OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

proclaimed, that he had penetrated to the regionof perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon,which authorised his mahometan doctors to dis-pense with the obligation of evening prayer. 1

III. When Timour first proposed to his princesand emirs the invasion of India or Hindostan,* hewas answered by a murmur of discontent: “ The“rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and“ the soldiers clad in armour! and the elephants,“ destroyers of men!” But the displeasure ofthe emperor was more dreadful than all theseterrors; and his superior reason was convinced,that an enterprise of such tremendous aspectwas safe and easy in the execution. He was in-formed by his spies of the weakness and anarchyof Hindustan: the soubahs of the provinces haderected the standard of rebellion; and the per-petual infancy of sultan Mahmoud was despised,even in the haram of Delhi . The Mogul armymoved in three great divisions: and Timour ob-serves, with pleasure, that the ninety-two squa-drons of a thousand horse most fortunately cor-responded with the ninety-two names or epi-thets of the prophet Mahomet. Between theSihoon and the Indus they crossed one of theridges of mountains, which are styled by the

1 Sherefeddin only says (I. iii, c. 13), that the rays of the setting, andthose of the rising sun, were scarcely, separated by any interval; a pro-blem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow (the fifty.sixthdegree),with the aid of the aurora borealis, and a long summer twilight.But a day of forty days (Khondemir apud d’Herbelot, p. 880) wouldrigorously confine us within the polar circle.

* For the Indian war, see the Institutions (p. 129-139), the fourthbook of Shercfeddiu, and the history of Ferishta (in Dow, vol. ii, p.1-20), which throws a general light on the affairs ofHindostan.

13

CHAP.LX V.

III. OfHindostana. D. 1399.

1399.