The next year was marked by a pestilence, which raged with unexampled violence over the Page 583 whole of Persia and the neighbouring countries, including India, and which probably occasioned a sort of suspension of military operations; but in AD 1034, AH 425, while Masaud was engaged in settling Mazanderan, his generals received another defeat from the Seljuks, to whom all his wisest counsellors