TO HINDOOSTAN. 



end are three gigantic figures, which have been mutilated by the 

 blind zeal of the Portuguese. Beside the temple are various images, 

 and groups on each hand, cut in the stone... .one of the latter bearing 

 a rude resemblance of the judgment of Solomon : also a colonnade, 

 with a door of regular architecture; but the whole bears no manner 

 of resemblance to any of the Gentoo works. 



At Ellora, not far from Dowlatabad, in the province of that name, 

 is a spacious plain, two leagues in extent, filled with pagodas, tombs, 

 chapels, pillars, and many thousand of statues of colossal size, cut out 

 of the natural rock, but of bad sculpture, being of great antiquity, and 

 the work of the early Hindoos. 



History... .The first invader of this country, India, whose expedi- 

 tion is authentically recorded, was the famous Alexander of Macedon. 

 Zingis Khan also directed his force thither in the year 1221, and 

 made the emperor forsake his capital. Long before Timur, or Tamer- 

 lane, descended in the female line from that conqueror, Mahomme- 

 dan princes had entered, made conquests, and established themselves 

 in India. Walid, the sixth of the Caliphs named Ommiades, who 

 ascended the throne in the 708th year of the Christian sera, and in 

 the 90th of the Hegira, made conquests in India ; so that the Koran 

 was introduced very early into this country. Mahmoud, son of 

 Sebegtechin, prince of Gazna, the capital of a province separated 

 by mountains from the north-west parts of India, and situated near 

 Kandahar, carried the Koran with the sword into Hindoostan, in the 

 year one thousand, or one thousand and two of the Christian sera. 

 He treated the Indians with all the rigour of a conqueror, and all the 

 fury of a zealot, plundering treasures, demolishing temples, and mur- 

 dering idolaters throughout his route. The wealth found by him in 

 Hindoostan is represented to be immense. The successors of this 

 Mahmoud are called the dynasty of the Gaznavides, and maintained 

 themselves in a great part of the countries which he had conquered 

 in India until the year 1 155 or 1 157, when Kosron Shah, the thirteenth 

 and last prince of the Gaznavide race, was deposed by Kussain Gauri, 

 who founded the dynasty of the Gaurides, which furnished five prin- 

 ces, who possessed nearly the same dominions as their predecessors 

 the Gaznavides Scheabbedin, the fourth of the Gauride emperors, 

 during the life of his brother and predecessor, Gaiatheddih, conquer- 

 ed the kingdoms of Moultan and Delhi, and drew from thence pro- 

 digious treasures. But an Indian who had been rendered desperate 

 by the pollutions and insults to which he saw his gods and temples 

 exposed, made a. vow to assassinate Scheabbedin, and executed it. 

 The race of Gaurides finished in the year 1212, in the person of 

 Mahmoud, successor and nephew to Scheabbedin, who was also cut 

 off by the swords of assassins. Several revolutions followed till the 

 time of Tamerlane, who entered India at the end of the year 1398, 

 descending more terrible than all its former inundations, from the 

 centre of the northern part of the Indian Caucasus. This invincible 

 barbarian met with no resistance sufficient to justify, even by the 

 military maxims of Tartars, the cruelties with which he marked his 

 way. But, after an immense slaughter of human creatures, he at 

 length rendered himself lord of an empire which extended from 

 Smyrna to the banks of the Ganges. The history of the successors 

 of Tamerlane, who reigned over Hindoostan with little interruption 

 more than 350 years, has been variously represented •, but all writers 



