THE DECLINE AND FALL

m

chap, ever might be the blessings of his administration,they evaporated with his life. To reign, ratherthan to govern, was the ambition of his childrenand grandchildren, a the enemies of each other. and of the people. A fragment of the empirewas upheld with some glory by Sharokh hisyoungest son; but after his decease, the scenewas again involved in darkness and blood; andbefore the end of a century, Transoxiana andPersia were trampled by the Uzbeks from thenorth, and the Turkmans of the black and w hitesheep. The race of Timour would have beenextinct, if an hero, his descendant in the fifthdegree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms tothe conquest of Hindostan. His successors (thegreat Moguls) 1 * extended their sway from themountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin , andfrom Candahar to the gulf of Bengal. Since thereign of Aurungzebe, their empire has been dis-solved; their treasures of Delhi have been rifledby a Persian robber, and the richest of theirkingdoms is now possessed by a company ofChristian merchants, of a remote island in theNorthern ocean.

can wars Far different was the fate of the Ottoman

of the sons ,

ofBajazet, monarchy. lhe massy trunk was bent to the

mi. 1403 " ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass

* Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and Arabshah, and M. deGuignes (Hist, des Huns , tom. iv, 1. xx), Fraser’s History of NadirShall, p. 1-02. The story ofTinionr’s descendants is imperfectly told,and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown.

b Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth degree fromTimour , by Mil an Shah, his third son. See the second volume of Dovr’iHistory of Hindustan.