BABER. 
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alike unsatisfactory. It is clear, however, that he 
had long been bent upon the conquest of that rich 
and populous country. The reigning monarch, Sultan 
Ibrahim, was extremely unpopular ; and the impolitic 
arrogance of the Afghan nobles, who considered them- 
selves as having raised his family to the dominion of 
the greatest empire of the East, added to the general 
disaffection against his government. Many of his 
omrahs had quitted his court in disgust, and retired 
beyond the Ganges. All the eastern provinces were 
in a state of insurrection, and his empire in Hindos- 
tan scarcely extended beyond Delhi, Agra, and the 
Dooab. Bengal had its independent sovereign. The 
Rajpoot princes, from Mewat to Oudapoor, had 
thrown off the yoke of fealty, and exercised an un- 
controlled jurisdiction over their respective provinces. 
The Punjab was under the domination of Afghan 
chiefs, who, alarmed at the tyranny of Sultan 
Ibrahim, had determined to deliver themselves from 
the oppressions of one whose stern severity and do- 
mineering spirit had forced them to rebellion, as the 
preferable evil to a patient submission to tyranny. 
The harsh maxims of his government had driven 
his wisest nobles from the capital, and destroyed 
the confidence of his subjects. The state-prisons 
were filled with the victims of his cruelties, and 
death or captivity were but too commonly the reward 
of incorruptible integrity. 
The engraving represents the ruins of the state- 
prison still to be seen on the plains of old Delhi. 
When it was built is now mere matter of conjecture, 
though it was probably erected during the supremacy 
