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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1884.
ever buildings remained. The greater number of houses were probably built of unburnt bricks, and bullocks and ploughs were brought, and its site was sown with barley, and the Mongol horses fed on it when it sprang up. One Mongol officer and four Tajiks were left to slay any who might have escaped the massacre. Minhaj-iSaraj says Tului martyred every person in Nishapur, desolated it, razed the walls of the city, and having had a pair of oxen yoked he had them driven over the city, so that not a vestige of its buildings remained." Nissavi says that four or five years after, Jelal-u'd-dîn Khuárezm Shah having recovered Persia, let out to farm the right of digging for treasure in the desolated district for 30,000 dinars a year. Often this sum was recovered in a single day, and even moretreasure buried with its owners. Twelve days were spent in counting the dead, which Mirkhond tells us numbered 1,747,000,0 & terrible hecatomb, representing very probably the depopulation not of the city merely, but of the whole district. It has been remarked as strange that these cities of Khorasan did not offer the sturdy resistance to the Mongols that was offered by the smaller fortresses, but the fact is that, like Paris in the recent siege the very number of useless mouths to be fed was a great source of weakness to the garrison, and created a continual clamour for terms.
Ibn-al-Athir says that when the Mongols had made an end of Nishapur they sent a detachment to Tus, which did the like again there, and pillaged it and plundered the tombs of Ali-ibn Musa-ar-Riza (the descendant of the Prophet, 80 much venerated by the Shias) and Harûn-ar-Rashid, until they reduced everything to ruins. Tus revived again with great splendour during the dynasty of the Sefei, who changed its site a little, and gave it the new name of Meshed.
Tului also ravished the district of Kuhistan, and then proceeded to attack Herat, the only great town left intact in Khorasan. Having reached Bartu, a place near Herat, called Shabartu by Raverty, he sent an envoy named Zenbur to summon the place, which was governed by Malik Shems-u'd-din Jurjáni. We are told by Khuandamir that he was only
nominally subject to the Khuárezm Shah, with whom he was in fact at feud, and had surprised Herat during the absence of Amin Malik, the Sultan's uncle. The garrison is said to have numbered 100,000.0 Tului's envoy asked that the prince himself with his generals, judges, and other grandees should come out and make his submission. He replied truculently, that it was far from him to submit himself to unbelieving Tartars and Mongols," and be ordered the envoy to be put to death. This naturally greatly enraged Tului, and he drew near the city with his forces. It proved, however, to be very strongly fortified, being then as now one of the most important fortresses of Asia, and its garrison resisted and fought desperately. Several thousands of the besiegers were killed, and among them 1,700 of Tului's picked men, his beks, says Abulghazi. The struggle thus went on for seven days, on the eighth a furious battle was fought, during which Shems-u'd-din was killed by an arrow. This fact was concealed, but two parties im. mediately arose inside. The town was only * recent conquest of the Khuárezm Shah's, and could not be expected to be very loyal to him. One party, including Jelal-u'd-dîn's supporters and the troops, were for resisting to the end. The other, consisting of the Persian citizens with the Kadhi and other magnates, were for asking terms. The fact of its dubious allegi. ance to Jelal-u'd-din, and the great resistance he had received doubtless induced Talui, notwithstanding his envoy's death, to treat it better than was his wont. He rode to the edge of the ditch with 200 men, and offered the people their lives if they would sobmit and obey his deputies, and he promised to exact from them only half the taxes paid to the Khuârezm Shah, and fortified his promise with a strong oath. Thereupon the city gates were thrown open. First of all the Muqaddam, or superintendent of the weavers, Erdmann says the guardian of the wardrobe, the Amir Iz'u'd-din, came out with 100 people of his trade, each bearing nine pieces of famous Herat cloth as a present for Tului, who received them well, as he did the magnates of the place. He kept his word so far as the civilians were concerned, but he
60 Tabakat---Nasiri, pp. 1031-1034, and notes; Erdmann, p. 419; D'Ohason, vol. I, pp. 288-290.
e1 D'Oheson, vol. I, p. 291.
I
6 Erdmann, p. 420. . De La Croix, pp. 298 and 299.
