Babar

In the month of Ramadan of the year eight hundred and ninety-nine [June, 1494], I became King of Farghdna.’ Such are the opening words of the celebrated Memoirs of Barbar, first of the ‘Moghul’ Emperors of Hindistan.

Babar is the link between Central Asia and India, between predatory hordes and imperial government, between Tamerlane and Akbar. The blood of the two great Scourges of Asia, Chingiz and Timur, mixed in his veins, and to the daring and restlessness of the nomad Tatar he joined the culture and urbanity of the Persian.

He brought the energy of the Mongol the courage and capacity of the Turk, to the listless Hindu ; and, himself a soldier of fortune and no architect of empire, he yet laid the first stone of the splendid fabric which his grand- son Akbar achieved.

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