Here are the memoirs a 15th century Mongol warlord. I can’t believe this actually exists.
You might think this would be kind of bloody, and you would be right. It is incredibly violent. Every other page he is either sacking or being sacked. Straightforward sample:
Those our men had brought in as prisoners were ordered to be beheaded and a pillar of heads was set up in our camp
A few pages later, after a battle, their Afghan enemies put grass between their teeth, which apparently means ‘I am your cow’ and is a sign of surrender. In response:
Some heads of Sultans and of others were sent to Kabul with the news . . some also to Badakhshan, Qunduz and Blakh with letters of victory
It is not all beheadings. He gives us many interesting descriptions of the peoples, animals, and landscapes he sees during this orgy of violence. He tells us that the elephant is “an immense animal and very sagnacious” but warns us that one can eat “the corn of two strings of camels.” He also describes his friends. How sweet is this guy:
He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the stringe he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away.
Or this guy:
He was extremely decorous; people say he used to hide his feet even in the privacy of his family
Or this one:
He danced wonderfully well, doing one dance quite unique and seeming to be his own invention
Imagine, five centuries later, this is all that persists of you in the world. And its more than most people get.
Later Barbur falls in love, with a local market boy:
I could never look straight at him: how then could I make conversation and recital? In my joy and agitation I could not thank him for coming; how was it possible for me to reproach him with going away?
You almost start to like him, partly because heis also charmingly pre-modern. The sun, we are told, is ‘spear-high’ and he once swims with his horse ‘as far as an arrow flies.’ Then you are reminded who we are dealing with. He meets some locals:
Snow fell ankle deep while we were on that ground; it would seem to e rare for snow to fall thereabouts, for people were much surprised.
How charming! Villagers in their first snowfall. Then he kills them all too.
This makes me feel modern life not all bad after all.