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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1885.
number of Muslim captives. Minhaj-i-Saraj ! assailing it from all sides at once, and prepared ways he first pitched his camp on the mound of a namber of grappling hooks, nails, ladders, Numan, and in the uncultivated plain of Kab and ropes, with which to scale the rock. between Talikan and Balkh, whence he pre- After many attempts, which were defeated by sently advanced to Talikân.' Ibn-al-Athir tells the garrison, a number of men with their us that when Cbinghiz Khân bad continued arms tied about them managed to scale the the attack with great loss for four months, he mountain. The besieged rashing to repel them ordered a huge mound to be built up, con- left other posts undefended, and these the sisting of alternate layers of tree-trunks and Mongols seized and thus possessed themselves of earth, which rose to the level of the walls, of the place. The capture of Talikan was proand on which was planted the siege machinery. bably the most difficult exploit as an engineerThe garrison thereupon opened one of the ing feat which Chinghiz Khân accomplished, gates and made a sortie, and the cavalry and the severity of the struggle may be managed to escape, but the infantry were gathered from the fact that he summoned his slaughtered. The Tartars entered the place, son, Tului, to return to him from his expedition made captive the women and children, and in Khorasan, and apparently also his other song plundered the treasures and merchandize : from Khwarizm. They arrived, however, after "otherwise not a soul was left alive, nor, we are its capture. told, was one stone left on another."
Meanwhile let us return once more to Minhaj-i-Saraj says that three months before Jalâla'd-din Khwarizm Shậh, whose retreat we its capture the people of the fortress put on deep traced as far as Shadyakh. He was closely blue mourning garments, and repaired daily to followed by the Mongols, who would perhaps the great mosque of the fortress to repeat the have captured him if they had not taken the Quran, and mourn with each other, and ended wrong direction where two roads diverged, by blessing each other, and, having said good and, we are told, made & march of as many bye, donned their arms and engaged in combat as forty farsakhs in one day. He fled, closely with the enemy, thus securing martyrdom. He pursued by way of Zauzan, Mabarnabád (?), goes on to say that on the side of the fortress and Yazdaviah, or Zaudiah (a dependency of where the upper gateway was situated they Herat) about 75 miles S.W. of that city, had excavated a ditch in the rock, and the where the parsuit was abandoned. MinhajMongols with stones from their catapults bat- i-Sarâj says he passed through the districts tered down the bastion at that point and filled of Nimroz, Bost and Dawar, and eventually in the ditch, and made a breach a hundred ells reached Ghazni. Nissavi tells us he delayed a in extent, but as Chinghiz Khân had sworn few days at Bost, a town of Seistân, but afraid that he would take the place on horseback, lest the Mongols should reach Ghazni before him the attack had to be continued for fifteen days he set out with 20,000 men towards Zabulistân longer, until the ground was made smoother without staying anywhere en route, and reached and more practicable. The Mongol cavalry at Ghazni, which was twenty-four days' journey length charged into the place, whereupon 500 from Bost, in safety. “The people there were of the defenders in a solid phalanx rushed out as much overjoyed at his arrival as the Musalby the gate called the Koh-i-Janinah of TAlikan, mång at the end of Ramazan, when the new broke through the Mongol ranks and cat their moon which terminates the fast appears." way out, and a large number of them escaped. Ghazni had recently been the scene of conChinghiz ordered the rest of the inhabitants, siderable confusion. When Muhammad Khwa. adds our anthor, to be martyred, ("may God rizm Shảh retired westwards he entrusted reward them !'') and the town to be destroyed. it to a Ghürian chief, named Muhammad Ali
According to Rashidu'd-dîn Chinghiz Khan Kharpost. Meanwhile his maternal uncle, having been baffled by the pertinacity of the Amin Malik, who had similarly been entrusted garrison determined to capture the fortress by with the protection of Herat, not feeling safe
• Op. cit., pp. 1009-1012. • Tabakat-1-Naşirf, pp. 1011-1012.
De la Croix, pp. 283-289.
Tabakat-i-Naşirt, p. 287, note 7.. • Id., text.
• De la Croix, pp. 801-802.
