last remnant took refuge in a mosque, where two of Timur’s most distinguished generals rushed in upon them at the head of five hundred soldiers; and, as the amiable historian tells us, ’sent to the abyss of hell the souls of these infidels, of whose heads they erected towers, and gave their bodies for food to birds and beasts of prey’.  Being at last tired of slaughter, the soldiers made slaves of the survivors, and drove them out in chains; and, as they passed, the officers were allowed to select any they liked except the masons, whom Timur required to build for him at Samarkand a church similar to that of Iltutmish in old Delhi.

He now set out to take Meerut, which was at that time a fortified town of much note.  The people determined to defend themselves, and happened to say that Tarmah Shirin, who invaded India at the head of a similar body of Tartars a century before,[48] had been unable to take the place.  This so incensed Timur that he brought all his forces to bear on Meerut, took the place, and having had all the Hindoo men found in it skinned alive, he distributed their wives and children among his soldiers as slaves.  He now sent out a division of his army to murder unbelievers, and collect plunder, over the cultivated plains between the Ganges and Jumna, while he led the main body on the same pious duty along the hills from Hardwar[49] on the Ganges to the west.  Having massacred a few thousands of the hill people, Timur read the noon prayer, and returned thanks to God for the victories he had gained, and the numbers he had murdered through his goodness; and told his admiring army that a religions war like this produced two great advantages:  it secured eternal happiness in heaven, and a good store of valuable spoils on earth—­that his design in all the fatigues and labours which he had undertaken was solely to render himself pleasing to God, treasure up good works for his eternal happiness, and get riches to bestow upon his soldiers and the poor.  The historian makes a grave remark upon this invasion:  The Koran declares that the highest glory man can attain in this world is unquestionably waging a successful war in person against the enemies of his religion (no matter whether those against whom it is waged happen ever to have heard of this religion or not).  Muhammad inculcated the same doctrine in his discourses with his friends; and, in consequence, the great Timur always strove to exterminate all the unbelievers, with a view to acquire that glory, and to spread the renown of his conquests.  ‘My name’, said he, ’has spread terror through the universe, and the least motion I make is capable of shaking the whole earth.’