ined in the position which they had taken up, waiting
for the tribute, and keeping slack guard, since they considered that
they had nothing to fear. Varahran, however, was all the while preparing
to fall upon them unawares. He had started for Azerbijan with a small
body of picked warriors; he had drawn some further strength from
Armenia; he proceeded along the mountain line through Taberistan,
Hyrcania, and Nissa (Nishapur), marching only by night, and carefully
masking his movements. In this way he reached the neighborhood of Merv
unobserved. He then planned and executed a night attack on the invading
army which was completely successful. Attacking his adversaries suddenly
and in the dark--alarming them, moreover, with strange noises, and at
the same time assaulting them with the utmost vigor--he put to flight
the entire Tatar army. The Khan himself was killed; and the flying host
was pursued to the banks of the Oxus. The whole of the camp equipage
fell into the hands of the victors; and Khatoun, the wife of the great
Khan, was taken. The plunder was of enormous value, and comprised
the royal crown with its rich setting of pearls. After this success,
Varahran, to complete his victory, sent one of his generals across the
Oxus at the head of a large force, and falling upon the Tatars in their
own country defeated them a second time with great slaughter. The
enemy then prayed for peace, which was granted them by the victorious
Varahran, who at the same time erected a column to mark the boundary of
his empire in this quarter, and, appointing his brother Narses governor
of Khorassan, ordered him to fix his residence at Balkh, and to prevent
the Tatars from making incursions across the Oxus. It appears that
these precautions were successful, for we hear nothing of any further
hostilities in this quarter during the remainder of Varahran's reign.

The adventures of Varahran in India, and the enlargement of his
dominions in that direction by the act of the Indian king, who is said
so have voluntarily ceded to him Mekran and Scinde in return for his
services against the Emperor of China, cannot be regarded as historical.
Scarcely more so is the story that Persia had no musicians in his day,
for which reason he applied to the Indian monarch, and obtained from him
twelve thousand performers, who became the ancestors of the Lurs. After
a reign which is variously estimated at nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,
and twenty-three years, Vara