Note 7 — Chapter III

Commonly called Tamerlane, from Timourlenk, i. e. Timour the Lame,—the name given him by his countrymen on account of the effects of a wound received in early life. His massacres were of a wholesale description. At Ispahan he had a tower constructed of 70,000 human heads; and when Bagdad revolted, he exacted no less than 90,000 for the same purpose. On his march to Delhi, the future capital of his empire, he ordered a general slaughter of his prisoners, 100,000 in number; compelling each of his captains and soldiers to kill his captives with his own hands, under penalty of being themselves put to death, and their property and wives given up to the informer. But Von Hammer relates an instance of his cruelty still more horrible. At the taking of Sebaste, 4,000 Armenian Christians had capitulated, on the condition that, though they were to be sent into slavery, their lives were to be spared. No sooner, however, had they surrendered than the tyrant, faithless to his oath, ordered them to be buried alive with circumstances of the most atrocious barbarity. They were thrown ten together into deep pits with their heads tied between their knees; planks were then laid across, and earth heaped upon them; and there they were left, in their living graves, to die a death of slow and lingering torture.