was made prisoner amid the
ruins of his capital; and Yelets, by the pride and ignorance of the
orientals, might easily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the
nation. Moscow trembled at the approach of the Tartar. Ambition and
prudence recalled him to the south, the desolate country was exhausted,
and the Mongol soldiers were enriched with an immense spoil of precious
furs, of linen of Antioch, and of ingots of gold and silver. On the
banks of the Don, or Tanais, he received a humble deputation from the
consuls and merchants of Egypt, Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay,
who occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azov, at the mouth of the
river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trusted
his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who explored the
state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily followed by the
destructive presence of the Tartars. The city of Tana was reduced to
ashes; the Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians
who had not fled to their ships were condemned either to death or
slavery. Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Sarai and Astrakhan,
the monuments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed that he
had penetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange
phenomenon, which authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the
obligation of evening prayer.

When Timur first proposed to his princes and emirs the invasion of India
or Hindustan, he was answered by a murmur of discontent: "The rivers!
and the mountains and deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor! and the
elephants, destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the Emperor was
more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior reason was
convinced that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe and easy
in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the weakness and
anarchy of Hindustan: the _subahs_ of the provinces had erected the
standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan Mahmud was
despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mongol army moved in three
great divisions, and Timur observes with pleasure that the ninety-two
squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded with the
ninety-two names or epithets of the prophet Mahomet.

Between the Jihun and the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of
mountains which are styled by the Arabian geographers the "Stony Girdles
of the Earth." The highland robbers were subdued or ex