118 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
nicle is altogether silent concerning it, I am inclined to 
believe that it is an agreeable fiction invented by the 
Greeks, who were the enemies of Bayazeed. It would 
seem that they had a pleasure in representing the cap- 
tivity of this unfortunate prince as attended with 
circumstances the most gratifying to their vindictive 
feelings/’ 
The career of the Jagatay emperor was everywhere 
signally successful. The whole of Egypt was subdued, 
Georgia again ravaged. From the Irtish, a great river 
of northern Asia which rises in Independent Tartary, 
and the Wolga to the Persian gulf, and from the Ganges 
to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the 
hands of Timur. He threatened with his invincible 
hosts the nations of Christendom, who already trembled 
at his name ; but he had no naval force, and was there- 
fore unable to transport his victorious legions to the 
shores of Europe. Flushed with the conquest of so 
many countries and of such extensive regions, he re- 
turned to Samerkund in the month Moharrum a. h. 
807, or July a. d. 1404. 
