[Illustration: DERVISHES OF THE NAKSHABANDI ORDER]
It is the hard fate of a conqueror that he can never pause in his onward progress. The fierce passions let loose by war can be assuaged only by their repeated exercise; and Tīmūr’s hordes were ever clamouring to be led to fresh victories. Thus, when he had restored peace and prosperity to Central Asia, he set out on a triumphant march which threatened to include the whole inhabited world. In A.H. 793 (1390) Persia and the Caucasus, that halting-place in the migration of human masses westwards, were overrun by his armies. Then, in A.H. 798 (1395), he attacked the Kipchāks, a Mongolian tribe firmly settled in South-Eastern Russia and the lower Volga, which for the first time in history were united under their great chief, Tokhtamish Khān. Long and desperate was the struggle between the rivals, but it ended in Tīmūr’s triumph. His eyes now turned to India, whose fabulous wealth had attracted other adventurers such as he. The Panjāb and the whole Gangetic Delta fell an easy prey to his legions; and in A.H. 801 (1398) he returned to Samarkand laden with spoils. The Egyptian dynasty established in Syria and the Turkish lords of Asia Minor alone retained their independence. Tīmūr stormed Damascus and broke the Mamlūk power. Then, on the field of Angora, A.H. 805 (1402), he utterly defeated the Sultan Bāyazīd I., a conqueror of a renown only second to his own. Constantinople and the empire of the East lay at his mercy. Happily for European civilisation, his darling Samarkand attracted the war-spent conqueror. He returned thither in triumph, and three years later died at Otrār, while on his way to subdue China, A.H. 807 (1404)[410]--
_Mors sola fatetur Quantula sunt hominum corpuscula!_
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF TAMERLANE’S MAUSOLEUM, BOKHĀRĀ]
The method taken by Chingiz Khān of assuring the continuance of sovereignty in his house was inspired by statesmanlike prescience. It is well-nigh impossible for a single individual to maintain intact an empire inherited from a father who has won it by the sword. Its founder may, indeed, say with far greater truth than the scion of a long line of kings, “the State is Myself”; but his hour of triumph is embittered by the reflection that possessions amassed by ruthless greed are apt to melt away when the strong arm that secured them has mouldered into dust. Chingiz, by dividing his unwieldy dominions among his four sons, removed all cause of jealousy, such as would inevitably have arisen had one child been exalted above the rest, and established a community of interest among his descendants which for several generations sufficed to keep the greater portion of the known world in his family.