J.C.1722. enough to defend. Being affured of the affifHeg.1134, 1135 tance of the Tartars of Herat, he turned his troops towards Mached, the capital of Korazan, and at length made himself fovereign without refiftance. The mifery of the befieged being arTived at its height, Shah Huffein ordered his minifters to go and offer a capitulation. The barbarous Afghvans eluded this propofal: they wanted to have Ifpahan fo depopulated by the famine, that their little army might be in no danger from treachery when amidst fuch a number of people who were their enemies. One cannot,

without weeping, fays the Perfian hiftorian, read the circumstances of the dreadful famine which this conduct occafioned. It was then the latter end of September: fince the month of Auguft the flesh of horses, mules, and other beasts of burden, fold at an exceffive price; there was no longer any one but the king, the principal officers of the palace, and the richest people, who ate of it. Though the religion of the Perfians makes them abhor the flesh of dogs and feveral other animals reputed unclean, all thofe that they could find were confumed in a few days. The people then lived on the bark of trees, on leaves, and on hides foftened in boiling water. But this wretched resource failing, they were obliged to fubmit to live on human flesh; never was there fo much eaten in any fiege. Men, with death painted on their countenance, cut from dead bodies wherewithal to fuftain the feeble

feeble remains of a languishing existence; others, J.C. 1722 Heg.1134 with wild looks, ran the streets with clubs in their & 1135hands, and carried off children, or knocked men on the head with the fame design; and when, by a remnant of juftice, thefe unhappy people were punished, they served for food in their turn, A furious neceffity stifling every fentiment of humanity, the husband flaughtered his wife, the brother his fifter, the fathers and mothers their children, to make this horrible ufe of them. The water of Senderut was fo corrupted by the multitude of dead bodies, that people could not drink of it. In a lefs healthy climate, the infected air would have been fufficient to destroy the small number of inhabitants that ftill lived.

At length Shah Huffein having sent several times to entreat his barbarous vanquisher to accept his crown and grant food and fetters to the few fubjects whom he was earnest to offer him, the 23d of October he was ordered to repair with his retinue to the camp of Mir Mamout; and the Tartar, adding infult to cruelty, gave orders that the king of Perfia fhould wait outfide his tent, to prevent his disturbing his repofe. Shah Huffein being at length admitted, after half an hour, to an audience of the vanquisher, faftened himself the egrets of diamonds to his turban, which are in Perfia, as in Turkey, the mark of fovereignty, and of which he had just stripped himself. Mir Mamout caufed provifions to be diftributed in Ifpahan; and after having treated

Shah

J.C. 1722. Shah Huffein with more humanity than he had Heg.1134, &1145 expected, he fent him well guarded into a private apartment of the palace of Ifpahan.

The ufurper entered the capital with a martial pomp that would have increased the terror of the Perfians, had it not been at its height; but as an abundance fucceeded almoft fuddenly to the moft horrid famine, the cessation of the evil and the reflection on the faults of the last reign, which had been the cause of it, confoled those who hoped they should fuffer no longer. In this moment an embassy from Peter the Great, czar of Moscovy, arrived at Ispahan to complain to Shah Huffein that the Leghis Tartars, feudatories of Perfia, fettled on the borders of the Cafpian sea, had maffacred fome engineers fent by the czar to furvey those coasts and take plans of them. The ufurper replied, instead of the lawful fovereign, that the Leghis were his friends and not his fubjects; that he had no power over thefe free people; that, if the czar would fend caravans over their territories, he fhould either have made an alliance with them, or had his fubjects fo escorted, that they should have nothing to fear from the rapacity of these Tartars accustomed to live on plunder. This answer, and the particulars which the czar learned at the fame time from Perfia, determined him to fubjugate these freebooters of whom he had to complain, and to make himself mafter of the provinces that lay convenient for him. The pretext was fair. Peter

Heg.1134

gave out that he was going to take up the caufe J.C. 1722. of the fophi, of whom he was the ally, and to re- & 1135 ftore to his fon, a fugitive at Cafbin, and who in vain fought avengers among his fubjects, feveral of the provinces which he had loft by the rebellion. The czar repaired to Aftrachan, where his troops were to join. He embarked a numerous infantry compofed of Ruffians, Coffacks, and Calmucks. He landed troops feveral times to ravage the country of the Leghis, burn their tents and crops, and beat parties of freebooters, who did not expect to meet an army. In fine, the czar overran the Daghestan and Shirvan, two takes two northern provinces of the Tartars which border on the Cafpian fea, without meeting any refiftance worth mentioning. He left garrisons in the principal towns, which are not fo good as our fmalleft villages, thoroughly refolved to build fortreffes there in the fequel; and re-embarked about the end of the autumn to regain Aftrachan before the storms, which are very frequent on the Cafpian fea at that feafon, fhould endanger his army.

The czar

Tartarian

provinces.

Heg.1135,

are defirous

war de..

This fuccefs greatly alarmed the Turks, who J.C.1723. found Peter the Great a neighbour already too & 1136. formidable. The khan of the Crimean Tartars The people fent word to the Porte, that the Ruffians, not of having fatisfied with making themselves mafters of the clared aborders of the Cafpian fea, were fortifying their on this occonquests, and had a correspondence with the prince of Georgia; that if the Ottomans and Cri

YOL. IV.

M m

mean

gainst him

cafion.

J.C.1723 mean Tartars remained in inaction, this new Heg.1135,

& 1136. power would fo extend itfelf, that it would furround all the poffeffions of the Porte in Afia. Sultan Achmet was no way defirous of a war, and his grand vizier dreaded it as much as his master. The wounds of the war of Belgrade were not yet healed up, and the grand feignior, always admiring his heaps of gold, could not part with it without great pain. However, the officers of the divan, and those of the janiffaries, thought it would be too difgraceful and fatal for the Ottoman empire to let the czar of Ruffia conquer Perfia. These people, who were groaning under a load of taxes, and who had been refufed wherewithal to rebuild their houfes, after the laft fire, loudly demanded an account of the money which had been collected in the capital and the provinces, fince there was not fufficient in the public treafury to relieve the unfortunate or defend the frontiers.

These murmurs obliged the grand vizier Ibrahim to make preparations. The cloak of fable and the mace of arms, which are the marks of inveftiture, were fent to the two khans of the Dagheftan and Shirvan, whom the czar had stripped of their fovereignties, announcing to them. that the Porte took them under its protection. The bafhaws of the empire were ordered to af femble the forces of their governments; and the grand feignior fent to the three republics of Barbary to invite them to recall their corfairs, and

to