he "slayer," as he was generally called, invaded his
territory at the head of the Jattah Mongols. The campaign was in the
commencement indecisive, but Ababakar before long triumphed over his
northern invader.

During the next fifteen years Ababakar ruled in peace and prosperity in
Kashgar, accumulating great riches and presenting an object of
attraction to his covetous neighbours. During these years the country,
although ruled in an arbitrary way, flourished, and, as one of the
native chronicles put it, "A traveller could go from Andijan to Hamil on
the borders of China without fear of molestation, and without having to
make an extra long march in order to find a place wherein to rest and
obtain refreshment." But in 1513 a storm broke upon his country that
resulted in his complete overthrow. Said, son of Ahmad and brother of
Mansur, who was ruling in Jungaria, undertook the invasion of Kashgar in
that year, and it was not long before he occupied Kashgar, which,
however, Ababakar left but a heap of ruins. His advance on Yangy Hissar
was opposed, but, having defeated the army of Kashgar before that city,
he occupied it without any further opposition, and thus secured what
has been called the key of Yarkand as well as of Kashgar. For some
months Ababakar remained shut up in Yarkand, but on the approach of
Said's army he abandoned that position and fled to Khoten. But not long
afterwards he retired still further into the mountainous country
south-east of Kashgar, and halted some time at Karanghotagh. But being
first plundered and then deserted by his attendants, he withdrew into
the valleys and deserts of the Tibetan table-land. For many months he
wandered, half-starved and solitary, in this deserted region, and at
last it was reported that he had been found murdered by some of the
mountaineers. Such was the end of the once magnificent Ababakar, a
prince who in his fortunes reminds us very much of the great Darius.
That he was avaricious is clear to those who read of the great treasures
he had stored away; that he was bloodthirsty and cruel is impossible of
denial; but that he possessed in his earlier years many of the virtues,
with some of the vices, of a great ruler is equally incontestable. His
son Jehangir, whom he had left in command at Yarkand, on the approach of
the army of Said fled to Sanju, and was in a few months captured and
executed. About this epoch the third great Asiatic conqueror was
appearing on the scene.