Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/85

 HAP. II.]

SULTAN MAHMOOD.

51

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lis ear with his groans. By a wliirl of fortune the position of the parties was reversed; and the anchoret, deposed from his rajahship, was consigned to the hole, while the throne was occupied by his intended victim.

Though Mahmood had made his first passage across the desert without loss, he was less fortunate in returning. He had employed Hindoo guides, who kept the army wandering for three days and nights over desolate tracts, where neither forage nor water could be found. Numbers of the troops died raving mad, from the intolerable heat and thirst. Mahmood, suspecting that the guides had not erred, but led him wilfully astray, ])ut one of them to the torture, and wrunof from him a confession that he was one of the priests of Somnauth, and had sought, by misleading the army, to insm-e its destruction, and thereby obtain a rich revenue.

On the homeward march, Mahmood was greatly harassed by a tribe of Juts, who are described as occupying a district intersected by rivers, which form numerous islands. He determined to chastise them; and with this view took up a position at Mooltan, where he ordered 1400 boats to be built, and armed with iron spikes projecting from tiie bows and sides, to secure them against being boarded, as the Juts were particularly dexterous at this species of warfjire. A series of naval enoragements were fought in tlie neighbom-hood of the locality where Alexander equipped his fleet thirteen centuries before. After a desperate struggle the Juts were overpowered, and those who had not fallen in battle were carried off" into slavery.

Mahmood returned in triumph to Ghuznee, but had ceased to l)e capable of enjoying it, for he was suffering under an excruciating disease, which carried l>im off", April 29, 1030, in the sixty-third year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign. Two days before his death, he ordered all the gold and precious stones which he possessed to be placed before him. He wept with regret to think how soon he must part with them for ever ; but he had not the heart to

A D 1030.

Passage of

the desert.

S!^i

Mahmood's Pii.i.aks, Ghlzsee.'

Mabmood's death

' The two minars or pillara outside the city of Ghuznee were erected, aa appears from inscrii)tion8 in Kufic cliaractera upon them, the one nearest the village of Kozah by Mahmood, the other (nearest Ghuznee) by Masaood, son of Mahmood. The inscrip- tion on Mahmood's pillar is as follows: — " In the name of God the most merciful — the liigh and mighty Sul-

, the melic of Islam, the right arm of the state,

trustee of the faith, the victory crowned, the patron of Moslems, the aid of the destitute, the munificence endowed Malimood (may God glorify his testimony), son of Sabaktageen, the champion of champions, the emir of Moslems, ordered the construction of this lofty of loftiest of monuments; and of a cer- taintj- it has been happily and prosperously com- jdeted." — JownaJ of Asiatic Society of Beugnl, 1843.