eserved in a later
period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or Persia, was
achieved by Holagou Khan, [231] the grandson of Zingis, the brother and
lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou and Cublai. I shall
not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs, and atabeks, whom he trampled
into dust; but the extirpation of the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians [24] of
Persia, may be considered as a service to mankind. Among the hills
to the south of the Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with
impunity above a hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam,
established his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount
Libanus, so famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. [25]
With the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was their
first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to the
vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in the
East and West: the Christians and the Moslems enumerate, and persons
multiply, the illustrious victims that were sacrificed to the zeal,
avarice, or resentment of _the old man_ (as he was corruptly styled)
_of the mountain_. But these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the
sword of Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,
except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has been
adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbassides
cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline.
Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the caliphs had recovered
their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the Arabian Irak; but the city was
distracted by theological factions, and the commander of the faithful
was lost in a harem of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the
Moguls he encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. "On the
divine decree," said the caliph Mostasem, "is founded the throne of the
sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in this world
and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to rise against them?
If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly depart from the sacred
territory; and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon of
his fault." This presumption was cherished by a perfidious vizier, who
assured his master, that, even if the Barbarians had entered the city,
the women and children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to
ove