TIMUR BEG. 
17 
When Timur had attained his twentieth year, his 
father gave him a large number of tents,, sheep, camels, 
slaves, servants, and other attendants. These consi- 
derably increased his means of extending his con- 
quests, upon which his heart seemed to be now bent. 
He divided this new accession of followers into small 
bodies. “ The first arrangement,” he says, " I made 
of my own private affairs was this : — I entrusted the 
command of eighteen slaves to one, to whom I gave 
the title of Aun Bashy ; and I named every twenty 
horses a stable, and every hundred camels a string, 
and every thousand sheep a flock. I consigned each 
of these to the charge of a particular slave, and allot- 
ted to each slave a certain share of the profits.” * 
From this passage it is clear that the young prince 
had already become a person of considerable opulence 
as well as power. The lands of which he had taken 
possession being inadequate to the support of so 
much cattle and such an increasing population, he 
found it necessary to add to his possessions without 
further delay ; he therefore began to invade the ter- 
ritories of his more powerful neighbours. Having 
invested a neighbouring capital with his small but 
resolute band of followers, he was attacked and de- 
feated with great loss, and compelled to raise the siege 
with precipitation. His troops being dispersed, he was 
reduced to extreme personal privation, being under the 
necessity of hiding himself in the jungles in order to 
escape the search of a vigilant enemy, exposed to the 
chance of destruction by wild beasts, as well as by less 
savage, though not less determined foes. Such perils 
* Memoirs, p. 30. 
c 3 
