Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/165

 KEPKESSIVE MEASURES 133 the idea of abdication, adding, " At present I am angry with my subjects and they are aggrieved with me. The people are acquainted with my feelings, and I am aware of their misery and wretchedness. No treatment that I employ is of any benefit. My remedy for rebels is the sword. I employ punishment and use the sword, so that a cure may be effected by suffering. The more the people resist, the more I inflict chastisement." The series of tortures and executions described by Ibn Batuta is too horrible to relate, and the frequent scenes at Delhi, which the Moorish traveller witnessed, where trained elephants, with tusks armed with iron blades, tossed the victims in the air, trampled them under foot, and carved them into slices, make one's blood run cold. The Sultan's own brother and nephew did not escape his ferocity: suspected of treason, the former was beheaded in the presence of his brother; the nephew fled to the raja of Kampila, brought destruc- tion upon his protector, and when caught himself, was flayed and roasted alive, and his cooked flesh sent to his family. One can hardly believe that such enormities could have been committed by a man of Mohammad Taghlak's refinement. Apart from such monstrous barbarities, his great mistake a capital error in an Eastern country was that he could not let well or ill alone. He was too clever not to see the ills, but not clever enough to know that they were better undisturbed. On the whole, his was a fine principle, a high ideal; but the reaction when he found his ideal unattainable was violent and deplor-