198, 200, 201,
203, 232, 234
England, in the last crusade, 221
use of cross-bow, 264
warfare methods, 264
Erzerum, valley of, 211
Euphrates River, 164, i8x, 208
Europe, 130, note
fear of Tatars, 239
Great Schism, 221
historical outlook on Asia, 295
history, 16
Hundred Years' War, 22z
Imperial Diets, 221
imports from Orient, 17
last crusade, 220 et seq.
legends of Tamerlane, 278
safe from Tamerlane, 241
subject to Golden Horde, I5
warfare methods, 263
F
Falcons, 22, 25
Faraj, 215
death, 217
Fars, I50
Father of Blessings, 9I
Father of Mountains, 59
Fave, Captain, 266, note
Feasts, 25
Fernando de Palazuelos, 240
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the
World, Von Hammer, 267
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, Gibbons, 271; 289, note
France, in the last crusade, 221
Frederick of Hohenzollern, 221
Froissart, on the fate of the last
crusade, 224
Fushanj, o02
G
Galicia, 274
Gansada (see Khan Zad)'
Gates of Tamerlane, 248




INDEX


3311


Genghis Khan, 27, 58, 105, 1I2,
258, 263, 265, 2,77., 282,) 284.
law Of, 2z6
war genius, 2 75 el seq.
Genoa, 17
fleets, 22 5
Genoese, ii5, 14!
Georgia, '14.3
Georgians, 142, 2i08, 306
conquered, 2!!
Ghazni,.296
Ghiath ad-Din, lol
defeated, 202z
Gibbons, Herbert Adams, notes on
pages 7235, 2711, 289
on Bayazid's defeat, 2-70
Gifts wedding, 38
Gobi desert, 27, 110, 112) 1113,
I22) 114.2, 163, 196, 243, 281
organization of Tatars in crossing, 124t et seq.
Golden Chersonese, x64.
Golden Horde, i6o, 257, 2.87
defeat of Toktamish, '117
dispersion, 138, 14.0
dominions, I 1
evasion of Tanmerlane, I32, at
seq.
life in, 12i4
mobility, 121
name origin, 114
peoples, lx s5
Golden Horn, 240
Granada, 1 7
Grand Tamerlan ot Bajazet, Magnon, 279
Greeks, 22 8
Green City, 21, 26, 34, 43, 58,
65, 76, 103, 105, '146, 200p
243
Ak Sarai, 105, '146
Khan's invasion, 43 et seq.
retaken by Tamerlane, 67
struggle for possession, 48
Gunpowder, 265
Gur Amir, Tamerlane's tomb,:259, 299


Gypsies, 3cx
H
Hafiz (poet), '147, '153, i183
Hakluyt Society, 244, Mot
Halys, 228, 229,:230
Hammer, Baron von, 2,67, 269
Hannibal, 2175, 27 6
Harim, 3 6
Harun ar-Rashid,, 296, note
Hashish, 1171, 252; 291, note
Hassan ibn Saba (Old Man of
the Mountains), 290 et seq.
Hassan of Takrit, 144.
Hawks, 2.5
Hazard, 7 0
Heart's Delight, palace of, 185,
243
Henry III of Castile, Don, i8,
24.0
Henry IV of England, King, 17,
24.0
Herat, 4-3, IOIi I84, 203, 302
Malik of, 40o, 8 o
subdued, 101 et seq.
Herodotus, 2.81
Hewitt, John, 266, note
Hindu Koh Mountains, 6o, 1147,
i 6o
Hirth, Friedrich, 282, note
Histoire ginialogique des Tartars,
Abulghazi Bahadur Khan,
2 82, note!
History  and Evolution  of the
Dome in Persia, Cresswell,
299
History of the Ottoman Turks,
Creasy,.271, note
Hiung-nu, 2.8 -28z, 286
Ho pao, 265
Horses, 22, 24
necessity on the steppes, 127
Tamerlane's, 107, 117
Howorth, Sir Henry, 27 2, note5
284, 285
Humayun, mausoleum, 300




332 -

TAMERLANE


Hungary, i40,
Hungarians, 222, 224.
Hunting, 22, 25
on the Euphrates, 214
Tatar, on the steppes, 1 27-128
Hussayn, Amir (brother of Aljai),
48, 53, 66, 67
death, 89
defeated by Jats, 63
deserters from, 84
in Sijistan, 6o-67
jealousy, 72, 73
leadership, 7 6
loss of power, 8 8
resentment against Tamerlane,
67
reunion with Tamerlane, 6o
Tamerlane's alliance with, 51
triumphal entry into Samarkand, 75-76
Hyperboreans, i14, 130
Idiku, 209, 2-72,
Ilias Khan (son of Tugluk
Khan), 4.8, 6 6
departure for Almalyk, 67
return to Tatary, 69
Il-Khans,I 1 2-1 13
Imams, 2 8
India, 76, 182, 203, 24.2, 306
conquered, 196, 200
gateways into, 164
Maharaj Of, 197
Indus River, 1i64, '197
Iran (Persia), 145, 7~58
described, 147
dissensions in, iso et seq., 171
golden age of architecture, 296
Shah's letter, 14.9-150
subdued, 1 53
Iranians, 26, 6o,
Iron Gate, 2 z, 101
Isaac, Well of, 8o,
Isfahan, 150, 171, 176
mob fighting in, 1 52
ransom demanded, it z


Islam, Balkh the metropolis of, 90
beggars, x 65
dreams of, 200
hopeless after Tamerlane, 258
hospitality, 3'1
leaders, 305
opposed by northern Khan, 44
prayer routine changed in Land
of Darkness, '131
support of Tamerlane, 91-92
Tamerlane's observance Of, 305 -306
Ismaelites, 317 1, note
Istamboul (see Constantinople)
J
Jabal, Shaikh al, 171, note
jahangir (son of Tamerlane),
4o, 6-2, 75) 91, 98, i~o) 155,
241
death, xi i
marriage, 109g
Jaku Barlas, 59, 70, 77, 79, 93,
i68, 2.42, 2.76
Jalairs, 88, I0I) 282, 2~86
James II of Aragon, King, II 13
Janissaries, 72 0, 2.23, 22a8, 2 3 4,
26 8
Jats, 113, 119, 160; 162,) note;
203
defeated at Stone Bridge, 66
magic practiced by, 71
revolt, xi8
Samarkand invasion, 43 et seq-.,
75
subdued, i10, 1x20
Tatar attacks on, 94-95
Jerusalem, 1177, 306
John of Hungary, Count, 240
John of Sultaniah, Bishop, 2~40
sent to Europe, 21i9
Joinville, chronicles, 2,92, note
Journal, Royal Asiatic Society,
notes on pages 285, 300
Juchi (son of Genghis Khan),
114, I41




INDEX


333


K
Kabul Khan (ancestor of Genghis
Khan), 33, 43, 49) 51, 6o,
164, i85
Kaifong, 265
Kaikosru, Prince, 95
Kalat, 143
Kalmuk Tatars, 2,57
Kamnar ad-Din, ii0
Kambalu, 112, 196
Kandahar, 1 64
Kankalis, I 1 5
Karabagh, 209g, 210 o
Karaits, 2 82,) 288
Kara tagh Mountains, 123
Kara Yusuf, 84, 85, 177, 178,
208, 209, 2I0) 239, 257
Karluks, 142, 288
Karnash, 4 6
Karshi, 4 3, 119, 2,77
captured, 7 7 et seq.
Kashgar, I 6o
Kashmir, 1 96
Katlan, 95
Kaydesa, Queen of the Amazons,
log
Kayouli (ancestor of Tamerlane),
33, 49
Kazak, 8 8
Kazak Kirghiz, -Ix
Kazgan the King Maker, 3'
seq., I113
death, 41
power, 3 4.
recognition  of   Tamerlane,
40
Kiza Khan, 287
Kkalat, 3 8
Khalil Sultan (grandson of Tamerlane), 156, '157, 198, 2-03,
2,48
dethroned, 25 5
madness, 2.55
marriage, 254.
usurpation of the throne, 253
et seq.


Khan Zade' (wife of jahangir),
98, uS,2 171, 198, I99,:200w
203, 242, 253
disgraced by Miran Shah,
1155
marriage, 108-109
revenged, 156-157
Kharesm, Sufi of, 98a
Kharesm Sea, 5 I
Khatun, 2 87
Khitai (see Cathay)
Khitai Bahatur, 94, 95, 96, 146
and Shaikh Ali, 96-97
Khiva, 95, 98, 121
battle at, 5 et seq.
captured, 99
Khoja Beha ad-Din, 91
Khojend, 43
Khorassan, 20, x6o2 203, 252
Khorassan Road, 55 110, xu8,
1145, 163, 209, 218
described, i6o et seq.
trade route, 163
Khoten, -i84., 196
Khyber Pass, 164, 185, I97
Kiev, 272, 274
King Maker (see Kazgan)
King's Church, 202 et seq.
Kipchaks, I I4, 142
Kirghiz Tatars, 257, 288
Kirimzi, I o6
Knolles, Richard, 270, 279
on battle of Angora, 2.69
Koelle, S. W., 2 85, note
Koran, The, 22, 79; 205
Korea, II 2
Kossova, 220, 228
Kourroun, 1 24
Kubilai Khan, I z
Kuch Hissar, 230
Kulchis, 167
Kumrud, 64.
Kurultai, 90
Kutbek, 15 3
Kutb Minar, 299
Kuznietzoff, P., 2 85
Kwand-Amir, 285




334


TAMERLANE


L
Land, ownership, 24
regulations, 1 63
Land of Darkness, i 114
Land of Shadows, Tamerlane's
host in, 130 et seq.
Land of the Sun (see Khorassan)
Lane-Poole, Stanley, notes on
pages 2-71, 285
on battle of Angora, 2.68-2z69
Language, Arabic, 3 2, note
Mongol, 2,84
Mongol-Uighur, 32, note
Persian, 20, 308
Tatar, 284
Turkish, 32, nOte;' 287
Uigur, 30 8
La feu grigeois, Fav6 and Reinaud, 266, note
Leunclavius,:27 9
Lithuanians, 274.
Little Mountain, '126
Limoges, 301
Lin k/ta k/tan, 2 87
Louis IX of France, King, 263
Lutte des Civilisations at des
Lanques dans l'A4sie cantrale,
Kuznietzoff, 285, note
M
Magnon, 279
Majesty of Solomon, zo, ios
Malayta, 21 1
Malcolm, Sir John, 303
Malik, Shah, 242, 250
Mamnai of the Golden Horde, 11-i5,
117
Mamluks, i8it, 2.08, 2I2) 263
Mamluk, Sultan of Egypt, 1177,
'197; 244, note; 257., 305
Manchus, 28 2
Mangali Boga, 84-85
Mansur, 153, 171, 1749 178
conquered, 1E75-176
flight, 1 74
Manuel, Emperor of Constanti

nople, x8, 113) 1197,:2202
2,26, 240
Maria (Greek captive), 2,40
Markham, Clements, 244, note
Marlowe, Christopher, notes on
Pages 23 5, 278
Marmora, Sea of, 228
Mecca, 89, 306
Meshed, ixo0, 306
Mesopotamia, 257
Milton, John, z 6, z.8o
Ming-bas/ti, 39, 70
Ming dynasty, 256
Miran Shah (son of Tamerlane),
'135, 1136, 1E40),203, 2-53
madness, 154-155
punished, 15 6
Mir-Kwand,:284.
Mir Sayyid, 259
Moghul dynasty, 257
Moghuls, i 6
Mo/tammadan Dynasties,, LanePoole, z8 5, note
Mongols, 24, 282
called Tatars, 284
derivation of word, 28!t
empire ruined, 141i      [II2
empire under Kubilai Khan,
Golden Horde (see separate
item)
history, 11 3
marriage customs, xio1
return to Tatary., 69
warfare methods, 263, 265 (See
also Jats)
Mordvas, ii
Moscow, ii15, 306
fear of Tamerlane, 141
Mosul, 164, i181, 293
Mouava, 77, 78, 89, x88, I97
at Stone Bridge, 65, 66
Mubarak, 102
Muhammad Sultan (grandson of
Tamerlane), 174., 196, 200o,
2.03, 2.15, 218, 232) 233.,
242w 270
death, 241I




INDEX


335


Muhammad Sultan (Cont.)
injured, 2.33
Muhammadanism (see Islam)
Muhuli, 2.76
Muir, Sir William, 296, note
Multan, 197
Musa (son of Bayazid), 88, 235
at Stone Bridge, 65, 66
fooled by Tamerlane, go
Mustawfi, 2.94
Muzaffars, z50) I153, 2,57
exterminated, 176
N
Nadir Shah, z43
Nakar, 3 8, Ixi
Napoleon I, 19, 85, 207, 2I[4) 2-77
war genius, 2 75 et seq.
Naphtha, 265-266
Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy
de Gonzales Clavij'o to the
Court of Timur at Samarkand, A.D. 1402-1403, 262,
note
Nevers, Count of (see Valois,
John)
Nicea, 23 8
Nicopolis, 228, 263, 270, 30t
battle Of, 2 22 et seq.
Nisapur, ITO) 2145, 218g
Nizam-i-Shams, 308
Nogai Clan, 272
Nur ad-Din, 140, 2,17, 232, 233,
235, 242, 2-45, 250, 253, 257
letter to the court, 254
0
Odoric, Friar, 2.92, note; 2.94
Old Man of the Mountain (see
Hassan ibn Saba)
Omar Shaikh (son of Tamer24!1
death, 314 6
Ordu, 4 5, 4 6
Osmanli wilayeti, 28 9, -note
Otrar, 24.8, 252.


P
Palestine, 222 -Parker, E. H., notes On$ tages 282,
2Z89
Pelayo, de Sotomayor, 240
Perondinus, 279
Perovski, Count, i 2
Persepolis, 247
Persia (see Iran)
Persian Gulf, 164
Persian Literature under Tartar
Dominion, E. G. Browne,
148, note
Peter Lazarus of Serbia, King,
228, 2339 236
Peter the Great, 121
Philip of Artois, 223
Philip of Burgundy, 221
Philip of Macedon, 275
Pir Muhammad (grandson of
Tamerlane), I74, 200) 203,
252, 253
appointed successor to Tamerlane, 2z50-25 I
defeated by Khalil, 255
Poe, Edgar Allan, on Tamerlane,
2.80o
Poets, European, on Tamerlane,
2 78 et seq.
of Iran, 148
Poland, 274
Poles, 2 74
Polo, Marco, xo6, 112; 17!,
note; 2845 2923, 0ote
on Old Man of the Mountain,
2 90 et $seq.
on Tabriz, 29 3
Potters' River, io6
Protected, The (see Samarkand)
Prussia, 2 74
Prussian Knights, Master of, 2 2!
Purchas  i PilgrilmeS, 27 9
Quatremire, Etienne, 29 2, note




336


TAMERLANE


R
Rain, battle of the Jats and Tatars in., 6 9 et seg.
Rashid ad-Din, 292, note; 293
Rasti Rousti, Tamerlane's seal,
169
Red Sands, Tamerlane in the, 50
Registan, 195, 197, 198, 2O00
204, 2,56
Reinaud, M., 266, note
Rhodes, Grand Master of, 22.1
Roads, i 6o et seq.
transcontineiltal trade, 257
Royal Asiatic Society, notes on
pages 285, 300
RugsI, 2 3
Rukh, Shah (son of Tamerlane),
'155, 2002 215, 218, 234)
241, 2z51 el seq.
capture of Mansur, 176
empire, 255 et seq., 296
ruler of Khorassan, 20 3, 2 42
war commands of, 171, 173
Russia, subject to Golden Horde,
"15
wealth, 13 8
Russians, 274
S
Saif ad-Din, 3I00, 102, III) 135,
I139) '140, 197, 198, 242, 276
St. John, Knights of, 22I, 238
St. Pol, house Of, 221
Saki (cup companion), 148
Sali Sarai, 3 2) 50
Kazgan buried in forest of,
4.1
Samarkand, 21, 34, 42, '113, 1i63;
164, note; 176, 270
architecture, i195
as built by Tamerlane, xo6 et
seq., 1 84 et seq., 2.47
baths, 9 3
bazaar, 2.03-204
beauty, io6, 184
besieged, 7 3


Samarkand (Cont.)
Bibi Khanum, quarter (see Bibi
IKhanum)
called "The Protected," 140
dissension in, 255
dome of, 258
fertility, o6
festivals, x87,:243 et seq.
gardens, 8s et seq., 243
Hermitage, 1 89
Khan's invasion, 43 et seq.
King's Church, 202 et seq.
life in, 193
markets, it90
public square, 1 95 et seq.
ravaged by Mongols, 49
return to, from the steppes, 139
size, 294
Tamerlane's residences, 189
Tamerlane's secret visit, 57-58
Tamerlane's tomb, 259, 299
the Rome of Asia, 256
tradition,i 105
victory over Jats, 75
Saral, 115, 117
demolished, 140
Sarai Mulkh Khanum (second
wife of Tamerlane), 109g110, 155, 167, x88; 193,
-note; 196, 198-199, 200~
203, 209, 250, 253, 255
Sari Su River, 12z6
Sarts,2 z6
Savoy, Bastard Of, 2.2!
Sayyid, Ibn, 294
Sayyid Khoja, I44
Sayyidi, 2 8, 4 9 9 3
Scythians,2 8 I
Sea, dissension over trade, 22z5 -2 26
little commerce by, i63
Sebsevars, 110x
Semiramis, 147
Serbians, 268
Se've'ac, Jourdain de,. 294
Seville, i 7




INDEX


337


Shadi Mulkh, condemned, 198 -199
ingratitude to Sarai Khanum,
255
marriage, 254
shamed, 255
Sharif, 152
Sherif ad-Din, 271, note; 280,
284, 308
on invasion of India, 260
on Tamerlane's character, 303
Shiraz, 148, 150, 153, I64, 171,
I74, 176
Siberia, 287
Sigismund of Hungary, 221 et
seq.
Sijistan, 64
warfare in, 60-6i
Silks, 23
Sipahis, 220, 223, 228
Sivas, 214, 227, 228, 229
conquered, 211         [302
Skulls, pyramids of, I45, 30ISmolensk, 272, 274
Smyrna, 238, 306
captured, 239
Spain, 244, 263
contact with Tamerlane, 240
Steppes, battle on the, 135 et seq.
conquest, 136
hunting on, 127-128
perils, 121-122
size, 126
Tamerlane's course over, 122 et
seq.; 126, note
Tatar festival, 138-139
weather of, 134
Stone Bridge, battle, 63 et seq.
Stone City, 248
Subotai, 276
Sufis, I 8, I I9
subdued, 120
Tamerlane and, 98 et seq.
Suleiman (son of Bayazid), 229,
232, 233
Sultaniah, 154, I56, 163, 21o
Sun, 179


Sykes, Sir Percy, 303
Sykes, Lt.-Col. P. M., 301
Syria, 177, 208, 270, 279, note
conquered, 211-212
Syrians, 212
Syr River, 66, 69, 94, i18, 119,
123, 146, 249, 253
T
Tabriz, i54, 163, I84, 2095 216,
note; 218, 242, 243, 257,
270, 293
described by Clavijo, 295 et seq.
sects in, 306
size, 164, note; 294
trade center, 164, 293
Taj Mahal, I6, 300
Takrit, captured, 143 et seq.
towers of heads, 145
Tamburlaine the Great, Marlowe,
notes on pages 235, 278
Tamerlane, Aljai honored, o05
alliance with Hussayn, 51
ambition fulfilled by Shah
Rukh, 256
and Tugluk Khan, 45 et seq.
appearance, 30, 168-169
appointment by Khan, 47
appointments made by, 93-94
army discipline, 163
artistry, 195, 299-300
as judge, o08
Badakshan encounter, 85 et seq.
Bayazid and, 235
birth, 21
Cathay expedition, 248-249
cathedral, 202 et seq.
character, 30, 35, 146, I68;
296, note; 303-304
code of law, 165
compared with Napoleon, 207
conquest of Othman Turks,
228 et seq.
correspondence, 209-21
daring, o00
death, 249 et seq.




338


TAMERLANE


Tamerlane (Cont.)
derivation of name, 28
diplomacy, 46-47
discipline, 94, 95, I19
diversions, 74-75
dominions, I103, 105, Io, 145,
158 et seq.
elephant warfare, 26o-26i
empire corrupted, 255
empire system, i6o et seq.
father's position, 22
fidelity of followers, 78, 84,
85, I 34
final conquest of barbarians,
113
first Bagdad expedition, 178 et
seq.
first command, 39
grandsons, 203
Green City battle, 48
grief at Aljai's death, 74
Herat expedition, 102-103
Hussayn at Kabul, 6o
imprisoned, 56
India expedition, i96
information service, I63
Iran expedition, 150 et seq.,
171 et seq.
in Sijistan, 6o-6i
in the Red Sands, 50o et seq.
intolerance, i65
Jat engagement, 69 et seq.
joined by Jat Mongols, 96
journey to Kabul, 59
judgment, I22
Karshi exploit, 77 et seq.
kettledrum broken, 254
Khan Zade and, o108-o09, 155
last illness, 250       [258
last of the great conquerors,
leadership, 35, 84, 94, 95, 103,
126, 159
life threatened, 47
love for Aljai, 39, 57
made ruler of Tatary, 92 et seq.
march through the Caucasus,
142 et seq.


Tamerlane (Cont.)
march to the west, 207 et seq.
marriage, to Aljai, 35 et seq.
massacre at Isfahan, 152
Miran Shah punished, x56
misfortunes, 54
names for, ii6, note; 210
near defeat by Toktamish, x40
pavilion, 298
personal guard, i68
plans of empire, 206, note
power, 252
proverb concerning, 107
rebuilding of Samarkand, 1o6
et seq.
reception of the Mongols, 45
religious nature, 305 et seq.
review of hosts on the steppes,
128-129
results of empire, 257
Samarkand residences, i89
second wife (see Sarai Mulkh
Khanum)
secret visit to Samarkand, 57-58
size of armies, 269-270
sorrow at Jahangir's death, i xX
sorrow at Muhammad's death,
241-242
sources of knowledge of, 279 -280
steppes expedition, 121 et seq.
Stone Bridge battle, 63 et seq.
strategy, 65-66, 67, 8o, 132 et
seq., 179, 229-230
strength of will, 78
Sufis and, 98 et seq.
superseded by Hussayn, 76
third wife, I88, 197
title, 19, 158, 203
Toktamish sheltered, 16
tomb, 259
traveling comforts, i67
treatment of conquered cities,
295
victory on the steppes, 136
warfare principles, 123; x135
note; 301-302




INDEX


339


Tamerlane (Cont.)
war genius,:27 5 et seq.
warlike nature, 205
war with Toktamish, zi9-x zo
wounded, 6 i
written records, 308
youth, 22., 28
Tamgha, 1 5 3
Taragai (father of Tamerlane))
2 6
burial, 44
death, 42, 4.3
tomb, 10o5
T'a T'a, 2 83
Ta-ta-erk, 2 83
Tatars, 2 87
architecture, 2,12-213
art, 9 5
Barlas (see Barlas Clan)
characteristics, 8 3, I 1 5
clan dissensions, 48, note
customs, 8 8
derivation of word, 2a8 3 et seq.
fidelity pledged to Tamerlane,
9 2
guards, 21
in Sali Sarai, 3 2
Kazgan's rule, 34.
literature, 25 6
looting by, 138
marriage customs, 37 et seq.
modern map, 48
quarreling among, 67-68
rulers' succession, 41-42, 90
sunset retreat, 125
traditions, 4I, '105
united against Mongols, 69 et
seq.
wandering nature, 31
war customs, 52, 69-70, 263,
265-2z66
women, 3 6
Tatary, borders, 21x
quarrels in, 7 7
Tatur, 28 3
Tauriz (see Tabriz)
Tavachi, 7 0, 9 3, iz28


Taxes, a source of income, 1 63
Thousand Years of the Tatars,
A, E. H. Parker, 2 82, note
Thunder, The (see Bayazid)
Tigris River, 14.3, i64,2 177, 18i,
215, 2x6
Timur (see Tamerlane)
Timurids, the, 256
Timur Kutluk Khan, 272 et seq.
Tobol River, 130, note; 131
Toktamish, Prince, 271, 272
appeal to Tamerlane, i 16
defeated, 117, '136
peace proposed, 123
return, 140,
son, 245
strategy, 13:2 et seq.
strength, 121
treachery, 11 7
understood by Tamerlane, xiz
victories, I 1 7
war with Tamerlane, i 1 8 et
seq.
Tou-kie, 2 86
Toa-kiue occidentaux, Les, Chavannes, 289, note
Traicte des Sarasins, Bergeron,
278
Troy, 23 8
Tugluk Khan, appearance, 45
death, 6 6
return to Green City, 48
Samarkand invasion, 43 et seq.
Tamerlane and, 45 OfSt sq.
49
Tuman, 12 5
Tungusi, 281
T4ra, 3 4, 7 6
Turan, 20
Turkey, 28 9
Turkey, Lane-Poole, 268; 2719
note
Turkomans, '121, 208
Black Sheep, 84, 164
Othmanlis, 28 8
Tamerlane among,.5
White Sheep, 279, note




340


TAMERLANE


Turks,2 zo8, 2 8 i
conquered, 23 8
crusade against, 2 21 et seq.
derivation of word, 286
evolution, 286 et seq.
Othman, 2.2o
Turks of Central Asia, Czaplicka,
285, note
U
Uigurs, 2z82, 2.86, 288
UMamna, 91i
tllugh Beg (grandson of Tamerlane), 2 53
empire under, 255 et seq.
Ural River, 130, -note; 133
Urganj, 98, io8, ii8, 163, 164,
302
besieged, 99-100
subdued, 10o, '120
Urus Khan, xi6, 123
death, 1 1
Usumcassan, 2.78, note
Uzun Hassan,:279, note
V
Valois, John, Count of Nevers,
221, note; 2-24
Vambery, Arminius, 289, note;
303
Venetians, 141
Venice, 17
fleets, 22 5
Vishaigorod, 141
Vitut (see Witold)
Volga River, 115, 132, 1138, 139,
140, 141, 272
Voyages en Tartarie, Bergeron,
27 9
Vugh-tugh., 2 87


w
Wallachians, 22.2, 22.4, 228
Warfare, Asiatic vcs. European,
263
flame throwers, 265-266
gunpowder, 265
naphtha, 265-266
Tatar, 52, 69-70
treatment of the conquered,
301-302
Weapons, 22, 25, 70, 262 et seq.
bows (see separate item)
cannon, 273
White Castle, 171
conquered, '172 et seq.
White Sands (see Gobi Desert)
William of Tyre, 289
Witold of Lithuania, Duke, 263,:272 et seq.
Women, imperial, in Samarkand,
187-188
independence of Tatar, 3 6
Persian veiled, 23
treatment of captive, 139
World Gripper (see jahangir)
y
Yeddah stone, 71, and note
Yusuf Sufi, challenge to Tamerlane, 9 9
death, i ox
fear of Tamerlane, 100o
z
Zagatais, 1 62
Zain ad-Din, 38, 44, 49, 74, 83,
91) 205
Zain al Abaidin, 151, 171, 176


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