Persia, and in substituting the fect of Ali, his real or fuppofed ancestor, to that of Omar, the acknowledged fucceffor of Mahomed. Ismail had many eminent qualities, but fullied them all by his deteftable cruelty. His fucceffors, without excepting ABBAS, abfurdly called the Great, were such a disgrace to human nature, that an account of their lives would be more like a defcription of the Tigers in fome publick collection of wild beasts, than a piece of history: almost every day of their lives was distinguished by fome horrid act of intemperance, luft, or murder, aggravated with fome new circumftance of wickedness: their very love was fierce and inhuman, and they burned for the flightest offences the most beautiful women of Afia, either because they declined drinking a cup of wine more than ufual, or interceded for fome courtier in difgrace. At length the vein of inhumanity feemed exhaufted in the family, and left nothing behind it but an inconceivable ftupidity. HUSSEIN, who reigned at the opening of this century, was a weak Zealot; and, by committing the management of his kingdom to Eunuchs and pernicious Minifters, left it. open to the, Savages who invaded it, and affaulted him even in his Metropolis. A bar ५ barous nation, called Afgans, or Avgans who inhabited the mountains between Candahar and the river Indus, rushed like a torrent into Perfia, and took Ifpahan after a violent fiege, under the command of MAHMUD, fon of MERVEIS, who, as all Europe knows, had fhaken off the Perfian yoke, and governed Candahar for eight years †. The kingdom of Perfia was reduced to a deplorable state, when TAHMASP was raised to the throne, after the abdication of his father Huffein, who was foon after murdered. Mahmud, the Ufurper, reigned in Ifpahan, and was fucceeded by his cousin Ashraf‡, who added to his dominions the cities of Kom, or افغان * اوغان + Thefe Afgans were, probably, the Paropamifada of the Ancients, whom Quintus Curtius defcribes in the seventh book of his Life of Alexander, "Ipfe rex nationem "ne finitimis quidem fuis fatis notam, quippe nullo com"mercio colentem mutuos ufûs, cum exercitu intravit. Paropamifadæ appellantur, agreste hominum genus, et "inter barbaros maximè inconditum." Curtius is extremely confused in his Afiatick Geography; but Ptolemy rightly places this nation with India on the east, the Country of Aria or Herat on the west, part of Khorafán on the north, and Zablestán, or Moltán, on the fouth. The Augans are mentioned by Ali Yezdi in his life of Tamerlane. M. de la Croix, in his maps, calls them Ouganés. Yezd, and Kazvin. The inhabitants of Candahar, the ancient Paropamifus, and those of Herat or Ariana had thrown off their allegiance to the Sultan, having established separate and distinct governments: in the provinces of Ghilán, Kermán, and Pars, feveral pretenders arofe at the head of confiderable forces the rebel Melek had made himself mafter of Khorafan, ordered money to be coined in his name, and wore the diadem of Perfia; the Turks had fubdued great part of Azarbigian or Media, and all the districts near the shore of the Cafpian were in the hands of the Ruffians. This was not all; a number of barbarous tribes, who inhabited the forefts and mountains, joined in the general commotion, and concurred to fill the whole Empire with defolation and rapine; while the new Emperor, who had fcarce common sense, was driven like a fugitive from city to city, attended only by a few troops, and fome Nobles as weak as himself. END OF THE TENTH VOLUME. |