“Learn,” wrote Tamerlane to Bajazet, “that the earth is covered with my warriors from sea-to sea.  Kings compose my body guard, and range themselves as servants before my tent.  Are you ignorant that the destiny of the universe is in my hands?  Who are you?  A Turkoman ant.  And dare you raise your head against an elephant?  If in the forests of Natolia you have obtained some trivial successes; if the timid Europeans have fled like cowards before you, return thanks to Mohammed for your success, for it is not owing to your own valor.  Listen to the counsels of wisdom.  Be content with the heritage of your fathers, and, however small that heritage may be, beware how you attempt, in the slightest degree, to extend its limits, lest death be the penalty of your temerity.”

To this insolent letter, Bajazet responded in terms equally defiant.

“For a long time,” he wrote, “Bajazet has burned with the desire to measure himself with Tamerlane, and he returns thanks to the All-powerful that Tamerlane now comes himself, to present his head to the cimeter of Bajazet.”

The two conquerors gathered all their resources for the great and decisive battle.  Tamerlane speedily reached Aleppo, which city, after a bloody conflict, he entered in triumph.  The Tartar chieftain was an impostor and a hypocrite, as well as a merciless butcher of his fellow-men.  He assembled the learned men of Aleppo, and assured them in most eloquent terms that he was the devoted friend of God, and that the enemies who resisted his will were responsible to God for all the evils their obstinacy rendered it necessary for him to inflict.  Before every conflict he fell upon his knees in the presence of the army in prayer.  After every victory, he assembled his troops to return thanks to God.  There are some sad accounts to be settled at the judgment day.  In marching from Aleppo to Damascus, Tamerlane visited ostentatiously the pretended tomb of Noah, that upon the shrine of that patriarch, so profoundly venerated by the Mohammedans, he might display his devotion.

Damascus was pillaged of all its treasures, which had been accumulating for ages, and was then laid in ashes.  The two armies, headed by their respective chieftains, met in Galacia, near Ancyra.  It was the 16th of June, 1402.  The storm of war raged for a few hours, and the army of Bajazet was cut to pieces by superior numbers, and he himself was taken captive.  Tamerlane treated his prisoner with the most condescending kindness, seated him by his side upon the imperial couch, and endeavored to solace him by philosophical disquisitions upon the mutability of all human affairs.  The annals of the day do not sustain the rumor that Bajazet was confined in an iron cage.

The empire of Tamerlane now extended from the Caspian and the Mediterranean to the Nile and the Ganges.  He established his capital at Samarcand, some six hundred miles east of the Caspian Sea.  To this central capital he returned after each of his expeditions, devoting immense treasures to the erection of mosques, the construction of gardens, the excavation of canals and the erection of cities.  And now, in the pride and plenitude of his power, he commenced his march upon Russia.