THE CAPITAL OF TAMERLANE. 193 



Baber, — such are the names which stand emblazoned 

 upon the victorious scroll of its conquerors. Small 

 wonder, then, that though the day of its greatness is 

 long passed, it should even in its ruin remain one of 

 the most impressive cities upon earth. 



The journey thither from Bokhara is to-day one of 

 the simplest things in the world. You step into the 

 train at midday and you reach Samarkand, if you are 

 lucky, some hours before midnight — how long before 

 depending of course upon the punctuality or lack of it 

 of your train. I arrived at 11 p.m., but then we had 

 started two hours late. 



It is, of course, as the immortal capital of Tamerlane 

 that you think of Samarkand to-day, because it is 

 the ruins of the great mosques and madressahs and 

 mausolea which he built, and which merit the appli- 

 cation of the encomium of a Persian poet that " even in 

 this broken state they are still better than 100,000 

 intact ones," which are responsible for its world-wide 

 fame. You may look ujDon a jumble of insignificant 

 debris close by and be told that you are in the pre- 

 cincts of the city of Afrasiab, that hero of ancient 

 myth, " strong as an elephant, whose shadow extended 

 for miles, whose heart was bounteous as the ocean, and 

 his hands like the clouds when rain falls to gladden the 

 earth," or you may pause for a moment to think of the 

 Marcanda that fell to the hero of Macedon ; but when 

 you stand before the great buildings which are the 

 glory of Samarkand, it is to their renowned founder 

 that your thoughts are inevitably recalled. 



Tamerlane, we are told, was a man of an inordinate 

 ugliness, though enjoying, it would seem, as Cardinal 

 De Betz says of De Bouillon, " with the physiognomy of 

 an ox the perspicacity of an eagle." He was certainly 

 lame, as his name suggests, — Timur leng, Timur the 



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