e Moguls,
or they were massacred on the spot by the troops, who, with pointed
spears and bended bows, had formed a circle round the captive multitude.
The second class, composed of the young and beautiful women, of the
artificers of every rank and profession, and of the more wealthy or
honorable citizens, from whom a private ransom might be expected, was
distributed in equal or proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life
or death was alike useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return
to the city; which, in the mean while, had been stripped of its valuable
furniture; and a tax was imposed on those wretched inhabitants for the
indulgence of breathing their native air. Such was the behavior of the
Moguls, when they were not conscious of any extraordinary rigor. But the
most casual provocation, the slightest motive of caprice or convenience,
often provoked them to involve a whole people in an indiscriminate
massacre; and the ruin of some flourishing cities was executed with
such unrelenting perseverance, that, according to their own expression,
horses might run, without stumbling, over the ground where they had once
stood. The three great capitals of Khorasan, Maru, Neisabour, and Herat,
were destroyed by the armies of Zingis; and the exact account which
was taken of the slain amounted to four millions three hundred and
forty-seven thousand persons. Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a
less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion;
yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane, either the
Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of God.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.--Part II.

It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns depopulated the
provinces of the empire, by the number of Roman subjects whom they
led away into captivity. In the hands of a wise legislator, such an
industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts
of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these
captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among
the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their
respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and
unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not understand the merit of
a theologian, profoundly skilled in the controversies of the Trinity and
the Incarnation; yet they respected the ministers of every religion and
the active zeal of th