ambition, and he looked forward to some opportunity of adventure. The Deccan was then the El Dorado of the Mahomedan imagination, and no doubt Hassan hoped some day to employ his body of horsemen in slaying and plundering the infidel Hindoos. The opportunity was not long in coming. When Mahomed Tughlak Shah resolved to change his capital from Delhi to Dowlatabad, he appointed Kuttulugh Khan as Governor of the latter place, and allowed him to select his own officers. One of these was Hassan Gangu and he followed his new master to Dowlatabad, where he was assigned as jaghir the "town of Konechee with lands dependent on the district of Roy baugh" (Scott.) This town is situated in what is now H. H. the Nizam's Dominions. Here Hassan remained for some years increasing in influence and wealth. No doubt he made various raids for himself against his neighbours the heathen Hindoos, until at last he became a landholder and a military chief of considerable importance.

In the meantime matters throughout the kingdom of Mahomed Tughlak had grown from bad to worse. The unpopularity which the king had earned by the enforced emigration of the inhabitants from Delhi to Dowlatabad was increased by the arbitrary manner in which the jaghirdars were treated in the outlying provinces. All kinds of exactions were made, and whenever a landowner refused to pay he was treated as a rebel. Altogether Mahomed Tughlak seems to have behaved like a madman. Barni * enumerates six projects which led to the ruin of the country. The first was an attempt to extort from five to ten per cent more tribute from all the landowners in the Doab. These cesses, we are told, were collected so rigorously that the raiyats were impoverished and reduced to beggary. Those who were rich and had property became rebels; the lands were ruined and cultivation was entirely arrested. This, added to a failure of the rains, brought about a terrible famine, which

* Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III.

is spoken of as one of the worst that ever occurred in India. It continued, we are told, for some years, and thousands upon thousands of people perished of want. The second project was the change of the capital to which allusion has already been made. The third was even madder than the first two, and was nothing less than a conquest of the whole world. The King wished to become a second Alexander, and resolved upon raising an enormous army with which to carry out his designs. In order to provide the necessary funds to pay this countless host of soldiers, he introduced copper money, and gave orders that it should be used in buying and selling and should pass current, just as the gold and silver coins had passed. The promulgation of this order we are told by the same historian, turned the house of every Hindoo into a mint, and the Hindoos of the various provinces coined an enormous amount of copper coins. Of course, the natural result was a general depreciation. of the currency, and so low did the value of the new coins fall, that they were not esteemed higher than "pebbles or potsherds." When trade was interrupted on every side, and when the copper tankas "had become more worthless than clods," the Sultan repealed his edict, and in great wrath he proclaimed that whoever possessed copper coins should bring them to the treasury and receive the old gold coins in exchange. "Thousands of men from various quarters, who possessed thousands of these copper coins, and caring nothing about them, had flung them into corners along with their copper pots, now brought them to the treasury and received in exchange gold tankas and silver tankas, shashgánis and du-garnis which they carried to their homes. So many of these copper coins were brought to the treasury that heaps of them rose up in Tuglikábád (the new name of Dowlatabad) like mountains. Great sums went out of the treasury in exchange for the copper, and a great deficiency was caused. When the Sultan

saw that his project had failed, and that great loss had been

entailed upon the treasury through his copper coins, he more than ever turned against his subjects." The remaining three projects were military expeditions, all of which were attended by failure. The first two were against Khurasan and Persia, and the third against China. The latter was especially disastrous. A large army was shut in by the Hindoos in the defiles of what is now called the Black Mountain and was entirely cut to pieces. Out of the whole army only ten horsemen returned to Delhi to tell the news of their defeat. The consequence of these rash enterprises was that everywhere the country broke into open revolt. In Multan, Bengal, and distant Ma'bar the Governors rebelled. It is difficult now to ascertain the exact boundaries of this province of Ma'bar. As has been said before, the whole of the southern portion of the Peninsula was called Malabar. * It is probable that the capital of the Mahomedan Governor was somewhere on the western coast, but if so, in a very short time all trace of this Mahomedan occupation vanished, for during the next two hundred years, until the time of Aurungzebe, the whole ef this country was undoubtedly held by Hindoos. The Sultan marched with an army to put down this rebellion, but he did not get further than Warangal, when cholera broke out and he was compelled to return. When he reached Dowlatabad on his way home, he gave permission to those who wished. to do so to return to Delhi. A large number availed themselves of this permission, but those who had become acclimatised resolved to remain. No sooner had the Sultan returned to Delhi than a revolt broke out at Warangal. A Hindoo named Kanya Naick raised an army of his co-religionists, and succeeded in driving out the Mahomedan Governor Malik Makbul, who fled to Delhi. The province of Warangal was then completely

*The west coast was known to the Arabs as Ma'bar long before this conquest, because it was the coast to which traders crossed over from Arabia (from Abara = he crossed).

lost to the Mahomedans and for some time the Hindoos established their rule. No attempt seems to have been made to recover this country, probably because the Sultan's attention was so fully occupied by other matters. In fact before long the only outlying provinces that remained faithful were Dowlatabad and Guzerat. But it was not long that the Sultan's folly caused him to lose these two provinces also. In 1344, a man named Aziz Khummar was appointed as Governor of Malwa and Guzerat with strict orders to collect as much tribute as possible. One of the first acts of this wretch was to collect eighty of the principal Amirs at his palace, and cause them all to be beheaded. This brutal act, which was rewarded by the Sultan with a robe of honour and a complimentary letter, caused a general insurrection. This broke out first in Gujarat where the nobles rose and defeated the deputy Governor Mukbil. This occurred in 1345. The Sultan at once marched in person to suppress this revolt, which, after committing great cruelties, he succeeded in doing. Those nobles who were not captured fled with their families to the Deccan and many of them took refuge at Dowlatabad. The Sultan despatched an order that all these fugitives should be sent to him with an escort of fifteen hundred horse. On the way these prisoners rose against their guards, killed them and then returned to Dowlatabad where they proclaimed an open rebellion. The treasury was looted and distributed amongst the conspirators. They then declared the independence of the Deccan and elected as their first Sultan an Afghan chief named Ismael who assumed the title of Nusrud-din. Prominent amongst these conspirators was Hassan Kangoh, upon whom the title of Zaffir Khan was bestowed, together with several large districts in jaghir. So great was the general feeling of discontent against the Sultan of Delhi, that the rebels at Dowlatabad were assisted in their revolt by the Hindoos of Warangal, who thus made common cause with Mahomedans against their oppressor. Mahomed

Toghluk at once marched against the rebels and defeated them. He did not, however, succeed in capturing the ringleaders, and most of them escaped to their own districts, where the Sultan was unable to follow them, as his presence was again required to suppress a revolt at Delhi. He left behind him however a deputy named Imad-ul-Mulk, with orders to march to Gulburga, hunt up all the fugitives and bring the country into order. Gulburga was the part of the country in which Hassan Kangoh's jaghirs were situated, and this was the opportunity for which he had prepared himself. He collected his troops as quickly as possible, and went to meet Imad-ulMulk, who had remained at Bieder. The Sultan's General had about 30,000 men of all arms, and Hassan only about 15,000. The latter, therefore, avoided coming to a general action, but kept Imad-ul-Mulk in check, until reinforcements could arrive. At length he received 15,000 men from Warangal, and a body of 5,000 horse despatched by the confederate Sultan Ismael from Dowlatabad. With forces thus increased, Hassan did not hesitate to meet his opponent. A pitched battle ensued which was fought near Bieder. It commenced at daybreak and lasted till sunset. The result was that Imad-ul-Mulk was killed and his army utterly defeated with great slaughter. The fugitives made their escape to Malwa, but a large number appear subsequently to have taken service with the victorious general. Hassan, flushed with victory, now marched to Dowlatabad to join his forces with those of Sultan Ismael Nasrud-Din. Ismael came some distance to meet his general, and there was a scene of the utmost enthusiasm. Nasr-ud-Din saw that the whole of the army looked up to Hassan as its natural leader, and he therefore very wisely resolved to give place to his younger rival. He called an assembly of the nobles and told them that his great age rendered him incapable of conducting the government of so young a kingdom, surrounded by such powerful enemies. He therefore voluntarily