them for days without food. At
length, however, the people of Bagdad were roused in defence of the
Caliphate, and the Turks for a time were brought under; but they
remained in the country, or rather, by the short-sighted policy of the
moment, were dispersed throughout it, and thus became in the sequel
ready-made elements of revolution for the purposes of other traitors of
their own race, who, at a later period, as we shall presently see,
descended on Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly, but surely, to their
ascendancy. Throughout the whole of the tenth century, which followed,
they seem to disappear from history; but a silent revolution was all
along in progress, leading them forward to their great destiny. The
empire of the Caliphate was already dying in its extremities, and
Sogdiana was one of the first countries to be detached from his power.
The Turks were still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the
army and the offices of the government; but the political changes which
took place were not at first to their visible advantage. What first
occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy, who made himself a
great kingdom or empire out of the provinces around, extending it from
the Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of Sogdiana, almost to the
Indian ocean, and from the confines of Georgia to the mountains of
Affghanistan. The dynasty thus established lasted for four generations
and for the space of ninety years. Then the successor happened to be a
boy; and one of his servants, the governor of Khorasan, an able and
experienced man, was forced by circumstances to rebellion against him.
He was successful, and the whole power of this great kingdom fell into
his hands; now he was a Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks
suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged masters of a southern
dominion.

4.

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish dynasty of the Gaznevides,
so called after Gazneh, or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and
it lasted for two hundred years. We are not particularly concerned in
it, because it has no direct relations with Europe; but it falls into
our subject, as having been instrumental to the advance of the Turks
towards the West. Its most distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he
conquered Hindostan, which became eventually the seat of the empire. In
Mahmood the Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendour. For
him the ti