Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/116

 86 THE TURKS IN DELHI and many instances are recorded of his terrible severity toward officers whose conduct gave occasion for the exer- cise of stern justice. Balban's one absorbing preoccupation was the dan- ger of a Mongol invasion. For this cause he organized and disciplined his army to the highest point of effi- ciency; for this he made away with disaffected or jeal- ous chiefs, and steadily refused to entrust authority to Hindus; for this he stayed near his capital and would not be tempted into distant campaigns. To realize the terror inspired by the Mongols one must read their description in the writings of Amir Khusru, a poet who lived at the court under the patronage of Balban's cul- tivated son, Prince Mohammad. His picture of the Tartar infidels, riding on camels, with their bodies of steel and faces like fire, slits of eyes sharp as gimlets, short necks, leathery wrinkled cheeks, wide hairy nos- trils and huge mouths, their coarse skins covered with vermin and their horrible smell, is the caricature of fear. " They are descended from dogs, but their bones are bigger," he says. " The king marvelled at their bestial faces and said that God must have created them out of hell-fire. They looked like so many sallow devils, and the people fled from them everywhere in panic." It was no wonder that Balban kept his army ever on the alert to drive such bogies away. The only distant expedition the Sultan made was into Bengal, where " the people had for many long years tended to rebellion, and the disaffected and evil- disposed among them generally succeeded in contam-