Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/16

12 fruitful of events which tended to consolidate British power in India as the paramount authority.

In Hindustán, as elsewhere, when any man of vigour and energy has raised himself to a throne, it is not difficult to find for him a pedigree showing his noble descent, and it is not therefore surprising that native annalists should endeavour to prove that Haidar came from the famous race of the Korésh. According to their accounts, one of his ancestors named Hasan, who claimed Yahya as his progenitor, left Baghdád, and came to Ajmere in India, where he had a son called Walí Muhammad. This person, having quarrelled with an uncle, made his way to Gulbarga in the Deccan, and had a son named Alí Muhammad, who eventually migrated to Kolár in the eastern part of Mysore, where he died about the year 1678, having had four sons, the youngest of whom was named Fatah Muhammad. Fatah Muhammad was not long in finding military employment, and by his prowess