His trusty hands were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against a superior foe, and after some vicissitudes of war, the Getes were finally driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory, but much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some blood to be spilled, before he could teach his equals to obey him as their master. The birth and power of Emir Houssein compelled him to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous; but the policy of Timour in their frequent quarrels exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy; and, after a small defeat, Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to disobey the commands of their lord. At the age of thirty-four, and in a general diet or _couroultai_, he was invested with imperial command, but he affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the Emir Timour reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom, five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of the world, and before his death the crown of Zagatai was one of the twenty-seven crowns which he had placed on his head. The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West; his posterity is still invested with the imperial title; and the admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in some degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. Although he was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar discourse he was grave and modest, and, if he was ignorant of the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new refinements. In his religion he was a zealous though not perhaps an orthodox Mussulman; but his sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy.