22 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
predecessor, not only discouraged the conspiracy, but 
warned the Amyr of his danger. On the following 
year, however, this venerable prince was murdered by 
his own son-in-law, Kutlug Timur Khan. 
Timur immediately uniting his forces with those of 
two other chieftains, Byan Selduz and Hajy Berlas, 
marched towards Samerkund to take vengeance on 
the murderer of the late Amyr. The united armies 
attacked the city, dethroned the Khan, whom Kutlug 
Timur had raised to the sovereignty, and took pos- 
session of the kingdom of Transoxiana, which they 
divided among them. 
In the year of the Hegira 762, a.d. 1361, Timur s 
father, Teragay, was taken ill. He was immediately 
visited by his illustrious son, who received his last 
breath, and buried him with princely honours in the 
vicinity of Kesh, in the burying-ground consecrated to 
the remains of holy and illustrious men. Timur was 
now visited by the principal nobles of Transoxiana, 
and solicited by them to assume the entire sove- 
reignty of their country, at this time a dependent 
principality of Turkestan ; but, as he had higher views, 
he declined for the present the honour which they were 
so anxious to confer upon him. 
The country was at this moment threatened with 
invasion by a descendant of Jengyz Khan, chief of a 
tribe of unconverted Turks who inhabited the country 
of Desht Jet-eh,* which forms the northern boundary 
of the Aral sea. Timur, not being in a condition to 
* These Jetes must not be confounded with the ancient Getae, 
the ancestors of the present Calmucks. Gibbon has confounded 
the two. 
