the court, army, and populace were
amused with pageants, shows, and entertainments of every kind; but
Nadir, though satisfied that this public celebration of triumph was
calculated to raise his fame with his subjects and to gratify the vanity
of his soldiers, appears always to have dreaded the danger of inaction.
He moved his army from Herat; and after meeting his son, Reza Kuli, and
bestowing valuable presents upon him and the other princes of his
family, he moved toward Bulkh, where he had ordered preparations to be
made for his crossing the Oxus to punish the sovereign of Bokhara, who,
unmindful of his established alliance, had taken advantage of his
absence in India to make inroads into the province of Khorasan.

The motives which induced Nadir to proceed upon this expedition were
soon apparent. He had no desire to extend the boundary of his empire in
a direction where he knew it could not be maintained, but he wished to
visit upon the inhabitants of this part of Tartary those calamities
which they were in the annual habit of inflicting upon the frontier
provinces of Persia. Abul Fyze Khan, who was the ruler of the Usbegs at
this period, boasted a lineal descent from Genghis; but he appears to
have inherited none of the spirit of his great ancestor. He was
terrified into submission at the approach of Nadir, and sent his vizier
to deprecate the wrath of that monarch. The minister was well received,
but told that his master must immediately surrender if he desired to
save himself from destruction and his country from ruin. While these
negotiations were carried on the Persian army advanced by rapid marches
to Bokhara, and on August 23d, five days after they had crossed the
Oxus, encamped within twelve miles of that capital, where his short
expedition was brought to a close by the personal submission of Abul
Fyze Khan, who, attended by all his court, proceeded to the tents of
Nadir Shah, and laid his crown and other ensigns of royalty at the feet
of the conqueror, who assigned him an honorable place in his assembly;
and a few days afterward restored him to his throne on the condition
that the Oxus should remain, as it had been in former periods, the
boundary of the two empires. This treaty was cemented by an alliance
between the daughter of the ruler of Bokhara and the nephew of his
conqueror; and after its conclusion a great number of Tartars were, with
the concurrence of their own monarch, enrolled in the Persian army