ANCIENT INVASIONS PRACTICALLY UNOPPOSED. 529 



spread to almost every quarter of the city. On this 

 fatal day a vast multitude of persons perished, and 

 the conqueror, when leaving Delhi, carried off immense 

 treasures estimated at from 30 to 70 millions of pounds 

 sterling; and among other things the famous Peacock 

 Throne, encrusted with precious stones and gems of 

 enormous value. He also seized and carried off the great 

 Koh-i-Nur diamond, which is at present numbered among 

 the crown jewels of England. * 



The reader will see from the foregoing details that 

 these invasions of India, via the Indus, were all really 

 unopposed, and that being so, it is impossible to quote 

 them as having any real bearing upon the supposed 

 strength, or weakness, of the River Indus Frontier 

 the question being whether these invaders could have 

 forced the passage of the Indus in the teeth of an 

 organized opposition. This may therefore still be re- 

 garded as at least an open question. 



In an interview with a representative of a London 

 daily paper General Lord Chelmsford was strongly 

 of opinion that the line of the Indus, held by a 

 British Indian Army, with suitable advanced posts, was 

 exceedingly strong, indeed well-nigh impregnable, f The 

 matter had been recently brought to the front by a 

 magazine article headed " India Between Two Fires, " 



* See Murray's Handbook for India dr 3 Ceylon, 1892, p. 131. This 

 celebrated diamond called the Koh-i-Nur or "Mountain of Light," was 

 found in the mines of Golconda in 1550. It was surrendered to England 

 after the conquest of Scinde, in 1849; it then weighed 279 carats, and 

 was valued at ^2,000,000; it has since been recut, by Dutch artists, 

 for the Queen, and now weighs 100^ carats, and possesses a greatly in- 

 creased brilliancy. See Haydn's Dictionary of Dates (article "Diamonds. ") 



f See The Pall Mall Gazette of Aug. 24, 1893 (Article on The 

 Defence of India against Russian Invasion.] 



See The XlXth Centtiry Review for Aug. 1893, p. 183. (Article, 

 India Between Two Fires, by the Hon. George Curzon, M.P.) 



VOL. II. 34 



