town fifty miles south of Samarkand, the capital
of Bokhara, which was known as Tartary in those days. This young
man conquered more nations, ruled over a wider territory and
a larger number of people submitted to his authority than to
any other man who ever lived, before or since. His expansion
policy was more successful than that of Alexander the Great or
Julius Caesar or Charles V. or Napoleon, and he may properly be
estimated as one of the greatest if not the very greatest and
most successful soldier in all history. Yet he was not born to a
throne. He was a self-made man. His father was a modest merchant,
without wealth or fame. His grandfather was a scholar of repute
and conspicuous as the first convert to Mohammedanism in the
country in which he lived. Timour went into the army when he
was a mere boy. There were great doings in those days, and he
took an active part in them. From the start he seems to have been
cast for a prominent role in the military dramas and tragedies
being enacted upon the world's wide stage. He inherited a love
of learning from his grandfather and a love of war as well as
military genius from some savage ancestor. He rose rapidly. Other
men acknowledged his superiority, and before he was 30 years
old he found himself upon a throne and acknowledged to be the
greatest soldier of his time. He came into India in 1398 and set
up one of his sons on a throne at Delhi, where his descendants
ruled until the great Indian mutiny of 1857--460 years. He died
of fever and ague in 1405, and was buried at Samarkand, where
a splendid shrine erected over his tomb is visited annually by
tens of thousands of pilgrims, who worship him as divine.

Babar, sixth in descent from Timour, consolidated the states
of India under a central government. His memoirs make one of
the most fascinating books ever written. He lived a stirring
and a strenuous life, and the world bowed down before him. His
death was strangely pathetic, and illustrates the faith and the
superstition of men mighty in material affairs but impotent before
gods of their own creation. His son and the heir to his throne,
Humayon, being mortally ill of fever, was given up to die by the
doctors, whereupon the affectionate father went to the nearest
temple and offered what he called his own worthless soul as a
substitute for his son. The gods accepted the sacrifice. The
dying prince began to recover and the old man sank slowly into
his grave.

The em