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condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. "I had reason to suspect that none, except one of my sons, could dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so painful was my anxiety, that I had passed three days without food since the first moment of your complaint." II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of the Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his invasion till the manhood of her son. ^8 "During the life of my husband," said the artful regent, "I was ever apprehensive of your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms.

He is now no more his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child, and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty." Avarice was the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. ^* The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never accumulated; in the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies, such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. ^9 Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with precious minerals: her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and silver of the world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life, evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast and various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears, and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following day he reviewed the state of his military force; one hundred thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred elephants of battle. ^10 He again wept the instability of human greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his Persian kingdom.

[Footnote 8: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the heart, or the motives of public action.]

[Footnote *: Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295. - M]

[Footnote 9: For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals, (Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]

[Footnote 10: Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these stories.]

In the modern depopulation of Asia, the regular operation of government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of cities; and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral tribes of Arabs, Curds, and Turkmans. ^11 Of the last-mentioned people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the Caspian Sea: the western colony can muster forty thousand soldiers; the eastern, less obvious to the traveller, but more strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations, they preserve the manners of the Scythian desert, remove their encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are their only riches; their tents,