should render it expedient. Nadir hastened to
occupy Armenia and Georgia, which were the principal of the disputed
provinces. He threw a bridge over the rapid Araxes; and at once invested
the cities of Tiflis, Gunjah, and Erivan, in the hope that the danger
with which they were threatened would lead the Turkish general to hazard
an action. Nor was he deceived.

Abdallah, encouraged by his superior numbers, left the intrenchments
with which he had covered his army, and attacked the Persians on the
plains of Baghavund, near Erivan. The Persian leader, when he saw him
advancing, addressed his troops in the most animated language. "Their
enemies," he said, "outnumbered them eight to one; but that was only an
incitement to glorious exertion. He had dreamt on the past night," he
told them, "that a furious animal had rushed into his tent, which, after
a long struggle, he had slain. With such an omen," he exclaimed,
"success is certain to those who fight under the protection of his great
arm, who raiseth the weak to glory, and casteth down the proudest
oppressors." If his troops were encouraged by this speech, they were
still more so by his example. After his skill had made the most able
disposition of his army, he rushed upon the enemy at the head of his
bravest men; and wherever he led, the Persians were irresistible. In one
of these charges Abdallah Pacha was slain by a soldier, who brought his
head to Nadir; and as the battle still raged, he directed it to be fixed
upon a spear and to be displayed where it would be best seen by the
enemy. The effect was as he anticipated. The Turks, perceiving their
general was slain, fled in every direction and left the plain covered
with their dead. This victory was followed by the submission of the
cities of Gunjah and Tiflis; and those of Kars and Erivan, with all the
former possessions of the Persians in that quarter, were soon afterward
ceded to him by the policy of the Ottoman court, who, taught by
misfortune, were glad to conclude a peace on the basis which had been
before settled by the Pacha of Bagdad.

The period was now arrived when Nadir thought he might lay aside the
veil which he had hitherto used. An account was brought that the infant
sovereign of Persia had died at Ispahan, and consequently that the
throne was vacant. It has always been the usage of the kings of Persia
to observe the Nuroze, or vernal equinox, as a great festival; and on it
all the chief officers, civil