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 Chap. V.J BABER INVADES INDIA. 109

great natural buoyancy of s})irits suggested, that some great destiny awaited him ad. ists. In 150i he took the direction of the east, where he saw no field of enterprise so promising as Cabool, which had fallen into a state of anarchy. It had once been ruled by his father, and subsef^uently by his uncle, Ulugh Beg, who had died in 1501, leaving an infant son. The minister took the whole government into his own hands, but soon disgusted the nobles, and was assa-ssinated. Groat convulsions followed, and Cabool became a common pi-ey to dissensions within, and invcision from without. A foreign usurper was on the throne when Baber arrived. He found little ditiiculty in displacing him ; and though his cousin, the above son of Ulugh Beg, was still alive, he regarded the kingdom as a lai"ul conquest, and ruled it in his own name. His ambition was n(jt yet satisfied, and, taking advantage of favourable circmnstances, he made himself master of Kandahar. It would seem that at this early period his thoughts were turned to Hindoostan, and the invasion of it was openly talked of and discussed in his court. Various circum.stances, however, concurred to po.stpone any actual preparations.

The earliest of these was the appeai'ance of the restless and im[)lacable n;i'«>- •'"•'"^ Sheebani Khan, who drove Baber from Kandahar, and re-seated the former ruler. «itii tiie Siieebani Khan, having ultimately met his master in Shah Ismael Sophi of perel,,' Persia, was defeated and slain. Baber immediately proposed an alliance with the shah, Ijy whose aid he hoped to regain his former dominions. Nor was he disappointed. With an army of 60,000 hoi-se, partly furnished by the Persian monarch, he took Khoondooz, subdued Bokhara, and in 1511 was seated for the third time on the throne of Samarcand. Here he fixed his residence, and left Cabool to be governed under him by his brother, Nasir Mirza. This return of prosperity was short-lived; for he was inmiediately engaged in a series of sanguinary struggles with the Usbeks. These were generally to his disad- vantage; and in 1518 he arrived, shorn of all his new conquests, to resume the government of Cabool. His brother Nasir Mirza returned to his government of Glniznee.

Baber had now been nearly twenty yeai's King of Cabool, and during that Pie|vir.» long period had often turned a wistful eye to India. Other objects of ambition imUa. had rejieatedly started up and tempted him to try his fortune in the west ; but the ditticulties had proved insurmountable, and the conviction had been forced ipon him, that if his name was to descend to posterity as a great conqueror and mighty monarch, the east was the quarter in which he must gain iiis laurels. The times were favourable. The throne of Delhi had been occupied by a series of Afghan chiefs, who had never gained the affections of the people, and ruled only by the sword. While thus requiring all the aid which union could give, interminable feuds prevailed, and the succession was regulated not so much by the ordinary rules of relationship, as by court intrigue, ftxction, and assassination. Under this wretched system the kingdom had been broken up into fragments,