the less
turbulent residence of Bagdad; the insolence of the Turks was curbed
with a firmer and more skilful hand, and their numbers were divided
and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been
taught to trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings
of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and
discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism, that I
seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome. [100]

[Footnote 97: M. de Guignes, who sometimes leaps, and sometimes
stumbles, in the gulf between Chinese and Mahometan story, thinks he
can see, that these Turks are the Hoei-ke, alias the Kao-tche, or
high-wagons; that they were divided into fifteen hordes, from China and
Siberia to the dominions of the caliphs and Samanides, &c., (Hist. des
Huns, tom. iii. p. 1-33, 124-131.)]

[Footnote 98: He changed the old name of Sumera, or Samara, into the
fanciful title of Sermen-rai, that which gives pleasure at first sight,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 808. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le
Tigre p. 97, 98.)]

[Footnote 99: Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz: Correptum
pedibus pertrahunt, et sudibus probe permulcant, et spoliatum laceris
vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo aestu pedes alternos
attollebat et demittebat. Adstantium aliquis misero colaphos continuo
ingerebat, quos ille objectis manibus avertere studebat..... Quo facto
traditus tortori fuit, totoque triduo cibo potuque prohibitus.....
Suffocatus, &c. (Abulfeda, p. 206.) Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says,
services ipsi perpetuis ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus
conculcabant, (p. 208.)]

[Footnote 100: See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel, Montasser,
Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the Bibliotheque of D'Herbelot,
and the now familiar Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda.]

While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, the pleasure,
and the knowledge, of the age, it burnt with concentrated heat in the
breasts of the chosen few, the congenial spirits, who were ambitious of
reigning either in this world or in the next. How carefully soever the
book of prophecy had been sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes,
and (if we may profane the word) even the reason, of fanaticism might
believe that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, in the fulness of time, would