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had, as he supposed, taken shelter there. Samarcand was the capital of the country, and was then, as it has been since, a great and renowned city. Besides the sultan himself, whom Genghis Khan was pursuing, there were the ladies of his family whom he wished also to capture. The two principal ladies were the sultana and the queen-mother. The queen-mother was a lady of very great distinction. She had been greatly renowned during the lifetime of her husband, the former sultan, for her learning, her piety, the kindness of her heart, and the general excellence of her character, so far as her dealings with her subjects and friends were concerned, and her influence throughout the realm had been unbounded. At some periods of her life she had exercised a great deal of political power, and at one time she bore the very grand title of _Protectress of the faith of the world_. She exercised the power which she then possessed, in the main, in a very wise and beneficial manner. She administered justice impartially. She protected the weak, and restrained the oppressions of the strong. She listened to all the cases which were brought before her with great attention and patience, and arrived almost always at just conclusions respecting them. With all this, however, she was very strict and severe, and, as has almost always been the case with women raised to the possession of irresponsible power, she was unrelenting and cruel in the extreme whenever, as she judged, any political necessity required her to act with decision. Her name was Khatun.[E] [Footnote E: Pronounced _Cah-toon_.] Khatun was not now at Samarcand. She was at Karazm, a city which was the chief residence of the court. She had been living there in retirement ever since the death of her husband, the present sultan's father. Samarcand itself, as has already been said, was a great and splendid city. Like most of the other cities, it was inclosed in a double wall, though, in this case, the outer wall surrounded the whole city, while the inner one inclosed the mosque, the palace of the sultan, and some other public buildings. These walls were much better built and more strongly fortified than those of Bokhara. There were twelve iron gates, it is said, in the outer wall. These gates were a league apart from each other. At every two leagues along the wall was a fort capable of containing a large body of men. The walls were likewise strengthened with battlements and towers
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