II I N D O O S T A N. 
aivktt, and aflfafllnated Tuglick, in the year of the hegira 
791, A. D. 1389, after a reign of only five months and a 
few days., , . 
The confpirators, after aflaffinating the king, raifed 
Abu Becker, the grandfon of the fultan Ferofe, to the 
empire. But in the mean time, the Mogul chiefs of the 
army, and many of the omrahs, determined to recall Mo¬ 
hammed to the throne. Mohammed accordingly, having 
coile&ed his friends, advanced by the way of Jallendar to 
Samana; and, proclaiming himfelf fultan at that place, ad¬ 
vanced with a great army towards Delhi. Am obllinate 
battle enfued, in which Abu Becker was killed, in the 
year of the hegira 792, A. D. 1390, after reigning one year 
and fix months. 
Mohammed IV. entered Delhi in triumph, and imme¬ 
diately alcended the throne. He gave the office of vizier 
to I flam, to whom he principally owed his advancement. 
Intelligence was brought to him, that the prince Narfingh, 
chief of the Mahrattas, and other chiefs of the Hindoos, 
with the zemindars of Attava, had rifen in arms, and ra¬ 
vaged the adjacent diftrifts. Mohammed marched againft 
them in perfon, and chaftifed them. The fort of Attava 
was levelled with the ground; and the fultan took the 
route of Canouge and Tillafar ; in the laft of which cities 
he built a fort, which, from his own nariie, he called Mo- 
hammedabad. After this victory, Mohammed fent his 
ion Humaioon to crufh the prince of the Gickers, who 
had defcended from the mountains, and poifeifed himfelf 
of Lahore. But, before the prince had left Delhi, news 
was brought to him of his father’s deceafe, A. D. 1392. 
He reigned fix years and feven months; when his fon, 
Humaioon, afcended the throne, by the name of Secunder ; 
but, being in a few days taken with a violent dyfentery, he 
died after a reign of only forty-five days. 
The omrahs now fent for Mahmud, a young fon of the 
fultan Mohammed, whom they placed upon the throne, 
by the title of Mahmud III. But the apparent debility 
of the empire, arifing from the king’s minority, added to 
the dilfenfions of the omrahs, encouraged all the Hindoos 
in the conquered provinces to kindle the flames of rebel¬ 
lion ; while various of the defigning and ambitious mi- 
'nifters and viceroys, taking advantage of the confufion of 
the times, and thedifaffeftion of the people to the govern¬ 
ment, were confederating to feize the lupreme authority, 
and parcel out the empire into' feparate kingdoms for 
them/elves. But at this awful jimfture a fate hung over 
the Mohammedan empire in Hindooftan, which was to 
(hake its very foundations, and purple its luxuriant fields 
with more blood and daughter, with more brutal fpolia- 
tion and favage inhumanity, than had followed even from 
the devaflating hand of Gengis Khan himfelf: it was the 
memorable 
INVASION of TIMUR EEC, surnamed TAMER¬ 
LANE the GREAT. 
Timour, or Timur Bee, the emperor or king of the 
Mogul Tartars, had afcended the throne of Samarcand, 
and extended his victorious arms over the valt tracts of 
Perfia, from the Oxus to the Tigris, and given laws to 
Eaftern Tartaiy, before he thought of treading the foot- 
fteps of Alexander, and afeending mount Caucafus, to 
outltrip the Macedonian hero in conquering the eaftern 
world. When, however, Timour propofed to his princes 
and emirs the invafion of Hindooftan, to recover the pro¬ 
vinces which had formerly been won by his great anceftor 
Gengis Khan, he was anfwered by a fullen murmur of 
difeontent: “ The deep unfordable rivers! the inacceffi- 
ble mountains! the dry and dreary deferts! the foldiers 
clad in armour of fteel! above all, the furious elephants, 
deftroyers of men!” But the frown of Timour was more 
dreadful than all thefe united terrors; and his fuperior 
realon was convinced that the enterprife, though of fuch 
tremendous afpeft, was fafe and eafy in the execution. 
He had been fufficiently informed of the weaknefs and 
anarchy of the Indian metropolis 5 that the foubahs of the 
Vox.. X. No. 638, 
2 9 
provinces had erefled the ftandard of rebellion ; and that 
the imbecility of fultan Mahmud was defpifed even iff the 
harem. -.The fiat had palled, and the word of command 
was given. The Mogul army began to move in three 
great divifions; and between the Jihon and the Indus 
they palled over what the Arabian geographers call “ the 
ftony girdle of the earth,” nearly in the track of the an¬ 
cient Greek invaders. On the 7th of October 1398, ac¬ 
cording to the account of Sherefeddin, Timour arrived on 
the banks of the Indus, at the very fpot where, two centu¬ 
ries before, the intrepid Gelaleddin, king of Oliarazm, had 
fwam his horfe acrofs the river, to elude the purfuit of 
Gengis Khan. In two days a bridge of boats was formed ; 
and on the 1 ith his whole army crofted, without the fmalleft 
oppofition, near Attock. The army travelled the diftricts 
of the Panjab in the fame direction which the renowned 
Alexander had done. From Attock to Delhi, the ftraight 
road meafures no more than fix hundred miles; but the 
two conquerors chofe to deviate to the foutli-eaft; and 
the motive of Timour was to join his grandfon Pir Mo¬ 
hammed, who had been charged with the reduction of 
Moultan. On the eaftern bank of the Hyphafis, where the 
Macedonian hero wept becaufe his troops would proceed 
no further, the enterprifing Moguls penetrated the defect, 
reduced the fortrefs of Batnir, and refolvedto advance to 
the very gates of Delhi, that renowned city, which had 
flourilhed during three centuries under the dominion of 
the Mohammedan kings, who had, in that long period, fuc- 
ceflively conquered and enllaved the idolatrous Hindoos. 
But thofe kings had now as much to dread from their 
brethren in Iflamifm, as the affrighted Indians had in the 
firft inftance from the irruption of the Garnaviae Moham¬ 
medans. After the death of Gengis Khan, the whole re¬ 
gion of Mogulftan, or Weftern Tartary, gradually received 
the precepts and doctrine of the Koran; but neither thefe 
precepts, nor this doctrine, could reftrain the rapacious 
Timour from waging war with his brethren the Modems, 
whenever he thought they ftood in the way of his advance¬ 
ment or ambition. 
On this ground, for there appears to have been no other, 
Timour advanced into the beautiful diftrift of the admired 
capital of Hindooftan, awed at firft by the numerous gilded 
dqmes and minarets which the faithful had erefted to the 
memory of that prophet, on whom he himfelf affected 
molt devoutly to call, to prolper and fuftain the progrefs 
of his arms. Timour had previoufly been joined by his 
grandfon, Pir Mohammed, after the reduction of Lahore 
and Moultan; and they had now fo clofely blockaded 
Delhi, that no fuccours could enter the gates of the city, 
whole walls were defended by about fifty thoufand regu¬ 
lar troops, of which ten thoufand were cavalry. Yet with 
this comparatively unequal force, aided only by a rabble 
of new-raifed recruits, felefted from the fugitives who 
had, from all the plundered towns, fled thither for flielter, 
were the weak Mahmud, and his vizier Mellou Khan, de¬ 
termined to hazard all in one Angle battle with the hardy 
conquerors of Afia. Their principal dependence lay in 
the numerous train of royal elephants, of which the Mo¬ 
guls at that time ftood in the utmoft awe, and which con- 
fifted of no lefs than one hundred and twenty in number, 
all regularly trained to war, and of uncommon fiercenefs. 
They are defcribed by Sherefeddin, as having been armed 
with vaft cuirafies for their defence, as bearing between 
their huge tulks lharp poifoned daggers, and on their backs 
great wooden towers, filled with crols-bowmen and archers, 
intended to pour deftruftion upon the ranks of the pre- 
l’umptuous enemy. Befides this terrific phalanx, a band 
of veterans attended the Indian army, whole operations 
were of an appalling nature, and peculiarly dangerous to 
cavalry. Their bufmefs was to hurl what is termed the 
Greek fire, and burning bitumen, amongft the enemy j 
and to difeharge a kind of rockets armed at the end with 
lharpened iron, which rebounding repeatedly as they fell, 
made dreadful havoc, and threw the ranks of the belfc 
difcipljned army hit© diiorder. Mahmud himfelf, aflifted 
