"Battle with the Sultan of Hindustan. Although the army of Timur was weak compared with this Indian army, still his soldiers did not rate their enemy very highly. But although they had fought in many battle, and overthrown many an enemy, they had never before encountered elephants. They had heard by report that the bodies of these elephants were so hard that no weapon would pierce them; that they could tear up strong trees with the wind (bad) of their trunks; that they could knock down strong houses with the pressure of their sides; and that in battle they could lift horse and horseman from the ground with their dragon-like trunk and raise them in the air. Exaggerations like these had raised apprehensions in the hearts of the soldiers. When Timur proceeded to appoint the places for the various officers of the court, he in his princely kindness, asked the learned doctors of the Law who accompanied the army in this invasion where he should place them. They, terrified with the stories they had heard of the elephants, answered: āIn the same place as the ladies and women.ā ... The soldiers of India fought bravely for their lives, but the frail insect cannot contend with the raging wind, nor the feeble deer against the fierce lion, so they were compelled to take to flight. Sultan Mahmud Khan, and those who fled with them, entered the city and closed the gates. Prince Khalil Sultan, of the right wing, not withstanding his youth, attacked one of the monster elephants, cut down his driver, and led the animal, as a husbandman drives a buffalo in the plough, to Timur."
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