pire increased in wealth, glory and power, and among the
Mogul dynasty were several of the most extraordinary men that have
ever influenced the destinies of nations. Yet it seems strange that
from the beginning each successive emperor should be allowed to
obtain the throne by treachery, by the wholesale slaughter of his
kindred and almost always by those most shameful of sins--parricide
and ingratitude to the authors of their being. Rebellious children
have always been the curse of oriental countries, and when we
read the histories of the Mogul dynasty and the Ottoman Empire
and of the tragedies that have occurred under the shadows of the
thrones of China, India and other eastern countries, we cannot
but sympathize with the feelings of King Thebaw of Burma, who
immediately after his coronation ordered the assassination of
every relative he had in the world and succeeded in "removing"
seventy-eight causes of anxiety.

Babar, the "Lion," as they called him, was buried at Kabul, the
capital of Afghanistan, and was succeeded by Humayon, the son
for whom he gave his life. The latter, on Sunday, Dec. 14, 1517,
the day that Martin Luther delivered his great speech against the
pope and caused the new word "Protestant"--one who protests--to
be coined, drove Sikandar, the last of the Afghan dynasty, from
India. When they found the body of that strenuous person upon the
battle field, the historians say, "five or six thousand of the
enemy were lying dead in heaps within a small space around him;"
as if he had killed them all. The wives and slaves of Sikandar
were captured. Humayon behaved generously to them, considering
the fashion of those times, but took the liberty to detain their
luggage, which included their jewels and other negotiable assets.
In one of their jewel boxes was found a diamond which Sikandar
had acquired from the sultan Alaeddin, one of his ancestors,
and local historians, writing of it at the time, declared that
"it is so valuable that a judge of diamonds valued it at half the
daily expenses of the entire world." This was the first public
appearance in good society of the famous Kohinoor, which, as
everybody knows, is now the chief ornament in the crown of Edward
VII., King of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India. It
is valued at L880,000, or $4,400,000 in our money. Queen Victoria
never wore it. She had it taken from the crown and replaced by a
paste substitute. This jewel thus became one of the hei