BABER. 
181 
and in spite of this power, placing my trust in God, 
and leaving behind me my old inveterate enemies, the 
Uzbecks, who had an army of a hundred thousand 
men, I advanced to meet so powerful a prince as 
Sultan Ibrahim, the lord of numerous armies, and 
emperor of extensive territories. In consideration of 
my confidence in the divine aid, the Most High God 
did not suffer the distress and hardships that I had 
undergone to be thrown away, hut defeated my for- 
midable enemy, and made me conqueror of the noble 
country of Hindostan. This success I do not ascribe 
to my own strength ; nor did this good fortune flow 
from my own efforts, hut from the fountain of the 
favour and mercy of God.” 
It is sufficiently clear from this passage, that Baber 
was proud of his conquest, and determined to main- 
tain it. He was charmed at once with the climate 
and the productiveness of a country over which 
he was henceforward to hold dominion. When he 
entered the plains of Delhi, the magnificence of 
the structures of that celebrated capital had filled 
him with admiration and surprise. Cabul pre- 
sented no such features of splendour, and his mind 
was elevated by the prospect of a vaster and more 
powerful empire than he had hitherto ruled. On 
his road to the imperial city, then flourishing in 
the full maturity of its grandeur, but now a widely- 
scattered mass of glorious ruins, he passed over a 
bridge which is an admirable specimen of the descrip- 
tion of architecture at that early period. It is 
thrown over a spacious water-course, intersecting part 
of the plain upon which the ancient Indraprastha, or 
R 
