Note 40 — PART FIRST. (continued 2)

M. Millot places this account among the “exaggerations which ought not to have a place in history;” but, as we have no evidence for or against the fact, it was thought proper to let it remain as related by the historians of those times. It is certain that in those days mankind assembled for the purposes of bloodshed and slaughter in prodigious numbers; the destruction was commonly in proportion to the numbers assembled. The account is not more incredible than that of Tamerlane’s filling up the harbour of Smyrna by causing each of his soldiers to throw a stone into it. Such an army could have spared the number in question.