We were dreamers, dreaming greatly. . . . We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. Came the Whisper, came the Vision... RUDYARD KIPling. in India CHAPTER I Introduction Ancient history is very much the history of the struggle for the transit trade of the East by the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.-Sir George Birdwood. THE HE medieval period of Indian history may conveniently be regarded as opening with the first plundering expedition of Mahmud, "the Idol-Breaker," in 1001 A.D., and as reaching its close with the death of Aurangzib, in 1707 A.D. The chief documentary sources for the history of India during those seven centuries are the works of the various Mohammedan literary men-historians, annalists, scandal-retailers, gossipy memoir writers, poets, biographists, and autobiographists-who swarmed in the courts of the more enlightened of the rulers of Afghanistan, Hindustan, and the Deccan. Much of this mass of evidence, like the greater part of the history of Ferishta, and much of that of Khafi Khan, though immensely important, cannot lay claim to credence as being the work of a contemporary witness. A certain proportion of it, on the other hand, was |