TIMUR BEG. 
117 
guinary career of the Tartar squadrons was only final- 
ly stopped by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. 
Ezmeer, the modern Smyrna, defended by the valour 
of the Rhodian Knights, and the abode of numerous 
Christians, was deemed by the victorious Jagatay a 
place worthy of his own presence. Having laid siege 
to the city in form, it was taken after an obstinate 
resistance. Every living creature was barbarously 
slaughtered, except a few who escaped by swimming 
to the ships in the harbour, and the houses were levelled 
with the ground. In fourteen days Timur obtained 
possession of a place which his rival the Ottoman 
sultan had besieged in vain for seven years. This 
latter prince died in captivity the following year, 1403, 
at Akshehr, a town of Natolia, in Asiatic Turkey. 
Timur is said to have bewailed his death with tears, 
having intended, after the final conquest of Anatolia, 
to restore to him his crown. The intentions of ty- 
rants are never to be solved but in their execution. 
Tears were an easy tribute to the memory of a de- 
parted rival, but they cannot wash out the blood-stains 
of millions of murders. The story of the iron cage, in 
which Bayazeed was said to be confined, seems now 
admitted by the general assent of historians to have 
been a false imputation upon the memory of Timur 
the invincible. “ The iron cage,” says one of his 
historians,* “ is an ornament of which I would not 
willingly deprive history if I thought there were just 
grounds for believing it ; but as some of the best his- 
torians make no mention of it, and the Moghul Chro- 
* Father Catrou. 
