Timour equalled Zingis, if he could not surpass him, in barbarity. At Delhi, the capital of his future dynasty, he massacred 100,000 prisoners, because some of them were seen to smile when the army of their countrymen came in sight. He laid a tax of the following sort on the people of Ispahan, viz, to find him 70,000 human skulls, to build his towers with; and, after Bagdad had revolted, he exacted of the inhabitants as many as 90,000. He burned, or sacked, or razed to the ground, the cities of Astrachan, Carisme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Broussa, Smyrna, and a thousand others. We seem to be reading of some antediluvian giant, rather than of a medieval conqueror.
6.
The terrible races which I have been describing, like those giants of old, have ever been enemies of God and persecutors of His Church. Celts, Goths, Lombards, Franks, have been converted, and their descendants to this day are Christian; but, whether we consider Huns, Moguls, or Turks, up to this time they are in the outer darkness. And accordingly, to the innumerable Tartar tribes, and to none other, have been applied by commentators the solemn passages about Gog and Magog, who are to fight the battles of Antichrist against the faithful. "Satan shall go forth and seduce the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall collect them to battle, whose number is as the sea sand." From time to time the Holy See has fulfilled its apostolic mission of sending preachers to them, but without success. The only missionaries who have had any influence upon them have been those of the Nestorian heresy, who have in certain districts made the same sort of impression on them which the Greek schism has made upon the Russians. St. Louis too sent a friar to them on an embassy, when he wished to persuade them to turn their strength upon the Turks, with whom he was at war; other European monarchs afterwards followed his pattern; and sometimes European merchants visited them for the purposes of trade. However little influence as these various visitants, in the course of several centuries, had upon their minds, they have at least done us the service of giving us information concerning their habits and manners; and this so fully corroborates the historical account of them which I have been giving, that it will be worth while laying before you some specimens of it here.
I have said that some of these travellers were laymen travelling for gain or in secular splendour, and others were humble servants of religion. The contrast of their respective adventures is striking. The celebrated Marco Polo, who was one of a company of enterprising Venetian merchants, lived many years in Tartary in honour, and returned laden with riches; the poor friars met with hardships in plenty, and nothing besides. Not that the Poli were not good Catholics, not that they went out without a blessing from the Pope, or without friars of the order of St. Dominic of his selection; but so it was, that the Tartars understood the merchant well enough, but could not comprehend, could not set a value on the friar.
When the Pope's missionaries came in sight of the Tartar encampment on the northern frontier of Persia, they at once announced their mission and its object. It was from the Vicar of Christ upon earth, and the spiritual head of Christendom; and it was a simple exhortation addressed to the fierce conquerors before whom they stood, to repent and believe. The answer of the Tartars was equally prompt and equally intelligible. When they had fully mastered the business of their visitors, they sentenced them to immediate execution; and did but hesitate about the mode. They were to be flayed alive, their skins filled with hay, and so sent back to the Pope; or they were to be put in the first rank in the next battle with the Franks, and to die by the weapons of their own countrymen. Eventually one of the Khan's wives begged them off. They were kept in a sort of captivity for three years, and at length thought themselves happy to be sent away with their lives. So much for the friars; how different was the lot of the merchants may be understood by the scene which took place on their return to Venice, It is said that, on their arrival at their own city, after the absence of a quarter of a century, their change of appearance and poorness of apparel were such that even their nearest friends did not know them. Having with difficulty effected an entrance into their own house, they set about giving a splendid entertainment to the principal persons of the city. The banquet over, following the Oriental custom, they successively put on and then put off again, and distributed to their attendants, a series of magnificent dresses; and at length they entered the room in the same weather-stained and shabby dresses, in which, as travellers, they had made their first appearance at Venice. The assembled company eyed them with wonder; which you may be sure was not diminished, when they began to unrip the linings and the patches of those old clothes, and as the seams were opened, poured out before them a prodigious quantity of jewels. This had been their expedient for conveying their gains to Europe, and the effect of the discovery upon the world may be anticipated. Persons of all ranks and ages crowded to them, as the report spread, and they were the wonder of their day.[11]
7.
Savage cruelty, brutal gluttony, and barbarous magnificence, are the three principal ethical characteristics of a Tartar prince, as we may gather from what has come down to us in history, whether concerning the Scythians or the Huns. The first of these three qualities has also been illustrated, from the references which I have been making to the history of Zingis and Timour, so that I think we have heard enough of it, without further instances from the report of these travellers, whether ecclesiastical or lay. I will but mention one corroboration of a barbarity, which at first hearing it is difficult to credit. When the Spanish ambassador, then, was on his way to Timour, and had got as far as the north of Persia, he there actually saw a specimen of that sort of poll-tax, which I just now mentioned. It was a structure consisting of four towers, composed of human skulls, a layer of mud and of skulls being placed alternately; and he tells us that upwards of 60,000 men were massacred to afford materials for this building. Indeed it seems a demonstration of revenge familiar to the Tartar race. Selim, the Ottoman Sultan, reared a similar pyramid on the banks of the Nile.[12]
To return to our Spanish traveller. He proceeded to his destination, which was Samarcand, the royal city of Timour, in Sogdiana, the present Bukharia, and was presented to the great conqueror. He describes the gate of the palace as lofty, and richly ornamented with gold and azure; in the inner court were six elephants, with wooden castles on their backs, and streamers which performed gambols for the amusement of the courtiers. He was led into a spacious room, where were some boys, Timour's grandsons, and these carried the King of Spain's letters to the Khan. He then was ushered into Timour's presence, who was seated, like Attila's queen, on a sort of cushioned sofa, with a fountain playing before him. He was at that time an old man, and his eyesight was impaired.
At the entertainment which followed, the meat was introduced in leathern bags, so large as to be dragged along with difficulty. When opened, pieces were cut out and placed on dishes of gold, silver, or porcelain. One of the most esteemed, says the ambassador, was the hind quarter of a horse; I must add what I find related, in spite of its offending our ears:—our informant tells us that horse-tripe also was one of the delicacies at table. No dish was removed, but the servants of the guests were expected to carry off the remains, so that our ambassador doubtless had his larder provided with the sort of viands I have mentioned for some time to come. The drink was the famous Tartar beverage which we hear of so often, mares' milk, sweetened with sugar, or perhaps rather the koumiss or spirit which is distilled from it. It was handed round in gold and silver cups.
Nothing is more strange about the Tartars than the attachment they have shown to such coarse fare, from the earliest times till now. Timour, at whose royal table this most odious banquet was served, was lord of all Asia, and had the command of every refinement not only of luxury, but of gluttony. Yet he is faithful to the food which regaled the old Scythians in the heroic age of Greece, and which is prized by the Usbek of the present day. As Homer, in the beginning of the historic era, calls the Scythians "mares'-milk drinkers," so geographers of the present day describe their mode of distilling it in Russia. Tavernier speaks of it two centuries ago; the European visitors partook of it in the middle ages; and the Roman ambassadors, in the later times of the Empire. These tribes have had the command of the vine, yet they seem to have scorned or even abhorred its use; and we have a curious account in Herodotus, of a Scythian king who lost his life for presuming to take part secretly in the orgies of Bacchus. Yet it was not that they did not intoxicate themselves freely with the distillation which they had chosen; and even when they tolerated wine, they still adhered to their koumiss. That beverage is described by the Franciscan, who was sent by St. Louis, as what he calls biting, and leaving a taste like almond milk on the palate; though Elphinstone, on the contrary writing in this century, says "it is of a whitish colour and a sourish taste." And so of horse-flesh; I believe it is still put out for sale in the Chinese markets; Lieutenant Wood, in his journey to the source of the Oxus, speaks of it among the Usbeks as an expensive food. So does Elphinstone, adding that in consequence the Usbeks are "obliged to be content with beef." Pinkerton tells us that it is made into dried hams; but this seems to be a refinement, for we hear a great deal from various authors of its being eaten more than half raw. After all, horse-flesh was the most delicate of the Tartar viands in the times we are now considering. We are told that, in spite of their gold and silver, and jewels, they were content to eat dogs, foxes, and wolves; and, as I have observed before, the flesh of animals which had died of disease.