and fire.

[Footnote 1: E. Schlagintweit, _Indien in Wort und Bild_, II, 26 f.]

[Illustration: AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
From Noer's _Kaiser Akbar_, (Frontispiece to Vol. II).]

The most frightful spectacle throughout these reeking centuries is the
terrible Mongolian prince Timur, a successor of Genghis-Khan, who fell
upon India with his band of assassins in the year 1398 and before his
entry into Delhi the capital, in which he was proclaimed Emperor of
India, caused the hundred thousand prisoners whom he had captured in
his previous battles in the Punjab, to be slaughtered in one single
day, because it was too inconvenient to drag them around with him. So
says Timur himself with shameless frankness in his account of the
expedition, and he further relates that after his entry into Delhi,
all three districts of the city were plundered "according to the will
of God."[2] In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Timur, made his entry into
Delhi and there founded the dominion of the Grand Moguls (i.e., of the
great Mongols). The overthrow of this dynasty was brought about by the
disastrous reign of Baber's successor Aurungzeb, a cruel, crafty and
treacherous despot, who following the example of his ancestor Timur,
spread terror and alarm around him in the second half of the
seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Even to-day
Hindus may be seen to tremble when they meet the sinister fanatical
glance of a Mohammedan.

[Footnote 2: A. Mueller, _Der Islam im Morgen-und Abendland_, II, 300
f.]

Princes with sympathetic qualities were not entirely lacking in the
seven centuries of Mohammedan dominion in India, and they shine forth
as points of light from the gloomy horror of this time, but they fade
out completely before the luminous picture of the man who governed
India for half a century (1556-1605) and by a wise, gentle and just
reign brought about a season of prosperity such as the land had never
experienced in the millenniums of its history. This man, whose memory
even to-day is revered by the Hindus, was a descendant of Baber, Abul
Fath Jelaleddin Muhammed, known by the surname Akbar "the Great,"
which was conferred upon the child even when he was named, and
completely supplanted the name that properly belonged to him. And
truly he justified the epithet, for great, fabulously great, was Akbar
as man, general, statesman and ruler,--all in all a prince who
deserves to be known by every one whose heart is