Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/95

 CiiAP. ir.] SHAHAB-U-DIN. 61

lie assumed the offensive, reduced the capital of Gujerat, with all its depen- ad i.'Oj

dencies, and took the forts of CaUinjer, Kalpi, and Budaoon.

During these events, Shahab received intelligence of the death of his brother Gheias-u-din, and returned to Ghuznee, where he was crowned sole sovereign. Y'iien he attained this additional elevation, his good fortune seemed to forsake simhabde- liiia During a struggle with the King of Kharism, he sustained a defeat the King of which cost him the loss of all his elephants and treasure, and so complete an '^'"*™"' annihilation of a noble army that he was left with scarcely a hundred men. Dn escaping from the field of battle, he shut himself up in a fort, but had no means of sustaining a siege, and was not suffered to return to his dominions till he had paid a large ransom to the Khan of Samarcand. On amving at Gliuznee, he found it in possession of one of his own officers, who would not allow him to enter ; and he was, in consequence, obliged to continue his route to Mooltan. Having here been reinforced, he retm'ned to Ghuznee, and regained possession. Meanwhile, the Gukkurs had been laying waste the country around Lahore. They continued to ravage with impunity, for Shahab's disasters left him without the means of chastising them, till a treaty which he had concluded wnth the King of Kharism left him fully at leisure to bring all his forces into the field against them. He accordingly again set out for India, and placed the Gukkurs between two fires, engaging them on the west, while Eibuk marched against them from the east. Lahore, which had fallen into their hands, was rescued, and their plundering hordes were entirely dispersed. It would seem, however, that they, not long after, again collected in Ravages

of the

great numbers at the foot of the mountains of Sewalik, carried on an exter- cukkuw. minating war again.st the Mahometans, on whom they exercised unheard-of crueltie.s, and cut off the communication between the provinces of Peshawer and Mooltan. Their incm'sions continued till their king, who had been made captive, con.sented to embrace Mahometanism. On being sent home, he had so much influence with his people, that many of them, to whom religion appeai-s to have been very much a matter of indifference, were easily induced to adopt his new creed. Many others, not so easily pereuaded, yielded to force, and Islamism became the prevailing religion of the mountaineers both east and west of the Indus.

The affairs of India being settled, Shahab, in the end of 1205, set out from Assassina Lahore to return to Ghuznee. He was meditating an expedition beyond the hab-u-ain. Oxus, and had given orders to throw a bridge across it, and collect an ami}' on its banks. Meanwhile he had only advanced on his homeward journey as far as the Indus. A body of twenty Gukkurs, who had lost some of their relatives during the war, and had entered into a conspiracy to avenge their death by assassinating him, had been tracking his footsteps, and watching their ■opportunity. Owing to the excessive heat, he had ordered the screens which surrounded the royal tents in the form of a square to be struck, in order to