in riches, that all they had found and seen in Persia would appear as nothing, in comparison with them.* Alexander neither

penetrated far into India, nor remained long there, and the treasures brought away by him in his short course, must have been soon replaced by the commerce which his expedition procured to the Hindūs with Egypt, under the Ptolemies, and which was greatly extended and increased after that country became subject to the Romans. The trade of India with foreign nations, was almost entirely maintained by its productions of gems, drugs, spices, and gums, cogether with its numerous valuable manuFactures. The amount of the goods received being much inferior to that furnished by it, the balance in its favor was paid in pecie; the money which once entered ndia, as now in China, remained there; ence its wealth in the precious metals must have continued to increase yearly, com the time we are speaking of, down to

* See Quintus Curtius, lib. ix. c. 1.

G

the beginning of the eighth century of our æra, the epoch given to the first appearance of its Mohammedan conquerors, in the person of Valid, the sixth of the Khalifs of the Ommiad dynasty. His conquests seem to have been confined to places contiguous to the Indus: but Mahmoud, sovereign of Ghizni, who entered India in 1002, is said to have subdued the countries southward as far as Visiapour, every where plundering and amassing riches, demolishing the temples, and putting numbers of the inhabitants of the country to the sword, for the sole offence of refusing to preserve life at the price of abjuring their religion. The accounts given by eastern historians of the wealth found by him, though they must appear fabulous, yet shew that it was immense. Mahmoud died in 1028. successors named Ghiznavides, from Ghizni, the capital of their dominions, continued to reign until 1157, when Shehab-eddin was deposed by Hussein Gauri, so named from Gaur, a province to the north of Ghizni. The Gaurides got possession of all the ter

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des finished its
Femoud, his nep
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ritories that had been enjoyed by their predecessors on both sides of the Indus. ShahAbdin, the fourth of the Gauride princes, during the life of his brother and predecessor, conquered Delhi and Moultan. After he became Emperor, he brought such prodigious riches from India to Ghizni, that, on his favourite daughter inquiring of the treasurer to what value they amounted, he answered, that there were three thousand pounds weight in diamonds only, by which she might judge of the rest. A private Hindu inflamed with indignation at the pollutions committed, and tyranny exercised by Shah-Abdin, vowed to kill him, and executed his vow. The dynasty of the Gaurides finished in 1212, in the person of Mahmoud, his nephew and successor. On he death of Mahmoud, who left no children, is dominions seem to have been separated nd kept by the different viceroys, or of cers, who governed them. In India, one f these named Nasser-Adin, kept Mouln; another, Kothab-Adin, Delhy; and n the west of the Indus, Tagy-Adin,

Ghizni. In 1214, Mohammed, prince of Korasan, took possession of Ghizni, but was expelled from it, as well as from his own territory, Korasan, by Gengis-Khan. The history of the Mohammedan conquests in India, of their rulers, and revolutions, till about the end of the fourteenth century, is a labyrinth which we shall avoid entering into, and is indeed a subject foreign to our present purpose. Those of Mahmoud, the Ghiznavide, had led to others; but the expedition of Tamerlane completed the ruin of the Hindū empire, and fixed on succeeding generations a lasting train of miseries. Tamerlane, in virtue of the conquests of Gengis-Khan, having granted to his grandson Mirza Pir Mahomed-Gehangir, all the dominions that were supposed to belong to the Ghiznian empire, on both sides of the Indus, he, early in 1398, crossed that river, marched to and subdued Moultan, while his grandfather advanced at the head of a powerful army from Samarcand. Tamerlane having also entered India, was met by his grandson, and after subduing the town

* put to dea igst by him to i red away by are ret exceed. assed by the Ga Jatisappearance

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See the march o

and provinces of Delhy, marched with a part of his army in a north-east direction as far as the place where the Ganges issues out of the mountains of Srinagur, about 100 miles E.N. E. of Hurdwar. From thence, moving in a north-west direction along the skirts of the Sewalic mountains, he quitted India at the spot where he had entered it.* His whole course through that henceforward devoted country, was marked with blood and devastation. In one single day he caused a hundred thousand Hindū prisoners to be put to death, because they were judged by him to be idolaters. The riches carried away by Tamerlane, are said to have yet exceeded those which had been amassed by the Gauride prince Shah-Abdin. The disappearance of this malignant meteor, was succeeded by scenes of persecutions and warfare, during which it may be presumed the Hindus endeavoured, as much

* See the march of Timur, in Rennell, p. 115 and eq.