104 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS, 
superior force ; but Timur, having shot him in the 
belly with an arrow, clove him to the earth with his 
scimitar, and put his troops to flight. The victor now 
penetrated the mountains as far as the celebrated rock 
of Coupele called the Cow’s Mouth,* then supposed 
to be the source of the Ganges, carrying on a war of 
extermination in his progress. 
In these hills the difficulties of Timur’s march 
were greatly increased by the resolution of the moun- 
taineers, who vigorously opposed his progress. Their 
fortified castles, built with considerable skill and in 
ordinary cases a sufficient defence against an invading 
force, could, however, oppose no successful obstacle to 
an army like that by which they were now encounter- 
ed. The state of society was here rude ; and the hill- 
men had been for generations comparatively so seldom 
molested, that they were not in a condition to contend 
against such an enemy as the Jagatay monarch. 
Though, probably, little advancement has been made 
in their condition as a community since the fourteenth 
century, some idea may be formed of their attention 
to the refinements of social comfort by the following 
description of the rajah’s palace in the country of 
* “The rock,” says Captain Skinner, “which has little more 
remarkable in it than a cavity apparently worn by the water, 
once joined a neighbour on the other side, and formed an arch 
very little above the surface of the stream : then it resembled the 
mouth of a cow, and was worshipped from the opposite shore of 
the Jahnavi. As nothing could be seen beyond it, the river was 
supposed to issue from the mouth ; and so great a miracle merited 
suitable devotion. An earthquake probably divided it, if ever it 
were joined ; and the veil being rent, a more holy spot was dis- 
covered.”— Excursions in India, vol. ii. pp. 41, 42. 
