Page:Madras in the olden time Volume 1.djvu/39

 in which human sacrifices were offered to appease the wrath of ghosts and demons, and in which men and women herded together like cattle. The Brahmins next appeared upon the scene; a people altogether different, and belonging, not to the Tartar, or Turanian race, but to the same great Arian race, as the Greeks, the Romans, and our noble selves. These Brahmins gradually civilised the Tartar inhabitants, divided them into castes, taught them the worship of Vishnoo and Siva, and made themselves the priestly sovereigns of the country. Subsequently the priest was compelled to give way to the soldier, —the Brahmin to the Kshetrya, and India fell under the dominion of Rajahs. Such was the state of things when the Mussulmans, Turks and Mongols,—poured in successive eruptions over the valley of the Punjab, and at last established a throne at Delhi.

The history of the Mahommedan Empire in India is about the driest in the world. Even in the hands of a writer like Mountstuart Elphinstone, it is as heavy as lead; and until some historical romancer can be found with sufficient boldness to leave out all the wars, all the geography, and all the proper names, and confine himself to "Arabian Nights"-like stories of love adventures and court scandal, combined with a few operatic plots of murder, suicide, royal peasants, and peasant kings, —the history of Delhi will be a blank to the general reader.

Our narrative therefore shall be very brief. The first Mahommedan conqueror who invaded India was Mahmoud the Ghaznavide. Every one