Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/332

 3 2o THE BOURBON AGE At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Portuguese had just opened up the route round South Africa to the Indian Ocean, and at once established their supremacy or empire in the eastern seas. On the Persian Gulf, at Goa on the west coast of India, and elsewhere, they fixed their fortified ports, but they made no attempt to set up a dominion on the land. The begin- nings of European conquest were still two and a half centuries away in the future. But the sixteenth century witnessed an- other conquest of great importance. The most picturesque of 3 The great adventurers, Babar the Turk, a descendant Moguls: of Tamerlane, founded the Mongol or Mughal Babar. dynasty, best known in its Anglicised form as that of the Moguls, his mother coming from that division of the Mon- golian races to which the name Mongol is specially appropriated. Expelled while a boy from his own dominions in the regions east of the Caspian sea, he found his way to Afghanistan, where he made himself king at Kabul ; and set out to conquer India with a force of five and twenty thousand men, who were ready to follow their hero through fire and water. At Panipat, near Delhi — having overrun the Punjab — he smote the great army of the last of the Lodi kings of Delhi. He smote also the Hindu princes of Rajputana in a series of campaigns abounding in picturesque episodes, and swept down the plain of the Ganges, routing great hosts with, comparatively speaking, a handful of men. Five years after his first in- vasion he died, leaving the empire of all Hindustan to his son Humayun. Both Mohammedans and Hindus were eager to drive out the new conquerors. Led by a Mohammedan chief, who afterwards assumed the title of Sher Shah, they expelled Hum- ayun and his Afghans in 1540, and Sher Shah ruled with power and ability over Hindustan. But he failed to establish a strong dynasty. Sher Shah died ; Humayun returned from Afghanistan and recaptured Delhi. Then he too died. But his Turk vizier Bairam completed the Mogul restoration by another victory at Panipat, won in the name of Humayun's son Akbar. For four years he ruled for the boy who had been left to his loyal guardianship j then Akbar suddenly,