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STRANGERS TO THE SEA

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  Letters Selected From Ordinary Emigrants :  Steerage Passengers To Port Phillip   "For nearly a century following the first settlement of Australia, every immigrant, bond or free, had in common an experience none could forget: a passage under sail, lasting anything from two months to six, a passage from the old world to the new. Though nearly all had set out as strangers to the sea , they had crossed the world's most tempestuous oceans by a route not long before sailed by explorers. They had lived during the voyage in a state of limbo, out of touch with everyone but their shipmates, no longer belonging to the old world nor yet to the new. Day by day they had lived under conditions they could scarcely have imagined before their departure. When at last they had landed, they were by no means the same people who had boarded ship months before." (Don Charlwood, 2000 [1981], The Long Farewell , Burgewood Books, Warrandyte Vic., p. 1) Historically there has been something of a...
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Timurid Testimonials

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Part One TIMUR'S ACCOUNT of HIS INVASION of INDIA and SACK of DELHI (1398 - 1399 A.D.) About the year 800 A.H. ( 1398 A.D. ), there arose in my heart the desire to lead an expedition against the infidels and to become a Champion of the Faith, for it had reached my ears that the slayer of infidels is a Champion and that, if he is slain, he becomes a martyr ... In this matter I sought an omen from the Koran, and the verse to which I opened was this: 'O Prophet, make war upon infidels and unbelievers, and treat them with severity'. My officers told me that the inhabitants of Hindustan were infidels and unbelievers. In obedience to the mandate of Almighty God, I determined to make an expedition against them. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...  After spending fifteen days at Delhi, passing my time in pleasure and enjoyment, and in holding royal courts and giving great feasts, I reflected that I had come to Hindustan to war against infidels, a...
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Scourge of God

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Timur-the-Lame Central Asia was the source of some of history's worst psychopathic gangsters. Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan are bywords of the genre. To these mass-murderers must be added Timur the Lame (or Tambourlane as he was more commonly called after Christopher Marlowe's English play in the late sixteenth century). The Persian historian of the Timurids, Sharaf ad-Din 'Ali bYazdi, writes that "in the year of Mouse of Mongols on the 25th month Sha'ban, on Tuesday (the 8th of April in 1336) Tequina khatun and amir Taragai gave birth to Timur in the villyat of Kesh  (the modern town of Shahrisabz in Uzbekistan) ."  The Arab biographer of Timur, Ahmed Ibn 'Arabshah, presents various origin stories: Timur and his father were from the tribe of the shepherds, who had not belief and intelligence (Timur's father was a plain servant, Timur's father was a poor shoemaker) OR Timur's father was one of the pillars of Sultan Hussein's state (Timur...
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