Such was the establishment and extent of the first Tartar or Mogul empire. The descendants of Cublai gave themselves up to luxury in the palace of Peking, amidst a mischievous crowd of eunuchs, concubines, and astrologers, and their Mogul army, dissolved and dispersed in a vast and populous country, forgot the discipline and bravery of their ancestors. The secondary Mogul sovereigns of the west, assumed entire independence; and the great khan was satisfied with the empire of China and eastern Mongalia, In 1367, one hundred and forty years after the death of Zingis, roused to rebellion by a dreadful famine, in which thirteen millions of the inhabitants of China perished, the native Chinese expelled their degenerate Mogul oppressors, and the great khan became a wanderer in the desert. The vast empire established by Zingis and his immediate successors was now broken down into four vast fragments, each a powerful empire, Mongalia, Kipzak, Zagtai or Transoxiana, and Persia; and these four khans often contended with each other. On their ruins in lesser Asia, arose the formidable, more permanent, and still subsisting empire of the Ottoman Turks, whose youthful energies threatened the subversion of the last remains of the Greek empire, which they at last effected, and might perhaps have conquered the whole of Western Europe, if their progress had not been arrested by the power of a new Mogul dynasty.

In the distribution of the vast empire of Zingis, we have already seen that Zagathai, one of his sons, received the subordinate rule of Transoxiana, or the rich country on the rivers Jihon or Amu, and the Sir or Sihon, the Oxus and Jaxartes of the ancients. This extensive and fertile country, now called Western Turkestan, Great Bucharia, Kharism, Chorassan, and Balk, with some other smaller territories, is bounded on the west by the Caspian, on the east by the Belur-tag or Imaus, on the north by the deserts of western Tartary, and on the south by the mountains of the Hindoo-koh, and the desert of Margiana. The descendants of Zagatai were long considered as the khans or sovereigns of this fair empire, which fell into civil war and anarchy, through the divisions and subdivisions of the hordes, the uncertain laws of succession, and the ambition of the ministers of state, who reduced their degenerate masters to mere state puppets, and elevated or deposed successive khans at their pleasure; and the divided and distracted country was subjected or oppressed by the invasions of the khans of Kashgar, who ruled over the Calmucks or Getes in eastern Turkestan, or little Bucharia, on the cast of Imaus or the Belur-tag.

In this state of misery and depression, a new hero arose, in 1361, to vindicate and re-establish the fame and empire of the Moguls[5]. Timour, usually called Tamerlane, was the son of the hereditary chief of Cash, a small but fruitful territory about forty miles to the south of Samarcand. He was the fifth in descent from Carashar-Nevian, who had been vizir or prime minister to Zagathai, of which sovereign Timour was descended in the female line. After various fortunes, he in 1370, rendered himself absolute sovereign of Transoxiana, then called Zagatai, after its first Mogul ruler; but for some time, he affected to govern as prime minister, or general, to a nominal khan of the house of Zingis, who served as a private officer at the head of his family horde in the army of his servant. After establishing his authority in Zagatai, and conquering Kharism, and Candahar, he turned his arms against Persia or Iran, which had fallen into disorganization by the extinction of the descendants of the great Holacou, and which country he reduced under subjection. He successively reduced Cashgar, or eastern Turkestan, and Kipzak or western Tartary, and invaded Syria and Anatolia. In this invasion, in 1402, was fought the great battle of Angora, in which Bajazet, the great sultan of the Turks, was defeated and taken prisoner. By this great victory, the progress of the Turkish arms was checked for a time, and perhaps Europe was saved on that day from being subjected to the law of Mahomet. Yet the vast empire which Timour established, fell into fragments after his death, in 1405, and his descendants have sunk into oblivion; while the race of Othman and Bajazet still rule over a large empire in Europe and Asia, nearly commensurate with the eastern Roman empire, still called Rumi in the east.

[5] Decl. and Fall. XII. I.

Having thus traced an outline of the revolutions of empire in Tartary, down to what may be considered as modern history, it is only necessary farther to mention, that all eastern Tartary and Mongalia is now subject to China, and Kipzac and all the northern to Russia. Hardly any part of it now remains independent, except Zagatai; or Transoxiana, Kharism, Candabar, and the deserts of Western Tartary: the former of which is subject to the Usbeks, and the latter to the Kirguses.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

The Travels of John de Plano Carpini and other Friars, sent about the year 1246, as ambassadors from Pope Innocent IV, to the great Khan of the Moguls or Tartars.[1]

[1] Hakluyt. I. 24. and 42. for the Latin of the two relations; and p. 59. for the old English translation of the second.

INTRODUCTION.

In the collection of early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries, by Hakluyt, published originally in 1599, and reprinted at London in 1809 with additions, there are two separate relations of these travels. The first, in p. 24, is the journal of John de Plano Carpini, an Italian minorite, who, accompanied by friar Benedict, a Polander, went in 1246 by the north of the Caspian sea, to the residence of Batu-khan, and thence to Kajuk- khan, whom he calls Cuyne, the chief or Emperor of all the Mongols. The second in p. 42, is a relation taken from the Speculum Historiale of Vincentius Beluacensis, lib. xxxii. ch. 2. of the mission of certain friars, predicants and minorites in the same year, 1246, to the same country; and in p. 59. of the same collection, there is a translation by Hakluyt into antiquated English of this second account. From this second narrative it appears, that Vincentius had received an account of the journey of the second mission from Simon de St Quintin, a minorite friar belonging to the party; and that he had worked up along with this, the whole of the narrative which had been separately published by Carpini of his journey; which indeed forms by far the larger and more interesting portion of the work published by Vincentius. This latter edition, therefore has been considered as sufficient for the present collection, because to have given both would have been an unnecessary repetition; and it is here translated from the Latin of Hakluyt, I. 42.