TIMUR BEG. 
85 
CHAPTER IX. 
a. d. 1394—139 6. 
Timur’s zeal for religion directed him now to march 
in person to the capital of Georgia. He entered 
the mountains,, death and desolation marking every 
step of his progress. The Black Bucklers., a war- 
like tribe, he attacked in their fastnesses and fortified 
castles, which were most of them built upon the edges 
of deep precipices, ravaged their lands, plundered their 
houses, and put all who fell into his power to the 
sword. Having nearly exterminated this unhappy 
race, he proceeded direct to Teflis, exercising the se- 
verest cruelties upon all Christians who fell in his 
way, against whom he had declared a war of ex- 
termination. But while the scourge of Asia was di- 
recting his fanatical vengeance against the Christians 
on that vast continent, intelligence was brought to him 
that his old enemy Toktamish was again in the field 
ready to oppose him with a new army. 
The Kipchak general had ravaged some parts of 
Shirwan, the largest division of the Southern Caucasus, 
and laid the inhabitants under heavy contributions. 
Toktamish, who had re-established himself in his king- 
dom during the absence of the Jagatay monarch on 
