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18 over the country beyond the Oxus that his descendants maintained their hold when that iron hand was stiff. Even there, a single century witnessed their universal downfall; the fire had only left some embers, which smouldered awhile, but, lacking the kindling and stirring of the great incendiary, finally died out. After that, the sole relic of Tímúr's vast dominion was the little kingdom which an exiled prince of his own brave blood set up among the crags and passes of the Afghán hills, whence came the 'Great Moghuls' and the glories of Delhi and Agra.

Bábar in exile founded a grandiose empire, but Bábar in the home of his forefathers was but a little prince among many rivals. Every one of the numerous progeny of Tímúr was a claimant to some throne. Mawaránnahr or Transoxiana – the land of the two great rivers, Oxus and Iaxartes, the Amu and Sir Darya of to-day-was a cockpit for the jealousy and strife of a multitude of petty princes, who, whether they called themselves Mirzás in Persian, or Kháns in Turki, or plain Amírs in Arabic, resembled one another closely in character and ambition. The character was 'earthly, sensual, devilish'; the ambition was to grasp power and wealth, quocunque modo rem, at the sacrifice of kindred, faith, and honour. Over this crew of scheming adventurers, the King of Samarkand endeavoured to maintain some show of authority. This was Sultán Ahmad Mirzá, Bábar's