who had been taken prisoners, or who were sent from Bengal. In the end, however, on a remonstrance being made by the law officers and religious men of the court, the king desisted from his barbarous conduct. Death of Some time after this event, the Prince Mahomed arrived from Lahore on a visit to his father, but had not been with him three months when news reached him of a serious incursion of the Moghuls. The prince departed to his post, engaged the Moghuls, and defeated them: but in a chance medley at the close of the action was killed. The death of his beloved son had the effect of completely prostrating the king, now upwards of eighty years of age, and he sank gradually. Believing himself on his death-bed, he sent for his second son Kurra Khan, then governor of Bengal, in order to nominate him as his successor; but finding his father better than he expected, Kurra Khan returned to Bengal without taking leave of him, which so incensed the old king, that he invited his grandson, Kei-khoosroo, from Mooltan, and made a will in his favour. A few Ghelas-ooddays afterwards, being upwards of eighty years of age, dies, 1286. the king expired, having reigned in great splendour Margaret and glory for twenty-one years. deen Bulbun queen of Scotland. His disposition of the kingdom was not however carried out. The nobles were apprehensive that Kurra Khan would Kel-kobád dispute it and thus raise a civil war, and Kei-kobád, his crowned. son, then in Dehly, was selected and crowned, Kei-khoosroo retiring to his government of Mooltan. Kei-kobád was a handsome and engaging youth, who had been brought up with great strictness by his father, and expectations were formed from his previous character that he would prove a good king. These, however, were sorely disappointed, for he gave himself up to a course of riotous debauchery, which was encouraged by the vizier, Nizam-ood-deen, who retained the executive power in his hands. The principal events of the short reign of Keikobád were an invasion by the Moghuls, which was repelled, and followed by the execution of all the Moghul officers in the royal service, on pretence of their complicity officers put with their countrymen; and the visit of the king's father, Kurra Khan, to Dehly, which, though it caused apprehensions of a war between them at first, ended amicably and even affectionately, Kurra Khan warning his son as he departed homewards against the designs of his vizier. For a time the advice of his father was observed by Kei-kobád, but he The vizier was again thrown into the vortex of pleasure by the min- poisoned, ister, and failing to check his power, effected his death The king, by poison through parties who were inimical to him. paralysis. The Moghul to death. attacked by Kei kobád His excesses had, however, so entirely ruined the constitution of the young king, that he became paralytic, and the executive power of the kingdom fell into the hands of three nobles, of whom Mullik Julal-ood-deen Feroze, of the Khiljy tribe, was the chief. After a brief struggle between the rivals for superiority, Julal-ood-deen prevailed and at his instigation, the king, who was murdered, lying helpless in his country palace, was soon afterwards murdered by a Tartar, whose father had been unjustly executed. This event happened in the year 1288, and with it the dynasties of the slave kings ceased to exist. Julalood-deen Khiljy was proclaimed king, and to ensure his position, caused the infant son of Kei-kobád, who was in his power, to be put to death. From A.D. 1205 to 1288, deen Khiljy a period of eighty-three years, ten kings, originally slaves, and their descendants, had reigned over India. 1288. Pope Nicholas I. Pope Nicholas IV. Julal-ood becomes king Origin of CHAPTER VII. OF THE KHILJY OR GHILZYE DYNASTY OF DEHLY, THE Khiljies were a tribe who, according to Ferishta, had been driven from Toorkistan and had settled in the mountains west of the Punjab, where they still remain. Being a warlike race, many of them entered the service of the kings of Ghuzny and of India, and among them some rose to high offices. Julal-ooddeen was the son of the governor of Samárá, and had deen Khiljy risen into favour with the late king, by whom he was promoted; but he was already advanced in age, being seventy years old when he became king; and he seems to have undertaken the office, for it was to him little more, with much distrust of his own powers. He professed great humility, he would not ascend His court and the throne, or ride into the court of the palace; and his habits. elevation produced no change in relation to his intimate associates, whom he entertained without pomp or ceremony as he had been used to do. Dehly became a point of attraction for all the learned men of Asia; and poets, musicians, and singers were liberally patronised and rewarded. Ameer Khoosroo, one of the sweetest of Persian poets, was ennobled and made librarian to the king. In the suppression of the first rebellion against him, Julal-ood-deen displayed such entire absence of revengeful feeling, that his courtiers, only used to the wholesale executions of former reigns, remonstrated with him. My friends,' he replied, quietly, I am now old, and I wish to go down to the grave Anecdote of without shedding more blood.' His courtiers, however, his clemency. were partly in the right. The people were unused to such clemency, and sadly took advantage of it: crime of all descriptions increased; many of the governors of provinces were rebellious; and a conspiracy was set on foot to dethrone him. At a meeting of its members, one of them retired secretly and gave information to the king, who sent a party of his guards, and the conspirators were brought into the royal presence. They expected no less His treatthan death; but the king, drawing his sword, flung it ment of before them, and challenged the boldest to use it against him. One of them replied, that the king should not care for words spoken under the influence of wine, and all prostrated themselves before the monarch, who forgave them. conspirators. Sidy Mowla, a executed. Nevertheless, it could not be concealed that the king's great lenity was causing much mischief as well as disquiet in the provinces. Sidy Mowla, a celebrated Dervish, Dervish, was executed for a plot against the king's life; and his curse as he died, against him and his posterity, seems to have affected the king very deeply. The year 1291 was one of severe famine, in which thousands perished, and the king's eldest son, Khan Khanan, fell a victim to an existing epidemic, both of which events were attributed by the superstitious to the execution of the holy Dervish. The king, however, seems to have at last roused himself to a sense of duty, and marched against the rebels in Malwah; but the campaign was inconclusive, owing to his aversion to bloodshed. Rebellion in In the following year, 1292, however, he repelled, with much vigour, an invasion of the Moghuls, and one of their chiefs joined the king with 3,000 of his followers, and received his daughter in marriage. Ferishta mentions incidentally, that these Moghuls became Mahomedans, which proves that that faith had not as yet been received in some of the distant provinces of Northern Asia. In 1293, the king marched into Malwah, which was reduced to obedience, and his nephew, Alla-ood-deen, now rising into notice, reduced the Hindoos of Bhilsa and other Malwa districts in Central India, for which he was rewarded with the government of Oude, in addition to that of his own province. Encouraged by his success, Alla-ood-deen now requested permission to make an expedition southwards, into countries as yet unpenetrated by the Mahomedans; and with 8,000 horse Expedition set out, in the year 1294, for the Deccan. Alla-ood-deen deen to the evidently marched by the line of Saugor andJubbulpoor, Deccan, 124. for he debouched from the tableland of Central India face VIII. reduced. by Alla-ood Pope Bont Meets the Ellichpoor and defeats Description of Deogurh. by the passes into Berar, upon its capital, Ellichpoor, then held, according to tradition, by the Hindoo, or Jain rajah, Eel, who was a feudatory of the rajahs of Déogurh. A severe enHindoos near gagement took place on the plain between Ellichpoor and the hills, and the memory of the field of combat them. is still preserved by the mounds of the Mahomedan soldiers killed in the action, which are called 'Gunj Shaheed,' or the heaps of the martyrs. From Ellichpoor, the young leader pushed on rapidly to Déogurh, the impregnable stronghold of the Jadow or Yádává rajahs, who then held sway over the country of Máhárashtra. This place had originally been a conical hill, rising out of the plain, and separated rather more than a mile from the tableland to the north. Its sides all round had been scarped perpendicularly for 130 feet, probably at the period of the excavation of the cave temples of Ellora; a broad ditch had been excavated round the hill, and there was no passage to its summit but through a tunnel which, commencing in the ditch, had been led through the interior of the hill itself, which was composed of solid trap-rock. Such a work was unique in India then, as it is at present; it was utterly inaccessible, and in itself impregnable; but the city at its foot, where the rajah dwelt, was an open one. The rajah which are son; Alla-ood-deen could make no impression on the fort; but he beleagured the city, and though it was stoutly defended by Ram Déo, the rajah, as long as provisions lasted, yet he was ultimately obliged to capitulate. The rajah, after informing Alla-ood-deen that he had been taken unawares, offered 1,500 pounds acceptsterms, weight of gold as a ransom for the place, with a quanbroken by his tity of precious stones; and the Mahomedans consented to withdraw. At this juncture, the rajah's son, Shunkul Déo, arrived with the main army, and repudiated his father's negotiations. An action therefore ensued, in which the Mahomedans would have been defeated but for the officer left at Déogurh, who, with a thousand horse, retrieved the day; the Mahomedans rallying, drove the Hindoos from the field with heavy loss, and the siege was resumed. It was in vain that the rajah protested he had had no hand in his son's conduct. Alla-ood-deen was inexorable as to further payment for ransom; and in the end consented to receive pearls, diamonds, precious stones, silver, and pieces of silk of a value which seems almost incredible, but without question must have been very great; Ellichpoor and its dependencies were also ceded. who is defeated. Final ransom. Ellichpoor ceded. Meanwhile, no news had been received of Alla-ood-deen's progress, and the king, becoming anxious, marched to Gwalior, where flying reports reached him of the success of the expedition. It was then debated whether Alla-ood-deen should be intercepted, and obliged to give up his plunder, or permitted to return to Kurra; but the king, with his accustomed unsuspiciousness, protested against the former, and in due time Alla-ood- Alla-ood-deen deen reached Kurra safely. Almas Bey, the brother of returns to Alla-ood-deen, an officer in the king's confidence, had, however, conspired against his sovereign in his brother's interest, and represented to Alla-ood-deen that the king really desired his death. Kurra. This seems to have suggested the infamous course which Allaood-deen pursued. The aged king was invited to Kurra, and having no suspicion, and being anxious to meet his nephew after his perilous expedition, went slightly attended, in a barge, by the Ginges. As he disembarked from his vessel, Alla-ood-deen met him with a show of the greatest affection; but while the king was caressing him and leading him back to the barge, two of Alla-ooddeen's guards, at a signal from him, fell upon the old man Julal-oodand murdered him. This event happened on July 19, dered, 1295. 1295. There were many who now remembered the Michael curse of the Dervish, and believed it fully fulfilled, not Andronicus only as regarded the actual murderer, but afterwards in the East. the person of Alla-ood-deen himself, who, though at first fortunate, and even glorious, ended his days in misery. deen mur emperor of Dowager causes her son to be on Delily. The young Alla-ood-deen did not at once become king. The Queen-Dowager, on receiving news of the murder, placed the crown The Queenon the head of her youngest son, and seated him on the throne. The real heir, however, was his elder brother, youngest Arkully Khan, then in his government at Mooltan, but crowned. he declined to come to the capital. Alla-ood-deen, whose project had been to establish an independent kingdom in Oude, now aspired to the throne itself, and marched upon Alla-oodDehly, where the young king at first opposed him; but deen marches seeing resistance would be futile, left the city with his mother and the royal treasures, and proceeded rapidly king marches in the direction of Mooltan. Alla-ood-deen did not Mooltan. follow him, but entering Dehly with great pomp, was crowned king about the end of 1296. His great object crowned, at first seems to have been to obliterate the memory Sir William of his treachery to his uncle by unlimited largesse to the Wallace mob of Dehly, and as Ferishta writes, 'He who ought English at to have been received with detestation, became the ob- Stirling. ject of admiration to those who could not see the blackness of his deeds through the splendour of his munificence.' He next despatched a force to Mooltan, under his brother Aluf Khan, who towards Alla-ood-deen 1296. defeats the |