cient power, rebelled against the sovereign, and struggled--not
infrequently with success--to secure an independent throne. In the
course of these civil wars countries were overrun, towns and villages
levelled with the ground, their inhabitants massacred, and their
property pillaged. We read of rival dynasties which contended with each
other for empire. We are told of terrible invasions like those of Timour
and Nadir Shah. There were no doubt great emperors, such as the
illustrious Akbar, during whose rule India suffered comparatively little
from war, and enjoyed great prosperity. Governors were now and then firm
and just rulers. Looking at the whole period of Muhammadan rule, during
no part of which India was free from the scourge of war, and during a
great part of which war on a large scale was carried on, untold misery
must have been endured by many of its inhabitants, and there was little
security for life and property. The aristocracy of the emperors' courts
was mainly that of office, and only to a limited degree that of blood
and ancient possession. We find persons of mean birth rising to
greatness, and persons on the very pinnacle of honour cast down to the
ground. There was a succession of emperors called Slave Emperors, as
they had originally been slaves in the court, whence they rose to
supreme power. When we consider the teaching of the Quran respecting
those who do not submit to Islam, we may suppose what the condition of
the Hindus was under Muhammadan rulers, so far as they acted out their
principles. Happily during this period, though constantly exposed to
terrible disasters, the people in their villages were often left to
manage their own affairs.

[Sidenote: THE REIGN OF ADVENTURERS.]

When our nation commenced its conquering career in the middle of the
eighteenth century, the Muhammadan Empire was in a state of collapse.
Within thirteen years of Aurungzeb's death, in 1706, six sovereigns were
seated on the imperial throne. Shah Alum was nominal emperor from 1759
to 1806, and all the time he was a wanderer, a prisoner, or a pensioner
of the Mahrattas, the Rohillas, or the English. He was as melancholy an
example of fallen greatness as can well be conceived, a greatness which
retained its title while its bearer was subjected to every indignity. He
had been for some time in the hands of the Mahrattas, who used his seal
freely, and at the same time treated him with the utmost cruelty. The
food supplied wa