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 Khorassan,
and Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of Genghis,
and the exact account which was taken of the slain amounted to four
million 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,[20] either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet
of the "Scourge of God."

It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns depopulated the
provinces of the Empire, by the murder 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;
ind the active zeal of the Christian missionaries, without approaching
the person or the palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the
propagation of the Gospel.