or, as he is incorrectly called, Tamerlane, one of the greatest conquerors the world has seen. He was born in 1335, at the village of Sehz, the ancient Alexandria Oxiana, in the district of Kesh, about 40 miles to the S.E. of Samarkand. His father, Taraghai Nowian, was hereditary chief of the tribe of Berlas, who occupied the district of Kesh; and his fifth ancestor had been vizier to Zagatai, son of Genghis Khan, and khan of Transoxiana, while Timur himself, by the female line, was connected with the imperial family. The time when he came into public notice was peculiarly favourable for daring and ambitious souls like him, for it was one of general anarchy and confusion in his native country. The line of Zagatai, which Timur had reigned over the kingdom of Transoxiana, also called Zagatai, had become extinct; and the contests of the several subject emirs were only quelled by the invasion and tyranny of the Gete or Kalmucks, under the khans of Kashgar, from the N.E. At the age of 25, Timur, who had been from his 12th year engaged in war, appeared as the deliverer of his country, and was appointed chief of the Berlas tribe. At first he had only 60 followers; and that number was reduced by an encounter with the Kalmucks to 7, with whom he went through many hardships and hairbreadth escapes. In the course of these adventures he was wounded in the thigh, and thence received the surname of Lame, or the Lame; whence the European Tamerlane.

At length, after many vicissitudes, in 1363 he expelled the Kalmucks, and raised to the throne Husein, who rewarded him with the hand of his sister. But this state of affairs was of brief duration; the quarrels between Timur and his monarch led at length to an open conflict; Husein was defeated by Timur, and slain in 1366 by some of his servants, who perceived that his was the losing side. Timur was thereupon, in 1369, appointed khan of Zagatai by the Kurultai or general council of the nation. But even at this elevation, Timur was still far from the summit of his ambition. He first directed his arms against the kingdom of Khwarezm or Khiva, in the west of Turkestan; and after five campaigns, captured the capital and subdued the country in 1379. He then determined to execute vengeance on the Kalmucks of Kashgar; and in seven marches traversed and conquered the country, extending his victorious arms as far as the Irtish and the forests of Siberia, about 1000 miles to the N.E. of his capital. Persia was the next kingdom that fell before the conqueror, and the way for its fall was prepared by the conquest of Candahar and Khorassan. Hitherto his conquests had been justified by the desire of revenge, and of recovering the patrimonial possessions of Zagatai; and now, as he was about to invade the lawful territory of another branch of the family of Genghis, the divided state of the country since the extinction of the line of Hulaku afforded a seasonable pretext, and at the same time exposed the country to an easy conquest. Fars, Irak, Mazanderan, Azerbijan, and Shirvan, in succession submitted or were subdued; the Christian prince of Georgia adopted the faith of the conqueror; and the cities of Kars, Van, and Edessa fell before his arms. This conquest was concluded in 1393. An attack on the conqueror by the khan of Kipzak, or the steppes of the Volga, led to an invasion of that country, in the course of which the towns of Azov, Serai, and Astrachan were laid in ashes; the Russians trembled for their capital, and the merchants of Western Europe for their commerce. Unsatisfied even with these vast conquests, Timur next resolved on the invasion of India. After passing the range of Hindoo Koosh, he crossed the Indus at Attoko; marched across the Punjab; defeated the sultan Mahmoud under the walls of Delhi, and entered that city in triumph. He then marched eastwards along the Himalaya range as far as the Brahmaputra; and it was on his return, while on the banks of the Ganges, in 1400, that he received news of the revolt of the Christians in Georgia, and the ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. After a few months repose at Samarcand, he set forth on a fresh expedition to the West. Success still followed the lame and now aged warrior; Syria was added to his conquests; Aleppo was taken by force, Damascus by treachery; and a pyramid of 90,000 heads was erected on the ruins of Bagdad. After two years thus spent, he entered Anatolia, crossed the Halyss, and invested Angora. Here Bajazet encountered the Tartar, and in a great battle was totally defeated and taken prisoner. The story of his confinement in an iron cage by Timur is doubted by historians, but cannot be pronounced certainly false. Timur's conquests now extended from the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Hellespont to the Ganges; but his insatiable ambition planned adding to them China, and he had even set out on this expedition, and marched 300 miles from his capital, when he was cut off by a fever in the 70th year of his age. Timur was not insensible to the charms of learning and science; he employed secretaries to record the events of his reign, and is said himself to have written memoirs of his life and government. But undoubtedly he was one of the most terrible scourges of mankind whose name history records, and few men have ever shed such torrents of blood to so little purpose. A Life of Timour Beg has recently been written by C. R. Markham (Hakluyt Society), 1860.

TIN. See Mining.