1842.] from the West and North-west. 559 



family, was induced by these troubles to invade the country from 

 Kashghur. After a spirited defence, Tymoor and Ameer Hoosein, 

 who were then friends and associates, were driven into Kharizm, but 

 on the retirement of Toghluk, they returned and drove out his son 

 Khoja Ilias. Shortly after the two friends quarrelling, Tymoor de- 

 feated and slew Ameer Hoosein, and so became sole master of all 

 the country between the Oxus and Jaxartes. He now made successive 

 inroads into Persia, Russia, (wherein he penetrated to the White Sea, 

 in a latitude at which the sun never sets,) Mongolia, Georgia, and 

 Baghdad. After thirty years of ravage in all directions, he determined 

 on the invasion of Hindoostan, being then upwards of fifty-five years 

 of age. His chiefs at first were averse to this expedition, on the ground, 

 as Tymoor himself quaintly writes in his memoirs, that their race 

 would be lost, and their children would speak Hindee, but he recon- 

 ciled them to it, and having got possession of Herat and Kabool by a 

 mixture of " nurmee and gurmee" mildness and severity, he sent his 

 grandson, Peer Mohummed, eastward from Herat, to prepare the way 

 for an advance to the Indus. 



In a. d. 1398, the lower passes of the Sulimani range being forced, 

 Peer Mohummed crossed the Indus, a little below Dera Ghazee Khan, 

 and thence advanced to the siege of Mooltan. In this operation he 

 was occupied six months, during which the rainy season came on, and 

 he suffered very severely, losing most of his horses. 



Tymoor himself came by the road of Kabool, and was employed in 

 punishing the Seeah Posh Kafirs of Kohistan, north-east of Kabool, 

 while Peer Mohummed was in the Sulimanee range, as above stated. 

 He followed the tribes on foot, as well from Budukhshan as from the 

 Kabool side, into places quite impassable for cavalry, carrying two 

 horses only for his own use, one of which was killed while being 

 slidden down a glacier in a wooden case stuffed with cotton. Returning 

 after this campaign to Samarkund for fresh troops, Tymoor reap- 

 peared at Cabool, and from thence took the Bunghish route by Ayrab, 

 c^jI^jI or Haroob, of which place and Ghuzni, he got possession by 

 treachery. From Ayrab he sent his son Meerza Khuleel to Banoo by the 

 route called in the Rozut-ool-sufa Kubjughai, (perhaps Koochi,) while 

 he made an excursion himself against a hostile tribe of Afghans, call- 

 ed Burniani or Purniani. He left their capital on the first of Mohur- 



