eighth century the Mohammedans seem, for the first time, to have invaded its soil. The commercial intercourse subsisting between Arabia and Hindoostan, tended to direct the attention of the warlike inhabitants of the former to a country abounding in wealth, and professing a religion most hateful in the eyes of a Moslem.

The wild legends of Arabian romance invested the imperfectly known region with the richest hues of fiction: they told of its massive pearls, of its countless diamonds, of the rich texture of its silks, and the costliness of its perfumes. Sitting in the public places of Baghdad or Cairo, the Eastern story-teller transferred to India the scenes of his most extravagant narrations, being satisfied, that in so distant a locality the personages of his tale could enact no wonders too exalted for the credulity of his astonished listeners. Fired by these tales, and by the scarcely less romantic reports of travellers and voyagers, the zealous votaries of Islam soon crossed the frontiers of Hindoostan, to propose to its trembling inhabitants the option of the Koran or the sword. Respecting their first invasion, however, we know little more than the date. About the middle of the tenth century, however, history records less obscurely the invasion of Sabuktaghin. This prince, originally a military adventurer, had usurped the throne of Khorassan, from whence he cast a longing eye upon the rich plains and well watered pastures of the Punjaub. Crossing the Indus, his victorious arms broke through all opposition, and the zeal of the invader for the creed of Islam was exhibited by the ruined and desecrated temples which marked his route. It was in vain that the King of Lahore attempted to divert the attention of his enemy by an expedition against his own capital; Sabuktaghin penetrated the design, and pursuing the Hindoos came up with them on the western side of the Indus, which river they had recently crossed. Night drew on as the armies approached each other, the in

MAHMOUD OF GHUZNEE.

9

tended action was postponed till the dawn, but during the hours of darkness a heavy storm of hail descended upon the Indians, who, struck with an unaccountable panic, abandoned their monarch and betook themselves to a precipitate flight. Deserted by his army, the Indian rajah sued for peace, which Sabuk taghin seemed not indisposed to grant, though the intended truce met with violent opposition from his son Mahmoud. Fearful, however, of driving his enemy to despair, the invader at length consented to accord favourable terms; but after his return to Lahore, the Indian prince shrank from fulfilling his part of the treaty, and thus afforded the Mohammedans a pretext for war, which they at once eagerly embraced. Followed by a numerous force, Sabuktaghin again crossed the Indus, and returned home from a campaign which had been completely successful, laden with spoils of immense value. His death and the contests of his sons for the vacant throne, gave some respite to the trembling Hindoos; but the removal of one of their most formidable scourges only prepared the way for another, who inflicted upon them even greater disasters. Mahmoud, commonly styled, of Ghuznee, had been the victor in that fraternal contest which arose after the death of Sabuk taghin; and the first act of his reign was the public utterance of a solemn vow, that he would give no rest to the idolaters of India, until he had destroyed their temples and laid prostrate their shrines. This sanguinary promise he fulfilled to the letter. Delhi, Kinnoge, Lahore, Moultan, and Gujerat, were subdued after a fierce resistance, in which the Hindoos had been stimulated alike by patriotism, and religious zeal. Among the numerous shrines that attracted the fanaticism or avarice of the conqueror, was a temple at Somnauth, in Gujerat, famed for its magnificence and the multitude of the Brahmins engaged in its service. Mahmoud besieged the well fortified sanctuary, stormed its defences, and, notwithstanding the most

determined resistance, succeeded at length in forcing an entrance into the inner shrine where stood the idol, surrounded by its trembling priests. Regardless of the entreaties of the Brahmins, who offered as a ransom for their image the large sum of ten millions sterling, the victorious Moslem broke it in pieces with his mace, and found concealed in the interior a valuable collection of jewels, diamonds, and rubies.

After the death of Mahmoud, the dissensions of his sons, and the rise of the Seljuk power, destroyed the flourishing empire which he had established in Khorassan. A rival dynasty arose at Ghor, or Gaur, and the princes of this line became, like their predecessors, the scourges of the Hindoos.

The Gauride dynasty were in their turn destroyed by the Sultans of Khowarezm, whose power afterwards sank in consequence of the invasion of Genghis Khan. The last sovereign of the Khowarezmian race, Jelaleddin attempted to maintain in India the supremacy of his house, but the opposition he encountered obliged him to recross the Indus; and although the valour of his troops won back for their leader a portion of his own territory, he did not long survive this conquest, and finally perished in Kurdistan, by internal treachery.

The descendants of the Gauride dynasty, though deprived of their western dominions, still reigned at Delhi, and bore rule over some of the finest provinces of northern Hindoostan. The invasion of Timour desolated the country, and produced a state of anarchy and confusion, during the continuance of which the throne of Delhi became the prize of numerous daring adventurers in succession. The reigns of these princes contain little worthy of notice, until the time of Iskander, under whose rule the Portuguese, led by Francis and Alphonso Albuquerque, landed for the first time in the province of Malabar. As allies, and afterwards as enemies of the sovereign of Zamora, the strangers profited by the dis

AKBAR AND JEHANGHIR.

11

sensions of the native chiefs, and obtained from the Prince of Cochin, the rival of the Zamorin Rajah, permission to erect a fort within his territory. By intrigues and violence they extended their influence daily in the southern part of the peninsula, the independent rulers of which had not yet fallen under the yoke of the Moslem emperors of Delhi. The throne of northern India was soon after seized by Baber, a descendant of Timour, who transmitted it to his Mogul posterity. Among these, Akbar distinguished himself by his virtues and valour, but his unworthy sons embittered his declining years with their mutual animosity; and one of them, Selim, was not ashamed to wage a parricidal warfare against his father and sovereign. The aged monarch, stung by the ingratitude of his offspring, addressed to Selim a touching letter, in which he bade him "hasten to pierce the bosom of that parent to whom he envied the possession of a few short years of tranquillity and repose. The unnatural rebel could not resist this pathetic appeal; he at once abandoned his army, and hastening to Delhi alone and unattended, rushed into his father's presence, acknowledged his past guilt, and humbly implored forgiveness. The aged monarch in reply raised his penitent son from the ground, and clasping him in his embrace gave free vent to the emotions of a paternal breast. But this excitement, however gratifying its cause, proved too violent for his frame, broken down by sorrow and years; Akbar only survived the reconciliation a few days, and finally breathed his last in the arms of the son whom he had forgiven.

The emotion of Selim had perhaps been sincere, but it was transient and short-lived. His accession revived the vanity and ambition which better feelings repressed for a season, and one of his first steps was to assume the pompous title of "Jehanghir," or Conqueror of the World. His reign was troubled by the rebellion of his

son, to whom his own example had taught the lesson of filial disobedience, and by the conquests of the Persians in Candahar. The grandson of Jehanghir was the celebrated Aurangzeeb, whose perverted genius first displayed itself in arranging plots against his father, Shah Jecan, and in pursuing his brothers with unrelenting hatred. Towards the close of this prince's career the English power began to extend itself in Bengal, and sixty years after his death, in 1707, the last of the Mogul family, Shah Alum, became a pensioned tributary of the East India Company.

In concluding this short sketch of the early history of Hindoostan, which seems necessary as an introduction to the first annals of Anglo-Indian rule; it may not be amiss to review briefly the nature of the Mogul government. Aliens in country and religion, these monarchs scarcely ever deigned to conciliate the affections of their Hindoo subjects. The precepts of the Koran taught them to regard intolerance as a virtue, and insults to the Hindoo creed as acts of positive duty. The gross polytheism of India could hardly claim our sympathy as Christians, but the plunder of its wealthy shrines by the Moslem rulers was as frequently the result of avarice as of religious zeal, while proselytism by violence cannot be defended on Evangelical principles. Under the Moguls the Hindoo became a wretched serf, degraded below the meanest of the conquering race, his property and his honour being invaded without scruple and without remorse. The selfish vanity, perhaps the luxurious taste, of these sovereigns led them indeed to patronize the arts, and to undertake occasionally works of architectural magnificence or public utility, but neither the splendour of their buildings nor the convenience afforded by their roads and bridges could compensate to their subjects for the turbulence of their disputed successions, and the civil commotions of which they were the cause. The rule of the English in