THE DECLINE AND FALL

14

chap. Arabian geographers, the stony girdles of the

LXV earth. The highland robbers were subdued orextirpated; but great numbers of men antihorses perished in the snow: the emperor him-self was let down a precipice on a portable scaf-fold ; the ropes were one hundred and fifty cubitsin length; and, before he could reach the bottom,this dangerous operation was five times repeat-ed. Timour crossed the Indus at the ordinarypassage of Attok ; and successively traversed, inthe footsteps of Alexander, the Punjab , or fiverivers, b that fall into the master-stream. FromAttok to Delhi , the high road measures no morethan six hundred miles; but the two conquerorsdeviated to the south-east: and the motive ofTimour was to join his grandson, who hadachieved, by his command, the conquest of Moul-tan. On the eastern bank of the Hyphasis , onthe edge of the desert, the Macedonian herohalted and wept: the Mogul entered the de-sert, reduced the fortress of Batnir, and stoodin arms before the gates of Delhi , a great andflourishing city , which had subsisted three cen-turies under the dominion of the inahometankings. The siege, more especially of the castle,might have been a work of time; but he tempt-ed, by the appearance of weakness, the sultanMahmoud and his vizir to descend into the plain,with ten thousand cuirassiers, forty thousand of

b The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of the Indus ,have been laid down, for the first time, with truth and accuracy, inMajor Renners incomparable map of Hindostan. In his Critical Me-moir he illustrates, with judgment and learning, the marches of Alexander and Timour .