Note C — Chapter XI · THE TROITSA—DMITRI DONSKOÏ—VASILI DIMITRIÉVITCH, AND VITOVT OF LITHUANIA.

Timur, following the rôle of his ancestor, Genghiz, united numbers of the Asiatic Tatar tribes, and set forth upon long journeys of devastating conquest. At thirty-five he could call all the desirable Asiatic world, including India, Turkey, and Egypt, his own. He held royal, orientally gorgeous state at Samarkand, his capital, the most magnificent city of Central Asia. Its inhabitants numbered a hundred and fifty thousand, many of whom were educated in its forty colleges, seats of Mohammedan learning. In one of its colleges were bred continually a thousand students. Timur’s title was, “The Commander of the World.” He restored, though but transiently, the empire of Genghiz. His disregard of human life and his cruelty may be inferred from his slaughter of a hundred thousand captives on his march to Delhi, and from the ninety thousand corpses piled in the market-places of Bagdad, after his entrance into that city.