After almost incredible labor and immense sacrifice of life, the besiegers succeeded in filling up a portion of the moat and in undermining the walls of the keep-a massive and lofty square tower, on the north-eastern angle. It fell at last with a fearful crash, burying beneath its ruins hundreds of its brave defenders, and not a few of its persevering assailants. It was vain to attempt to hold out longer, and so the gallant governor threw open the gates and delivered the keys to the conqueror. Such a noble defence might well have excited the admiration of any soldier or patriot; but Timur was a remorseless tyrant, incapable alike of appreciating and acknowledging patriotism. The governor was murdered in cold blood, and his gallant band of veterans, with their wives, children, and aged parents, met a worse fate, being sold into slavery.

Immense treasures were found in the castle, and at once seized but, with that strange inconsistency which is a peculiar characteristic of Mohammedanism, while private property was taken, some valuable stores laid aside for the use of the Haj pilgrimage and the people of Mecca were left untouched. Timur, whose hands were yet reeking with the blood of his murdered victims, and his ears ringing with the cry of orphan children and widowed mothers, whom his soldiers were driving to slavery, reproached the Damascenes for their want of piety in neglecting to erect monuments over the graves of two of the prophet's wives! And now he expended a portion of the treasures he had accumulated by pillage and murder in rearing marble mausoleums in honor of these venerated matrons.

But the fearful conclusion of the tragedy was yet to come. The wretched inhabitants who had escaped the first onset of the Tartars, and who had afterwards redeemed their lives with gold, retired to their homes again, as they believed, in peace. Timur, filled with holy zeal, pondered what new evidence of his piety he could exhibit, and his mind, ever fertile in such expedients, soon devised a plan whereby his faith would be manifested and his revenge satiated. Summoning his generals round him, he addressed them in the following words: "I am informed," he said, "that, in the wars

of the Khalifs of the house of Omeiyah with the descendants of Mohammed, and especially with 'Aly, the rightful son and heir of the Prophet, and in which they perpetrated every act of cruelty they could invent, the Syrians aided them in their sacrilegious and bloody deeds. This, to me, is strange beyond conception; for how any nation could pretend to receive the doctrine of the Prophet, and to have been raised by the light of his revelation from the abyss of error and infidelity, and yet become the enemy of his kindred and family to such a degree as to unite with his bitterest foes in exercising toward them every species of injustice, I cannot comprehend! Yet I entertain no doubt this day that these traditions are true; for had they been false, and had the people of this land been innocent, a judgment so fearful as that now inflicted upon them would never have emanated from the tribunal of Divine justice!"

After these extraordinary words he was silent. He uttered no command; he expressed no wish. But his chiefs could interpret the will of their lord, and the consequences of his speech are thus recorded by his biographer and admirer: "On the first of the month Shaban (A. H. 803) the excited soldiers rushed upon the devoted and helpless city, and commenced a scene of wanton outrage and slaughter such as it is impossible to imagine. Houses were stripped of every valuable, and their inmates exposed to every outrage which cruelty could devise or lust suggest. Neither age nor sex was spared; but those that escaped the sword, or survived the atrocious indignities of a ruffian soldiery, were dragged from their homes and sold into slavery. Such vast masses of treasures and valuables were collected by the army that they could not, with all their available baggage-animals, carry them away. The carnage lasted for ten days, and then it was consummated by the burning of the city. Timur," adds his historian, "whose piety was without a parallel, used every effort to save the Mosque of the Omeiyades, but in vain, for the roof caught the flames, and the eastern minaret fell to the ground."

Never had this ancient city, during the long ages through which it stood, and the many dynasties and nations to which it had been forced to submit, so fearfully experienced the horrors of conquest as now. Its vast wealth was dissipated

in a day; its stores of antique gems and gorgeous fabrics were seized by those who had neither the taste to appreciate nor the knowledge to discern their real value; its spacious palaces, with their marble halls, and inlaid fountains, and walls and ceilings of arabesque, and divans of richest silk, embroidered with gold and sparkling with jewels, were all pillaged and left in ashes; its great libraries, filled with the literature patronized by the later Khalifs, and cultivated by native savans-stored, too, with the carefully-preserved writings of the fathers of the Eastern Church-were almost wholly destroyed. Tradition records that of the large Christian population only one family escaped the desolation of the Tartars. Their descendants still exist, and I have heard from their lips the fearful tales of the sufferings of their ancestors, which have been carefully transmitted from sire to son.

After devastating Syria with fire and sword, Timur returned to his native land. On his arrival, prompted by caprice, perhaps by some better principle, he gave orders for the release of all the captives, of every age and sex, that had been taken in Syria. His command was strictly obeyed, and the motley crowd that had belonged to this city were brought back in safety to the plain of the Ghutah. It must have been a heartrending sight to behold these destitute and houseless people assembling round the blackened walls and smouldering ruins of this ancient city, and mourning in their misery and helplessness over the wreck of fortune, the desolation of country, and the murder of kindred and friends.-J. L. PORTER.

ETER or Pedro I., King of Castile, is a notable instance of those sovereigns whose characters have been stigmatized in history by the epithet attached to their names. His whole career justifies the verdict of history expressed in the word "cruel."

Pedro was born at Burgos on the 30th of August, 1333. He was the only legitimate son left by Alphonso XI., whom he succeeded at the age of sixteen. Pedro had been badly brought up in retirement by his mother, Donna Maria, of Portugal, and remained for a time under her influence. To her is to be attributed the treacherous execution of Leonora de Guzman, the beautiful mistress of the late king, by whom he had three sons, who had accompanied their father in many campaigns. Pedro soon displayed a disposition equally perfidious and sanguinary. He caused the objects of his displeasure to be murdered without trial, and scrupled no means to get into his power those whom he feared or suspected.

Don Juan Alonzo de Albuquerque, who had been his father's chancellor and prime minister, with a view of confirming his own authority, introduced the young king in 1352 to the beautiful Maria de Padilla, a lady of noble birth, of whom he became so much enamored that her influence over him was attributed by the superstitious to witchcraft. At the same time a marriage was negotiating for him with Blanca, daughter of the Duke of Bourbon. It took place in 1353; but Pedro remained with his bride only three days, and