[Footnote 5: The original of the tale is found in the following work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style: _Ahmedis Arabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _VitÊ et Rerum gestarum Timuri. Arabice et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger. Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom. in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a malicious, and often an ignorant enemy: the very titles of his chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as how the viper, &c. The copious article of Timur, in BibliothËque Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D'Herbelot indifferently draws his materials (p. 877--888) from Khondemir Ebn Schounah, and the Lebtarikh.] [Footnote 6: _Demir_ or _Timour_ signifies in the Turkish language, Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By the change of a letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or Lame; and a European corruption confounds the two words in the name of Tamerlane. * Note: According to the memoirs he was so called by a Shaikh, who, when visited by his mother on his birth, was reading the verse of the Koran, 'Are you sure that he who dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up, and behold _it shall shake_, Tam˚rn." The Shaikh then stopped and said, "We have named your son _Tim˚r_," p. 21.--M.] [Footnote 606: He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the capital of Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 260.--M.] In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession of the house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he sprang from the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had been the vizier [607] of Zagatai, in his new realm of Transoxiana; and in the ascent of some generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, at least by the females, [7] with the Imperial stem. [8] He was born forty miles to the south of Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the fruitful territory of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary chiefs, as well as of a toman of ten thousand horse. [9] His birth [10] was cast on one of those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of the Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition. The khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to independence; and their domestic feuds could only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny of the khans of Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, [11] invaded the Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age, Timour had entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth [111] he stood forth as the deliverer of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the people were turned towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with their lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were silent and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives