The remainder, whose life or death was alike
useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return to the city; which,
in the mean while, had been stripped of its valuable furniture; and a
tax was imposed on those wretched inhabitants for the indulgence of
breathing their native air.
Such was the behavior of the Moguls, when they were not conscious of any
extraordinary rigor. But the most casual provocation, the slightest
motive of caprice or convenience, often provoked them to involve a whole
people in an indiscriminate massacre; and the ruin of some flourishing
cities was executed with such unrelenting perseverance that, according
to their own expression, horses might run, without stumbling, over the
ground where they had once stood. The three great capitals of Khorassan,
and Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of Genghis,
and the exact account which was taken of the slain amounted to four
million three hundred and forty-seven thousand persons. Timur, or
Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession
of the Mahometan religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages
of Tamerlane,[20] either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet
of the "Scourge of God.
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