History of the Nations  

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HUTCHINSON'S History of the Nations A popular concise, pictorial, and authoritative account of each Nation from the earliest times to the present day. is a work edited by Walter Hutchinson.

Full text of "Hutchinson's story of the nations, containing the Egyptians, the Chinese, India, the Babylonian nation, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, and other nations of Asia Minor"

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A PHILOSOPHER once said •**-t hat his heart was in the Past, his body in the Present, and his soul in the Future. He was not a humorist, nor was he indulging in a high-sounding phrase which should impress the ignorant. He was merely condensing into one sen- tence Man's debt to the Past, his identity with the Present, and his responsibilities to the Future. The story of how we make the future is Prophecy ; the story of how the past makes us is History. When once we realize that we are ourselves the result of all that has gone before, History ceases to be a cold informal narrative and becomes a vivid intimate reality.

But when we look back — per- haps fifty years — on our own life, it may be difficult to visualize it, to recall our wishes, feelings, and out- look under conditions that have changed. Still more difficult is it to realize the lives of our forefathers, where hearsay and reading are the substitutes for personal knowledge. For earlier ages, where we have to gather our ideas in fragments from scattered details, andjput them

INTRODUCTION

fainted by Alma Tadema.]

[By permission of The Berlin Photographic Co.

THE FINDING OF THE INFANT MOSES.

It is generally believed that Moses was born in the early half ot thi fourteenth century B.C., when the Egyptians were attempting to reduce the population of the Israelites. Tradition relates that the mother of Moses secured his safety by contriving that he should be ound by the Pharaoh's daughter, who took him under her protection.

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laboriously together, the task is one .to be done by the scholar, for him to present to other men with

as much fidelity as possible.

The modern historian who writes on the early history of human progress has been compelled to gather

his information from a variety of sources. The earliest chronicles were^based on oral tradition, and

when facts can be discovered in them they are generally blended with legends, highly valuable and

interesting in themselves, but unreliable for the historian's purpose. Herodotus, called the father of history, wrote an ac- count of the struggles between the Greeks and Barbarians, one of the oldest literary historical works extant. But there are older and more reliable his- torical records which, though not literary, are none the less eloquent. The geologist and the archaeologist are the chief coadjutors of the modern his- torian of early man. The former, in tracing the phases of the earth's history, has enabled the historian to approximate when man first appeared on this planet. He can see, more- over, that under the stress of the great Ice Age, when the conditions of living must have been very rigorous, man was compelled to migrate as the glacial sheet approached, and that he appears to have made ^ more progress proportionately

Y4* *&?- *• ! during this Period than he

did either just preceding that cataclysm, or for many years after.

He can help us as to the sequence of the different periods of his existence. But it is tolerably certain that his pro- gress was so slow as to be almost imperceptible to a dweller in those ages ; he could not have known what was understood by the meaning of "change" or "progress". And so remote was the period in which he lived that, compared with it the hoary antiquity of Egypt — probably the oldest civilization in the world — seems to be robbed of its antiquity and to appear as a settlement but of yesterday.

In the path of the geologist follows the archaeologist, whose "spade-work" is concerned not with rock and ice formations but with the remains of the actual buildings and works of art left behind as unlying witnesses of the ancient civilizations.

When the modern historian came to study the earliest civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Persia, he found that most of his information had to be literally unearthed, for it lay under the sandy

From the Painting by Sir W. Orpen Ii.A.\

[By permission of the Imperial ll'nr Museum Huuth Kensington.

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES, 1919

The treaty with Germany which brought the Great War to an end was signed in the Hall of Mirrors Versailles, on Juno 28th, 1919. By it a number of terr.torial changes were made, including the creation ol several new States. The chief signatories can be seen in the picture, including Mr. Lloyd George, Mi-, lionar Law, and Mr. A. J. Balfour (Lord Balfour), representing Great Britain ; M. Clemenceau (France) ; and President Wilson (America). Dr. Johannes Hell (Germany) is signing the document.

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deserts of Egypt or the desolate plains of Assyria. The sacred inscriptions of the Ancient Egyptians baffled the efforts of all those who attempted to decipher them, when in 1799 some of Napoleon's men in Egypt'discovered what is known as the "Rosetta Stone", containing a key to the hieroglyphic or sacred writings of the priests. In 1822 Champollion, a French savant, with the aid of this key, deciphered the word Cleopatra ; he and others afterwards continued their studies, which subsequently led to revealing these writings to the world.

Bu permission of] [The Berlin Pho agraphic Co., London, W

FREDERICK THE GREAT SURPRISING THE AUSTRIAN OFFICERS.

In 1757 Frederick the Great completely routed the Austrian army at Leuthen. The same evening he threwltwo_battalions of Grenadiers into Lissa and, accompanied by some of his staff, entered the castle where the Austrian officers were assembled. So thunderstruck were they at this unexpected appearance that they immediately yielded up their swords, although they might easily have seized the whole party.

The first thing that we must bring to the reading of history is the conviction that at every stage it was a living present, with men and women striving for what seemed to them to be the most necessary and real ends of life. Even in an age of frivolity and pleasure such enjoyments seemed to be the most urgent matters to those who shared in them. In every society into which we project ourselves by the witchery of reading — forgetting all the present form of things around us — the actors were just as absorb- ingly occupied as are the people of our day in their business and pleasures. We do not think the rest of the world unreal because we happen to be encompassed by four walls where we sit ; nor should we think other times in the least less real than our own because we do not happen to see them enacted. That "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players" is the poet's view of history, but not the standpoint from which the serious reader should regard the subject. The past is the mirror of the present, not its plaything. If any of us has doubts as to the reality of life in bygone days let

Introduction

Painted by Alma Tadema.] [tiy permission of Tne Jitrun r/toioi/ratt/tic C'o.,

AVE C.ESAR, IO SATURNALIA

At the time of Emperor Caliguia's murder, Claudius, his uncle, had hidden in an obscure corner, fearing lest ho also should lose his life. When found by the soldiers, he begged for life. "Bo our emperor," they answered, and carried him trembling to the camp. Here he plucked up sufficient courage to address them, and procured their allegiance by promises of money and good rule.

him read the pathetic inscriptions left in the Roman catacombs by the early Christians in memory of their martyred comrades, or let him stroll through the streets of dead Pompeii, past the shops and taverns, and stop before each of the many posters on which the tradesmen and politicians of the little provincial city proclaimed their wares. Little effort of imagination will be required to conjure up a vision of the past, to repeople those deserted streets, to restore the familiar sights and sounds. The sudden trans- formation annihilates Time and bridges Space, and through the mists of eighteen hundred years one fact stands clear, the essential oneness of the human race.

It is this presentation of the past like a chapter of_everyday life around us which is the guiding line

By F. a. Vridgman.] iB" permission of Goupil rf- Co.

THE PASTIME OK AN ASSYRIAN KIXC.

In addition to protecting his people against foreign invasion, it was tlir duty of an Assyrian Kin,' to clear the land of li.m^ and other wild animals. Hunting thus became a royal sport, and to embl<> the'Kini; to improve hi" skill Itmst- \virecaptured and turned into the arena.

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of the STORY OF THE NATIONS, and which artist and historian have tried to portray with as much fidelity as possible.

To enter into the past and live its life again we must try to feel that at every period it appeared to those who lived in it to be the summing-up of all that went before, as our own present seems to us. To each age everything before it seemed to have reached its climax in its own day, and the future was ignored, considered superfluous — unimportant — incomprehensible : "Why should anyone wish to change this present ?" has been the incredulous question of every age. When we look at Henry the Seventh's chapel we should see it as the builder did, the most glorious consummation of architecture that he could conceive, and a worthy setting to the eternal Masses which should ensure the felicity of his soul. We must shut our minds entirely to the future, when the next generation swept away the chantries and the motive of the building was gone.

Again, we should regard the Roman occupation of Britain — the camps, the villas, and the spread of Latin civilization — as the Britons themselves regarded it. We should enter into their feelings of awe

Painted bv H. P. Delaroche.] [/•/»</.. '.;/ CHnuttm,

THE ASSASSINATION OF THE DUC DE GUISE, 1588.

At three o'clock in the morning the Kinir summoned Henri, Due tie Guise, wim. as head of the Catholic League, was the most influential person in France. As the Duke entered the Chateau a note of warning, the sixteenth since the previous evening, was thrust into his hand, but he ignored it. As he left the antechamber he was stabbed, ami Henri III, who had not dared to face him when he lived, kicked his dead body, exclaiming : "Now I am King of France ; the King of Paris is dead."

and admiration of what must have appeared to them the very acme of luxury and power. We must forget that the future was to show how rotten was the fabric and how easily the Saxon barbarians would rend it in twain. So the Egyptians of the time of the Pyramids felt as if they had reached the climax of everything possible in the immense works they had created. What more could man do ? To the clans of the Prehistoric -Age even the unity of the Nile Valley must have been a mere dream ; their agriculture, their triumphs of stone-working, their weaving and housing, well seemed to sum up all that man could need and to be the ultimate development to which barbarians around them should be led to conform. This sense of finality in each age we should try to grasp if we are to enter into the reality of its life. •,

Many readers may have a feeling th:it all history is su long ago that a lifetime is a mere speck in the roll of ages ; they stand aghast at the idea of even a few thousands ul years, and will not try to imagine what seems so immeasurable. To bring the range of History within the imagination let us take a chain of comparisons. To some of us the French Revolution and Napoleon are living matters, as we remember

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hearing of them from those who were contemporaries. In the same way our grandfathers heard of the Restoration and the Fire of London from their grandfathers. The Fire of London is half-way back to Prince Hal and the French wars. Prince Hal is half-way back to King Alfred ; Alfred is half-way to the boyhood of Julius Caesar, where we touch the beginning of history in our own land. Julius Caesar is half-way to Abraham, and Abraham is half-way to the later Prehistoric Age of Egypt. Six stages, each double of that already named, take us back from living cognizance to before the earliest history- began. Mankind is but a thing of recent times, and all history is a mere film on the depth of the world's age..

To take a scale to cover all the time we know of, let us put an inch for the longest memory of a century, each year easily visible in it. Then the beginning of History in the First Dynasty of Egypt will be six feet on our scale ; the beginning of mankind may be perhaps a furlong or two distant ; while

By permission of] [The Illustrated London News.

THE SINKING Ofr"THE LUSITANIA, 1915.

The action of the German submarines in torpedoing passenger vessels without providing for the safety of the occup ants was a defiance of International Law, and did much to turn world opinion in favour of the Allies. The most spectacular event of this submarine warfare was the sinking of the Cunard liner Ltisitania off the coast of Ireland in May 1915. The heavy loss of American lives was the chief cause of the ultimate entry of America into the war.

we must lengthen our scale as far as the whole length or width of England to represent the age of the oldest rocks. Or, to put it in another form, if every tick of one second of a clock were taken as a year, then a week or two would represent the duration of mankind, and half a century would be in proportion to the age of the oldest rocks.

It should be borne in mind that the word History is often used in two different senses. When we speak of pre-historic, we limit history to the artificial meaning of a written document. But the real meaning of historia is any inquiry, narrative, or study of connected events, a meaning which we rightly hold to in the term Natural History. Though to older writers there seemed no means of history except the written record, yet the last generation or two has developed an entirely new apparatus of knowledge in interpreting material facts about man and nature. We now look on any country which man has inhabited as containing his history preserved in material form which only needs search and comparison to trace out and reduce to a written story of connected events.

One great result of this change is that History is no longer regarded as the preserve of the professors, but as a vast museum of human nature with an interest and an appeal to all. Each of us, according

Introduction

IX

Photo by Henry J. Mullen, Lid. (Bu kin/I inrmission of Sir Itilry Lord.

CHARLES I GOING TO EXECUTION.

Early in January 1649, Charles I, one of the best of men anil worst of rulers. wa« impeached for high treason for having made war on Parliament and the English people. On the 27th instant he was declared guilty, and his execution took place In front of the Palace of Whitehall three days later.

to his particular tastes and hobbies, can find in the inexhaustible mine of man's story the treasures that he seeks and values most. One man cares little or nothing about what men have done in the past, but very much about what they have thought. He is not concerned with social and political events, and

From the painting bti F. A. Bridgman.] [/>';/ kinrl permission of Goupil d- Co.

THE SACRED PROCESSION OF API.S OSIRIS.

When the Egyptian Priests had determined upon a bull which by reason of its marking they deemed sacred to Apis Osiris, it was conveyed by boat to his temple After It had been anointed and clad in the most gorgeous garments, it became the most sacred object in the religious processions and ceremonies.

Story of the Nations

the great scenes that grip the imagination leave him cold. His business is with the evolution of thought, his purpose an analysis of the various modes in which man has addressed himself to the problem

of the ultimate reality of things. His heroes are the philosophers, not the men of action.

Another takes the history of Religion for his province. He inquires into the rise, pro- gress, and decline of religious beliefs. He classifies men, not as members of a nation or a state, but as adherents of a faith. Another, again, confines himself to the history of Art, and among the myriad facts which constitute man's story he singles out those which reveal ar.tistic impulse and foreshadow artistic achieve- ment. To him the struggles of the imperial and papal factions in Italy are of no importance except in so far as they affected that wonderful artistic outburst which we call the Renaissance. The naval triumphs of Holland in the seventeenth century seem to him as nothing compared with its simultaneous pre-eminence in the realm of painting. In his eyes the highest human achievements are not the conquests of Alexander nor the Code Napoleon, but the Hermes of Praxiteles and the decoration of the Sistine Chapel.

Yet another pursues the engrossing topic of man's contest with Nature, watches his earliest crude attempts to harness the forces of the earth and control the powers of the air. For him the landmarks of history arc the first triumphs of the Phoenician traders over the fury of the Atlantic, or the construction of the first Roman aqueduct. No history is complete which does not regard man in all these aspects, political, social, or scientific, and it is the claim of this work that it presents them in the smallest pors'ble compass in a form that will appeal to all, both in scope and treatment. "The proper study of m kind

From "With Lawrence in Arabia"] [by Lou-ell Thomas.

COLONEL T. E. LAWRENCE.

Colonel T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, wns born in 1888 and as quite a young man tin veiled extensively in and acquired an intimate knowledge of Syria and Arabia. On the outbreak of war he was doing work for the Palestine Exploration Fund. After a spell at the War Office Kitchener sent him to Kgypt and he was attached to the Intelligence Department. Soon he was engaged on the great work of encouraging and organizing an Arab movement of Independence against the Turks, his adventures forming one of the most romantic chapters of wartime history. His ideal of forming a united Arab Kingdom was frowned upon by the peacemakers at Versailles tmt he did succeed in obtaining the throne of Irak for his great friend tin- Emir I •'< -i-;il. At the present time he is serving in the Royal Air Force under the name of Shaw.

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. • ~r- .- _

Fainted specially for this work]

(by Waller Tyndale, /?./.

YOSHITSUNE INSPECTING THE DEFENCES OF THE TAIRA ARMY.

When Yoritomo rebelled against the rule of the Taira family in Japan his brother, Yoshitsune, joined him and played an important part in his ultimate success. After a certain indecisive battle on the plains Yoshitsune led during the night 3,000 men to the summit of a pass near Kobe, and inspected his enemies' defences without their knowledge. Sweeping down upon the rear of their army from this favourable position, he caused the utmost confusion in their ranks and gained a great victory.

is man", said Pope, and it might also be called the motto of a history of the nations, for it offers to readers of the most diverse tastes and interests something that particularly concerns them. Yet through all the diversity runs the one connecting thread that human nature is one all the world over and at all times, surviving social upheaval and political change, and defying the hand of Time.

We realize more and more that the lives of men in distant ages and other climes have a real and intimate meaning to us ; that joy and pain, hope and despair, were to them very much what they are to us. And this is the supreme fascination of the subject, that as we read, the rows of names and strings of dates fade away into unimportance while'the feelings and passions, "like passions with our own", stand out on the canvas in ever-increasing vividness. When we dwell on the Napoleonic conflict it is natural to assume that in the turmoil of that terrific upheaval no one thought of anything but battles and invasions, wars and rumours of wars. It is a little difficult to imagine that, with the world bursting about their ears, men could rise in the morning as if nothing were happening, but it must be re- membered that until the Great War the number of combatants was comparatively small, and in the absence of cables and telegraph the scenes of great events seemed far more remote. The older historians were so much impressed by the importance of warfare and so greatly overrated its influence that they remained blind to other forces and movements m re silent in operation but infinitely more far-reaching in their effects. To the spectator of events in the year 1453 the fall of Constantinople, the bulwark of Christen- dom, to the Turks must have seemed an irreparable disaster and the beginning of a new era. But looking back on that year from the standpoint of the twentieth century, and with the lessons of the intervening period before our eyes, we should be much more justified in regarding the appearance of

Introduction

Xlll

the first printed book as the crowning achievement. For Europe speedily adjusted itself to the new conditions created by the foundation of a Turkish Empire within its borders, whereas the influence of the Press has increased from that day to this. Or, again, we know that certain events in Palestine at the commencement of the Christian Era were regarded in the Roman world as a local riot. The Roman Empire has become a memory, but that "local riot" has changed the face of the world, and as the founder of Christianity a Jewish "rebel" is to-day reverenced by one quarter of the entire population of the globe.

In 1810 it would have taken a bold man to assert that James Watt's inventions would affect the lives of men more than the Peninsular War. In 1910 it would have taken an even -bolder man to deny it.

This, then, is the first moral to be drawn from the reading of history, that to arrive at the truth we must cultivate a sense of proportion, view men and movements in perspective, and single out what has been of real value to the progress of mankind from that which is less important if more picturesque. This, again, raises the supremely interesting question as to whether the phrase "progress of mankind" has any meaning at all, whether there is some great concerted movement of the human race towards some goal. And, if so, what is the goal at which, in the fulfilment of time, the nations of the world will converge ? Is the story of humanity a river whose current flows within set bounds and with certainty of direction, or is it an ocean whose restless movements betray no guiding principle ? When we think of the Past, the forgotten races, the buried civilizations, the glories that have faded, we may well come away with the feeling that change and decay, the ebb and flow of fortune, are as much part of the lives of nations as of the lives of individuals. One after another we see the great Empires of the past — Egypt,

/•«/, »-,</ specialty jor i»>* ,.,//M Ito/ Ambrose Dudley.

A GREAT INDIAN PRINCE CELEBRATING HIS VICTORY.

At the beginning of the Christian era the chief Dynasty of the Dcccan was the Audhra, of which there was a great prince. Gautainiputra Satakarni. In A.D. 126 he conquered Nahapana, the Satrap of Gujarat, Western India, and he is here seen amusing himself after his victory. The details of the picture are taken from Indian sculptures of the time.

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Assyria, Rome — rise in the flower and pride of youth, scatter and subdue their enemies, enjoy their period of domination, then lose their grasp and fall exhausted before the rise of some new power. Why should we expect more from the hands of Fate ? Science has increased our creature comforts, added to our means of Knowledge, annihilated space and wrested Nature's secrets from her. Yet the palm for the highest achievement of human intellect is with Greece, of political sense with Rome. Can science save us from the doom which was theirs ?

Perhaps, however, this vision is too sweeping in its picture of another Chalons, another "Scourge of God", with the destruction of most that now seems to make life worth living in order that the nations may be reborn. There is another school of thought which holds that each generation begins where its predecessors leave off ; that the accumulated wisdom and experience of one age is a legacy to the next ;

Painted by] M. Ackland Hunt.

WILLIAM GILBERD, M.D., DEMONSTRATING HIS EXPERIMENTS TO ELIZABETH.

William Gilberd, a celebrated physician and natural philosopher and the father of electric and magnetic science, was born in 1544 at Colchester. In his work De Magnete, which embodies the results of many year-' ic>c;ncli. he explains his con- ception that the earth is nothing but a large magnet. It is accordingly not only the first but the most important contribution to electricity and magnetism.

and that there is a perpetual moral and social advancement to which the word "progress" is rightly applied.

Whatever meaning we may attach to the word "progress" — whether we hold that man's course from the earliest dawn of history to the present twentieth century has bsen a continuous or but slightly interrupted change from a lower to a higher type of being, or whether it may be true, as some of the wisest men say, that man's moral stature has not grown with his material progress, that though he may weigh the distant planets as in a balance, may transmit his spoken words from one continent to another, may speed over land and sea with a velocity of which his grandfathers wauld not have dreamed, and may drive his way through the very air — yet he has still himself to conquer, his own passions to subdue , and that the task is the same, the achievement the same, for himself as for his most remote forefathers ; whether or not we count this true, yet the fact that change, perpetual change is the law of human existence cannot be doubted.

By permission of]

->-r». Braun ct Cie.'

THE DEATH OF DEMOSTHENES.

Demosthenes, the highest typo of orator, patriot and statesman, foresaw the rise of Macedonia and its attendant peril M Athens, but his countrymen remained deaf to his warnings until their disastrous defeat at Chaeronea convinced them of the truth of his words. Another defeat confirmed the Macedonian supremacy, and Demosthenes fled to Calaureia, where he was captured by the Macedonian troops and took poison.

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By •permission of] [The Autotype Fine Art Co., Ltd., 74, New Oxford Street, London

PETER THE HERMIT PREACHING THE FIRST CRUSADE.

At the end of the eleventh century the conquests of the Turks threatened the safety of Constantinople, and the Byzantine Emperors appealed for help to the Pope. At the same time Peter the Hermit, horrified at the insults to which the pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre were subjected, preached throughout Europe a holy war.

We will now trace the great lines on which the change has hitherto proceeded. We shall find that man, being a dweller on the earth, is in the last resort dependent on her will. It was first of all in those regions where the earth yielded her fruits in lavish abundance, where the warmth and food were ready to hand and needed little toil to win, that man, his physical wants easily satisfied, had leisure for those activities and aspirations which raised him above the animal world.

The fertile river valleys of the East, the valleys of the Nile, the Ganges, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, were the mothers of civilization, while the inhabitants of the less genial climates of the West were yet in a state of savagery. The earth's natural regions have their characteristics, and the children of earth are stamped with their imprint. To live, man must war with Nature, but Nature presents herself under very different aspects to her denizens. In northern lands, where she yields her fruits with a more niggard hand than in sunnier climes, man can in truth only eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. Perseverance, practical resource, thrift and doggedness are the qualities so generated. Further, where the soil is less productive than increasing population demands, the surplus inhabitants are driven to seek their sustenance in other lands. The thin soil of Greece sent the young light-hearted masters of the world to Asia Minor, to Egypt, and to Italy : the necessity of finding wider lands for their teeming hordes pressed the tribes of the North against the peaceful countries under the sway of Imperial Rome, and the majestic fabric of the Roman Empire tottered before them.

Is not the same problem of an expanding population with inadequate means of subsistence seen to-day in the case of modern nations ? How different in the East, where the natural wants of man are few and easily satisfied ! What motive has the inhabitant of Persia or Burma to bestir himself ? Where Nature shows herself, suddenly and without warning, in her most awful mood, where a flood or an earthquake

Introduction

xvn

may destroy at one blow the results of years of patient industry, man is apt to be imbued with a spirit of submission to her will, of blind acquiescence in her irresponsible ways, and with that fatalism which we deem peculiarly Oriental. In the West, Nature is a more equable force ; she can to a greater extent be relied upon, and she encourages us to go forward with confidence in her regularity.

These are broad and striking instances of the truth that the character of man is largely conditioned by its material setting, and many more may suggest themselves at once.

Those who maintain that each generation begins where the previous one has left off point to the elimi- nation of racial characteristics, the fusion of the peoples of the earth, the abolition of warfare as a means of settling disputes, in short, the establishment of a brotherhood of man, as the goal towards which the destinies of the Nations are tending. And, indeed, there is some evidence that this ideal is not the Utopia it sounds. In every European country of importance a political party exists whose avowed object is to remove the barriers of race and tongue and solve by international Socialism the problems eternally presented by international rivalry. How far such an ideal is possible or desirable is a living issue, a question for the reader of history to decide for himself with the lessons and example of the Past before his eyes. It is not the first time that the conception of a "Federation of the World, a Parliament of Man," has seized the imagination of writers and politicians. It was fully anticipated in that strange medieval Utopia, the Holy Roman Empire, the governance of the Christian world by God through His temporal lieutenant the Emperor and His spiritual lieutenant the Pope. It is matter of history that the grandiloquent conception broke down utterly at the first touch of reality, that Christian unity was shattered not so much by the jealousies of Pope and Emperor as by the growing national aspirations of England, France, and Germany. It was in vain that the Popes bade all Christian brothers cease their quarrels and forget their differences in

Painted by J. D. Penrose. By -permission of] [The Autotype fine Art Co., Ltd., 74, New Oxford Street, London.

QUEEN PHILIPPA INTERCEDING FOR THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS.

A famous incident in the Hundred Years War was the siege of Calais by Edward III. The stout resistance of the burghers enraged the King, and on the'fall of the town he resolved to strike terror into the French by hanging six of the principal citizens. From this purpose he was turned aside by the pleading of his wile Philippa.

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a common hatred of the infidel Saracen. The ranks of the Crusaders who poured forth to reclaim the East for the Cross were torn by national antipathies and dissensions. The English knight and the French seigneur who fought side by side in the Holy Land were the same who fought face to face in Normandy. The German and Italian who were "Christian brothers" abroad were the bitterest of enemies at home. Nevertheless, when the Crusades had become the merest farce, when all semblance of unity had departed, when the spiritual and political authority of the Papacy were alike flouted, the old notion of a world state of Christian peoples remained, more as an historical curiosity than as a practicable ideal. To follow the fortunes of the idea of nationality among the states of Europe will give us the key to modern international politics, and explain why a history of the nations will throw more light on the men and matters of our own time than a history of the world could do.

We may assume that by the close of the thirteenth century the idea of nationality was clearly established

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS PRAYING BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LUTZEX.

The religious differences which had existed for more than seventy years between the Catholic and Protestant leaders in Europe led in the beginning of the seventeenth century to the desperate conflict known as the Thirty Years War, concluded by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. At Lutzen, Gusta-rus Adolphus, Kine of Sweden, the hero of the Protestant armies, was killed.

in England and France. In England the fusion of the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons- was approaching completion. A king sat on the throne who represented in his own person the ability of the one and the aspirations of the other. Englishmen of all sorts and conditions joined in the wars which Edward I waged to conquer Wales and Scotland and hold his French possessions. In France, too, the monarchy was gradually consolidating its position, absorbing and controlling the great fiefs which at times threatened its very existence, and generally paving the way for that unchallenged autocracy which was one of the most effective causes of the Revolution. In Germany, for historical reasons, the. process was more slow. The great German principalities each had ties, associations, and traditions of their own, the only bond of union being their formal allegiance to thet "Emperor. It was only fifty years ago that German national aspirations overcame the jealousies of the" states and made a German Empire an accomplished fact. In Italy, the presence of the Papal territories which claimed to belong not to one- nation but to all, the rivalries of the flourishing city states in the north, and lastly the fatal attraction it possessed for political robbers large and small combined to postpone the eventual unification of the country, a consummation reserved for our own times. In Spain, the desperate resistance of the Christian

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Story of the Nations

kingdoms to the advance of the Moors was creating a spirit of independence and a national consciousness which only needed time and success to blaze forth in triumphs by land and sea.

Allowing for these differences in kind and degree, it yet remains broadly accurate to say that by the fourteenth century the feeling of nationality had become a force in politics, a force which from that time to this has increased in intensity and which is to-day the dominant passion. If we follow the progress of events during the intervening centuries we shall see that of all the motives which have moved men to do or surfer the sense of nationality has been the most powerful and the most persistent. Not even religious fervour has had more driving force. When we carry our minds back to the Reformation and the wars of

Painted by Albert JsdelfcU.} [Photo by permission of Messrs. Broun tt die.

DUKE CHARLES INSULTING THE CORPSE OF HIS ENEMY FLEMMING.

Claude Flemming, one of the most distinguished Swedish generals and statesmen, supported the young King Sigismund (who was detested as a Catholic) against the intrigues of his uncle, Duke Charles of Sxidermania, who posed as the champion of Protestantism; After suppressing a revolt of the peasants, Flemming died in 1597, not without suspicion of poison and Duke Charles dethroned his nephew five years later.

religion which followed it, when we think of Christian Europe as divided into two hostile camps and dwell on the carnival of bigotry and hatred that was let loose, it is not unnatural to believe that men forget differences of race and speech in their common desire to secure the triumph of their faith.

But the facts would belie our belief. The Thirty Years War in Germany started as a genuine attempt of the Protestant States in the Empire to vindicate their claim to freedom of worship against the hostility of the bigoted Emperor Ferdinand. It ended as a purely political struggle between the allied forces of Catholic France and Protestant Sweden and the combined might of Austria and Spain. The bulk of the troops on both sides was composed of mercenaries who cared nothing about religion but everything about pillage.

Introduction

xxi

By permisn

] [The LSerlin Photographic Co., London , W.

THE LANDING OF COLONEL, SINCLAIR AT ROMSDAL, 1612.

Colonel Sinclair brought 900 Scottish soldiers to assist the King of Sweden, Charles IX, in his claim to the province of Finmark and to the title of "King of the Lapps". The King of Norway disputed these claims, and Colonel Sinclair was ordered to invade his territory. The peasants attacked the Scottish forces at Kringen and, it is said, slew them all, their gallant commander being killed at the first shot.

The famous Protestant leader, Mansfeld, was one of the most picturesque adventurers in history, while even the noble Protestant hero, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, whose sincerity was beyond doubt, was subsidized by the Catholic Cardinal Richelieu of France and cherished designs of gaining concessions of territory on the south Baltic shores as the price of his assistance. On the other side, the

Painted oyl IT. L. Oerome.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS C/ESAR, 44 B.C.

A meeting of the Senate was fixed for March 15 to make arrangements during Caesar's intended absence in the East. This was considered by the leading Republicans as a suitable day to secure his assassination, and accordingly when he had taken his seat the Senators surrounded him and, drawing forth their daggers, rushed at him and stabbed him to death. Thus ended the life of one of the greatest figures of ancient history.

XX11

Story of the Nations

most eminent Catholic commander was Wallenstein, who seems to have believed in nothing except astrology, and who was murdered by his own officers at the instigation of his imperial master, the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand. These are the facts to be borne in mind when the reader is tempted to think that the predominant issue in that so-called "War of Religion" was otherwise than political.

But it was in the nineteeth century that the spirit of nationality recorded its most triumphant victories and manifested itself in its most striking forms. Napoleon was the prime cause of that great outburst of national feeling in the States of Europe which, more than the exhaustion of France or the snows of Russia, sealed his doom. As long as he could pit the manhood of young France against the decayed and corrupt systems of an effete age, his task was easy. It was only when he had carved out territories and built up

Painted by Lionel Rover.] {By permission of Messrs. Brmm et Cie.

VERCINGETORIX BEFORE CAESAR.

In 52 B.C. nearly all Gaul rose up against the Roman dominion, and Vercingetorix, prince of the Arverni, was chosen as leader. After many indecisive battles he was eventually compelled to surrender at Alesia, whence he was taken to Rome. After being led in Julius Caesar's triumphant procession, he was thrown into a subterranean dungeon and there strangled.

paper states with a contemptuous indifference to the national and historical associations of the men who composed them that he raised against himself that fervour of national enthusiasm which crushed him. Leipzig was in every sense a "Battle of the Nations".

During the nineteenth century the movement proceeded unchecked. First Greece asserted and vin- dicated her claim to independence. Then Belgium freed herself from her unnatural alliance with Holland. Italy, no longer a "geographical expression", achieved political unity. Hungary, under the Dual Monarchy, fiercely and passionately preserved her inherited characteristics and traditions.

The Great War and its terrible aftermath are still too close to be studied in the true perspective which history demands. Whether the Treaty of Versailles which endorsed the principle of nationality by creating a number of new states was an act of wisdom or blind folly time alone will show. The creation of an international rather than a national spirit would seem a more promising approach to the problems of man- kind. The League of Nations, though far from being what its creators or supporters hoped, may yet prove the forerunner of the world federation of which idealists have dreamed. One thing the last twenty years

XXIV

Story of the Nations

have definitely proved, that war is a means of arbitrament which settles nothing, that it brings disaster equally and inexorably upon victors and vanquished alike, and that it breeds hatreds and^bitterness which a generation may not dispel.

The ancient saying that "History repeats itself", that the same situation tends to recur with'variation of form and detail, contains a substantial element of truth.

We might enumerate a hundred burning questions of the day which have, in one form or another, agitated the minds and stirred the passions of men in past ages and distant lands. It is for us to profit by their example, avoid their mistakes, and show the wisdom that only comes by experience. To-day we are the jury, called to pronounce on the achievements of the past. To-morrow we shall ourselves await the verdict of posterity. History is written that we may await that verdict with composure, in the sure and certain belief that its lessons have not passed unheeded, and that we ourselves have done something to add to human knowledge and hasten the march of human progress.

By permission of] .the 1 in PI run i> »/• Museum.

BLOCKSHIPS IN ZEEBRUGGE HARBOUR, 1918

In the very early hours of St. George's Day (April 23) 1918, took place one of the most spectacular naral events of the Great War, an attempt planned by Sir Roger Keyes to block the harbours of Ostend and Zeebrugge, and render them useless as submarine bases. The Ostend attempt was a failure, but at Zeebrugge, under the protection of a heroic landing on the Mole from H.M.S. Vindictive, the blocking ships, Intrepid and Iphigeneia, were manreuvrod into the canal entrance and sunk. The harbour was not completely closed, but the daring of the attempt did much to weaken the German morale.

DATES OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY

DYNASTY.

B.C.

CHIEF KINGS.

MONUMENTS AND ClIlEP EVENTS.

I.

4326-4265 4158-4128 4112-4104

MKN\. DEN. SEMER-KHET

Tomb at Abydos. Queen's tomb at Nagadah. The reputed founder or Memphis. Earliest granite work in a tomb. Sculpture in Sinai.

II.

4040-3999

KAKAU.

The earliest stone-built tomb.

III.

3803-3784

ZESER.

The Step Pyramid at Saqqareh, the oldest large building in th« world.

IV.

3747-3718

3718-3655 3655-3589 3589-3526

SNEFERU.

KHUFU. KHOFRA. MENKAURA.

The first true pyramid at Meydum. He waged wars against the marauding tribe* ot the dewrt, and is said to have conquered the peninsula of Sinai. Builder of the Great Pyramid at Ghizeh. A period of great artistic and literary activity. Builder of the Second Pyramid at Ghizeh. Builder of the Third Pyramid at Ghizeh. He is reverenced at a good and humane ruler.

V.

3441-3397 3360-3330

NEUSERRA. UNAS.

The Pyramid at Abusir. A Pyramid at Saqqareh. The first with long religious inscriptions.

VI.

3288-3235 3228-3134

PEPY I. PEPY II.

Successful campaigns in Nubia. The longest reign in Egyptian history.

XI.

2597-2593

MENTUHETEP IV.

(Sankh-ka-ra).

The first expedition to Puntjprobably the modern Somaliland), of which the leader, Hannu, has given a long account. The chapel on the mountain at Thebes.

XII.

2584-2564

2564-2519 2484-2465 2465-2432

2432-2384

AMENEMHAT I.

SENUSERT I. SENUSERT II. SENUSERT III.

AMENEMHAT III.

The tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni-hasan. Many military expeditions secure peace from external foes and the internal consolidation of the kingdom. The tomb of Ameni at Beni-hasan. Further expeditions to Nubia, but order maintained at home. The pyramid of Illahun. The pyramid at Dahshur. A great conqueror and ruler under whom Egypt enjoyed renown and prosperity. The pyramid at Hawara, and the famous Labyrinth. He made Lake Moris serve it a reservoii for the Nile overflow.

XIII.

2371-1918

60 KINGS.

An Egyptian dynasty of great obscurity overlapped by the Hyksos Kings of the XVth dynasty.

XV.

2371-2111

KHYAN. APEPA I. and 4 others.

Objects from Crete to Baghdad. Ruled from Bubastis to Gebeleyn. He is the greatest of the Hyksos Shepherd Kings who had carried out a successful invasion.

XVII.

1734-1583

SEQENEN-RA and 42 others.

The jewellery of Queen Aah-hotep. The south is won back from the Hykao*, who are driven northwards.

XVIII.

J573-I560

1560-1539 I539-I5H 1514-1501

1501-1447

1449-1423 1423-1413 I4I3-I377 I377-J36I

I35I-I339

1322-1318

AAHMES I.

AMENHETEP I. TAHUTMES I. TAHUTMES II. HATSHEPSUT. "1

TAHUTMES III. J

AMENHETEP II. TAHUTMES IV. AMENHETEP III. AKHENATEN.

TUTANKHAMEN. HEREMHEB.

The Hyksos expelled and driven into Syria. Successful campaign in Nubia. The beginnings of an era of great power and prosperity Egypt's "Golden Age". A temple at Karnak. Obelisk at Karnak. Conducts a campaign as far as the Euphrates.

The peaceful reign o a great Queen. Another expedition to Punt, and a great expansion of com- merce and industry takes place. She builds the great temple of Deir el Bahri. A great conqueror and builder. He subdues Syria and keeps it in subjection. He builds a temple at Karnak. Further campaigns in Syria to crush revo.ts. Continues the work of suppressing rebellion. Temples at Luxor, Sedeinga, and Soleb. Only one campaign during this reign. He changes the national religion for the worship of the solar disk, and builds a new capital Revolts- occur in Syria. The famous Tell Amarna tablets date from this reign. Restored the ancient religion. A great administrator who reorganized the kingdom.

XIX.

1317-1295 1295-1229 1229-1210

SETY I. RAMESSU II. MERNEPTAH.

Successful war in Syria. A great builder and patron of the fine arts The hall of columns at Karnak. THE GREAT, so called on account of his boastfulness and the magnificence of his buildings. Subdues Syria Builds the temple of Abu Simbel and the Ramesseum. A Libyan invasion defeated.

XX.

1195-1163 1137-1118

RAMESSU III. RAMESSU X.

Wars against Syria and Libya. Great nava battle at Pelusium. The temple of Medinet Habu. The King recovers some of the eastern dependencies. The papyrus of the tomb robberies.

XXI.

976-940

PASEBKHANU I.

A new dynasty from Tanis. The priests gain great influence and direct the royal policy. Thf great wall of Tanis is built.

XXII.

940-919

877-852

SHESHENQ I

USARKKN II.

A commander of the mercenaries who rules at Bubastis. He invades Judxa and raptures and sacks Jerusalem. Builds the pylon of festival at Bubastis.

XXV.

748-725

7« 7-705 693-667

PANKHY I.

SHABAKA TAHARQA

Founds a dynasty of Ethiopian rulers who gradually conquer the whole countrv. The petty princes of Lower Egypt send in their allegiance. The King So of the Bible. He foments rebellions of Israel and Syria against As6yri:i. Joins the coalition against Assyria. Three Assyrian invasions result in the subjugation of Egypt and the end of Ethiopian rule.

XXVI.

664-610 610-594 5^9-570 570-526

PSAMTEK I. NECHO II. HAA-AB RA.

AAHMES II

Drives out the Assyrians, restores Thebes and invades Syria. Builds the forts of Daphnx and Naukratis. Tries to renew Egyptian conquests. Invades Syria and advances towards Babylon, but is defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish. (Apries of the Greeks.) Defeats the Phoenicians, but is defeated by the Greeks of Cyrene. His army revolts and he is dethroned and murdered. (Amasis of the Greeks.) Cuts off all the Greek settlements except Naukratis. A great builder.

XXVII.

525-521 521-486

CAMBYSES DARIUS I.

This (jreat Persian conqueror invades and subdues Egypt, but fails to penetrate to Cyrene and Ethiopia and in his rage wrtaks vengeance on the temples. Egypt tranquil and prosperous. Reconstructs the Suez Canal and builds the Temple in the Oasis.

XXIX.

399-393

NAIFAAURUD.

Unsuccessful revolts against Persia. Builds a shrine at Athribis.

XXX.

378-361 359-342

NEKHT-NEB-F. NEKHT-HOR-HEB.

Built temples at Horbeyt and Karnak. Persian invasions of Egypt. Last native King.

Greeks.

332-323

323-285 285-248 248-221 51-30

ALEXANDER.

PTOLEMY I. PTOLEMY II. PTOLEMY III. CLEOPATRA VI.

Period of Greek domination. Alexandria founded. He conciliates the Egyptians by respecting their religion. Successfully invades Syria. Naukratis. The so-called "Revenue" papyrus dates from this reign. Flourishing trade in the Red Sea. Builds the Pylon at Karnak. Builds the temple of Denderah. Supports Antony against Octavius. Battle of Actium Dies bv her own hand.

DATES OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY— continued

DATI. DOMINATION.

RULERS.

CHIEF EVENTS.

3° Roman Period.

AUGUSTUS. A.D. TRAJAN. MARCUS AURELIUS 194. SEVERUS. CARACALLA. 272. AURELIAN. 296. DIOCLETIAN. 311. GALERIUS.

390. THEODOSIUS l.2i 6:6. 626. HERACLIUS.

Establishes a personal government, but in general preserves the organization of the Ptolemie*. He encourages the Jews to settle in the country. The Indian trade is secured for Eyypt. Great massacre of the Greeks by the Jews, who are in turn subdued and almost exterminated by the Roman army. A rising of the native troops is followed by the usurpation of Avidius Cassius, who puts himself at their head. The revolt is crushed with some difficulty by the Emperor himself. Overthrows his rival Niger, who was commanding in Egypt. First persecution of the Egyptian Christians. Devises a massacre of all the able-bodied men in Alexandria. Roman citizenship extended to Egypt. Egypt conquered by Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who is expelled and carried away captive by the Emperor. Subdues a formidable revolt and commences a rigorous persecution of the Christians. Sets up "Pompey's Pillai" at Alexandria. Issues an edict of toleration to the Egyptian Christians. Council of Nicaea and beginning of the Arian controversy in the Egyptian Church. Arianism overthrown and issue of a final edict against Paganism. Egypt conquered by Chosrogs the Persian. Overthrows the Persians and restores Egypt to the Empire. Religious dissensions end in civil war, which renders easy the Moslem conquest.

DATI.

DOMINATION.

i

CHIEF EVENTS.

Period of Arab supremacy.

1350

The Mameluke supremacy.

639. Egypt invaded by the Arabs. The Roman army defeated at Heliopolis, and Alexandria surrenders to the

Moslems. Egypt is lost to the Empire, and passes under the protection of the Caliphate.

639-968. Egypt is governed by the Abbaside caliphs. A series of insurrections by the Copts culminate in their total defeat at Basharud in 832. The influence of the Turks increases and several Turkish governors are appointed. 868. Ahmad founds a semi-independent dynasty, but the Fatimite caliphs unsuccessfully attempt

to gain Egypt for themselves. 935. Mahommed ben Tughj founds another semi -independent dynasty of the Jkshidi. The influence

of the Fatimites grows.

969-1171. Egypt under the Fatimite caliphs. The Fatimite general, Jauhar, invades Egypt, and founds Cairo, which becomes the capital of the western caliphate. The caliphs conquer Arabia, Syria, and North Africa. 996. Hakim, known as the "Caligula of the East", destroys the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in

Jerusalem (1010), which provokes the Crusades. He also persecutes the Christians. 1029. Battle of Ukhuwanah, in which the rebellious provinces of Syria and Palestine are recovered. 1035. Mostansir. Civil war in Egypt caused by dissensions between the Turks and negroes in the army. 1068. Cairo sacked by the Turkish commander, and numerous local revolts occur throughout the country. 1094. Mostali ends the civil war and subdues the whole country.

Is defeated at Askalon by the Crusaders (1099), who conquer many of the caliph's possessions in Palestine. 1118. Egypt invaded by the Crusaders under Baldwin I, who is compelled to retreat on account of ill-health.

The fleet of the caliph is defeated by the Venetians and Tyre captured by the Crusaders. 1171-1250. The Abbaside caliphate restored by Saladin. The Franks withdraw from Egypt. Saladin takes

the title of Sultan in 1174 and founds a virtually independent dynasty. 1219. Damietta captured by the Crusaders. 1221. The Crusaders evacuate Egypt. 1244. The Crusaders driven from Jerusalem.

1249. Egypt is invaded by Louis IX of France (the Seventh Crusade), but the invaders are routed by the Sultan

at the battle of Fariskur, and Louis is captured.

1250. The administration of affairs entrusted to Aibek, the captain of the retainers, who becomes the first Mameluk*

ruler. 1260. Kotuz defeats the Mongol invaders and recovers Syria.

Bitars attempts to restore the Abbaside caliphate. He conquers Arabia and Syria and makes Nubia and

the states of north-west Africa tributary to him. 1303. Defeat of Mongol invaders at the battle of Marj-al-SafJar. 1322. Alliance of the Sultan with the Mongols. 1349. Egypt visited by the great plague, the "Black Death". 1365. Alexandria plundered by the Franks under Peter I of Cyprus. 1374. Lesser Armenia added to the Mameluke Empire. 1390. The Burji Mamelukes succeed the Bahri Mamelukes.

1400. The Mongol Timur overruns Syria and compels Sultan Faraj to render homage. 1 105. Death of Timur. Recovery of Syria.

1426. Capture of the King of Cyprus, who is compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Egyptian sultan. 1463. Beginning of the wars with the Ottoman Empire.

1515. Defeat of the Mamelukes by the Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans conquer Syria. 1517. Capture of Cairo by the Ottomans. Selim becomes Sultan of Egypt.

Turkish Period.

191.'

The Turkish Sultans consolidate their power in the country but make few changes in the administration. 1767. Ali Bey attempts to found an independent kingdom but after some success is defeated at Salihia, and the

domination of the Turks is restored. 1/98. Bonaparte enters Egypt and commences the French occupation. He defeats the Mamelukes at the battlt

of the Pyramids. Insurrection in Cairo repressed by Bonaparte. The French fleet destroyed by the English at the Battle of the Nile.

1799. Bonaparte fails to conquer Syria.

1800. Assassination of General Kleber. The English land at Aboukir, and the French agree to evacuate Egypt.

1803. The British evacuate Alexandria and Turkish rule is restored but the Mamelukes attempt to make them-

selves independent.

1804. Civil war.

1805. Mehemet Ali becomes Pasha of Egypt. 1807. Failure of British expedition.

Massacre of the Mamelukes. Mehemet Ali becomes virtually independent, but acknowledges the suzerainty

of Turkey.

1820 Beginning of the conquest of the Sudan. 1827. Destruction of the Egyptian fleet at Navarino.

1841. The pashalik of Egypt made hereditary in the family of Mehemet Ali. 1869. Opening of the Suez Canal. 1876. Establishment of the Dual Control of England and France.

1882. Rising of Arabi and the bombardment of Alexandria by the British and French fleets.

1883. Revolt of the Mahdi in the Sudan. Murder of General Gordon and fall of Khartoum.

1898. Withdrawal of the French from Fashoda. Battla of Omdurman and occupation of Sudan by the British.

1902. Construction of the Asswan Dam.

1904. Anglo-French agreement formally recognizing the predominant position of Great Britain.

The Great War and after.

1914. Outbreak of Great War. Khedive Abbas Hilmi deposed. Egypt British protectorate. 1922. Egypt declared independent, subject to safeguarding of British interests.

THE NILE AND THE PLAIN OF THEBES.

Egypt before 10,000 years ago consisted of a wide sheet of limestone which was uplifted on the east until a fault took place. The drainage of the land poured into it, and behold the Nile.

STORY OF THE NATIONS

THE EGYPTIANS.

CHAPTER I

By PROFESSOR SIR FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L., Litt.D., LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.B.A.

EGYPT BEFORE IO.OOO YEARS AGO

OUR earliest vision of Egypt is that of a wide sheet of Eocene limestone occupying the north-east of Africa. The great contortions of the wrinkle of the crust which forms the Red Sea and Jordan valley were yet going on ; the Red Sea coast was being forced : up as the trough deepened, while the rest of Africa to the west lay level. At last a crack took place, the eastern side rose some hun- dreds of feet above the western by a great fault, deepest to the north and tapering off to the south. Into such a crack the rainfall naturally poured and wore it wider and wider. Behold the Nile !

The land lay far higher above the sea than it now does, but the Sahara was still an inland sea or deep gulf. From that the western winds brought rainfall abundantly I across the Nile basin. Torrents flowed off the limestone plateau into the great drainage crack, gouging it out to a gorge some two thousand feet deep. The streams mostly flowed over the surface into it, scoring out great tributary valleys ; but some escaped I through cracks in the limestone and I

hollowed out vast caverns, like those in the P<*»*<d »p«*aUV for thi* work] limestones of Derbyshire or the Cevennes. EARLY EGYPTIAN HUTS.

These caverns are now some hundreds of feet below the present surface of the

(fcl/ If. M. S. Brunion, H.B.A..4.R.M.S.

The habitations of the Egyptians over 10,000 years ago appear to have been rude shelters formed by stones lodged one above the other. A child is here pictured cooking a fish which has been caught.

4 Story of the Nations

valley, and are only observed where the strata above have collapsed headlong into the immense gulfs- below.

After all the face of the country had been carved out into its present shape, the land level fell, and the whole was submerged. Rain still continued ; the Nile valley and its tributaries all became choked up with debris ; so far up as Thebes this mass of rock-chips fills the valleys to about two hundred feet above the present level. At Sohag it is seen six hundred feet up. The Nile valley formed a great estuary stretching over three hundred miles into the land, twice as long as the Gulf of Suez or Gulf of Corinth. No trace of human work has been found in these deposits.

The land then rose, and probably the Saharan Sea was dried up in this rising. The change was appar- ently rapid, as there was not enough rainfall during it to scoop out all the debris from the rock channels.

Painted tpccially for this work]

(by H. Seppings Wright.

HUNTING FOR A LIVING.

Like the modern Bushmen in Africa, the Early Egyptians must have subsisted upon the chase, and their main occupation must hare been the hunting down of the gazelles and other wild animals. This was perhaps effected, wherever possible by casting tomahawks at the animals and in this manner laming them and rendering their capture easy.

The deposits of the estuary were left where they may still be seen, in patches clinging to the cliffs and largely filling the side valleys at Thebes, while the main valley has been ploughed out again by the rush of the Nile from Central Africa. While this great current was rolling down masses of gravel in the valley, man first appears, and flakes of flint of by no means the earliest style are found bedded in these high N ile gravels.

There still continued enough rainfall to scour the channel, and to carry off the mud of the river, dow n to about ten thousand years ago, when the deposits of the Nile mud began. These deposits mark the close of the rainy period, the beginning of the aridity of North Africa, the first chance of the cultivation of a flat of irrigated mud, which has been the culture-system of Egypt in all historic times.

Before this new system of life arose there must have been a long time of semi-aridity, when the rain sufficed for wild animals and scrub pastures. What the human type then was we may gather from the

Painted »pecially lor this icork] [By H. Scppinvs Wright.

EARLY EGYPTIANS MAKING POTTERY 10.000 YEARS AGO.

The most abundant handwork of the Early Egyptians was the finely made pottery entirely formed by band. It was built up from the base and hi form so true that no error is perceptible. The facing was finished with a coat of red hcematite, which turned to a brilliant black in the furnace. It is interesting to note that the same materials are used in the same kind of patterns Jiy the hill tribes at the back of Algeria at the present time.

Story of the Nations

Painted specially for this work]

[by W. IV. Collins.

HUNTING A HIPPOPOTAMUS.

It is seldom that the hippopotamus leaves the river in the daytime, and we can well imagine how excited the com- munity would be when such a booty was secured through its movements being hampered by the marshes.

figures of the slave women found in the earliest graves of the agricultural people. They were of the Bushman type, distinguished by the growth of great quantities of fat on the hips and thighs. In later times the African woman develops fat on the trunk to aid in the production of her children. To a hunting race such accumulations would impede the agility needed for subsistence, so the fat is found on the parts which move with least rapidity and is thus least in the way of the activities of a hunting life. Similar causes may perhaps produce the effect in different races ; but at least we may say that the same type is found in the figures of later cave-dwellers of Southern France, in Malta, in Early Egypt, and now in South Africa. Whether these were all branches of one race cannot yet be safely decided, but their unity seems probable. These people must have subsisted, like the modern Bushmen, upon the chase, and their main occupation must have been the hunting down of the gazelles and other wild animals, especially with the Nile as a barrier which prevented their escape. The flint implements which they have left strewed thickly over some parts of the desert are their principal remains ; but various stone shelters which are found on the high desert were probably put up by the same people, as there is no evidence that later races troubled themselves about a region which became entirely sterile in the present age of aridity.

THE FIRST CIVILIZATION : IO.OOO TO 9,OOO YEARS AGO

ONE of the first things which is asked, when we speak of ten thousand years ago, is : How do you know it ? And with very good reason, considering that it is outside of most men's ken, like the atom or the distances of the stars. We shall deal with the length of recorded history when we reach it in the third civiliza- tion ; and the two earlier ages certainly comprise the rise and decay of two civilizations, which on the scale of things in written history would cover about two thousand five hundred years. There is another clue in the depth

I'aintrii fperiaUu for this work\ Ibv H. Seppings ll'ritjhf.

THE ART OF FLINT-FLAKING.

The skill of the Early Egyptians is shown in their art of Hint-flaking, in which they proved themselves the most skilful craftsmen of any known race. The great double-edged knives are as much as fifteen inches long, but only one quarter of an inch thick, with the edges exquisitely serrated in minute teeth.

The Egyptians

AN EARLY CONTRACTKH IH'IUAI,.

The bodies were always buried on the' eft side, facing: west. Sometimes in the later prehistoric age they were closely bound together by wrappings, forcing all the bones parallel as here shown.

of the Nile deposits. These have been bored through to forty feet deep on an average ; some places are deeper where holes were filled up, or shallower where ridges were covered. As the deposits average five inches in a century, this would show about ten thousand years for the age of the beginning of the Nile flats. As any agriculture or settled civili- zation was impossible until the Nile deposited its fer- tile mud, this gives a limit to the regular occupation of the land. Doubtless so soon as cultivation could be practised the neighbour- ing peoples would push in from the arid regions around ; and, forming settlements, they left their remains in the cemeteries which have been lately brought to light. The very large number of their graves would indicate a longer, rather than a shorter, period than two thousand five hundred years, in comparison with the historic times.

When we try to picture to ourselves what the position of these people of the first civilization must have been, it seems that the Maori would give us the nearest living comparison. The free use of canoes and shipping ; the habit of fishing in Egypt with harpoon, and with the Maori nets and hooks ; the finely wrought hard stone maces in Egypt, and the Maori stone clubs ; the fondness for elaborate linear geometrical orna- ment on the pottery in Egypt, and the Maor carving and tattooing ; the use of combs ; the keeping of small sacred images wrapped in cloths ; the sacred places, the quarrel- ling tribes, the fortified towns — in all of these the levels of culture seem closely alike, as preserved to us in the tales of the Maori mythology. If the Maori seems perhaps in advance in his elaborate woodwork (needful in the wetter climate) and minute carving, of which the evidence does not remain

AN EARLY CONTRACTED BURIAL.

in the first Egyptian civilization, on the other hand the Egyptian in even

Later than the abore burial a less contracted position was adopted. a» here shown, with the knees away from the body. This led on to the extended position, full length, seen in all the mummies of historical times.

8

Story of the Nations

the first period did much finer and more skilful work in flint-flaking. The Egyptian slate palettes, shaped like animals, began at a much higher level than they continued, and are quite equal to any such figures of the Maori.

Having, then, a modern equivalent to give us a general picture of the civilization, we may turn to the details. The most abundant handwork was the finely made pottery, entirely formed by hand without any wheel. It was built up from the base, and pressed by a flat stick inside against the hand held outside. The forms are so true that no error is perceptible, and the finish of the surface is beautifully fine. As no circular motion was used, any form was equally readily made ; oval vases were common, twin vases, square vases, fish- and figure-shaped vases, and other varieties are all found in this period. The facing

Painted rpeciaUv JOT this work] [by W. M. N. Brunion, R.B.A., A.R.M.S

AN EARLY RELIGIOUS DANCE.

As is customary with certain African races at the present day, the Egyptians performed a dance in which the various episodes of a successful hunt were enacted. It was thought that this would ensure a successful hunt and therefore a plentiful supply of food for the tribe. Every detail of the above drawing is authentic and has been taken from early Egyptian pottery.

was finished with a coat of red haematite, which turned to a brilliant polished black in the furnace. Some of their forms may be seen in the foreground of the picture of this age.

The regular decoration of the pottery was with crossing lines of white clay, laid in geometrical patterns on the red bowls and vases. Just the same materials are used in the same kind of patterns by the hill tribes at the back of Algeria at the present time, and this is one of the main evidences for the Algerian or Libyan connection of the earliest civilization, which is inherently likely from the geographical connection.

The most skilful art was that of flint-flaking. Though this was carried yet further in the second civilization, yet in the first age it is equal to that of almost any other land, only exceeded by the best Scandinavian work. The great double-edged knives are as much as fifteen inches long, but only a quarter

MAP OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

IO

Story of the Nations

of an inch thick, with the edges exquisitely serrated in minute teeth. For hunting the gazelles widely forked lances of flint were made to cast at the legs, so as to cripple the animal : these are very thin and delicate, and were held in by a long cord, so as to prevent their flying too far and striking the ground.

Copper was known in the very earliest stage. Before more than small cups were made, and when the people were only clad with a goat's skin over the shoulders, yet then a copper pin is found used to skewer the skin together at the neck. Rather later the copper harpoon appears, copied from the bone harpoon, by which the Egyptians speared the large fish of the Nile.

The decoration of the person scarcely yet included beads, except of clay ; but the hair was twisted

up and held by carved combs of bone with long teeth, ornamented with the forms of gazelles or birds. These animal combs dis- appear with the decay of the first civiliza- tion ; in the second period we rarely find combs, and then shorter with a human bust. Sandals were in use early in this first period. The finely decorated pottery with white line patterns imitated basket-work at first, then the patterns become elaborate, and finally decay in meaningless lines. After that this decoration disappears, and we may suppose that the art was declining during several generations before a new influence arises.

Painted specially lor this work]

[by Fred Roe, R.J .

THE SECOND CIVILIZATION : Q.OOO TO 7,800 YEARS AGO

THE flush of changes appear in every art with the second civilization. The previous period we have seen to be linked strongly with Libya, the modern Algiers and Tunis ; but the indications point to the second movement having come from the east. Lazuli from Persia and silver from Asia Minor come into use, the forehead pendant and face veil appear like that of the modern Bedawy, the vases are cut of stone from the eastern mountains, and the pottery imitates these hard stone vases in its forms. There is no further trace of a connection with the Libyan culture, which seems to have died out. It is therefore a migration

from the east, probably proto-Semitic in character, which determined the growth of the second civilization. The nearest modern parallel to this culture may perhaps be that of the Malay States. The series of small Sultanates, the high development of some of the arts, the widespread trade, with the absence of stone monuments, and the unimportance of literature have a sufficient similarity in the two countries to give a sense of the general position. An ancient parallel might perhaps be found in Gaul before the Roman occupation.

The main development of this period was the common use of large galleys or ships. The pictures on a tomb would indicate them to be about sixty feet long, but they might easily be more, as the figures

SHIPPING POTTERY IN 7000 B.C.

The main development ol the second civilization in Eifypt was the common use of large ships for trading, which had as many as from fifty to sixty oars a side. There were two cabins amidships, connected by a bridge, upon which cargo was stored and the ensign of the purt of origin was invariably carried.

The Egyptians

ii

of men are likely to be exaggerated. On the vase- painting they have as many as fifty to sixty oars on a side, which would imply a length of over one hundred feet. The large size is also indicated by some of them having three steering paddles to govern them. As the greatest fighting galleys of the Venetians — the most important war-vessels of the Middle Ages — had only a dozen oars to a side, it is clear that these prehistoric galleys were considerable vessels As will be seen in the illustration (page 10), they had always two cabins

Agricultural scenes of the future life in the kingdom of Osiris as painted in "The Book of the Dead".

amidships, connected by a bridge, and cargo was stowed on the cabins, showing that they were strong wooden structures. In front of the fore-cabin was the tall pole with the ensign of the port of origin, like the initial letters on the sails of fishing- smacks at present. This ensign was sometimes purely geographical, as two, three, four, or five hills, the ele- phant, or the branch ; others were connected with the worship, emblems of the local god, as the hawk on a cres- cent, or the signs of the gods Min and Neit ; others may

have referred to the rank of the chief or petty sultan, as the harpoon, which seems to have been an autocratic title. At the stern was the large steering-paddle with wide blade, or as many as three of them. In the bows was the seat for the look-out man, shaded by a bough of a tree, and the tying-up rope hung over the stem. Such were the vessels which carried on a trade with Smyrna for emery and electrum, with Crete for oil and ruddle, with Northern Syria for fine wood, and doubtless to many other ports for consumable goods of which all trace has long since perished. The social organization was considerable. The varying richness of the tombs shows that wealth could be accumulated ; labour could be commanded for very long and tedious manufactures, such as

A PORTION OF "THE BOOK OF THE DEAD".

When a person died, invocations to the protector of the dead were painted on the sarcophagus. Later, when these formulae or glorifications increased, they were written on a roll of papyrus, and this so-called "Book of the Dead" was bound up inside the bandages of the mummy. This was considered to ensure the future welfare under all possible contingencies.

12

Story of the Nations

the production of vases of the hardest stones ; and, at least at the close of this period, we see figures of the rulers, and there is a row of kings of the Delta named before the ist Dynasty on the early annals.

Of the products of skill none is more surprising than the flaked flint knives. The beautiful effect, of the rippled surface of the flint was so highly appreciated that the knives were first ground into shape and then the whole surface was ripped off with a series of flakes of machine-like accuracy. No race of

man has ever equalled this work ; even the Scandinavian, justly cele- brated for the beauty of his craft, has never reached the perfection of judgment, eye, and hand shown by the Egyptian in this most difficult of all products.

Not only did they triumph by skill and sleight of hand, but in the inconceivably tedious work of grinding vases of the hardest stones they likewise achieved results of faultless perfection. The porphyry, granite, basalt, even quartz crystal, were all wrought so truly by hand grinding, the lines crossing diago- nally, that no trace of error can be seen. Not content with master- ing the siliceous stones by the use of emery, they even wrought emery itself, as shown by a vase and a plummet.

The use of metals steadily in- creased. Copper, which had been very scarce in earlier times, was now usual for carpentry tools, and a splendidly formed dagger of it has been found. Silver came in at the close of the first period ; gold soon followed, and then lead. Iron has twice been found, but was so much valued that it was made into beads worn with gold.

Amulets came into common use and are connected with the animals sacred in later times. The ram's head is the commonest, and the bull's head, hawk, scorpion, fly, and frog are repeatedly found. That there was a very strong belief in immortality throughout both the first and second periods is certainly shown by the value of the offerings of objects of daily use placed with the dead. The fine necklaces of gold, garnet, amethyst, and other stones were not merely left with the dead from affection, for the abundant provision of pottery, the fine weapons, and the supply of food all show that an active future was contemplated. Not only was this a general belief, but it was formulated in detail, and the similar offerings were always put in the same posi- tion in the grave, and the bodies in nearly all cases were placed on the left side, while generally they were with the head to the south and face to the west. This uniformity in apparently

Painted specially for this work]

KILLING BIRDS IN THE

[by H. Seppings Wright. MARSHES.

When in the earliest times food depended entirely upon what was caught and killed, the Egyptians would visit the marshes of the Nile and secure wild birds by bringing them down with their throw-sticks. A few thousand years later their kings used to indulge in this same custom, and it became the habitual sport of the nobles, who looked to continuing it in the future life.

Alenkaura,

Nuferuetep.

Amenhetep I.

Queen Aahmea.

Tahutmes II.

Qneen Hatshopsut.

Akbenaten

Sety I.

Kamcssu II. Merneptah.

LEAPING KINGS OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

Tdhutmea I.

Tahutmes III.

Uereinheb.

Sely II

Story of the Nations

unimportant detail shows how firmly a ritual was already established.

Of this ritual many portions survived into historic times, and were incorporated into the col- lection of magic forms named in modern times "The Book of the Dead". That these sections are as old as the prehistoric is proved by the full account they give of the dismemberment of the body, and removal of the flesh, as the unclean part, be- fore reconstruction ceremonially. This custom is found in many cases in the second prehistoric, and even in the first period ; but it began to die out under the dynasties, and disappeared altogether by the Vlth. Hence a ritual describing the removal of the head, the limbs, and the flesh, and the restoration of the parts, in a dozen different passages, must belong to the time when such customs were suggesting that this race had been slowly filtering into the country

Writing materials, consisting of a reed pen, palette, and paint.

in full force. This being the case, we may reasonably take much — perhaps most — of the rest of this ritual of magic as belonging also to the prehistoric age.

THE THIRD CIVILIZATION : 4700 TO 3800 B.C.

THE old order of things began gradually to give way before a new force. From the measure- ments of the bones it is seen that the pure dynastic race were some three inches shorter than the prehistoric people. But the late prehistoric folk were dimi- nishing, and the bulk of the population when the 1st Dynasty came upon them were already about two inches shorter than before. Hence there had been for some centuries a gradual approach to the dynastic type, and mixing with the people, as the

• Ute*

HIERATIC WRITING FROM THE FIFTH CIVILIZATION.

Under the old Empire (4000-3000 B.C.), a special cursive hand grew into daily use. called the Hieratic, in which the different hieroglyphics were gradually abbreviated so as to be more easily written by a reed pen. This writing afterwards became so greatly degraded that it lost the original forms, and in that stage is known as the Demotic script.

The Egyptians 15

invading Hyksos and the Arabs did for some centuries before the political change of conquest. Where these new people came from has long been a question. From their physiognomy they were not of southern stock, nor were they like either Libyan or Semitic. They are historically first known at Abydos, a dynasty of ten kings being recorded as having reigned there three hundred years before the 1st Dynasty. How did they reach Abydos ? They do not seem to belong to southern or western peoples, they cer- tainly were not northern, as they had to conquer the north. The most probable source seems to be that they came in from the Red Sea by the well-known desert route at Koptos, the route followed in 1801 by our Indian troops. At the southern end of the Red Sea was the land of Punt, which was always venerated by the Egyptians as the land of the Gods, and Min, one of the gods of the invading people.

I'umtfd speciftlli/ Jor thin work] [Bv H. Seppinon HVipW.

BUILDING THE TOMB OF A FIRST DYNASTY KING.

Giving to the scarcity of wood in Egypt the people soon had to flnd some other material for building purposes. The Nile niud, mixed with short pieces of straw, moulded, stamped with the head of the ruling king's name, and then dried in the sun, proved the most efficient. The mud also served as mortar, and for this purpose was usually mixed with potsherds.

always had a shrine of the old conical form of the huts of Punt. Further, the close similarity between some of the earliest dynastic seals and those of Elam hints that these folk may have come round Arabia from the Persian Gulf. Thus it is likely that both the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian civilizations are branches from the still older culture of Elam, as shown in the depths of the great mound of Susa, reaching back before 6000, or perhaps to 8000 or 10,000, B.C. At that time Elam was a maritime country, with the Persian Gulf stretching up beyond Susa.

The great and essential changes which come in with the dynastic people are hieroglyphic writing, extended burial, use of cylinder seals, the potter's wheel (found used in the lowest levels of Susa),the great extension of brick building and carpentry, and high artistic ability.

How do we know the date of these people ? From the 1st Dynasty onward the Egyptians had a continuous reckoning in years. This has come down to us in the very brief form of a bare list of kings

16

Story of the Nations

and years, through Greek sources ; and with this agree portions of the Egyptian sources written in the Vth and the XVIIIth Dynasties, and the total reckoning given by Egyptian priests to Herodotus. There is no hesitation or variation in the Egyptians' own history. Further, we can check it by a curious fault in their calendar. They omitted to reckon leap year ; hence all the names of the months slipped back in the seasons, a month in one hundred and twenty years, and the whole twelve names went round the year and came to the same seasons again in about one thousand five hundred years. Hence if we can get the season of a month, we know to a certainty how far back that

'cd£aj£-' r

EGYIT1AN GODS. 1. Nefcr-Atmu, god of Growth and Vegetation. 2. Uatbor, the Female principle, later identified with Isis. 3. Isis, the Mother goddess. 4. Anhur, a Sun god. 5. Osiris, Corn god. 6. Ftah, the Creator or Artificer god —

EARLIEST EGYPTIAN WHITING.

The earliest inscription that we know is the tablet of King Aha at the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, shown above.

month can have fallen on that season. Such datings remain to us for the Xllth Dynasty accurately, and for the Illrd Dynasty approximately. These fixed datings accord exactly with those of the Egyptians, and not a single fact contradicts this long record.

This dynastic people, then, appear to have been gradually coming into the country from perhaps 4800 B.C. or rather before. By 4700 B.C. they had estab- lished their authority at Abydos ; hence they conquered up and down the valley ; to Hierakonpolis in the south, where they had a southern capital, and gradu- ally down to the north, where their temporary capital was about forty miles south of Cairo, just before Mena founded the permanent capital of Memphis. His reign, beginning about 4326 B.C., is the

m

EGYPTIAN GO OS. — 7. Hathor : 7 Hathore presided over Birth and Destiny. S.Khonsu, god of Time and Science . 9. Aab, Moongod. lO.Honu, Couquerorof Evil. 11. Anubis, Guide »t the Dead. 12. Bastet, goddess of Animal Passion and Patroness of Hunting.

MUMMY CASK OF A CAT.

MUMMIED APE.

ANOTHER SPECIES OF APE MUMMIED. EMBALMED HAWK.

ANIMALS MUMMIED BY THE EGYPTIANS.

To the Egyptians certain animals were sacred as the symbols of certain gods. Thus, for example, to Ptah, the beetle was sacred; to Osiris, the heron ; to Ra and Bastet, the hawk and the oat to Set, the crocodile ; to Anubis, the jackal ; to Thoth, the ibis. To honour these animals was an act of piety ; but to kill them an offence for which death was the penalty.

i8

Story of the Nations

Photo by permission of] [Messrs. Mansell.

Certain individual specimens of various animals were set apart to the gods as pre-eminently sacred, the knowledge of which was in the priests' keeping. When selected, the animal was regarded as an incarnation of the deity and —

Photo by permission o/] (Messrs. Mansell.

— kept in the temple, where prayers and worship were given to it as if to the god himself. When it died it was embalmed with as jiuch care as if it were a human person of the highest rank.

great starting-point of written history the unification of all Egypt under one king, and the establishment of a new order of society.

Remains of the older separate kingdoms were curiously preserved down to the close of the history in the several titles of the kings. In the titles of our Royal Family we preserve the old dignities of Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Lord of the Isles, Great Steward of Scotland, and others, each of which was originally a separate dominion. Similarly the Emperor of Russia rolled together half a dozen other kingdoms in his titles. Thus we can understand how the kings of Egypt were in the first place divine hawk-gods of the south- ern capital of the dynasties, Hiera- konpolis ; secondly, princes of the prehistoric southern principality of Nekheb, and the northern of Pe, El Kab and Buto, distinguished by the vulture and cobra ; thirdly, princes of the Horus tribe conquer- ing the Set tribe, the hawk on the nub sign of Set ; fourthly, the kings of all Upper Egypt, marked by the growing plant, nesut ; fifthly, kings of all Lower Egypt, marked by the bee, bati ; sixthly, kings of the old principality of Heliopolis, sons of Ra, holding the crook and flail, the sacred insignia of rule there ; seventhly, lords of both banks of the Nile, neb taui (the meaning of which is shown by local princes being so entitled) ; eighthly, lords of the crowns, neb khau, as holding all the rights of rule, like "Emperor of all the Russias".

The system of writing begins with one word one sign, or emblematic writing, but very early transferred meanings arose where the sign had a sound attached to it and could be used for that sound in different senses and combinations. Gradually every syllable in common use got a sign, and lastly every letter apart had its sign, some twenty-nine being

The Egyptians 19

in use, with about eighty word-signs, which considerably shortened the writing like our modern £ s. d., &c., lb., oz., and other abbreviations. The total number of six hundred or seven hundred signs were but rarely used, and really there was not much more essential to remember than in knowing two or three modern alphabets ; it was much easier than cuneiform, and immeasurably simpler than Chinese or literary Japanese.

The official system and government of the country is shown to us by the variety of seals that were used to mark the produce of the royal estates. On these we find the titles of the royal seal-bearer, royal carpenter (= architect), councillor in the palace, private secretary, inspector of canals, overseer of the

\

Painted specially for this work] \bv H. Stppinos H'righl.

AN EGYPTIAN HOUSE 7,000 YEARS AGO.

Previous to the uae of clay bricks for building purposes the houses of the Egyptians were made of wood. The planks were placed vertically and strapped by palm-fibre rope. Snch a system was evolved in order that the houses might be removed each year from the plain when the cultivated land was inundated by the Nile.

inundation, overseer of the festival, gatherer of lotus-seed, and a few others. These titles, of course, only cover those departments which happen to' be named in connection with the funeral offerings, but they show that a regular bureaucracy was growing over the whole country.

The kings of this time were buried in large chambers of wood sunk in the ground and roofed with beams, planks, and matting, with a bed of sand over the whole. By the middle of the ist Dynasty a regular stairway was made leading down into the tomb. The funeral offerings were at first simply thrown into the pit around the wooden chambers ; then divisions were made for them ; next, small chambers appear, and by the end of the Ilnd Dynasty there is a long gallery of chambers of offerings leading to the sepulchre. Granite was rarely worked in the Ist and Ilnd Dynasties ; and though limestone was early used for tombstones, it is not till the close of the Ilnd Dynasty that we find a limestone chamber, and that is very scantily wrought with hammer and adze.

20

Story of the Nations

The rapid rise of art is the most surprising activity of this age. The first two civilizations, though extraordinary in their mechanical ability, had shown but poor artistic perception. The limbs of their figures of men and animals are mere lines, or else end in points, showing little observation ; their mode of expressing a solid was to draw a zigzag line to and fro, connecting the outlines of two sides, showing a poor imagination. So soon as the dynastic race come in there begins the enormous step of art, rapidly developing to perfection within its natural requirements. The vigorous figures on slate of the various races, with their details of dress and action, are excellently given, with increasing technical ability, down to- the start of the 1st Dynasty. After that we have the ivory carving, and one strangely natural limestone head.

The whole view we get is that of the rapid growth of all the benefits of a widely united rule : the expansion of fine art and of the various crafts as the result of increased opportunity, certainty of demand,.

From a restoration by V. Holscher.] [By permission of J. C. Hinrich, Lfipzio-

THE PYRAMIDS OF OHIZBH.

The largest of the Ghizeh Pyramids, built by Khufu, was said by Herodotus to have taken 100,000 men thirty years to con- struct. The extraordinary accuracy of the workmanship is more surprising even than the immense bulk of it, which is greater than anything that man has since done. The second pyramid (to the left hand) is only exceeded in accuracy and size by the Great Pyramid.

and improved facilities ; the growth of administration to deal with the problems of the country, especially the inundation ; the regulation of the Nile by great dams across the country begins in this age, and the lines of embankment have continued to the present time, raised on the old dams as the Nile bed has risen ; the establishment of a regular bureaucracy to manage the country on permanent lines with regular registers. All of these changes, which mark the beginning of the order which lasted onwards for thousands of years,, are due to the organizing and artistic ability of the dynastic race.

Already before the middle of the 1st Dynasty a cheap diffusion of skill begins to be seen, and decay soon showed itself. This civilization seems to have been brought to an early close by an immigration of a new force, possibly from the south, to judge by the foreign type of the head of the first king of the Illrd Dynasty ; but, not being fully decadent, it was able to rapidly civilize the invaders, and thus- the country could rise again in two centuries only, refreshed and strengthened by the new blood that had come into it.

Painted specially for this work]

[by Ambrose Dudley. GUESTS AT A FEAST BEING CROWNED.

fluests, on arriving for dinner, which was held in the middle of the day. were given water in which to nash their feet and

were anointed with sweet-scented oil. For some time they remained conversing, as it was comridered impolite to

• • • .>. lmmfd,lately to dmncr- Bowers were brought to them and servants put garlands on their heads, bringing fresh flower

On the guest* being seated the servants handed round wine and the musicians entertained the

company with the favourite, airs of the day.

The Egyptians 23

If the history down to this point seems general rather than personal, it must be remembered that the whole of what has been stated so far is an entirely new conception to us, formed in the last thirty years, before which absolutely nothing was known of all these periods, and we have not yet any written narrations of the course of events in these ages.

THE FOURTH CIVILIZATION : 3800 TO 3OOO B.C.

IN this period we reach the beginning of narrative history, and a far greater fullness of monuments from which the civilization can be studied.

The best-known labours of this age were the Pyramids, and they well show the growth and decay of the civilization. In the 1st Dynasty the royal tombs were chambers sunk in the ground and banked

l^fv

HH^BBHH^HB^B8NB9MHHHHHHIBBHIHBIHiHiliiiHH

From a restoration] (by CMjritt.

THE FORTRESS OF SEMNEH.

Under the^XHth Dynasty the" Egyptians took great precautions to guard themselves against barbarian inroads. We find Senusert III blockading the right bank of the river at Semneh in Nubia with a large fortress. This immense brick building, with its numerous angles and irregular ground plan, was surrounded by a wall, so built as to render the placing of scaling-ladders exceedingly difficult. It was well garrisoned and sentinels were always stationed on the summit.

over with sand, held in by a slight dwarf wall around it. During that age a stairway was added to approach the chamber. By the beginning of the Illrd Dynasty the structure had grown to be a high mass of brickwork, rising about twenty feet, with vertical pits in it leading to the entrance-passage and to the stone trapdoors that were let down to intercept the passage for security. The next stage was to build the pile over the tomb with stone, and to add to its size from time to time by raising it and putting a fresh coating of stone around it. This is seen in the so-called Step Pyramid of Saqqareh, built by Zeser, the second king of the Illrd Dynasty.

At the close of the Illrd Dynasty this same system was followed by Sneferu (3747 B.C.) in the stone pyramid of Meydum ; and after adding seven coatings of stone to the central mass, each finished and supposed in its turn to be final, he at last conceived the idea of putting one entire slope of casing over the whole. This was an afterthought, as the inner coats are well based on the rock, whereas the final casing merely rests on gravel foundation. The true pyramid, therefore, began as a casual idea, growing out of

Story of the Nations

Painted specially for this work] (by W. M. N. Brunton, R.B.A., A.R.M.S.

THE MURDER OF AMENEMHAT II.

Amenemhat II, the third King of the Xllth Dynasty, was slain by his chamberlains. This murder, unlike so many in Oriental history, was not followed by a change in the royal line. This fact suggests either that the murderers were caught before the plot could mature, or that they were not concerned with the throne but only with the man they slew. The motive may even have been one of personal revenge.

a different system. Ever after that, each pyramid was designed as a whole, and only one was enlarged from its first plan.

The first pyramid planned from its foundation was the greatest ever erected, that of Khufu, the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh. The outer slope is exactly the same as that of the pyramid of Sneferu, such that the height is the radius of a circle equal to the circuit of it. This proportion is closely given by a height of seven parts to a base of eleven ; and the unit of Sneferu was twenty-five Egyptian cubits ; that of Khufu was forty cubits. This attention to geometry is what might be expected in view of the extra- ordinary accuracy of the work. The side of the pyramid is seven hundred and fifty-five feet, as wide as the Thames at Westminster ; yet the errors of the sides are less than a little finger's breadth in length and in angle. If a brass rod were used for measuring, less than seven degrees warmer or cooler would cause as much error as the pyramid builders made in carrying out their enormous work. The courses were laid out so truly that they are true to the thickness of a sheet of paper in a length of twenty feet.

All of this brilliant accuracy rapidly fell away. The men who finished the pyramid were much less careful. The pyramid of Khofra, in the next reign, was rather less in size and had three times the

tnl lii/ Ihf Hon. John Collier]

Hill perm i.s.-tjim /if tin Oltlltam A rt Callrnj < 'am in ill THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA.

After persuiidirij.' her lover, Antony, to riiiniiiit sniridr liy semlim; liini false news of her death, ( 'leopntra made advanees to the victorious Octavian. but found bini impervious to aU her charms. At lcn«(li. h.aiini,' that she was tn !»• takm to Home us a of war. she put an end to her life on Aus-'iist •><!. ;)0 B.C., in the thnt\ -ninth year of her age. Tradition says that she bad an asp brought her in n banket of fruit, and poisoned herself liy upplyini; it to her body.

The Egyptians

I'ainteil specialty for thin u-ork] [hy Fred Roe, K.f.

FUNERAL PASSING OVER THE SACRED LAKE. Preceded by boats conveying mourners who carried wreaths, the sarcophagus was ferried across the sacred lake to the tomb. Here with great ceremony the mummy of the deceased, together with various possessions, was carefully laid in the tomb.

society strongly organized about local centres of the hereditary chiefs. Each noble was the over-lord of a few miles of the Nile valley, on one bank or the other, and he was responsible for the supply of recruits and local tribute to the court expenses. But all the general expense of administration was provided as a part of the management of the great estate, and all crafts were carried on by the most able men on the estate.

Happily we are able to enter into the inner life of this age perhaps more than in most others. The new facility of literature led to various collections of precepts or proverbs being made, which show the ideals 'of the time, and are applicable in the main to most other periods in Egypt. The personal quality most valued was strength of character, The boast was, "I have not been weak" ; "Let not the heart despair, overthrowing its happiness after an evil hour" ; "Look well to

error. That of Menkaura was less than hal/ that size, and had five times the error of Khufu. When the next dynasty arose, the pyramids of Abusir were built with dressed stone only on the outside, and rough broken slabs for the filling. Coming down to the VI th Dynasty, the pyramids were mere shells filled up with chips and rubbish. In the Xllth Dynasty mud brick was the material, and stone was only used for a casing.

Not only is the mechanical development striking, but the artistic power is quite as wonderful. The portrait figures of the kings and nobles show an amazing expression of character, apart from the lower side of emotion. From the minute ivory carving of Khufu up to the life-size figure of Khofra the art was never excelled at any later period.

Another branch of the art, which is astonishing by its amount as well as its quality, is that of the tombs. Funeral chapels were erected over the sepulchres, in order to provide a home for the spirit of the dead, where it could receive its offerings. These chambers were covered with carvings showing all the possessions and pleasures of life, so that the spirit should enjoy them eternally. For some seven centuries, during the IVth and Vlth Dynasties, these carvings provide us with a picture-book o all the affairs of life. The whole view is that of a

HAIRDRESSINO, XUh DYNASTY (2600 li.r.i. At this period women generally wore a large coiffure of straight hair hanging down to the breast in two tresses, but ladies of high birth wore a shorter headdress, under whirh, in front, the natural hair roul'l be soon.

26

Story of the Nations

thyself ; thy existence, lowly or lofty, is liable to change ; but go straight on and thou wilt find the way." Steadfastness also was urged . "If thou are found good in time of prosperity, when adversity comes thou wilt be able to endure." Independence was of consequence in the public council ; if a debater was speaking wrongly, it was the duty of any listener who was his equal to assert the truth, and to gain the approval of the hearers. There are many injunctions against chicanery, crooked ways, worthlessness and laziness.

Folly was as distinguished then as in later ages. "Verily the ignorant man, who hearkens not, nothing can be done for him. He sees knowledge as ignorance, profitable things as hurtful ; he makes

every kind of mistake, so that he is reprimanded every day. People avoid having to do with him on account of the multitude of his continual misfortunes." Reserve was praised : "Go not into the crowd if thou findest thyself ex- cited in the presence of violence" ; "If there is an inquiry increase not thy words ; in keeping quiet thou wilt do best ; do not be a talker" ; "Guard thyself from sinning in words, that they may not wound ; a thing to be con- demned in the breast of man is malicious gossip, which is never still Discard the man who errs thus, and let him not be thy com- panion." It is hard to see that anyone can better this practical advice after all the ages of later experience. We have not room here to quote the many other admirable precepts in the conduct of life, but it is safe to say that any man and any assembly of men would be the better for acting up to the ideals of the pyramid builders.

\ltll Clia*. I). Ward.

nl spa-lolly for (his work]

EARLY TRADING IN EGYPT.

yueen Hatshepsut did much to encourage foreign trade, and sent expeditions to the land of Punt (probably the modern Somaliland) to bring back incense in pxrliiinuc- for pottery and other exports from Eprypt.

THE FIFTH CIVILIZATION : 3OOO TO 2300 B.C.

THE age of the pyramid-builders ran into decay, as we have de- scribed, and they were overcome by a foreign invasion, probably from Syria. This dark period ol the Vllth to Xth Dynasties cannot yet be explained, but we reach light again in the Xlth Dynasty, and then the Xllth Dynasty revived much of the former glory of the kingdom. There was a greater formality in the life, and a more scholastic style in the art, than in earlier times ; we miss the free vitality of the more vigorous ages.

Jewellery was carried to a much greater elaboration than before. Not content with making intricate lorms in gold-work, these designs were coloured by the inlaying of brilliant stones, turquoise, carnelian and lapis lazuli. From the 1st Dynasty the Egyptian had perfectly mastered the beating and soldering of gold, and the free use of colour with it carried the work of this age to a higher perfection than was ever reached later.

•

PaMed specially for 'Ms iroi-7. ; \by. Amlirns,-

THE EXl'fLSION OK Tilt- HYKSOS, ABOUT 158;> B.C.

Towards the end of the XVIIth Dynasty Egypt revolted against the ru'.e of the Hyksos. or "Shepherd Kings", a Semitic tribe which had long been oppressing Kg.vpt. The insniTeet.ion WHS successful, and the Hyksos were slowly driven northward until Aahmes hemmed them up in Aunris. n trnet of land in the Delta which they had strongly fortified. After a long siege they ' M'J'uhited. "nil were allowed to iniireh out anil leave Egypt unmolested. Their expulsion placed Auhnies tinnly on the throne of I'M ri .IIH! l,n\\ci r;^> pt anil \\as the Iteginninic of the brightest nnd most pi-osp -rous period in the history of the country.

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Story of the Nations

Painted sjieciiiay /or this worKi I6u n. heiiinnas WnaM.

THE JEWS BRICKMAKIXG.

Brlckmaking was probably a Royal monopoly. Large numbers of Asiatic captives were constantly employed upon this manufacture, in which we find the Jews engaged at the time of the Exodus. Without such free labour the magnificent memorials of the kings might never have been built.

The great nobles of this age hollowed out enormous tombs in the rock, by quarrying stone for their palaces. These tombs were decorated with painting, in place of the far more costly carving of the previous age. The variety of employments represented shows the details of life and work in the house and estate with minuteness. The games performed by women are fully shown ; in earlier days a row of dancing girls doing the high kick was about all that is shown, but in this period we see turning somersaults, swinging round at arm's length, holding each other playing double somersault, leaping games, keeping two balls in the air, and playing ball riding on the backs of others.

The principal work of this age was the permanent conquest of Nubia and establishing trade with the Sudan. This was celebrated in a triumphal song, a copy of which has lasted to our days :

He has come to us, he has taken the land of the well

The double crown is placed on his head. He has come, he has united the two lands.

He has joined the upper with the lower kingdom. He has come, he has ruled Egypt,

He has placed the desert in his power. He has come, he has made Egypt to live,

He has destroyed its afflictions. He has come, we bring up our children.

We bury our aged by his good favour.

This is only a small part of this song, the earliest that we have preserved. Literature was beginning as an art, and many tales still remain, some of which show the connections of Syria with Egypt.

After the splendid age there was a long autumn of gradual decay in the Xlllth and XlVth Dynasties, closely parallel to the gradual decay of Egypt under the Romans. Syrians had begun to come into the country in the Xllth Dynasty — as they had done in many previous ages; more followed; and in the

The Egyptians 29

XlVth Dynasty we find one Mesopotamian, Khenzer, adopting all the Epgytian religious duties as king, in full royal state ; also another king, Khandy, who was also king in Syria or Mesopotamia. The infiltra- tion of Syrians and Easterners was steadily going on as it did under the Romans before the Arab conquest.

THE SIXTH CIVILIZATION : 230O TO 950 B.C.

THE storm burst at last, as at the Arab conquest, and Egypt was flooded with Semitic tribes, known as the Shepherd Kings, or Hyksos. After a century of turmoil they established great rulers, like the later Khalifehs, who reigned not only over Egypt, but far beyond. One of them, Khyan, took the title "Em bracing territories" ; a sphinx of his was found at Baghdad and a jar-lid of his in Crete. Later Hyksos took the title of sea kings, and probably held Cyprus and the Syrian coast. The latest wave of this invasion is familiar to us as the migration of Abraham, who was of the same race and condition as these Hyksos.

Like all governments, this came to its decadence, and the older Egyptian culture which had taken refuge in the south began to push back to its former home. This movement was not, however, led by Egyptians, but by small, curly - haired Nubians, almost black. King Seqenen-ra was killed in a hand-to-hand battle which beat back the Hyksos ; and the Nubian Aahmes, who over- ran Egypt and drove them out northwards, founded the XVIIIth Dynasty.

The Egyptian movement con- tinued : the powerful kings Amenhetep I and Tahutmes I drove the Semites up Syria, and finally reached the Euphrates. The daughter of Tahutmes I, Queen Hatshepsut, reigned prac- tically alone, and devoted herself to peaceful growth. She fitted out a trading fleet to go to the land of Punt on the African coast, at the south end of the Red Sea. This expedition returned to Thebes, and must therefore have passed by a canal into the Nile. It brought back great quantities of incense, thirty-one frank- incense trees to be planted at Thebes, ebony, cinnamon, balsam, resin, antimony, gold, electrum, ivory, giraffes, leopards, panther- skins, monkeys, and large white dogs. In short, it was a trad- ing voyage much like those of Solomon a few centuries later.

Fainted specialty for lltte work]

EGYPTIAN INFANTRY.

During the XVIIIth Dynasty the Egyptians showed a warlike, soldlerl) spirit developed, no doubt, by their successful campaigns against the Hyksos, who were finally crushed by Aahmes I, the founder of the dynasty That there was a regular standing army, and that organized warfare, as opposed to mere savage raids was carried on, is conclusively proved by tomb inscriptions of the period.

30 Story of the Nations

The record of this was put up in the queen's great temple at Dcir-el-Bahri on the western side of Thebes. So soon as she died her younger brother, Tahutmes III, began his great Syrian campaigns, which wore destined to increase his country's wealth very considerably. The queen died on the I5th of January. In April the army was gathered on the frontier. On the I3th of May Tahutmes had marched across the desert to Gaza covering one hundred and sixty miles in about twelve days On the I4th he pushed on, and did ninety miles more by the 25th of May, up to Mount Carmel. There he struck through a dangerr.us pass in the mountains, and thus surprised the capital city of Megiddo. On the 3Oth of May came the decisive battle of Mepiddo. in which he rolled back the Syrians into the rity and besieged it. In a few

'

I'amled gpeciaUv for lltiy work] >'U Ambrose L>udleii.

EGYPTIAN U1KLS UANCLNO AND PLAYINU UALL.

Slany pastimes ol the Egyptians, thousands of years ago, were similar to those of our own time. Dolls, crocodiles with moving jaws, amongst other toys, were given to children, and the hoop and ball to those of a more advanced age. In the tomli.- of Bcni Hassan we find representations of women playing ball in the form of a dance — at least so we may conjecture from the costume worn.

days it was taken, and the chiefs came out to "smell the ground" in obeisance before the king The -plunder was great — over two thousand horses, nine hundred chariots, two thousand bulls, twenty thousand sheep, two hundred pounds of gold and silver, one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of corn, beside much fine armour, furniture, bronze, and jewellery. Almost every year such plunder was obtained, either as a tribute, or, if that was withheld, then by capture. For twenty years this went on. till Syria was stripped of all its wealth, and its artists and women had been taken to swell the house- holds in Egypt. This made a profound change in Egyptian culture and art. which was more altered than it had been for a thousand years before.

Although the Nubians had driven out the dominion of the Hyksos, those people must have been mingled with the Egyptians more or less, and portions of tribes must have lingered in various corners of the country. One such tribe was that of the Israelites, some of whom had gone back into Syria, while others remained on the east of the delta along the Wady Tumilat, and were reduced to slavery by the

•

lit

l-'ftotoa hit wmuaitian on

J. Sir flinders Pelrie, Messrs. MIIHH-II. unit Tin /•.<;///.( r..ri>l<irnrton htinil. A PAGE SHOWING EGYPTIAN ART AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.

Heading irom Iclt to right the objects arc : Hcnd-irs1 of wunil and ebony Inlaid with ivory plaques an<i rosettes. Gold and jewelled bracelets found in the tomb of Zer of the 1st Dynasty (Figs. '.' nnd 4). Combs of the 1st Civilization. Baked clay cones. Pottery of the 1st Civilization. Gold pendant ol Vth Civilization (Xllth Dynasty). Pro-dynastic pottery (Figs. S and I-.'). Carved ichneumon. Very late pottery. Unbaked clay bricks. A stele from Punt Terrace, Dcir-el-Bahri. Fowling scene from the frescoes upon tombs at Thebes, XVIIlth Dynasty Low chair with Icsrs n form <>: lion's paws, Inlaid with ivory with plaited M-iit 1SOO B.C. Carved head of Ncfcrt rnrly I Vth Dynasty.

Story of the Nations

f'rom a restoration]

\bn f. Looter.

RESIDENCE OF A WEALTHY EUYPT1AN DUHINfi THE XVIIItli DYNASTY

The complete town house of the XVIIIth Dynasty contained a great vestibule with an ante-room for the porter; behind there was a large dining-hall, at the back of which was a small cour : on the right of this stood tho bedroom of the master, and on the left a kitchen and storeroom i beyond still further was built the house for the women and the garden. In this restoration tbc walls have been broken away to show the interior of the vestibule and of the great dining-hall

Egyptians. The conqueror of the Hyksos must have been the new king who knew not Joseph, the oppression beginning with the XVIIIth Dynasty

The most magnificent monarch of this age was Amenhetep III, who reigned thirty-six years, mainly devoted to the peaceful spread of the arts. Of the organization of the country we learn from the tomb of a great vizier, Rekh-ma-ra, who records the taxation from the various divisions of Egypt. From these it is evident that the court levied only for its own expenses, and the cost of administration was borne locally by the nobles. The great wars in Syria had brought in much wealth which was maintained by the continuous tribute, and this went to the king and was not pooled in the expenses of government. The large number of captives also greatly facilitated the public works, and their maintenance was provided by the heavy tribute of corn exacted both from Syria and from Nubia

On the western side of Thebes, Amenhetep III built a great temple for the service ol his spirit, the expansion of the old chapel of the tombs. The special home of his spirit was in the two colossal seated figures in the temple, which, when complete, were sixty-nine feet high. The temple was swept away for stone by the impious hands of later kings ; but the colossi still remain, looking across that plain at a million sunrises since they were there set by the great king. An overthrown tablet, which stood thirty feet high, is the only other relic of this great temple. These immense masses of stone were not of the soft sandstone, easily cut, and floated down the Nile, like most of the Theban building stone ; but they were cut in the flinty rock near Cairo, and taken hundreds of miles up the stream to be erected.

This great king was in close relations with Syria, as we know by the correspondence on cuneiform clay tablets found at Tell Amarna. These show that the kings of all the north ol Mesopotamia and Assyria were in friendly correspondence with Egypt. Alliances were made for many generations ;

The Egyptians

33

daughters were sent as consorts to the kings on each side ; and ivory, silver, precious stones, horses, chariots, crystal necklaces, copper from Cyprus, also came to Egypt ; gold was mainly asked for in return from Egypt, also oxen, oils, and purple. The intercourse with Greece was also considerable. Fragments of hundreds of Greek vases were found in the ruins of the palace at Tell Amarna, and such vases were often placed in the tombs during this age. Such connection for trade had been going on since the later prehistoric times ; but it was much increased, and it led to an influence on the art which is remarkable. The free drawing and design of the Mykensan period in Greece was largely reflected in the lively naturalism with which both figures and plants were represented in Egypt.

Another large work of this reign was the temple of Luxor, on the eastern side of Thebes. The papyrus columns of the great avenue here are sixty-five feet high, only slightly exceeded by some in the fore- court at Karnak ; and the courts with double colonnades of clustered columns are the most pleasing example of the architecture on a large scale. This temple was specially built in recognition of the divine birth of the king. The royal descent was in the female line, like all other property ; the king, usually a half-brother of the queen, per- sonated the god Amen as his high priest, and the chil- dren born to him in that character were the sons of the god.

This temple was connected with that at Karnak by an avenue of one hundred and twenty-iwo sphinxes, carved in sandstone. This combination of the lion's body with the king's head represented the guarding protection given by the king as ruler of the country. They have no connection what- ever with the Greek idea of a female sphinx, which belongs rather to the harpy tribe, and was destructive rather than protective. The temple of Karnak, to which this avenue led, was the earliest temple at Thebes, repeatedly enlarged from the Xllth Dynasty down to the Ptolemies, for over three thousand years.

Another great work of this reign was an immense artificial lake at Thebes, surrounded by a high bank formed of the earth dug out.

This was dug in fifteen days, just at the time of highest Nile, a8th of September to gth of October. It would require

about eighty thousand men to raintea specially for /his work] \lni Ambnat

dig it, and perhaps a quarter COUNTING THE HANDS CUT FROM THE DEAD.

of a million lads to Carrv the ^ne m'l"ar-v secretaries, immediately after the conclusion of a bnttlr

reckoned the number of the slain in the presenre of the king. This counting was done •earth; SO if the population of by cutting off the hands or some other portion of the body of the enemy.

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Story of the Nations

Thebes were turned on to the job they might about do it in the fortnight stated.

This magnificent king, Amenhetep III, had a remarkable wife, Queen Thyi, who was daughter of a Syrian prince. She had brought with her a devotion to the Syrian sun-worship of the Aten, which had long survived in the old Semitic capital of Heliopolis. She imbued her son Amenhetep IV with this idea, and he adopted it fanatically. The Semite, whether Jew or Muslim, is naturally a monotheist ; and the young king — half Syrian — when he came to the throne at about seventeen pushed the sun-worship to the exclusion of all the Egyptian gods. Soon he proscribed all other worship, and had all mention of the other gods erased on all the accessible monuments of the whole land. He started a new capital, now known as Tell Amarna, and took a new name himself, Akhen- aten, "the glorious disk of the sun". The idea of this worship was the adora- tion of the power of the sun ; this was shown in emblem by the sun's rays descending, each ending in a hand, and these hands accept the offerings, confer life on the king, place the crown on his head, and are the sole means of divine action. The idea of the radiant energy of the sun being the source of all life is perhaps the only scientific materialism that has ever been accepted as a religion.

The king also adored the sun in a noble hymn, which has come down to us. A portion will show the scope of ideas :

The land brightens, for thou risest on the Shining as the Aten in the day ; [horizon,

The darkness flees, for thou givest thy beams, Both lands are rejoicing every day.

Men awake, and stand up on their feet, For thou liftest them up ;

They bathe their limbs, they clothe themselves,

They lift their hands i n adoration of thy risi ng , Throughout the land they do their labours.

The cattle all rest in their pastures, Where grow the trees and herbs :

The birds fly in their haunts. Their wings adoring thy spirit.

.Viiinmy-case from Deir-el- Bahri

Not only did Akhenaten strive for truth in religion, but also in art and in all ideals of life. His constant motto was "Living in Truth", and the extraordinary change which he wrought, and the wide range of his ideas, place him as the greatest thinker that was ever born in Egypt. Had he been in a lower station he might have been a prophet venerated for ages, with a better right to such honour than Buddha or Muhamed. Unfortunately," 'he was a king, and — contrary to Plato — unhappy is that land where kings are philosophers. His ideals outweighed all common

Thou makest the seasons of the year to produce all thy works : The winter making them cool, the summer giving warmth. Thou makest the far-off heaven, that thou mayest rise in it, That thou mayest see all that thou madest when thou wast alone.

• * * *

Since the day that thou laidst the foundations of the earth, Thou raiscst them up for thy son, who came forth from thy substance, The king of Egypt living in Truth

Photos by permission of] \Tlte /•:<;;/;</ Exploration Fvrvl.

A SARCOPHAGUS FROM DEIR-EL-HA II HI.

The Egyptian cottins, or "sarcophagi", differed irreatly in aecordanee with the riink and wealth of the deceased. The poor had to ho content with i-onuh wooden lioxcs. hut the rich man's casket was a thing of m.-iKnifiecnce. richly curved and painted with symbolic-ill figure-, mid often with a full-length ofttK.v i.f the departed one on the lid.

K.MIiALMlM; Til 1C DEAD.

Le-t the de-cei s.-il niiuiit suffer- tnun hutuer ;m<l thirst, those parts which in lifetime sutler from thc.sc sensations were taken out of the body anil placed Jii four jars, each containing the figurehead of the pirttcular jfcn'us nmlor whose protection they fell. Under (he Old and Middle Umpires food in an imperishable form was placed beside the body in the tomb.

Story of the Nations

THE KING AND QUEEN'S PERFUME VASE

FROM TUTANKHAMEN'S TOMB. The splendour of the contents of Tutankhamen's tomb is partly accounted for by the fact that this King restored the worship of Amen, and thus earned the gratitude of the priests. The ornaments and furnishings in- cluding this wonderful perfume vase, are now in Cairo Museum.

son Ramessu. This hall has always excited wonder from the overwhelming scale of it : the columns of the middle avenue are sixty-three feet high, and those of the body of the hall forty-six feet. The whole height to the roof was eighty feet. Such excessive size, executed in a soft sand- stone, brings its own nemesis. It was impossible to support such weights except by crowd- ing the columns, and the in- terspace is less than in almost any temple : barely more than the diameter of the column is left between those of the hall. It therefore appears crowded

sense ; he tried to force them on an unwilling people ; and he neglected the care of his empire, absorbed in his new life. Syria was left to go to ruin by internal warfare, rebelling against Egypt ; the whole land resented the new faith. He only reigned sixteen years, and a few years later his son-in-law, Tutankhamen, restored the old worship of Amen and was rewarded with the magnificently furnished tomb, the discovery of which provided an archaeological sensation. The capital was moved back to Thebes, and life went on as if Akhenaten. the great idealist, had never spoken.

Not only Syria, but also Egypt, had fallen into a terrible state of neglect and mismanagement. After a few weak and short reigns, it required all the energy of a soldier-statesman, King Heremheb, to restore peace and good order to Egypt, and to repress the tyranny of a plundering soldiery. After his time it required another such ruler, Sety I, to recover some part of the lost empire of Egypt in Syria. The old realm out to the Euphrates was hopelessly gone, but Sety stretched his power over Syria, and reached the mouth of the Orontes

The great scenes of this war are sculptured on the outer wall of the vast temple of Karnak. The Hall of Columns there was built by Sety, though it had probably been projected — perhaps even begun — by a previous king. The whole of the building, as we see it, was done by Sety, and he carved about half the columns , the remainder were used by his

/'holographs Iji/ Mr. Harm liurton; uj the Meln>ix>idan A/«««m of Ar, , .Vtu: Yurk.

(World Copy right strictly reserved, i

KING TUTANKHAMEN'S OUTER COFFIN IN SARCOPHAGUS. The opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamen by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter in 1923 created an archaeological sensation. The tomb, the only one discovered which had escaped the depredations of early robbers, contained furniture and ornaments ol unparalleled magnificence. The coffins, carved in the likeness of the dead king, were most beautifully painted and decorated.

The Egyptians

37

and gloomy, and the great weights have forced all the inevitable decay to the point of destruction. Many of the columns have fallen by their own weakness, and during recent years a great rebuilding has been needful, if the whole structure were not to become a heap of ruin. This rebuilding has been carried out on the old Egyptian system, by the simplest means. As each course was laid, it was banked up with earth ; the stones of the next course were then run on rollers into place, and more earth put around them ; finally the temple was completed, but full of earth, and on removing that it stood finished. N«<

accidents can occur, no power- ful cranes or scaffolds are re- quired; and where labour is cheap, the simple earth- staging proves to be as cheap as any other process.

The charac- ter of Sety I stands higher than that of perhaps any other Egyptian ruler. Not only was he ener- getic to recover the status of his country, and left it secure and in good order, but he also had all the inscriptions that had been erased by Akh- enaten carefully re-cut with great fidelity, and only placed hi ; own name modestly as restorer. When we look at the ruthless thefts by Ramessu II,

to look in the face of the kings of three thousand years ago, yet, owing to to hide their bodies from the ancient destroyers, we can now see the actual persons of many of the greatest movers of the world's history. Aahmes, who expelled the Hyksos ; Tahutmes I, who swept up to the Euphrates ; Tahutmes III, the great campaigner ; Sety I, the noble king ; Ramessu, the vain- glorious ; and Ramessu III, who saved Egypt from Syrians and Africans — all these, and many others, are as familiarly known by us as they were to the court of Egypt. In different tombs they were moved about, as robbers increased in audacity, until they were grouped into two great deposits, where — bare oi

Painted sverially for this uvrk] [bu 1C. M. \. Uruntuii. It. II.. I

AKHENATKN COMPOSING HIS HYMN TO THE SUN (XVIIlth DYNASTY). Amenhetep IV, who assumed the name of Akheniitrn, endeavoured to over- throw the old religion and induce the people to imitate him in the worship of the Aten, the solar disk. The Atcn was supposed to represent the gun as the universal god. But the movement failed, and the records of tin kinir ami his religion wt>iv subsequently erased from the monuments

substituting his own name for those of earlier kini;son innum- erable inscrip- tions, we can value the more his father's honourable restoration of defaced monu- ments to their original pur- pose.

Happily the body of this truly great ruler has been more perfectly pre- served than any of the royal mummies The grace, the nobil- ity, the dignity of the man show in all his features. There is no finer pre- sentment of the great dead than this beautiful face, which had been moulded by so noble a character.

It would seem an im- possible ro- mance that \vv should be able the care taken

38 Story of the Nations

all the pomp and state that could attract the plunderer — they lay until drawn torth again by ..t generation that would value and reverence their remains. Truly the Egyptian achieved an imnv>rtality of renown and respect which we cannot imagine any ruler of the present day retaining in A.D 5200

This care for the person and the glory of the dead was one of the greatest motives to the Egyptians and it is to this that we owe nearly all our knowledge of their daily life. The dead were ornamented with the jewellery and trinkets which they had worn in life. They were wrapped in the fine linen which had been made for everyday wear. They had offerings of food and drink, vases, weapons, toilet things, toys, even literature — al| that had been familiar around them were laid by them for their future solace. The soul, when it came abroad from the tomb, was to be cherished by providing a model house for it in great detail, with model servants to do all the work, made in wood carving, or later in pottery. And the owner of great estates had all the scenes and life of his domains carved, or later painted, on the walls

Painted upcHaUj for this imrk ', <t>U Ohas T>. Ward

SETY 1 IN SYRIA (XlXth DYNASTY)

On the death of Ramessu 1 war broke out again between the Egyptians and the Hit liter.. Srty ! nmrcucd rapidly into Syria and after several brilliant victories took Kadesh, a city of the Amorites which commanded the Orontes Valley. Mautenor, Kingof the Hlttitcs. then attacked Set.y. lint wns defeated and forced to sign a peace, leaving Southern Syria in the hands of Egypt

of the tomb-chapel, where his soul was supposed to come to be refreshed with the joys of lite. Doubt- less this was not nearly so prominent to the Egyptian as it is to us to day. To them it was a provision far away upon the desert, seldom seen or noticed, while the active life lay in the town-; and fields of the green plain. All those daily scenes are now buried deep below the accumulations of the Nile, and only the works upon the desert stand out visible to our days.

After Scty I the kingdom rapidly declined. His son, Ramessu II. is only known by his boastfulnes^ and his preposterously long reign of sixty-seven years. In all this time he does not seem to have d me anything for his country after his eighth year. For over half a century he stole the monuments of hi: predecessors and lied about himself. His Syrian war never reached as far as his father had gone, and he retreated from a drawn game with the Hittites He was glorified by a long and fulsome p:>em about his exploits, of which many copies remain ; the mam interest is as showing the condition ot the greac

4o

Story of the Nations

Hittite confederacy at that time. They had formed an alliance of various peoples from Lycia to Carchemish, and from the gulf of Issus down to Tyre. From their treaty with Ramessu in his twenty- first year it is seen that their homeland, by the gods of which they swore, was around the head waters of the Euphrates in Armenia.

The treaty of 1280 B.C. is preserved in hieroglyphs at Abu Simbcl in Nubia, and on a cuneiform tablet at Boghaz iCeui in Asia Minor. It shows how carefully international acts were then drawn up. It recite* the ancestry of both kings and their former relations ; declares permanent friendship ; confirms past treaties ; makes a defensive alliance ; and declares the extradition of any subjects changing sides. It

Painted specially for this work} !'»/ H'. .V. .V. llrunton, K.H.A-.

SETY I BUILDING THE TEMPLE OF ABYDOS (XlXth DYNASTY).

Although a great part of his reign was occupied in warfare, Sety I found time to work the mines of Sinai and the Red St-.i. and to restore and build many temples. At Abydos he built largely, commencing the magnificent temple to Osiris, which contain* sonic of the finest bas-reliefs in the country.

concludes with the oath by each of the gods of the Hittites, and the description of the state seals of the- Hittites and Kataonian kingdoms. The daughter of the Hittite king was given to Ramessu on making this treaty ; the Egyptians gave her the name of the dawn, "beholding the beauty of the sun", an allusion to her beholding the king.

Art decayed greatly in this reign, and the only creditable work of which we know is a seated figure in black granite. But works of enormous size were executed ; a statue ninety-two feet high looked out over the temple and city of Tanis ; another colossus of red granite was the seated figure, fifty-seven feet high, at the king's funeral temple at Thebes. These weighed nine hundred or one thousand tons each. The rage for erasures went so far that Ramessu had his own obelisks.

The Egyptians

cut down and re-engraved in some cases. The gigantic rock- cut figures of Abu Simbel are impressive from their size, but the execution is incredibly coarse and mechanical in the mode of marking details.

There was a great spread of officialism growing throughout the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties ; more and more place- hunters had to be kept by the taxes and fees of the people, and the burden was not diminished by finding offices for the eighty sons and sixty sons-in-law of Ramessu. The vast endowments of the temples maintained an army of priests in useless lives. These drains upon the resources weakened Egypt greatly, and it steadily fell into worse state under Ramessu and collapsed in the tumults of about forty years later.

A new king of some ability arose in Ramessu III. As he was the last king to build a funeral temple at Thebes, his work has survived there at Medinet Habu, while all the earlier temples have been destroyed more or less by later builders. He had to face a great Algerian and Tunisian invasion, and three years later a league of all the peoples of Syria, headed by the Hittites. After another three years the westerners were again forcing forward, and had to be massacred by Ramessu. After these great battles the Egyptians kept precise accounts of the slain, by bringing in the hands and piling them in heaps, and also of the booty, in full lists which were recorded.

This external success was counterbalanced by the decadent condition internally. Conspiracies were brought to light, and the documents of two great trials have come down to us : one a. trial for witchcraft with magic figures ; the other a trial for conspiracy, perhaps connected with the witchcraft. In a large secluded harem of concubines there was fuel for any, social conflagration.

The close of this great family was curious. Ramessu III was succeeded by his son, Ramessu IV, and he by his son, Ramessu V. Meanwhile a brother of Ramessu IV had married his daughter to the High Priest of the omnipotent god Amen. Then suddenly Ramessu V died, and this next brother succeeded as Ramessu VI, and, his heiress being high priestess, the priests of Amen thus succeeded to the throne. They prudently permitted the rest of the sons of Ramessu III to follow one another, down to Ramessu XII ; and this was the more easy as the high priest was court-tutor and had educated them.

The great High Priests of Amen were the richest people in Egypt, for the god had been granted enormous shares of the booty and captives and lands. They were, however, not capable of holding the country together, any more than the Popes could hold Italy. Priestly rule might suffice for the narrow valley of the Nile ; but the frontier facing Syria needed a more vigorous hand. With apparently perfect good will the priests at Thebes agreed to another line of secular rulers managing the Delta from Tanis or Zoan, in the north- east corner. Two lines were thus going on together in the XX 1st Dynasty.

Mummy of Sety I as it now appears after bcinr preserved for over 3.000 years.

42

Story of the Nations

A fascinating little story survives about an envoy sent from Thebes on April 6 to get cedars in Palestine He went down to the coast, and the King of Tanis supplied him with a boat and sailors, with which he started on April 20. On the voyage, at one port a sailor ran away with the stock of money, equal to some hundreds of pounds now. The chief of the place repudiated all responsibility. At last the envoy went on and began to get cedars cut down surreptitiously, on which the king of the cedar district put him under arrest. He tried to escape one night on to a ship going to Egypt, but was caught and brought back. Then follows a conversation between the Egyptian and the Syrian king on his throne, with his back to the window, while the waves of the great sea broke on the shore below. After much browbeating it ends with the king proposing an ordeal. He will allow the timber raft to be taken if badly rigged, so that a storm would wreck it, then the god Amen can show his power by protecting his own. This is declined, and the envoy sends a messenger for more presents to give the Syrian. On these

Painted specially far this work I//;/ Clias. D. Ward

THE EGYPTIAN CAMP ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

The suspicion with which Soiomon regarded Jeroboam drove the latter to seek refuge with Hheshenq (Shishak), King of Egypt and on Solomon's death Rehoboam, his son, found the kingdom divided, the larger part owning allegiance to Jeroboam. Sheshenq marched to the assistance of his ally, and in a short space of time entered Jerusalem, plundered the temple and received the submission of Rehoboam.

coming, the timber is given in return. Then pirates from Crete sweep down, ironically calling themselves the guardians of the helpless". Unfortunately the end of the tale is lost.

THE SEVENTH CIVILIZATION : 950 B.C. TO A.D. 640.

As at the close of the Vth Civilization the Mesopotamians came in and held the land as Hyksos, before a fresh growth of native power, so now, at the close of the Vlth Civilization, there arose a rule from a Mesopotamian adventurer, which held Egypt for a couple of centuries. Shishak — Shfishenq, "the man of Susa" — a name familiar in Babylonia, was probably a successful mercenary general of the Tanite kings. He married the daughter of the last Tanite king, and, moving up to Bubastis, he set up a new dynasty, the XXIInd.

specially for this work] lb« J. i(. SKeUon.

BRINGING TRIBUTE TO RAMESSU 11 (XlXth DYNASTY).

The tribute received annually from the nations which the Pharaoh had subdued in Ethiopia and Asia was or immense value. It is described as consisting of gold and silver in ingots, porcelain and metal vases, ivory, rare woods, precious stones, horses dogs, wild animal* trees, .seeds, fruits, perfumes, gums, spices und other luxuries. It was presented to the king as chief of the nation but it formed part of the revenue of the State.

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45

Solomon had married another daughter oi the Tanite king, so that the queens of Judah and Egypt were sisters. We have no mention of children of Pharaoh's daughter in the Bible, but probably she had such ; and hence, when Solomon died, it was natural for Shishak to claim to interfere with Judah. He swept up to Jerusalem with one thousand two hundred chariots, sixty thousand horsemen tnd a large army. With Israel divided from Judah. resistance was hooeless. Shishak swept away all the treasure accumulated by Solomon, his brother-in-law, and left Judah under the dread of Egypt. The rest of this family, in the XXIInd and XXIIIrd Dynasties, left no mark in the world's history.

The next great movement was the growth of the Ethiopian kingdom of Napata (or Gebel Barkal), about as far south of Aswan as Aswan is from the sea. While Egyptian power was centred in the remote Delta, the Ethiopians could extend their hold northwards, until about 730 or 740 B.C. they grasped Egypt. After some re- volt came a final conquest of Egypt by Pankhy I, which is well told on his long inscription set up at Napata Tafnekht, a prince of the western Delta, had occupied the valley far above the Eayum The army of Pankhy was ordered to start from Thebes, and to clear out the invaders Pankhy himself then advanced, and captured Her- mopolis and Memphis His anxiety for the safety of his enemies, and his readiness to pardon rebels are remarkable evidences of the general human- ity which is also seen in other lands about this time. Pankhy took up the sovereignty cere- monially at Heliopolis, and then held a great durbar at Athribis.

The Ethiopian kings appear to have deputed their eldest sons as viceroys to govern Egypt ; Shabaka ("King So") and Taharqa ("Tirhaka") both began their rule thus. The Delta was left to a welter of petty chiefs who were always trying to take one another's possessions. A tale of this time pictures them as owning some faint allegiance to the king at Tanis ; and he summons them to fight out their quarrels in an orderly manner, pitting the antagonist forces one against the other. There were fourteen chiefs on one side, against nine others ; after some were worsted the king closes the quarrel without any of the chiefs having been killed or losing their domains.

Since the days of Tafnekht about 742-721 B.C., there had been a power growing in the west of the

Painted specially for this work] [6v •/• i

CAPTIVES BEFORE PHARAOH.

Captives wen- led back with the army, their hands tied behind their back or orer their head in the most strained positions, and were tied one to another by ropes round their necks. Sometimes their hands were enclosed in fetters of wood. The unfortunate prisoners on reaching Egypt were forced to labour on public work-.

46

Story of the Nations

Delta. His attempt on Upper Egypt had been checked b}' the Ethiopians, but Bakenranf, his son and successor, rose to independence, and held Memphis. Two more generations were insignificant, and then a greater ruler arose named Neko, who was father of Psamtek (Psammetichos) .

With Psamtek I begins the independence of Egypt and the XXVIth Dynasty. He saw how to make use of the intrusive Greeks, and by taking them into his service as mercenaries he overcame the de- cadent Ethiopians and conquered the whole of Egypt. But after having thus satisfied his ambitions,

the question stood : How were the Greeks to be disposed of, so as not to clash with the natives ? There was no sort of sympathy between the Egyptian and the Greek. Herodotus expresses the feeling that everything was wrong side before in Egypt ; whatever the Greek did the Egyptian did oppositely. This antagonism • would be felt all the more by the Egyptian, as the Greeks were intruders in his country. He felt doubtless much as the modern Egyptian feels about the Greek trader now — that he is a godless, grasping man, who by wicked skill and unfore- seen craft can get the better of the righteous. After using the Greeks to conquer, it was necessary to get them out of the way in order to tranquillize the country. They were therefore formed into two great garrisons for the frontiers ; one camp protected the Syrian road at Daphnae — the Tahpanhes of Jeremiah ; the other held the western side of the Delta at Naukratis. After this settlement, Egypt rapidly grew in wealth and prosperity ; so easy a time had not been known for some seven centuries, thanks to the grasp of a sound

W£ Pi mler-

D^IP*1^ •'-• w^*^ One °f those wild surses ot pe°p'e

that are thrown up by Asia threatened to break up civilization. The Scythians from beyond Persia burst through and ravaged whole countries. They swept down Syria, and the old town of Beth- shean in Samaria became their head- quarters, and was known ever after as Scythopolis. They threatened Egypt, and but lor the stability of the land under a strong ruler might have submerged it. But Psamtek rose to the emergency ; he held Gaza, and they could not advance beyond Askelon ; soon he beat them back to Ashdod, and there he held the barbarians in check, it is -aid. for twenty-nine years, until their force decayed and their dominion in Asia perished. Psamtek died after a reign of fifty-four years.

The power of Egypt, which had held back the Scythians, soon stretched out when the scourge was removed. Necho, the son of Psamtek, pushed forward, interfered with Judah, punished Syria, and led the Egyptians once more as far as the Euphrates. But before long the power of Babylon under Nebu- chadnezzar attacked and defeated him at Carchemish, and Egypt had to withdraw within its own borders.

Painted specially for this worn] \hu Ambrose Dudley

PSAMTEK ENTERS ASHDOD.

After a long period of decline Psamtek, a Libyan, restored prosperity to Egypt. With the help of Greek and Carian mercenaries sent by Gyges, King of Lydia, he made himself master of the country and rebuilt the ruined cities. He defied the Assyrians and led an expedition into Phllistte. There he met with little success, though Ashdod was captured after a siege, it is said, of twenty -nine years.

Story of the Nations

From »ie painting &>/ AlmaTatlrma.] \BV permission of Messrs. Lrrtl, Sons <?• Co

A MOURNING SCENE.

Immediately a doath took place- ill Egypt the relations ot the deceased burst into most extravagant outbursts of iiioimiinj.', running through the streets wailing and throwing dust on their heads. The near relations, such as a favourite wife or child, would prostrate themselves for hours by the corpse, beseeching the dear one to return to them, or to take them with him on his journey.

After a brief reign, Haa-ab-ra (A pries of the Greeks) once more attempted Syria, and succeeded in defeating the Phoenicians and holding Sidon. Early in his reign the Jews, fleeing from the wrath of Babylon, went down into Egypt with Jeremiah ; they were there settled in the Greek frontier fort of Tahpanhes.

Sooner or later, trouble was bound to come between the Greeks and Egyptians. An attempt to seize Cyrene (in Tripoli) for Egypt was defeated by the Greeks, the failure was laid on Apries, and a revolt followed. He sent a general named Aahmes (Amasis of the Greeks) to quell it ; but the tables turned, Amasis led the revolt, and Apries was deserted. He then turned to his Greek mercenaries for help, but even thirty thousand of them could not save him After a great battle Apries was taken, imprisoned, and before long was killed.

Amasis then had to satisfy the Egyptians' dislike of the beaten Greeks. He therefore cut off all the Greek settlements, including that of Daphnae, and only allowed trade to go on at Naukratis Only a year after his death the terror of Asia again fell upon Egypt.

In 525 B.C. Cambyses, with his Persians, swept through Syria, and with the aid of Arab auxiliaries crossed the desert and met the Egyptians at Pelusium After a fierce battle the Egyptians were broken, and Cambyses advanced to Memphis, besieged it and took it. His rule began favourably ; he settled his foreign troops and followers in the country peacefully, treated the priesthood with respect, and bid fair to be a good ruler. Ambition, however, was his ruin. He tried to push farther west, and to take the Greek colony of Cyrene, and Carthage. Foiled by great sandstorms and the hardness of the desert, he then tried to push south, and led an expedition to near the Third Cataract, on the way to the Ethiopian capital, Napata. There again Nature foiled his army, which was reduced to cannibalism The hard ships, perhaps sunstroke also, so affected his mind that he became violent , and it is said that he attacked

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49

and wounded the sacred bull, Apis. To a monotheist Persian worshipper of Ahura-mazda, the veneration of a mere bull must have been most repugnant. If, when he visited the great temple at Memphis, the gross animal was thrust upon his notice, it is not surprising if he attacked it and drove it from his presence.

His successor Darius was one of the greatest and noblest of the Persians, and Egypt was tranquil and prosperous under him for thirty-five years. After some turmoil Artaxerxes I again gave a long period of tranquillity, as seen in the pages of Herodotus, who then visited the country. By 399 B.C. the Egyptians once more managed their own affairs till 342, without any great success, when a terrible devastation of Persians bent on mere plunder broke in and sacked the land for ten years.

The Greek influence on Egypt culminated at the great convulsion of Alexander's triumphal progress through the world, when in a few years Greece expanded its dominance over twenty times its own area. The ever-increasing connection between Egypt and the expanding activities of the West necessitated a convenient meeting-ground outside of the tortuous channels and shoals of the Nile. Thus Alexandria was the product of circumstance, and its rapid pre-eminence showed how necessary it then was

Egypt was fortunate above any other country of Alexander's empire in having for its new ruler the most astute and capable of all his generals. At Alexander's death Ptolemy immediately obtained the governance of Egypt, the most fertile and most defensible of all the provinces. There, ruling in the name of young Alexander, or of anyone else who was nominally uppermost, he steadily kept a beneficent hold on the country, and developed its resources peacefully, until after nineteen years he proclaimed himself the king of Egypt.

The rule of the Ptolemies for a century was the most enlightened in the world, and Egypt was the only country where peace was unbroken and trade and knowledge could develop unchecked. Ptolemy Soter

• r •

[&!/ Ambrose. Ihuttev

Prunlrd special!'! fur Una ii-orl;\ -,

A Fl'NEHAI. I'KOCESSION (XlXth DYNASTY)

From the time of the Vlth Dynasty countless numbers of Egyptians were Interred at Ahv.h.s. UK- lumal-place ,,r tb* noa.l ol Osirte This In many cases necessitated n long journey. In the abore scene the ba rqnc it. whicb t he coffin crossed tl is bctag drawn up to the Tombs by ox<-n, attended by relatives of the Jerked nml fnnorory prlosf low? train of professional mourners, chiefly women

go Story of the Nations

•conscious of the new horizons spread out to the mind by the genius of Alexander's tutor Aristotle, determined on developing research and science. He founded the first great Academy, the Musoeum of Alexandria. He personally persuaded philosophers to gather there, and the development of the earliest State University and Library was the special care of his successor Philadelphus. The Egyptian worships were by no means neglected under these tolerant rulers. The large endowments of the temples were not stripped away, but were devoted to a vast rebuilding, which has left the most grandiose temples that we know. Dendereh, Edfu, Esneh, and Philae give some idea of what was going on also in other parts of the land. These huge structures were not built at one stroke by the State, but were gradually piled up during a couple of centuries or more, as the funds of the temple properties permitted.

I'aintcd ftyl \Alma Tademu.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

After thu battle of 1'hilippi, in which Octavius and Antony defeated the forces of Brutus and Cassius, Antony summoned Cleopatra to explain why she had assisted Cassius. She sailed to meet him at Tarsus in Cilicia and by the magnificence of her retinue drew all the people from the town to the banks of the Cydnus.

The affluence of the land, from the century of prosperity under the earlier Ptolemies, was somewhat diminished by the decay of that family, which led to incessant revolts and family feuds, usually ending in murders of brothers, sisters, mothers and children. The names of the earlier kings — the Saviour, the Beneficent, the Illustrious — gave place later to the New Bacchus, and the nicknames of Paunchy and the Flute-player.

The history ol these Macedonian rulers of Egypt is most complex ; not only were they incessantly occupied in family squabbles, but they had adopted the Egyptian custom of royal succession in the female line, so that the queens carried the right to the kingdom. Moreover, the regular law of succession was for the son of a king to marry the daughter. Such had been the Egyptian law for thousands of years, ameliorated by the polj'gamy of the kings, so that — like Abraham — the son by one wife married the daughter by the heiress-wife.

Story of the Nations

/,:<.-> Pringle.

THE FLIGHT OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

In 32 B.C. the Roman Senate outlawed Antony and declared war on Cleopatra. Antony's supporters gradually fell away from him, and on September 2, 31, he was crushing!}' defeated by the Romans off Actliim. While the issue of the battle was still uncertain, Cleopatra suddenly withdrew her squadron. Antony fled after her, leaving his fleet to be annihilated by the Roman*

These customs of marriage and inheritance have to be taken into account before we can begin to understand the history of the most celebrated queen of the Macedonian family, Cleopatra VI. As the kingdom was hers by right, as queen-heiress, so whatever man held the kingdom by right or force could only legitimate his position by becoming her spouse. To conquer or command Egypt was likewise to be the consort of Egypt's queen. The Macedonian queens had been most determined and vigorous in holding their rights, raising armies and murdering relatives with readiness and ability. Cleopatra inherited their powers with rather less than their vices.

Born in 68 B.C., Cleopatra lived at the court of her father, a disgraceful rascal, Ptolemy the Flute- player. Her elder sister, of a first family, had been playing the family game, rebelled against her father, and ejected him from Alexandria ; married a husband, and soon strangled him ; then married a second husband, who lost his life in a year by the Roman intervention, which also wiped out the over-lively sister. Such were the stirring excitements of life to young Cleopatra, as a growing girl. In the train of the Roman general was a sturdy master of the horse, Antony, then twenty-nine years old, who was much smitten by Cleopatra, then the heiress, aged sixteen. The Romans settled down Cleopatra as acting queen of Egypt, with the plan that in due time she must marry her brother, then ten years old. After four years young Ptolemy was proclaimed king, and his advisers promptly ejected Cleopatra, in order to have the whole power in their hands. She fled to Syria, and called together an army, then returned and tried to oust her brother. She does not seem to have succeeded, and therefore she fled to Alexandria and claimed the protection and help of Caesar, who had arrived in pursuit of Pompey, and who proceeded to settle the family quarrel. As master of Egypt, he was naturally the consort of Cleopatra, then twenty, and her boy-husband was killed off in the first battle. Another sister, Arsinoe, then escaped from control, and tried fighting ; but she was caught, and kept to ornament Caesar's triumph in Rome. Cleopatra then went with Caesar to Rome, and there lived with him — the mistress of Egypt, heiress of three centuries of kings, the supreme woman of her time, learned, witty, brilliant and fascinating. The foul stroke of his assassination in 44 B.C. broke all this splendour, when she was yet only twenty-four.

In Rome Cleopatra snubbed the busybody Cicero unmercifully. He writes : "Of the haughtiness of the queen herself, when she was in the gardens on the other side of the Tiber, I cannot speak without great pain. . . . The queen I hate." Her Oriental manner and her life with Caesar had made her hated in Rome ; and she fled with her son by Caesar, young Caesarion, back to her own kingdom, when the

The Egyptians

53

master of Egypt was no more. She skilfully got Roman ratification of her position as joint ruler with her infant son, and yet managed to keep neutrality between the powers that were tearing the Roman world in pieces.

After the great day of Philippi, Antony was master of the East. He sent for her to meet him at Tar-u> just over the bounds of Syria, which Egypt claimed — as it were, at the garden-gate of her kingdom. When they met first he was twenty-nine and she was sixteen ; now he was forty-two and she was twenty-nine. Much had passed — the great convulsion of Caesar's rule and loss, and many changes of power to each of them. Both utterly without scruple, they yet had the bravest souls, more humanity than many of their compeers, and a gorgeous sense of life. When they met, she "prepared Antony a royal entertainment, in which every dish was golden and inlaid with precious stones, wonderfully chased and embossed . . . and, smiling, said that she made him a present of everything which he saw, and invited him to sup with her again the next day, and to bring his friends and captains with him. And then she prepared a banquet by far more splendid than the former one, so as to make that first one appear contemptible." She then gave all the gold and palanquins and slaves to Antony's captains. Antony went with her to Egypt, the master of the east, and, therefore, lord of Egypt. The murder of her sister Arsinoe, and poisoning of her remaining brother, were mere incidents of the settlement of affairs.

Antony had to return to Rome, and thence went on his Parthian war. She met him at Antioch with their children, whom he named the Sun and Moon. She then went back to Egypt, and visited on the way Herod the Great at Jerusalem — both supremely full of wiles, both claimants for Syria, both hesitating at nothing. Could either of them tempt the other to offer to consort together, the tempter could

H-i-i'iillii fur this work} \by Ambmse Dudleu.

THE BURNING OF THE LIHKARY AT ALEXANDRIA (A.I). 391).

Theodosius I showed himself a fauatic in liis zeal for Christianity. Among other things he deprived apostatizing Christ inn- of 1 h< fiuht In liri|in-st . When the image of Sorapis was destroyed by his order, the Christians burnt the valuable library limited in • the Scrapeum. Those books stored in Bruchc'ium were burnt in the reign of Aurelian, and many manuscripts were destroyed when Julius Ctesar took Alexandria.

Painted specialty i»r lliia ivnrk\ [ft;/ Ambrose Dml/rii.

THE PEDIGREE OF ICI.-MOIXX,

EI-Moizz found his opportunity in the anarchy th-it followed (he death of Iviifur. the- fourth Fatemid Caliph, lie sent his Kaid, Gauhar, into Egypt with a hundred thousand men. The Turks were defeated, and Oauhar laid the foiiiiclations of a new city, KI-Kiiliiiii (Cairo). When later El-Moi/z followed, in !)73, and founded the university of El-Azhar, the leading Shios anil Sherifs came and asked by what claim of descent ho had assumed his position. "Hero is my pedigree I" said ho, as he unsheathed his sword : "and here is my proof," as he flung gold to the people.

The Egyptians

55

call down the wrath of Antony and Rome to destroy the other claimant. Both played around the supremely perilous game of temptation ; one false step on either side and life was the forfeit. Each foiled the other, and they parted.

At last came the final struggle of the only two great captains left in the Roman world, Antony and Octavian, afterwards styled Augustus. The decisive day came in the Adriatic, off Actium, when Octa- vian caught the fleet of Antony preparing to retreat to Egypt. All know the flight of Cleopatra, the defeat of Antony, the pursuit by Octavian. Then Octavian in Alexandria ; Cleopatra's submission to the new master of Egypt, whom neither beauty, wit, nor wiles could im- press ; the evident Roman triumph impending, with its disgraceful march of captives ; the brave will to die as the last queen of Egypt should — all this is familiar in the close of that astonishing life at only thirty-nine.

Egypt was henceforth the personal possession of the emperor. He was king of Egypt, as well as master of the Roman Empire ; and his Egyptian title was by far the more dignified, though not so effective as- his imperatorship. No Roman of rank might visit his kingdom without per- mission. The revenues of Egypt belonged to the emperor personally, administered by his agent. The corn tribute was the emperor's gift to his Roman clients, the plebs.

Roman rule is a dreary record oi the steady bleeding to death of Egypt. Under the Ptolemies the tetradrachm coin had run down in three centuries from half- a-crown to a shilling in value. Under the

Romans, in as long a time, it ran down from a shilling to a farthing. After that, coinage ceased ; and the country, too poor to own a currency, lived on barter. Alexandria, one of the great marts of the world, retained some of its Ptolemaic splendour ; a romance of about A.D. 200 describes it : "At Alexandria 1 entered by the gate of the Sun and was at once amazed and delighted by the splendour of the city. A row of columns, on either side, led in a straight line to the gate of the Moon. . . . In the midst of these columns was the open part of the city, which branched out into so many streets that in traversing them one seemed journeying abroad though all the time at home. Proceeding a little farther I came to a part named after the great Alexander ; here began a second city, and its beauty was of a twofold kind, two rows of columns equal in extent, intersecting each other at right angles. It was impossible to satisfy the eye with gazing on the various streets, or to take in every object deserving of admiration .... What struck me most was the extent of the city and its vast population .... the former seemed actu- ally a country, the latter a nation." The condition of the country, however, is shown in these romances

[In Metropolitan A/itscum of Art, Nrn-

fainted by Alexandra

THE MASSACRE OK THE .MAMELUKES.

This piece of typically Oriental treachery took place on March 1, 1811. The Mamelukes, a Turkish tribe which hail Ion? oppressed Egypt, had been lured into Cairo by an invitation from Mchcincl Alt Pasha to the festivities in connection with his eon's departure on a campaign. Riding out of the Citadel on their return journey, they found them- selves hemmed in. One man only Is said to have escaped, and Egypt was rid of them for ever.

Story of the Nations

to have been most un- settled. Bands of pirates and robbers infested the inaccessible parts ef the Delta, and preyed on travellers and inhabitants. The Arabs and Syrians were continually filtering into Egypt. The Palmy- rene archers were estab- lished under Hadrian, and were settled at Koptos in A.D. 216. Under Gallienus the policy of devolution led to Odenathus and Zenobia of Palmyra having the government of all the East including Egypt, and their coins struck in Alexandria are common. A Palmyrene army of seventy thousand men tried to occupy Egypt, but the Egyptians would have none of them.

At last Aurelian expelled them, when he .reconstituted the Roman Emp;re. A century later we find bodies of Arab auxiliaries settled in Egypt by the Ro:nans. These migrations were greatly acceler- ated by the Persian movement westward in the sixth century When at last the Persians entered Egypt

the body of refugees fled into Alexandria. The Per- sian army itself was largely Syrian and Arabian, and added to the general migra- tion. Finally, in 641, the hopelessly impoverished and degraded population of Egypt succumbed to the fierce onslaught of only four thousand Arabs, burning with fanatic zeal of the new faith of Islam. The Roman administration had been so miserable and extortionate that the na- tives welcomed even the Arab to bring it to an end.

From an cngrarina.} [By prrmtfwi'on of T. H. Parker Bros.

THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.

On the morning of August 1, 1798. after a bunt of some mouths' duration, Nelson sighted the French fleet in Aboukir Bay. He gave battle that afternoon, and by the next morning the French fleet had been practically annihilated. Shortly before midnight the French flagship blew up.

f-'rmn fin fnrt"'ir'nff,

V T. H. Parker llro-i.

THK 1IATTLK OF THE MILK.

Neihon, hiiving received a severe wound which he thought to bu mortal, was down in the cockpit waiting for the surgeons when the French flagship caught fire. Making his way up nlonc he suddenly appeared on the quarter-deck and ordered boats to be sent to the relief of the enemy

THE

EIGHTH CIVILIZATION I A.D. 640 TO 1913.

WITHIN a year the Arabs were masters of Egypt, and in four years had

Story of the Nations

succeeded in raising the poll-tax to its full amount of about seven million pounds sterling, about a sovereign per head of the men. The Arab period — like the Hyksos — had produced so little of per- manent growth in Egypt that we can only notice the main masses of effect. So long as Egypt was subject to another land it was bound to be impoverished. The Khalifehs of Baghdad treated the land as merely a source of revenue to be drawn from it, just as the Romans had done. In 827 as much as two million pounds a year surplus was taken from Egypt, an amount equal to ten times as much now.

More than two centuries of subjection ended at last, and under Ibn Tulfln, in 880, Egypt began to recover from nine centuries of foreign depletion. It soon acquired control of Syria again, and the Westerners who entered as the Fatimite Dynasty from Tunis, 911-1171, maintained the independence of the country, and rapidly increased its wealth and importance. The most curious contradiction of the Middle Ages was the mixture of tolerance and intolerance. On the one side — the best known — there was the fury of the Crusades, which disturbed Egypt from 1096 to 1250. These wars were the old Norse plunder habits of the Vikings, varnished over with a pretence of Christian motive. Most of the expeditions went out as a barbarian horde to pillage and destroy what civilization remained in the East ; and they were not particular whether it belonged to Christian in Constantinople or to Muslim in Syria. But at the same time there was a strong movement of toleration and advance. The Norman ruiers of Sicily in the twelfth century encouraged all learned men of whatever religion, insisted on Christian and Muslim having perfect equality, and made it a crime for any man to give up the religion of his fathers. In Egypt, rather later, St. Francis was welcomed, and preached his humanitarian divinity before the Sultan Kamil ; and men of each religion favoured the other so much that they were called to account for their orthodoxy on both sides. This reasonable spirit was largely destroyed by the only respectable Crusade, that of Saint Louis. He could effect nothing owing to his hopeless ignorance of geography and strategy ; the whole affair was bungled, and ended in miserable failure, while it alienated the better feeling which existed.

Egypt changed from Western to Kurdish rulers with Saladin in 1169, and as Egypt was still the centre of government, and Syria dependent upon it, the country was not depleted. The Turkish domination of Mamelukes from 1250 to 1517 also centred in Egypt ; and though less able, and more subject to turmoil than that of the great Sultans, yet it was a rule of Egypt for Egypt, albeit by complete foreigners.

The conquest by the Turks of Constantinople really stamped degradation on the country. It became again the milch-cow of a foreign power ; and if that power declined in authority, the change was the

Ry permission oj\ \Measra. liraun et Cie.

THE ASSASSINATION ()[•' GENERAL ICLli'BER. liunaimrte having hurriedly left Egypt, General KI6bcr was left in ful' command. Ho was nearly compelled to evacuate the country, but at li-itgth retook Cairo, and conducted a highly successful adminis- tration, which wnfl brought, to a premature end by his assassination on July It, 1800.

The Egyptians 59

still worse contests ot petty chiefs incessantly quarrelling with one another. The Mameluke Beys were impossible as rulers, and nothing could be done to raise the country until they were extinguished

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, various travellers describe Egypt as a strange country apart, as we might now describe Afghanistan or Siberia. The people who ruled were much as the pre-war Turks ; the people who served were ignorant, filthy, and debased. Modern Egypt dates from July, 1798, when Napoleon, for his political ends, landed at Alexandria By establishing a base at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, as well as in France, he might catch and crush British trade between them. Once holding the front door of the East he could always get men and news across far quicker than the English could do by the back door round the Cape Within three weeks he fought the decisive "Battle of the Pyramids" (so-called), close to the station of Embabeh. just outside the north of Cairo. This put Egypt at his mercy.

But he had reckoned without Nelson. Just a month from the first landing, the French fleet drawn up in the shallows of Abukir, in supposed safety, was attacked by Nelson, and thirteen out of seventeen vessels were destroyed. The base was gone, the sea was his enemy's, and no success on land could be permanent. The memory of Caesar without a base in Alexandria, or of Hannibal in Italy, may have cheered him. Upper Egypt was then occupied, and for a year Napoleon remained, trying to make Egypt an independent base. Such was impossible, and after thirteen months of toil Napoleon escaped back to France. In the middle of the next year his commander-in-chief Kteber, was assassinated by a native in Cairo — the fraternal wish to liberate all countries was seldom appreciated in its practical working. British troops came from India and England, and by September 1801, three years from the start, the French capitulated in Cairo and Alexandria, and evacuated Egypt. The front door was not to be in their hands. There was an enthusiastic view among the English about the "deliverance of the Mamelukes".

Two years later Napoleon tried to attain his ends by getting Egypt into the hands of a nominee of his own. A certain Albanian colonel, Mehemet Ali, was thought to be a fit man. The way was smoothed for him by intrigue and violence. The British tried to interfere, but were frustrated On March I, 1811, came one of the great strokes of history. Egypt was in the hands of a ruffianly set of military

l Iji/ A df NtuvUIt

\U\l pcrmisf'on ol 'he Fiar Art Sncitfv U<t TELL-KL-KKBIK.

On the night of September 12. 188'Atbe Untisli Army m;;de an unexpected midnight advance on fhe Ffryptiau i..«ition at IVII-el-Keblr which they attacked at dawn. A heroic charge mis made by the Highlanders, and hy 6 a.m. the I won. The rebel troops surrendered on the Hth, and the expedition entered Cain, on MIC following afternoo leader of the revolt was captured and banished to Ceylon.

6o

Story of the Nations

adventurers, the Mameluke Beys, who ground a living by tax and plunder out of the working population. To progress with them was impossible. So the one great adventurer invited all the others to a feast — the old historic expedient. As they rode jostling up the long, narrow side ascent to the Citadel in Cairo, the soldiers opened fire. Of all the Beys and their followers, four hundred and eighty in all, only one escaped by jumping his horse over the parapet ; he survived the fall, and was a favourite with Mehemet Ali in after years. Then, with a free hand, the new master did all he could to develop

the country. Woefully ignorant, and often misled by speculators, yet his force of character and his honest endeavour to give order and justice did an immense deal. He brought in European administrators, improved irrigation, started cotton planting, tried many sorts of factories, and formed a trained army.

Egypt next attempted foreign enterprise. Ibrahim, son of Mehemet, in 1831 began, like Tahutmes I, the inva- sion of Syria ; and he so succeeded that he even threatened Constantinople. Most of the European powers inter- vened one way or another, and filched back from Ibrahim the fruit of his victories.

But for this mistaken meddling, Syria would have moved in step with Egypt, and would by now have been enjoying the same order and benefits. A burdensome tribute to Turkey was also imposed. Mehemet Ali's death in 1849 closes the first half-century of modern Egypt.

The organization was too well planted to wither along with the master hand. It was maintained by the suc- cessors of Mehemet, and was continued into recent times. The next great step was the making of the Suez Canal. This had been the basis of Napoleon's plans, and he ordered the surveys to be made for it. An Englishman, Lieut. Waghorn, zealously pushed the idea of cross-transit without a canal, and a railway was laid from Cairo to Suez on

the desert for the overland route. The French did all in their power, through Lesseps, to urge forward the canal scheme. It was thwarted as far, and as long, as possible by Palmerston, because he saw that, if a canal were made, then the control of it must accompany supremacy in the East, and he greatly disliked having to commit England to holding Egypt. By 1856, however, the French began the scheme of Lesseps, which was completed with a heartless disregard of the untended horde of natives who were compelled to labour on it. By 1869 the canal was opened, and Ismail Pasha took the opportunity to pose as a Gallicized Oriental, standing in line with the governments of Europe. Within six years the deferred shares of Ismail were sold to the British Government for four million pounds, and now they produce a return of one and a quarter million a year.

lly cmirUt-i/ >ij /-Vos/ .£• Henl. Ltd., of tlrialol and London, puiili*hrr* of /lit'

xizc etchinff

THE DEATH OF GENERAL GORDON,

in 1884, after the rise of the Mahdi in the Sudan, Charles Gordon was sent out as Governor-General, He relied on his personal influence with the people ; but after a long and heroic defence, Khartoum was taken by the forces of the Mahdi on January 20, 1885, and Gordon cruelly murdered.

a £.

62

Story of the Nations

Ismail was an impossible ruler, spendthrift, ambitious, hasty, and insufferably grasping. He used to have water cut off from districts for a few years until the starving owners would sell him the land at a nominal price. By such means he seized about a fifth of the whole country. Meanwhile, with equal disregard of his subjects' welfare, he was incessantly borrowing from Europe, until he had piled up seventy- six millions of debt. Only a small part of this was represented by any assets, such as railways. Ten years after the ostentatious opening of the Canal, Ismail was deposed, at the initiative of Germany. No one dared to hand him the Turkish declaration of his deposition ; but when the ice was broken, he took the act with his usual insouciance, walked up to his son Taufik, gave him a kiss, and said he greeted his Effendina, the common native title of the Khedive.

Among the troubles of Egypt was the mixture of European and Oriental law. Worst of all, the

TMK BATTLE OF OMDUHMAN.

The Dervishes charged with fanatical bravery, but were driven back with terrific Losses, the British and Egyptian casualties being infinitesimal. This crushing: defeat may he regarded as the death-blow t<> Mahdism in the Sudan.

European law was the most formal and artificial of all, the French law. Where a native ruler would settle a case by a rough view of ultimate justice, the French law would tie the result by intricacies which produced injustice Nowhere did this work more mischief than in mortgages. The un provident native was incessantly tempted to borrow of the pervasive Greek trader, who squatted in every town and village. The trader bought promissory notes at six months, usually paying half the amount named There was no interest, nothing to touch legally, except a promise to pay or forfeit the land. In a few years a trader would become owner of half a village, and live in a fine semi-fortified house. These incessant evictions made the native ready for any promise of deliverance. Thus, when Colonel Araby Bey raised a military revolt, for reforms against European influence, the whole population supported him. The good old days returned as under the Mamelukes. Soldiers went about as masters, robbing whom they would. Witnesses were browbeaten, and officers dictated the replies of any accused soldiers. The Khedive was a prisoner, security was at an end, and the Christian Copts were expecting a massacre. One main root of the trouble was the hopeless ignorance of the natives. Araby supposed that the British could not reach India if he held Egypt

The Egyptians

Tin- temple of Dcir-el-Hahri built

by Queen Hatshepsut of the XVIIIth

Dynasty.

A propylon to the Temple of

I'toli'iny Eucrgctxjs I at Karnak

-'47 ••>•>•> B.C.

Such a condition could not

continue. The British and

French fleets went to Alexandria.

Fortifications were thrown up

to attack them. An ultimatum

to cease fortifying was delivered :

and then the French fleet left to

avoid being drawn into political

adventures. To the British fleet

fell the capture of Alexandria for

the second time. A land expedi- tion was then sent out. Wolseley amused Araby by moving up to the works behind Alexandria, but at last sent off transports one night, professedly to Kosetta. At sunrise they seized the Suez Canal, and soon reached Ismailia. After some weeks more of preparation before Tell-el-Kebir, those works were seized in an hour or two at dawn, and a most brilliant ride of a small body of cavalry under General Drury Lowe covered eighty miles by sunset, and at dusk demanded the surrender of the Citadel of Cairo to the British Army. Five thousand Egyptian troops sullenly filed out; a single rash shot would have wrecked the movement. Then the men and horses, exhausted by the August day, filed in, the smallness of their numbers causing con- sternation and extreme surprise to the Egyptian watchers who had believed there were tens of thousands. ^^^^^m , Cairo was saved thus from fire

and wreck. The exact adap- tation to the psychology of the

Egyptians in the dawn frontal

attack on Tell-el-Kebir, and the

seizure of the Citadel, mark

the most perfect .scientific war- fare.

Though Egypt was now safe,

the Sudan was soon in rebellion

against the terrible mismanage- ment to which the Egyptians had subjected it. It had to be abandoned until Egypt was reorganized and solvent : Gordon was sacri- ficed in a futile attempt to stem the fanatic movement of the Mahdi without any efficient means. Step by step Egypt advanced until in 1898 the final battle of Omdurman was fought, and the Sudan was occupied. Since then a great advance has been made in railways, organization, schools, etc. The Sudani is finer mentally and physically than the Egyptian, and the education that is now being given, especially in the police force, may, before long, give him the lead in all native enterprise. In future centuries the Sudani may be the main force in North Africa.

In Egypt itself, great improvement of the conditions of life resulted Irom a more regular and just rule.

The wealth of the people has

greatly increased, or may almost

be said to have originated at the

downfall of Ismail. This was,

however, accompanied by a rise

of prices of food, land, and all

else, so that the benefits can

only be gauged by the practical

" ' '. :• .11, (| I , |,1 , , _ ^ J^ *P

standards.

General view of Cairo, Miuwing the Mosque of Meheniet and the Citadel.

Egyptian boys of the present day watering cattle in the River Nile.

A view ot the Long Avenue 01

rarn's-headed Sphynxes, originally

(i.500 feet long, between ICurnnk and

Luxor.

The great success has been the irrigation system, which is so essential to the country. The

A view of thu tiuu/, Cttiitti, opened in 1869, which was made at an expense of about seventeen million*

sterling.

Story of the Nations

regulation of this has been an immense benefit, for as the Prime Minister Nubar said : 'Egypt wants only two things, water and justice."

The regularity of the supply was gained by the great dam at Aswan, and the lesser dams at Asyut and Qaliub. Thus a much larger area

Phnta

P. DHIricli Nile are conserved by the Aswan

The Hood waters of the dnm, and released about May for irrigation purposes

EGYPT FROM IQI4

would be continu- ously cultivated with three crops a year. But the free supply of high-level water was not under- stood by the people, who let too much be used, so that the soil was logged and marshes were formed. Thisi like all changes of custom, needed a slow growth

THAT the British management has resulted in solid and continuous benefits to the Egyptians them- selves is amply proved by the course of events in that country since the outbreak of the Great War.

The one most obvious obstacle in the way of Egyptian progress was the somewhat ambiguous nature of the British occupation, the presence of the Khedive with his Turkish leanings and behind all this the nominal suzerainty of Turkey.

The first effect of Turkey's intervention on the side ol the Central Powers was to tree Egypt from the Turkish bond, give her a ruler of her own and regularize the British position by the formal proclama- tion of a British Protectorate. It was high time.

One of Germany's main ambitions, in bringing Turkey into the war, was to use her troops lor an attack on what was at once seen to be the very spinal cord of the British Empire Egypt and the Suez Canal the shortest and most direct water route between Britain and her possessions and Colonies in the East were critical points, the holding of which was obviously vital to British and Egyptian political and military interests. Fortunately the danger had been seen and prepared against The Khedive's complicity in Turco-German intrigues was established in the very first few weeks of the war, and he wisely disappeared It was therefore an easy matter to offer his throne to his loyal uncle Prince Hussein Kamil, and enlarge his status and authority by creating him Sultan of Egypt

The change was of profound significance, for it recognized the historical continuity oi Egyptian nationality while pledging the authority and resources of the British Empire to its defence. It was soon obvious that the conquest of Egypt by Turkey was one of Germany's most cherished plans. Even before the end of 1914 signs were everywhere visible that the Turks contemplated an offensive against and across the Suez Canal. Little could be concealed from the keen eyes of the agents

\TI. Walter Barnct

Lord Cromer, appointed Uritish Agent in 1883, very utily re-established Egyptian Ilnanoo

Sir Kldon Gorst succeeded Lord Cromer as British Agent and Consul -General

in 1!IM7

The Khedive Abbas HUrai threw In his lot with Turkey in the Great War and was deposed

Bourne <C' fihepfieril

Lord Kitchener who as Sirdar conquered the Sudan, was appointed British Agent in 1911

Painted specially for this work}

THE GRAND MARSHAL PROCLAIMED EMPEROR ON THE BATTLEFIELD. After Han YH's death in A.I). 8:24 * 'biiia remained in a state of chaos for many years. Five small dynasties followed one another

in the south of China while the Tartars conquered the north. The Grand Marsha.' to the last of these Emperors -a mere boy wag

a Tartar raid when his army rested him with the yellow robe and proclaimed him Emperor of the house of Sung. He professed surprise and reluctance, but there is little doubt that he knew of the design.

The Egyptians

of the British Intelligence Service in Egypt The only surprising feature about the Turkish operation which took place in February, 1915, was the weakness of the force with which it was made. The British Army in the country was by then a very formidable opponent, consisting as it did of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, as well as good British, Indian, and Egyptian troops.

It is obvious now that the Turks looked to the Arab tribes, notably the Senussi, on the western frontier of Egypt, as well as to a nationalist rising in Egypt itself, to second their ill-advised attempt Neither of these subsidiary operations materialized.

A Royal Flying Corps squadron manoeuvring fur :m attack on the Turoo-Gerinan hanears nt El Arish, a hundred miles east of the Suez Canal.

A British airman swooping and dropping a bomb on the only Tnrco-Gcrman plane out at El Arish : the destruction of the Turkish craft

In such circumstances the attack was doomed to failure, even to a failure as ignominious as that which actually occurred. It further provided the British with the valuable lesson that the desert of Sinai was not the impenetrable line of defence that in some quarters had been imagined.

For the rest of that year Egypt remained the base of the Dardanelles Expedition, and became one great camp. The Turkish summons to a Holy War had failed miserably, and there were no signs of active disaffection in the country itself. But by November the picture had changed, for Turco-German intrigue had at length succeeded in moving the powerful sect of the Senussi into action. The Senussi are perhaps the most fanatical of all Moslems, and the threat had to be taken very seriously, as the ap- pearance of the enemy in the immediate vicinity of the Nile might well be the signal for a rising in the country itself. The British Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Maxwell, dealt with the situation in characteristic fashion by attacking first and that in no uncertain fashion. In a few weeks the power of the Senussi was broken, and the same fate befell the Sultan of Darfur when he attempted a similar operation some few months later. Henceforth Egypt was virtually secure from foreign enemies, and when the country became the base for operations against Palestine and Syria General Murray and

G

66

Story of the Nations

later, General Allenby, could set their faces towards Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo without con- stantly wondering or fearing what was taking place behind their backs. Apart from the part played by Egypt in the series of brilliant campaigns which definitely broke Turkish power in Syria, the interest of the country was henceforth absorbed in political questions.

The turn given to the war by the intervention of America brought into even greater prominence the issue of nationality, which was naturally a matter of close concern to the country. The peace presented the British Government with problems even more formidable than those it had successfully solved in the war. The Egyptian nationalists thought the moment favourable to advance claims which all wiser heads have deemed incompatible with order and good government at this stage of the country's development. Nor did they hesitate to call in evil and unruly elements to their aid. In the early part of 1919 riots and risings on a serious scale began, which were only repressed after considerable bloodshed.

Lord Allenby was sent out again, this time as High Commissioner, and inaugurated a policy of con-

ciliation by sanctioning the liberation of the political prisoners, including Zaghlul Pasha, the Nationalist leader. An important mission under Lord Milner despatched by the British Government re- ported in favour of abolishing the Protectorate and substitut- ing a relationship "which would, while securing the special interests of Great Britain and enabling her to offer adequate guarantees to foreign Powers, meet the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people".

In spite of the breakdown of subsequent negotiations, the British Government adhered

FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT ALLEN 1!Y. G.C.B., G.C.M.G.

nouncement published on Feb- ruary 28, 1922, the British Protectorate was ended and Egypt declared an independent sovereign state, the four vital points, upon which no agree- ment had been reached, being reserved for future discussion. These points were (a) The security of the communications of the British Empire in Egypt ; (b) the defence of Egypt against foreign aggres- sion or interference ; (c) the protection of foreign residents and minorities ; (d) the Sudan. As a result of this declaration a new constitution, with two houses on the European model, was formulated, the Sultan taking the title of King Fuad I.

to its promise. By a pro-

The first parliament contained an overwhelmingly Nationalist majority and Zaghlul became Prime Minister.

During the next two years the Nationalist propaganda increased in intensity and violence, the Egyptian claims upon the Sudan being asserted again and again in most uncompromising terms. Many anti-British incidents tcok place, culminating, on November 19, 1924, in the atrocious murder of Sir Lee Stack, the Sirdar and Governor-General of the Sudan, in broad daylight in the streets of Cairo.

The indignation roused in Britain called for extreme measures. An ultimatum was presented demanding an apology, the payment of a substantial fine, full enquiry into the crime and punishment of the offenders, and the withdrawal of all Egyptian officers and units from the Sudan. When the Egyp- tian Government demurred in face of some of these demands the British Government took the necessary steps to see that they were carried out. Seven persons involved in the murder were executed, and to all intents and purposes the Sudan became entirely British.

The next few years witnessed a firmer and more active British policy under the new High Com- missioner, Lord Lloyd, and internally a period of short-lived ministries and political confusion, during which the defects of the Constitution in the hands of an inexperienced electorate and factious politicians were clearly brought to light. In 1928 King Fuad felt himself strong enough to take the initiative, and by dissolving Parliament initiated a period of personal government. Since that time the King, with the aid of his astute and able Prime Minister, Sidky Pasha, and a re- modelled electoral system intended to ensure a submissive Parliament, has been diiefly responsible for controlling the destinies of his country. Egypt has suffered much in the prevailing depression, especially owing to the low prices realized for the cotton crops, but, though there has been an undercurrent

68

Story of the Nations

of unrest, poli- tical tranquillity has been, on the whole, m a i n- tained.

Throughout the post-war period there has been a steadily dwindling num- ber of British employed in the public services, a fact which has undoubtedly led to a considerable loss of efficiency. What results this will have upon the future economy of the country, or whether after a wider experience the Egyptians maintain the British traditions of administrative integrity and zeal, the next few years will show. Apart from the garrison main- tained in Cairo, its responsi- bilities for the protection of foreign interests and the guar- dianship of the Suez Canal, the British control- ling influence in Egyptian affairs has been relin- quished.

Apart from political happen- ings, the great event in Egyp- tian history dur- ing the last few years was the

[Man ue). ZAGHLUL PASHA The famous National- ist leader in the post- war years ; was several times exiled.

LOUD LLOYD An active and success- ful High Commissioner !n the post-war period.

[Topical. SIDKY PASHA The present Prime Minister of Egypt, an astute and able poli- tician.

H.M. KING FUAD I.

On the death of Sultan Huscln in 1917, he was succeeded by Fuad, the sixth son of the former Khedive Ismail. On the declaration of Egyptian Independence In 1922 the new Sultan took the title of King Fuad I

disco very of King Tutankhamen's tomb by the late Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter. Being the only tomb discovered in- tact, this find was of unique impor- tance, and the magnificence of the furniture, j e w e 1 1 e r y , chariots, wea- pons, etc., which were buried with the king and are now in the Cairo museum, bears dazzling witness to the wonder- ful style in which these kings lived.

Excavations organized by various British and other scien- tific bodies con- tinue year by year, and finds of greater or lesser importance are constantly being made. In another sphere of scien- tific work the great irrigation works of the Nile have been brought nearer and nearer per- fection ; and thus by the labour of archaeologists, engineers and statesmen the history of modern and ancient Egypt is being unfolded simul- taneously.

DATES OF CHINESE HISTORY

DYNASTY.

DATE.

B C,

EMPEROR.

CHIRP EVENTS.

Semi- Mythical Period.

3000

2698-2598 -2258 2317-2208

HUANG-TI. YAO.

SHUN.

The native Histories give particulars of the Kings and their Government for many centuries (the Emperor Fu Hsi is said to have reigned 2953-2838 B.C.), but fable predominates over fact. Fu Hsi is supposed to have taught his people hunting, fishing and herding. The YELLOW EMPEROR, the most famous of the legendary rulers, is said to have invented wheeled vehicles. His wife is reputed to have been the firs*, person to spin silk. Extends the boundaries of China. Ancient China covered a comparatively small area lying almost entirely between the Yellow River and the Yang-tsze. (Inundation of the Yellow River.)

Hsia.

2205-2197

TA Yf).

builds canals to take the overflow of the Yellow River, the Ho-ang Ho.

Shang or (from 1401) Yin.

1706-1087

CHING T'ANG. CHOU HSIN.

Sacrificial bronze vessels ascribed to this dynasty are still preserved.

Wen Wang, 1231-1135, the chief of the West, protects the Empire against the Huns, is im- prisoned and compiles the "Book of Chan^fs". Under his rule the Yin Dynasty is overthrown by Wu Wang, the son of Wen Wang.

Chou.

ixaa

776

Interregnum.

WU WANG. YU WANG.

China becomes a confederation of Stales. The feudal system begins to break up, 781. Oppresses the people. An eclipse, August 27, 776, is supposed to foretell his downfall. Birth of Lao Tzu, 604. Confucius (K'ung Ch'iu), 551-479. Mencius (Me'ng-K'o). 372-289, known as "the second holy one" : a disciple of Confucius. In the scale of national importance he placed the people first, the gods second, and the emperor third. The Confederation breaks up.

Ch'in or Ts'in.

249

221

CIIL'ANG HSIANG. SHIH HUANG TI.

The State of Ts'in (or Ch'in) becomes the head of the rival States.

Proclaims himself the first universal emperor. Destroys the ancient literature, except works on agriculture, medicine, and the various ways of foretelling the future. His new copper coinage drives the cowry out of circulation. Builds roads and bridges. Constructs the Great Wall as a defence against Tartar inroads Enlarges the Empire to the boundaries of the present-day Empire

Han.

202 - 140

LIU PANG (KAO TI). LIU CH'E {WU TI).

Collects the classics and encourages the revival of learning. Extends the Empire and organizes a strict military system. Chang Ch'ien visits Bactria 125 B.C., and sends envoys to India. His reports on the kingdoms of Western Asia exercised a great influence on Chinese life. Reforms the calendar. Turkestan becomes a Chinese Province. War with the Huns.

Later Han

Empire.

A.D. 25 58-76

KWANG WU TI.

LIU CHUANG (MING TI).

Liu Hsin defeats Wang-Mang and takes the title of Kwang wu ti ; fixes his capital in Ho-Nan. Sends ambassadors to Japan. Despatches envoys to India to inquire into the Buddhist faith (A.D. 61). 156. Earliest record of a census. (Population 50 millions.) 173. A severe pestilence devastates China. From A.D. 220-265 China was divided into three parts, the period being known as that of the Three Kingdoms.

Chin.

265

SSUMA YEN (WU TI).

Ambassadors arrive from Diocletian (284). 399. Fa Hsien visits India, Ceylon and Sumatra, and returns after an absence of fifteen years with sacred books, relics and images illustrative of the Buddhist religion. The institution of the Confucian Temple established, 420. Close of Chin Dynasty and period of civil war.

Sui.

3«1

YANG CHIEN

Constructs canals, revises the legal code, patronizes literature, confirms the Chinese overlord- ship of Korea. During his reign the population is said to have doubled.

T'ang.

618

626 684

LI YUAN (KAO TSU).

LI SHIH-MIN. EMI RESS WU.

Buddhism discouraged and the teachings of Confucius favoured. A golden age of literature. Printing invented. Alliance formed with the Turks. The Empire extended. Envoys of Persia and Nepaul at the Court of China. A.D. 636. Nestorian missionaries allowed to settle in the capital. The Tibetans defeated. Invasion of the Tartars. 700-800. A great period of Painting. During the eighth and ninth centuries the power of the T'ang Dynasty declined and history consists of monotonous records of feeble governments, oppressions and rebellions. 907. Fall of the T'ang Empire.

Sung.

960-976 1022-1063

CHAO K'UANG-YIN (T'AI TSU). CHAO CHEN (JEN TSUNG).

New calendar adopted. Criminal code revised.

Tartars' invasions bought off by the payment of a large annua tribute. Paper notes issued (1025). The art of porcelain- making attains a very high level. 1 100. The Tartars (or Kin) overrun China and fix their capital near Pekin. The Sung Dynasty rule only Southern China, the seat of government being at Nanking and afterwards at Hanchow. Chu Hsi, historian and metaphysician (1130-1200). Mongols at the beginning of the I2th century invade N.W. China and the state of Hia, whose king pays a tribute and gives his daughter in marriage to their leader* Jenghiz Khan captures Liao Yang, the chief city of the Kin Emperor. Catholic missionaries come to Mongolia. Jenghiz Khan re-invades China. Constructs the Grand Canal.

DATES OF CHINESE HISTORY— continued

DYNASTY

DATE.

A.D.

EMPEROR.

CHIEF EVENTS.

Sung.

1227

Death of Jenghiz Khan. His son Ogdai is appointed his successor (1227). Custom houses established and laws made. 1234. The Mongols make an alliance with the Sungs and overthrow the Kin Empire. Ju-ning Fu taken and the Kin Kniperor burns himself in his palate. War breaks out between Ogdai and the Sun^. 1279. Ping ti, the last emperor of the Sung Dynasty, despairs of defeating the Mongols ami commits suicide.

Yuan.

I26O-I294 I3I2-I320

KUBLAI KHAN. JEN-TSUNG.

i'28o. Kublai assumes complete control, lays the foundations of Pekin. Is ruler "from the frozen sea almost to the Straits of Malacca ; with the exception of Hindustan, Arabia and the westernmost parts of Asia, all the Mongol princes as far as the Dnieper declared themselves his vassals and brought regularly their tribute". The modern novel and stage-play introduced. Marco Polo visits China bearing letters from Pope Gregory X. (1274). 1294-1307. Timur, Kublai's grandson, succeeds and takes the title of Yuen Chang. Great commercial prosperity, but in adopting Chinese civilization the Mongols lost much of their martial spirit. The successors of Jfen-Tsung were weak and vicious, and many secret societies were formed to overthrow the Mongol Dynasty. Chu Yuen Chang, the son of a Chinese labouring man, revolts, and in 1355 takes Nanking.

Ming. Ta Ch'ing.

1368 1403-1424

162?

CHU Yt)AN-CHANG. CHU TI (YUNG LO).

HUAI TSUNG.

Declares himself emperor and takes the name of Hung-Wu. Intercourse with Europe seems to have been discontinued until the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Organizes the present system of examinations. Buddhism and Taoism made State religions. The capital transferred to Pekin. Under his direction the great encyclopaedia, 11,000 volumes, was compiled. Conquers Cochin-China and Tonking. Missions sent to Java, Sumatra, Siam and Ceylon. The Portuguese land at Canton, 1517. The porcelain of this period is world-famous. Tartar army threatens the capital, 1542. A Japanese fleet ravages the littoral provinces. 1597- The Japanese invade Korea but are defeated. 1601-1610. Matteo Ricci becomes scientific adviser to the Court of Cnina. 1616. The Manchu Tartars invade Liao-Tung. The last of the dynasty. English merchants arrive at Canton. 1642. Li rebels and the dykes of the Yellow River are cut to flood the country.

1644

1655-1723 1735-1795

1795-1820 1820-1850

1850-1861

I86I-I875 1875-1908

1908

SHUN CHIH.

K'ANG HSI. CH'IEN LUNG.

CHIA CH'ING TAO KUANG.

HSIUN FENG.

T'UNG CHIH. KUANG HSU.

HSUAN T'UNG.

The Manchus, invited to assist the rebels, take possession of Pekin and proclaim Shun Chili emperor. They take Nanking. Koxinga, the pirate, drives the Dutch out of Formosa (1662). The shaved head and the pigtail are adopted. 1656. The first Russian embassy comes to Pekin A great scholar and general. 1679. Treaty between Russia and China. Earthquake at Pekin destroys 400,000 people. Invades Nepaul and subjugates the Ghurkas. Burma forced to pay tribute. Return of the Turguts from the Caspian Sea (1770). Massacre of Muhammadans. 1793. Lord Macartney sent on a mission to Pekin. 1807. Dr. Morrison, the first Protestant missionary arrives in Canton. 1834. The monopoly of the East India Company is terminated and Lord Napier is sent as British Minister to superintend British trade in Canton. 1839. The English agree to refrain from the importation of opium. Lin Tse-Lsu destroys the opium. 1840. England declares war and obtains the cession of Hong-Kong. Peace concluded by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842. Freedom of trade given at five ports. The T'ai-p'ing rebellion. 1857. England declares war and takes Canton. 1858. Capture of the Taku forts and peace made. 1860. Allied force of France and England enter Pekin. Territory north of the Amur ceded to Russia 1858-1860. The Dowager-Empresses Tsze An and Tz'u Hsi (1834-1908) become regents. Gordon enters the Chinese service and subdues the T'ai-p'ings. Nanking recaptured, 1864. Murder of Mr. Margary, the interpreter tu a Briti>h minimi from Burma to Yun-nan, 1875. Revolt of Yakuh Bt-«.* 1876. Treaty between Japan and Korea, in which the Independence of the latter is recognized. 18/9. Treatv of Livadia with Russia. Death of the Empress Tsze An, i^i. Dispute between China and France over the States of Annam,. 1882. 1894. War with Japan. Formosa ceded to Japan. 1900. The Boxer rebellion and the siege of the foreign legations. 1905. Treaty relating to Manchuria made between China and Japan Convention regarding Tibet signed April, 1908, between England ami China, in which ih<- latter's suzerainty is acknowledged. 1908. Death of the Dowager Empress. Dismissal of Yuan Shih-k'ai from the office of Guardian of the Hei,. igi'i. Provincial assemblies constituted. 1911. Yuan Shih-k'ai appointed Prime Minister of China.

Republic.

1912

I914-I9I8

1922-1926

1927 I93I-I932

HI-; PUBLIC.

I2th February. Abdication of the Manchu Dynasty and inauguration of a republican form of government. Election of Yuan Shih-k'ai as First President. Sun Yat-sen leader of Knoinintang or Nation- alist party. Great War. 1917 China joins Allies. Period of disorder. Chang Tso MIL of Manchuria, Wu Pci-fu and Feng Yu-hsian, the Christian (inn-nil, strive for mastery. Chiang K'a'-shek leads Nationalist Government at Nanking. 1928, Murder of Chang Tso-lin. Japanese invade Manchuria ant! establish state of Manchukuo. Chinese protests lead to League of Nations intervention.

The Chinese

Somewhat

CHAPTER II

THE CHINESE. By PROFESSOR H. A. GILES. M.A., LL.D.

IN China, as elsewhere, we find at the earliest dawn of history the record of a Golden Age.

shadowy accounts of this period have come

down to us. It is chiefly associated with

the names of two Emperors, Yao and

Shun, whose long reigns were devoted

entirely to the welfare of their people, and

whose virtues brought about ideal social

conditions, in which articles lost in the street

were not appropriated by the finders,

and all house-doors remained unlocked at

night.

The date assigned to the two rulers above mentioned corresponds roughly with 2300 B.C. Chinese tradition, however, goes still further back and tells of certain semi- divine Emperors, by whose wisdom primitive man in China learned the secret of fire, the arts of making clothes, of agriculture, and of writing, the use of wheeled vehicles, and the construction of houses to take the place of rudely formed nests in trees. There was the famous "Yellow Emperor", 2698 B.C., who could speak from birth. A flash of lightning had caused his mother to become pregnant, and after twenty-five months' gestation she gave birth to this son. His court was thronged with strange peoples from afar. Envoys came from the Long-legged nation, and from those strange beings who had holes in the middle of their bodies, their grandees being carried on poles passed through them. Under his reign, too, is noted the appearance of the phrenix, a bird which is seen only when the Empire is well governed and enjoying pro- found peace.

Our next landmark is the Great Yii, founder, in 2200 B.C., of the first Chinese dynasty — that is, the first sequence of sovereigns under whom the throne was handed on from father to son, thus making, as Chinese writers say, "a family possession of the Empire". The Great Yii himself gained his position by his engineering skill ; he is said to have drained the Empire from the effects of a mighty deluge, which early writers sought to identify with Noah's flood. This Hsia dynasty lasted for four hundred years. It was brought to an end by the increasing degeneracy of its line of monarchs, until the climax was reached by the Emperor Chieh Kuei, whose utter

"*<•

PREHISTORIC iJHIXKSK TRIE-DWELLERS.

Though nothin? certain is known of tlie primitive ancestors of the Chinese, it may be presumed with safety that, like the primitive HUTS in NVw Guinea, they built platform dwelling^ in trees, living upon the wild fruits and herbs, and such animals as they could kill by means of rudely-fashioned stone implements.

72

Story of the Nations

wickedness entailed much misery upon the people, and was even said to have caused two large rivers to dry up.

Then came China's first revolution under the leadership of a prince to whom legend has ascribed the possession of four elbow-joints. He defeated Chieh Kuei, and in 1766 B.C. mounted the throne as the first Emperor of the Shang Dynasty, a title taken from the name of his princedom. Chieh Kuei's son fled northwards, and gathered round him a tribe to be known later on as the Huns.

The Shang Dynasty lasted six hundred years, with a change of title from Shang to Yin in 1401 B.C., the capital being then moved from the north bank of the Yellow River to a place of that name on the south bank. It should here be noted that ancient China covered a comparatively small area, lying

Painted specially for this icorK]

THE GREAT Yt) DRAINING THE EMPIRE.

The Great Yli founded the first Chinese Empire in 2200 B.C. He gained his position by his engineering skill, and is said to have drained the Empire from the effects of a mighty deluge by utilizing the shells of the tortoise as drain-pipes. Early writers try to identify this with Noah's flood. This Hsia Dynasty lasted for four hundred years, until it was brought to an end by the increasing degeneracy of its line of monarchs, when the climax was reached by the Emperor Chieh Kuei, whose utter wickedness brought much misery to the people, and was even eaid to have caused two large rivers to dry up.

almost entirely between the Yellow River and the Yang-tsze, with wild tribes occupying the few degrees of seaboard on the east, and other objectionable neighbours on the north, west and south.

For the history of the whole period reviewed above, from the age of the Yellow Emperor down to the close of the Yin Dynasty, 1122 B.C., we are dependent upon (i) the Annals of the Bamboo Books, a document the authenticity of which is doubted by some scholars ; (2) certain detached historical papers of undoubted antiquity, the collection and publication of which is ascribed to Confucius ; and also (3) to various inscriptions on ancient bronze vessels, which have been carefully reproduced and published in book form by Chinese archaeologists.

The course of events which brought about the fall of the Yin Dynasty was simply a repetition of that described in connection with the fall of the Hsia Dynasty, ending again with a vicious tyrant, a revolution, and the establishment of a new order of things. The hero of the hour in this case was one who did not live to see the triumph to secure which he had devoted his life. When, however, his son Wu Wang, the

The Chinese

75

"martial king", came to the throne as first ruler of the Chou dynasty, almost his initial act was to canonize his dead father as the virtual founder of his line, under the title of Win Wang, the "civil king", in allusion to the higher work of the civilian who planned the revolution, which was carried out by mere force of arms. It was not long before the fame of Wen Warfg was enshrined in deathless verse ; and even at this remote date there are few names which kindle an equal enthusiasm in the hearts of his countrymen of to-day.

We are beginning now, 1122 B.C., to stand on somewhat firmer ground, though still three centuries before the time from which the genuinely historical period is usually held to date. With the advent of the Chou Dynasty we realize the existence of a highly civilized people, living under a form of govern- ment which we are quite able to understand and appreciate. Feudality was the keynote to the system.

Painted rpectoRy for this

THE FIRST REVOLUTION.

After the deposition of Chieh Kuei came China's first Revolution under the leadership of a prince to whom legends ascribed the possession of four elbow -joints. He defeated Chieh Kuei, and in 1766 B.C. mounted the throne as the first Emperor of the Shang Dynasty, a title taken from the name of his princedom. Chieh Kuei's son fled northward, and gathered round him a tribe to be fcnown later as the Huns The Shang Dynasty lasted six hundred years.

The state of Chou, trom which the dynasty took its title, was the royal domain, and to its king the chieftains of the various surrounding states swore an undying allegiance. Thus things went on, smoothly enough, until 781 B.C., when for political reasons the capital was moved eastward ; and from that hour, say Chinese writers, "the feudal bond was slackened". States began to indulge in internecine warfare, the object being always acquisition of territory, and these conditions produced that singular being, the professional politician, who went about offering advice to the rulers of states, and generally selling his services to the highest bidder.

For the period between 722 and 484 B.C. we have, in addition to the Annals of the Bamboo Books, the Annals of Lu, the native state of Confucius, written by the sage himself. From this work, which gave its name. Springs and Autumns (=years, annals), to the period, and more especially from the famous commentary provided by a disciple, we can obtain a fair idea of China's political condition The

76

Story of the Nations

feudal bond between suzerain and vassal had indeed become so far slackened that no further attention was paid to- the royal commands by the more powerful feudal nobles. Two or more of these chief- tains would enter into solemn covenants and alliances for offensive and defensive pur- poses, mostly the former ; but how far they would loyally keep such treaties was usually determined more by circum- stances than by any feeling of actual obligation. One state would "borrow a road" across a friendly state in order to attack a third, generally on condition that such accommo- dation should be rewarded by some share of the spoils. Cities were besieged and taken ; armies were ambushed and destroyed ; rulers of states were poisoned or assassinated. The only redeeming feature, according to one writer, was the pathetic figure of Confucius wandering in exile from his native state, after a short period of office, the "wooden- tongued bell of God", as he was called, to whose notes no attention was then paid. In- dividual prowess and feats of arms, as recorded under these Annals, often call to mind the stories of the Iliad, but with- out the absurd intervention of gods and goddesses. For these Annals and commentary profess to deal with real happenings, and are written in a serious historical spirit ; the credibility of the narrative would be impaired by the admission of a supernatural element. As satisfactory evidence of their authenticity, we find recorded notices of comets, the dates of which have been verified by European astronomers.

One of the quaint episodes scattered throughout the commentary is related as lollows The mother of a feudal duke had plotted against him, desiring to set his younger brother, her favourite, upon the throne. Her plot failed, and she was placed under restraint, the rightful heir saying, "I will not see you again until I have reached the Yellow Springs below" (that is, in the next world). Then he repented. Later on, a certain officer, who had heard the news, came with a present to the duke, who, as was the custom, caused him to be entertained with food. The officer put a piece of the meat on one side, and, when asked by the duke why he did this, he said : "I have a mother who always shares in what I eat : I beg to be allowed to keep this piece for her." The duke said : "You have a mother ; alas, I have none !" The officer inquired what the duke meant, and the latter related all the circumstances, and

Painted specially for this work]

PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS.

In 781 B.C. the capital was moved eastward, and from that time, say Chinese writers, "the feudal bond was slackened". States began to indulge in internecine warfare, the object being always the acquisition of territory, and these conditions produced that singular being, the professional politician, who went about offering advice to the rulers of states and generally selling his services to the highest bidder

The Chinese

77

4iow he had repented of his oath. "Why be distressed about that ?" said the officer. "If you dig into the earth, down to the Yellow Springs, and then make a subterranean passage where you can meet, who can say that your oath has been violated ?" The duke acted upon this suggestion and when the passage was completed he entered it, singing •

In this tunnel there's love.'

and his mother, coming in at the other end, responded :

"There is none up above."

From tins tune torth they were mother and son, as before.

After the death of Confucius, 551-479 B.C., the political condition of the Middle Kingdom — "China"

fr/i eprciatly for >hif

SOLDIERS WITH "BITS" IN THEIR MOl'THS.

lu the early history of Cliinii (about 1000 B.C.), when wars between neighbouring states were frequent, it appears to have been u common custom, when armies were making a night attack, for the soldiers to march with wooden "bits" in their mouths to triuird against the danger of talking and thereby apprising the enemy's outposts of their approach

is not a native term — went rapidly from bad to worse, and the next two centuries are known as the era of the Warring States, when everybody's hand was against somebody. Ultimately, after eight hundred years of the Chou Dynasty, the longest stretch of power enjoyed by any ruling House, the great western state of Ch'in (or Ts'in) assumed a commanding position, and in 221 B.C. its ruler succeeded in establishing himself as Emperor of China, styling himself the First Emperor, and meaning his successors to be the Second, Third, and so on for ever. He further tried to make literature begin with his reign, and gave orders for the destruction of all existing books, with the exception of works on agriculture, medicine, and divination ; and but for the fidelity of some scholars who hid their copies, the whole of the Confucian Canon, and many other important philosophical works, would have perished irrecoverably by fire. He left one famous mark on the earth's surface by the construction of a large portion of the Great Wall, which was added to later on, and the object of which was to keep out aggressive tribes of Tartars — a

78

Story of the Nations

CONFUCIUS.

Confucius was born in the year 551 B.C., his lather being a distinguished soldier. At tho age of twenty-one he commenced teaching, but was afterwards appointed Minister of Works and Minister of Crime, in which capacity he reformed ihe country. Owing to jealousy, Confucius left the state and travelled with his followers for about twelve years, when he was invited to return to the state of Lu. He did little in politics, but spent the last years of his life in literary work.

the House of Ch'in. To complain openly was to incur the penalty of extermina- tion. Even casual words of objection were punished by decapitation of the individual.

"Now it was agreed between myself and the other nobles that whosoever first entered the territory of Ch'in should rule over it. Therefore I am come to rule over you. With you, I further agree upon three laws [as above], the remainder of the Ch'in code to be abrogated.

"The officials and people will con- tinue to attend to their respective duties, as heretofore. My sole object in coming here is to eradicate wrong. I desire to do violence to no one. Fear not !"

One of the first cares of the early

word of fateful import throughout the history of China. All this, however, was in vain ; his feeble son, who came to the throne in succession to the "Old Dragon", was put to death two years later (207 B.C.) ; "the roof-tiles", as the Chinese put it, "came clattering down", and a new dynasty appeared on the scene, with a longer and more glorious career before it.

The founder of the House of Han, in memory ot which the northern Chinese still call themselves "sons of Han" figured during early life in the humble position of beadle. Driven to desperation by the oppressive government of the First Emperor, he headed a revolution which raised him • ater on, after many ups and downs of fortune, to the Imperial throne. Even before he was safely seated, he issued a proclamation abrogating the severe laws then exist- ing, and enacted three simple laws in their stead, referring only to murder, bodily injury, and theft, to each of which suitable penalties were assigned. This proclamation is still in existence, and reads as follows : —

"FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN !

"You have long groaned under the despotic sway of

Photo by] \J- Thomson, F.Ji.fl.H.

THE CONFUCIAN TABLET, PEKING.

The inscription in large letters of gold above the tablet runs thus : "The tenchcr and example of ten thousand generations."

Painted special/:/ fur this wnrk\

IH'KMXi; THK HOOKS.

After eight, hundred years of the Chon Dynasty, the ruler of the western ; tate ot Ch'in c staWMied himself as Emporor ol China, styling himself the First Knipcroi-. He 1 Hcd to make literal ure Login with his reign (221 B.C.), and ordered the destruction of all books, save those on agriculture, medicine, and divination. Some scholars faithfully hid their copies, or the whole of the Confucian Canon and other important philosophical works would have perished irrecoverably by flre. 11 is dynasty was short- lived, for his feel.le son was put to death after n reign of two years only and a new dynpsty began.

The Chinese

81

Emperors of this line was to recover the lost works of the Confucian Canon. Hidden volumes were brought to light ; and the Odes, for instance, were recovered, at first from the lips of scholars who had, in accordance with custom learned them by heart, arid later on from copies which had been produced from their hiding-places. Unfortunately this condition of things offered an excellent chance to unscrupulous scholars, who forthwith began to "discover" all kinds of missing works, such as really had perished, and also others now heard of for the first time. Forgery was indeed rampant ; and to this source we owe the absurd little volume known as the Tao Te Ching, which passes as actually from the hand of Lao Tzu. a philosopher said to date from the close of the seventh century B.C., and generally regarded as the founder of the sect of the Taoists. Taoism, which was once a narrow speculative system based upon a few vory paradox'cal maxims by dint of appropriating most

Painted spcciali/ fo' this work]

AN EARLY HUN RAID.

The Huns were a wild, uncultured people who raided on horseback their more civilized neighbours and defeated them by the fury of their attack. The Fourth Emperor of the Han Dynasty (179-156 B.C.) sent large presents to the Khan of the Huns to induce him to keep his subjects, "the nations of the bow and arrow", from crossing the Great Wall to plunder the Chinese, "the families of the hat and gird:e".

of the forms and ceremonies, together with some of the more modern superstitions of Buddhism, is now a flourishing religion.

After a short reign the founder died, leaving the throne to a son ; but the latter was quickly over- shadowed by his mother, the first of the three women who at various dates ruled with strong hands over the Empire.

Towards the close of the second century B.C. vast campaigns were carried on by successful generals, and the deadly Hsiung-nu of the north-west, forebears of the Huns, were kept in check. Chinese arms were carried far into Central Asia, and Khoten, Kokand, and the Pamirs became part of the Empire.

The terror inspired by the raiding Huns finds frequent expression in early Chinese literature. During

the reign of the Fourth Emperor, 179-156 B.C., the growing power of the Huns was a source of grave

anxiety. We possess a remarkable letter addressed by his Majesty, when fearing a fresh outbreak, to

'The Khan of the Huns", and beginning: "We respectfully trust that the great Khan is well", an

82

Story of the Nations

unusual compliment from the Son of Heaven to a despised barbarian. It is pointed out in the letter that since the founding of the Han Dynasty the following arrangement had been made : "All to the north of the Great Wall, comprising the nations of the bow and arrow, to be subject to the great Khan ; all within the Great Wall, namely, the families of the hat and girdle, to be subject to the House of Han " The "hat and girdle" at once places the Chinese on a higher plane of civilization than could be con- ceded to nations of the "bow

and

Painted specially for this work]

THE

HATHIOTIC ENVOY.

S>u Wu was dispatched upon a mission of peace to the Huns in the year 100 B.C. bis business being to escort- borne some Hun envoys who had been Imprisoned by the Chinese. While at the Court of the Khan an attempt was made to induce him to enter the service of the Huns, but rather than do so he tried to commit suicide, and wounded himself severely. He was thrown into prison, and afterwards sent north to tend sheep.

The Emperor say : "The Hans

arrow

goes on to and the Huns are border nations. Your northern climate is early locked in deadly cold. Therefore We have annually sent large presents of food and clothing and other useful things ; and now the Empire is at peace and the people prosperous. Heaven, it is said, covers no one in par- ticular, and Earth is the common resting-place of all men. Let us then dismiss trifling grievances and tread the broader path accord- ingly."

Two names stand out con- spicuously in connection with military operations against the Huns under this dynasty In 100 B.C., an official named Su Wu was dispatched upon a mission of peace to the Huns, his business being to escort home some Hun envoys who had been seized and imprisoned by way of reprisal for similar seizure and imprisonment of Chinese envoys who had now been allowed to return., While at the Court of the Khan, an attempt was made to persuade him to throw off his allegiance and enter the service of the Huns ; upon which he tried to commit suicide, and wounded himself so severely that he lay unconscious for hours. He thrown into

was

a dungeon

and at length, when all attempts to shake his unswerving loyalty had failed, he was sent up north and set to tend sheep. In the year 86 B.C. peace was made with the Huns, and then the Emperor asked for the release of Su Wu. The Huns declared that he was dead ; but a new envoy told the Khan that the Emperor had shot a goose with a letter tied to its leg, from which he had learned the whereabouts of the missing man. This story so astonished the Khan that Su Wu was released, and in 81 B.C. returned to China after a captivity of nineteen years.

THE KMl'KHOIf

When peace w:i> made with the Huns the Kmperor of China asked for the release of Su \Vu, but the Huns answered thai tho man \\;is dead. A new envoy was sent who informed the Khan that the Emperor had shot a goose to whose leg a letter was tied, from which he had learned the whereabouts of the missing envoy. The story so astonished the Khan that Su Wu was released, and be returned to China after a captivity of nineteen years.

84

Story of the Nations

\In Ilritish Museum

A portrait of Pan Chao, lady historian and superintendent of the Court, by Ku K'ai-chih, one of the greatest names of Chinese art. Fourth century A.D

[In Victoria and Albert Museum. An embossed Mir. or-back with Gra'co- liactrian designs. Han Dynasty (202 B.C.- A.D. 220). Chinese art owes much to Greek influence.

The other

name is that of

Li Ling, a general

who, in 99 B.C.,

penetrated into

Hun territory

with only five

thousand men.

Surrounded by

thirty thousand

of the enemy, he

was forced to

surrender, where- upon he swore

allegiance to the

Khan, whose

daughter he mar- ried, remaining

among the Huns

until his death

some twenty

years later. Shortly after the Christian era, there was a break in the continuity of the dynasty. A usurper, named Wang Mang, arose and seized the throne, which he managed to hold for a dozen years or so, until his tyranny and cruelty caused "poisonous waves to roll up to God, and the people to long for the return of their old rulers". The Han family, however, prevailed in the end, and succeeded in obtaining another two hundred years' lease of rule. During this latter period, prior to which the religion of the Chinese people was limited first to a pure monotheism, and later to a general worship of hills, streams, and other natural objects — the religion of Buddha, already for some time vaguely known as a great teaching from the West, began to take firm root in the country. Buddh- ism is popularly supposed to have been brought to China about A.D. 67, in consequence of a vision of a golden man which was seen in a dream by the reigning Emperor. A writer, however, of the Sung Dynasty (see post) quotes a number of historical passages in support of the view that Buddhism was known some centuries before the Christian era, and that "Buddhist books had long been circulated

far and wide, but

had disappeared

with the Ch'in

dynasty", under

which occurred

the Burning of

the Books. The

arts of poetry and

painting were

more systemati- cally cultivated ;

and a new form

of music was im- ported from Bac-

tria, then a Greek

province, to re- place the ancient

style, the art of which seems to

From original in]

A War Drum called Chu-ko ku, inscribed A.D. 199, characteristic of the Shan tribes. have been

ll'ictorifi find Albert MI/*I-IIJ/I The Drum-head showing elaborate workman- ship, including four conventionalized tree-frogs.

The Chinese

unaccountably lost. Meanwhile the sands of the Han Dynasty were running out, and illustrating once more the inevitable sequence of fullness and decay, a theory dear to the heart of the Chinese philosopher. Four hundred years had passed away ; the later Emperors were vicious or incompetent ; and a squabble over the succession set the ball rolling. The upshot of all this was the division of the Empire into three parts ; and, although the Chinese maintain that there can never be two sovereigns on earth any more than two suns in the sky, the fact remains that "the tripod — emblem of Imperial rule — was divided into three", so that in A.D. 222, and for many years afterwards, there were actually three Emperors, one of them a descendant of a Han Emperor, each with his own Court and capital, and wielding independ- ent power. This is known as the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, and is. remarkable for the number of eminent personages called into action by the exigencies of the times First and foremost of the?e was the great military hero now known as Kuan Ti. Nine centuries after his death he was posthumously ennobled as Duke, and a few year4 afterwards he was raised to the rank of Prince ; in 1594 he was deified, and has ever since been worshipped as the God of War.

Another great fighter of those days was Chu-ko Liang, whose memory is still affectionate!}' cherished by the Chinese people. Various inventions are credited to his genius ; among others, mechani- cal horses and oxen able to draw heavy loads. Perhaps a crossbow able to shoot several arrows at once may be a safer example to quote.

The final result oi this inter- necine strife between the Three Kingdoms was the disruption ol all of them, and an attempt tc re-establish an undivided Empire under a new dynasty, styled Chin,

from which word, in spite of its tempting look, the term China is not derived. The leading spirit of the revolutionaries, who in A.D. 265 proclaimed himself Emperor, was the grandson of a famous commander under one of the Three Kingdoms. He may be regarded as the Fabius of the Middle Kingdom , for his opposition to Chu-ko Liang, above mentioned, consisted in persistently refusing battle, a course which so irritated his opponent that the latter contemptuously sent him a present of a woman's headdress

I'ainted specially for this work]

A WOMAN S HEADDRESS FOR AN EMPEROR The grandson of a famous commander under one of the Three Kingdoms proclaimed himself Emperor in A.I>. 265. He persistently refused battle to Chu-ko Liang, a course which so irritated I he latter that lie contemptuously sent him a present of a woman's headdri>s>

86

Story of the Nations

With a break at the beginning of the fourth century, the Chin Dynasty, harassed on all sides by enemies, and degraded at home by evil rulers, managed to drag on until the early years of the fifth century when it passed away, as usual, in the throes of civil war.

In spite of the troubles of the times, pictorial art nourished, and the close of the dynasty saw one of China's greatest painters, Ku K'ai-chih, a specimen of whose work is now in the British Museum. Whether a mere coincidence or not, the same epoch produced one of China's greatest poets, T'ao Ch'ien,

whose story of "The Peach- blossom Fountain", and poem entitled "Home Again", are familiar to all Chinese school- boys.

The former may be taken as a good specimen of Chinese allegory, and runs as follows : Towards the end of the fourth century A.D. a certain fisher- man, who had followed up one of the river branches without taking note whither he was going, came suddenly upon a grove of peach trees in full bloom, extending to some dis- tance on each bank, with not a tree of any other kind in sight. The beauty of the scene and the exquisite perfume of the flowers filled the heart of the fisherman with surprise as he proceeded onwards, anxious to see the limit of this lovely grove. He found that the peach trees ended where the water began, at the foot of a hill ; and there he espied what seemed to be a cave with light issuing from it. So he made fast his boat, and crept in through a narrow en- trance, which shortly ushered him into a new world of level country, with fine houses, rich fields, beautiful pools, and a luxuriance of mulberry and bamboo. Highways for traffic ran north and south ; sounds of crowing cocks and barking dogs were heard around ; the dress of the people who passed along, or were at work in the fields, was of a strange cut ; while young and old alike appeared to be contented and happy.

One of the inhabitants, catching sight of the fisherman, was greatly astonished ; but, after learning whence he came, he insisted on taking the stranger to his home, where he killed a chicken and placed some wine on the table. Before long all the people of the place had turned out to see the visitor, and they informed him that their ancestors had sought refuge here, with their wives and families, from the troublous times of the House of Ch'in (B.C.), adding that they had thus become finally cut

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A MARQUIS AND MARQUISE OF THE PEOPLE.

The Emperor promoted one of his counsellors, Sung Hung, to be a Marquis, and then suggested that as his wife, the new Marquise, was one of the people, he should now get rid of her. "No, sire," replied the Marquis, "we bad our porridge-days together, and now she shall not iro from my halls."

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Story of the Nations

off from the rest of the human race. They then inquired about the politics of the day, ignorant of the establishment of the Han Dynasty, and, of course, of the later dynasties which had suc- ceeded it ; and when the fisherman told them the story they grieved over the vicissitudes of human affairs.

Each in turn invited the fisherman to his home and entertained him hospitably, until at length the- latter prepared to take his leave. "You need not talk to the outside world about what you have seen," said the people of the place to the fisherman as he bade them farewell and returned to his boat, making mental notes of the route as he proceeded on his homeward voyage.

When he reached home, he at once went and reported what he had seen to the Governor of the district, and the Governor sent off men with him to seek, by the aid of his notes, to discover this unknown region. But he was never able to find it again ; the explanation being that this poor fisherman, by a figment of the author's imagination, was allowed to revisit for a brief moment the peach-blossom scenes of youth.

The Chin Dynasty witnessed, A.D. 399, the departure of Fa Hsien, the first of the Chinese Buddhists,

who travelled overland to- India, and brought back many of the sacred books of Buddh- ism, images, relics, and other instrumental parts of this re- ligion. A few years previously, Kumarajiva, one of the patri- archs of Buddhism, had been; invited from India to China ; indeed, one of the many self- appointed rebel Emperors of the day sent, in 382, an army of seventy thousand men to fetch him. It was not, how- ever, until after the death of this "false Emperor", in 384, that Kumarajiva took up his- residence in China, and began, to translate important Buddhist works into- Chinese At his death, some- thirty years later, his body was cremated but his tongue is said to have remained unhurt in the midst of trie- fire.

With the final collapse of the Chin Dynasty in 420 we- reach a period known as "the northern and southern dynas- ties". This term means that the Empire was divided up- between Tartars in the north and pure Chinese in the south There were at first several rival Tartar dynasties ; but in 386 these were displaced by the Tobas a Tungusic race, who. under five dynastic titles.

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A SACRIFICE IN A CONFUCIAN TEMPLE.

Under the Liang Dynasty, Confucian Temples were definitely established. The worship of the sage had been carried out previously in a more or less intermittent fashion, and in the fourth century a shrine had been built in his honour : but it was not until A.D. 505 that the first Confucian Temple was erected for the sacrifice ol animals — the ox, sheep, and pig for musical rites with dancing . and for the display of a portrait of Confucius, for which under the Minus a wooden tablet was substituted

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Painted specially for this work]

REMOVING A TABLET FROM A CONFUCIAN TEMPLE

The glory of Confucius in the Temple is shared by his disciples in life and a number of scholars of later days who have distinguished themselves by their efforts in upholding and spreading the Confucian teachings, to each one of whom a tablet Is put up as a memorial. It has happened, indeed, many times in the course of ages that, perhaps at the whim of an Emperor, the tablet of some favourite has been wrongly honoured with a place among the elect. In such cases posterity has always been eaual to the occasion : the1 canonization has been cancelled, and the tablet incontinently removed, as here shown

ruled for some two hundred years, while during about the same period there were four Chinese dvnasties in the south.

Under the third of these four, the Liang Dynasty, there was definitely established the institution known as the Confucian Temple. The worship of Confucius had been previously carried out more or less intermittently, and in the fourth century the Tobas had built a shrine in honour of the sage, and later on other shrines appeared, at which women were accustomed to pray for children until forbidden by Imperial edict to do so ; but it was not until 505 that the first Confucian Temple, in the modern sense of the term, was erected for the sacrifice of animals — the ox, sheep and pig ; for musical rites with dancing ; and for the display of a portrait of Confucius, for which under the Mings (see post) a wooden tablet was substituted.

Fifty years later it was Imperially decreed that a Temple should be set up in every town above a certain rank throughout the Empire. There, four times a year, Confucius is officially worshipped, in recognition of the great services his teachings have rendered to mankind ; but no prayers for benefits, personal or intercessory, are allowed. It is true that under the Ming Dynasty Confucius was raised to the rank of a god. and that the same farce was again perpetrated so late as 1907 ; by the great bulk, however, of the level-headed people of China he has always been regarded rather as an inspired man. His glory in the Temple is shared by his disciples in life and a number of scholars of later days who have distinguished themselves by their efforts in upholding and spreading the Confucian teachings, to each one of whom a tablet is put up as a memorial. It has happened, indeed, many times in the course of ages that, perhaps at the whim of an Emperor, the tablet of some favourite has been wrongly honoured with a place among the elect. In such cases posterity has always been equal to the occasion ; the canonization has been cancelled, and the tablet incontinently removed.

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go Story of the Nations

In 581 there arose a revolutionary l^fer, named Yang Chien, who succeeded in uniting China once- more under sfSgle rule, ptoclaiming^nimseli first Emperor of the Sui Dynasty. He was descended from Yang Chin, the famous patriot of the Han Dynasty (died A.D. 124), who would receive no bribes, and laid up no store for his family ; and who, when a friend remonstrated with him for leaving nothing to his sons and grandsons, replied : "If posterity shall speak of me as an incorrupt official, is that nothing ?" Yang Chien began by wholesale slaughter of the members of the late ruling House under which he had served, and was treacherous in the treatment of his own relatives and friends ; yet he was not altogether a bad ruler. He added long stretches to the Great Wall, to strengthen the defences against Tartar inroads. He lightened taxation, codified the criminal law, instituted the tithing system, opened public libraries, and set an example of simplicity and economy in food and dress. He was assassinated in 605 by his

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A CHINESE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Although the first Emperor of the Sui Dynasty had obtained power as a revolutionary leader, and had begun his reign by a wholesale slaughter of the members of the late ruling house, he was not altogether a bad ruler. In addition to adding long stretches to the Great Wall, lightening taxation, codifying the criminal law, and setting an example of simplicity in food and dress, he established public libraries.

second son, whom he had named as his successor ; and the latter, after a dozen years of ignoble rule, the country seething in discontent and with no fewer than seven usurpers established simultaneously at various points, was himself assassinated, and a few months later the dynasty came to an end. This was achieved by the efforts of Li Yuan, a military commandant, who won his beautiful wife by shooting a match for her, the target being painted to resemble a peacock, both eyes of which were put out by his arrows. Aided by his still more brilliant son, he rose against the House of Sui, and in 618 mounted the Imperial throne as first Emperor of the T'ang Dynasty. Eight years later he abdicated in favour of his son, and then followed nearly three centuries of rule which are among the most remarkable in the annals of China.

The second Emperor of this line was indeed a man of first-class capacity. He crushed internal rebellion, and broke the power of the ancient Turkish tribes. He reformed the civil and military services, modified the penal code, fostered learning, and tried to restore astronomy to its place as a practical

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WINNING A WIFE BY GOOD SHOOTING.

The house of Sui was brought to an end by Li Yuan, a military commandant, who ascended the throne A.D. 618 as first Emperor of the T'ang Dynasty. He won his beautiful wife by shooting a match for her, the target being painted to res, mhlr a peacock, both eyes of which were put out by his arrows. He reigned for eight years, and then abdicated in favour of bis son. This was the beginning of nearly three centuries of rule which rank among the most remarkable in the annals of Chini

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science Genial in his intercourse with public officials, his fame spread far beyond the limits of the Middle Kingdom, which then extended up to the frontier of Persia. He was beloved by all priests, Buddhist. Taoist and Christian, for it was under his auspices that Nestorian missionaries were allowed to settle at the capital in A.D. 636 ; and in 643 the Byzantine Emperor is said to have sent a mission to his Court. Numerous stories, true and false, have gathered about his name. One specimen of each will perhaps suffice.

During a severe plague of locusts, always much dreaded by the Chinese, he is said to have offered up a prayer to God. at the same time swallowing a live locust in evidence of sincerity. Cynical critics have,

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I'ainteil x/irrinlly for this uiork]

A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.

China like other Eastern countries, has always suffered much from plagues of destroying locusts. Among the stories told of the second Emperor of the T'ang Dynasty is one that during a severe visitation of this sort he offered up a prayer to God, at the same time swallowing a live locust in evidence of sincerity. There is no record that the plague was stayed.

indeed, alleged that a paper locust was substituted for the real insect ; there is, at any rate, no record that the plague was stayed.

On one occasion he is said to have died and to have gone down into Purgatory, but to have recovered his life through the kindly intervention of the "recording angel", who altered a 13 against his name in the Book of Fate into 33, thus giving him twenty more years to live.

Among the celebrities of the T'ang Dynasty may be mentioned the second Chinese Empress who usurped Imperial power. She maintained her position as sole ruler of China from 684 to 705, when she was compelled to abdicate.

The sixth Emperor of this line was remarkable for his long reign of forty-four years (712-756), which, however, ended unhappily in forced abdication ; and also for the number of distinguished poets and painters whom he drew to his Court. China's most famous poet, Li Po, the beauty of whose verses gained for him the title of "a banished angel", was a tipsy, rollicking bard, of about thirty-seven years

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of age when he was introduced to the Emperor. The latter was fascinated by him at once, prepared a bowl of soup for him with his own Imperial hands, and forthwith made him an Academician. Li Po then gave himself up to a career of wild dissipation, to which the Court was by that time well suited. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent for him, he was found lying drunk in the street ; and it was only after having his face well mopped with cold water that he was at all fit for the presence. His talents however, did not fail him. With a lady of the seraglio to hold his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines ; at which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful head eunuch pull off the poet's boots. The result was resentment, followed by intrigue, which ended in Li Po, together

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THE CHINESE EMPEROR RECEIVES A MISSION.

Ta Tsung, the second Tang Emperor, was so wise and genial ns well as powerful, that his fame spread far and wide among the nations. He crushed h!B enemies ; but he encouraged learning and for his tolerance was beloved by the official representatives of various religions. The Byzantine Emperor was so impressed with his sagacity and importance that he sent a special mission to the Chinese Court.

with several distinguished colleagues, leaving the Court and starting a drinking-club, known as the Eight Immortals of the Winecup. Li Po was subsequently drowned, from leaning one night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon.

Painting, which, as we have seen above, was already a fine art in the full sense of the term, made great strides under the T'ang Dynasty. At the head of its long roll of artists stands, by common consent, Wu Tao-tzu, generally acknowledged to be the greatest of all artists, ancient or modern We can judge of his work by one famous picture, preserved in Japan, which, if not actually from the brush of Wu Tao-tzu, must be a very early copy. It is really one of a series of incidents in the career of the Lord Buddha, all of which were painted on the walls of a monastery in China, about A.D. 742, and described

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LI I'O RECITING BEFORE THE EMPEROR.

China's most famous poet, Li Po, was a tipsy bard of about thirtyscvcn when he was first introduced to the sixth T ang Emperor. On one occasion when the Emperor sent for him he was lying in the street so drunk that it was not until

had had his face well mopped that he was fit to appear, but even then his talents did not fail him. The poet incthii

-Irani l,y drowmnpr, having one night fallen nut of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon

Story of the Nations

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HAN Yii PRESENTING HIS MEMORIAL.

One oi the Emperors of the T'ang Dynasty had arranged to icceive into the capita., with Imperial honours, a bone of Buddha, when Han Yii, the Prince of Literature, came forward and indited a fierce memorial of protest. For this he was banished to the wilds of Kiiangtung. and, a though recalled before long, he had grown prematurely old, and unable to resist a severe illness.

by a contemporary eyewitness as including "scenery, buildings, human figures, birds and beasts, to the number of several thousands — the most beautiful and perfect work of all ages". The particular incident which has come down to us is the Death of Buddha, more correctly described as his entry into Nirvana. "While the Lord Buddha is passing, the bhikshus (Buddhist mendicants) are beating their breasts and stamping in lamentation as though utterly beyond self-control. Even the birds of the air and the beasts of the field are wailing and knocking their heads on the ground. Only the Lord Buddha himself is placed as usual, with no trace of anguish on his face. How could the painter have thus fathomed the mysteries of life and death ? The answer is that he was inspired."

He painted a picture of Purgatory, "the sight of which made the beholder's hair stand on end", and inspired the butchers and fishmongers at the capital with such horror that many of them abandoned those trades against which all the anathemas of Buddhism were hurled, and sought a livelihood in other directions.

Legend has, of course, been busy with Wu Tao-tzu's name. On one occasion the priests at a temple had been rude to him ; and out of revenge he painted on an inner wall a donkey, which during the night kicked all the furniture to pieces.

His last picture was a landscape on a wall, painted to the order of the Emperor. While the Emperor was gazing upon it in rapture, the artist pointed to the gate of a small temple and clapped his hands. The gate opened and he passed through, turning round to beckon the Emperor to follow ; but in a moment the gate closed, and before the amazed monarch could advance a step the whole scene faded away, and Wu Tao-tzu was never seen again.

Then there was Wang Wei, a graceful poet as well as a painter, and a painter not of mere form but of the spirit. It mattered not to him that the cart was too big for the stable-door, or that flowers of different seasons were introduced into the same picture. A critic of the eleventh century refused to-

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consider these points other than as evidence of unfettered genius, adding that "it is difficult to discuss this with the unwashed".

Lastly — for volumes would be required to give even brief outlines of the poets and painters ol the period — may be mentioned Han Kan, the great painter of horses. Upon two disks, measuring less than six inches in diameter, he placed no fewer than one hundred horses, fifty on each disk, with every single horse in a different attitude. We possess woodcuts of these two disks, handed down through the centuries ; and of them Mr. Binyon writes : "Even in these poor and distant translations the power and Rubens- like animation of the original can be felt."

The great men of the Tang Dynasty were not, however, only poets and painters. First and toremost ol them all stands Han Yii, A.D. 768-824, popularly known from his canonization as the Prince of Literature, who, in addition to literary achievements of the highest order, gained distinction as a pure and enlightened statesman and patriot. His works were extensive and of great variety ; and a con- temporary writer declared that he never ventured to open them without having first washed his hands in rose-water.

The times were already out of joint when Han Yii set himself to mend them One decadent Emperor had changed the year-title of his reign to the First of all time, as though unwarned by the fate of an earlier attempt of the kind , as mentioned above. Another had arranged to re- ceive into the capital, with Imperial honours, a bone of Buddha, when Han Yii stepped forward and indited a fierce memorial of protest. For this he was banished to the wilds of Kuangtung, not far from what is now the thriving and populous port of Swatow. Be- fore long he was recalled ; but he had grown prematurely old, and was unable to resist a severe illness which came upon him. His name is as well known in China to-day as that of Alfred the Great with us. The two patriots were almost contemporaries, our King was born only twenty-five years after Han Yii's death.

An almost uninterrupted debacle now set in, the credit for which must be divided be- tween eunuch influence and gross superstition. Two Em- perors poisoned themselves by drinking concoctions which were supposed to confer im- mortal life ; a third gave himself up entirely to foot- ball, cock-fighting and polo.

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I'l SHKNG, THE C'HINKSK. CANTON.

The Sung Dynasty is (unions for u prodigious development ill both literature and art. The efficient cause in the former was the art of printing, which ttrst began to piny:, n import ant part ill the tenth century, though the principle of taking impre>Mnn- from carved wooden blocks had lieeii already widely known under the T'ang !>>na-t>. Printing with movable types wan invented in 1043, but did not appeal to the nrtist it- sense of the Chinese.

98 Story of the Nations

The last Emperor was assassinated by his prime minister, who set himself up as the founder of a new dynasty.

Within the next fifty years China, that is, Southern China, witnessed a succession of no fewer than five small dynasties. In the north, the Kitan Tartars, taking advantage of the previous collapse of the Turkish domination before the conquering T'angs. established themselves firmly for two centuries to come fixing their capital near what is now Peking.

The Grand Marshal to the last Emperor — a mere boy — of the last of these five dynasties was repelling an inroad of the Kitan Tartars, when suddenly, in a style reminiscent of Imperial Rome, his army invested him with the yellow robe and proclaimed him Emperor of the House of Sung. He professed surprise and reluctance ; but there is little doubt that he knew of the design. He used his authority well, fostering

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THE GRAND CANAL.

The Grand Canal was principally dug in the thirteenth century by Kublai Khan, though parts are thought to date from the time of Confucius. The northern part is less used now ; it has fallen into disrepair and is clogged with the mud of the Yellow River. It is crossed by stone bridges, and many memorial arches and pagodas are situated near its banks. The canal, which is 1,200 miles in length, connected Hang-Chow Fu in Cheh-Kiang with Tientsin in Chih-li, where it joins the IViho, which runs close to Peking, •i

agriculture and education, and choosing his ministers with anxious care. Personally frugal, he forbade luxury in the palace. In every war his one command was that there should be no reckless slaughter or loot- ing. Among the many benefits he conferred on his Empire were a new calendar and a revised criminal code. The Sung Dynasty was now well under way, fairly started on its glorious career of three hundred years. This period is famous for a prodigious development in both literature and art. As to the former the efficient cause was the art of printing, which first began to play an important part in the tenth century, though the principle of taking impressions from carved wooden blocks had been already widely known under the T'ang Dynasty. Printing with movable types was invented so early as 1043, but did not appeal to the artistic sense of the Chinese ; nor, indeed, is it possible to produce under this system such beautiful editions as have been taken from double-page blocks, when time was not a factor in the problem.

I'riini Hie originals in] [""' Victnrin anil Allii'rt Museum, l.nndnn.

OBJECTS OF CHINESE ART.

Reading from left to right : Dove-sbap^d wine vessel on wheels — Han Dynasty (202 B.c.-A.D. 220). Elephant in c.'ofsonnc enamel. Bronze wine vessel in form of a duck, encrusted with gold and silver. Bronze wine-pot, inlaid with gold and silver.

I'ish of painted Canton enamel. Blue and white porcelain bowl marked Wan Li. Bronze basin, decorated with gold and silver enami'l. Bronze Lama figure of a liodhisattva. Jade honorific vase. Blue and white porcelain vase. Rosary of amber and corundum heads. Cup of rhinoceros horn on pedestal. Vase of silver-gilt filigree work, the top being made to open like the

I" 'tals of a lotus. Model of pavilions in carved ivory. Porcelain jar of early Fumille I'erte style.

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Story of the Nations

CHINA UNDER THE HSIA DYNASTY 2205 B.C.

The nine provinces were probably stations of colonists placed by the Emperoi YU among the aborigines when the population of China was about two millions.

u permissitm of the Itoi/nl Omarniihirnl .SVwiV/i/l [/•><>« K L. Oxenham's Historical Atla* CHINA UNDER THK MANCHUri: THE TA CH'ING DYNASTY, 1644-1912. The countries outside the eighteen province* were until quite lately tributary In China The population of China proper at the present day is computed at over 420 millions.

In the domain ol art we find a catalogue of no fewer than eight hundred artists, of varying merit, but most of them making truth to nature their guiding star, and re- cognizing that a knowledge of technique is necessary even to

genius.

One artist painted on a temple

wall a kind of panorama of a mountain stream, in which there was a single brush-stroke forty feet in length. A critic said : "To stand and look at its eddying onrush made one's eyes quite dazed ; while if you stood near and raised your head, you would feel a chill as though the spray were splashing on your face." Another, a minor artist, painted a picture which he called "A Crouching Tiger", of which a critic said, with some severity, that not a mouse would venture near it, meaning that it was like a cat. Such stories, serious and humorous alike, are embedded by hundreds in Chinese art litera- ture, and on the whole may be taken as evidence of a great artistic age.

The eleventh century, indeed, produced Shen Kua, who, after failing ignominiously as a military commander against the Kitan Tar- tars, became China's most eminent art critic. The following is a speci- men of his work : "When painters paint the aureole of the Lord Buddha they make it flat and round like a fan. If his body is de- flected, then the aureole is also deflected — a serious blunder. Such an artist is only thinking of the Lord Buddha as a graven image, and does not know that the round- ness of his aureole is everlasting. In like manner, when he is repre- sented as walking, his aureole is made to tail out behind him, and this is called the wind-borne aureole — also a serious blunder. For the aureole of the Lord Buddha is a

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divine aureole which even a universe-wrecking hurricane could not move still less could our light breezes flutter it."

The art of making porcelain is claimed by Chinese writers ior the Chin Dynasty, say the fourth century A.D., and recent excavations of graves have certainly disclosed specimens of T'ang Dynasty work ; but the latter seem to be rough and rude in conception and wanting in finish, no great advance, in fact, beyond the green enamelled pottery of the Han period. It is not until half-way through the tenth century that we hear of transparent porcelain "as thin as paper", and it was perhaps a century or so later that we come to the beautiful celadon ware and the wonderful coloured glazes, the work of Sung craftsmen, which have scarcely been rivalled in later days.

The excavations just mentioned could not have been carried out a few years ago. Between those

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THE WRECK OF A CHINESE ARMADA

Kublai K IKIII, the first Mongol Emperor of China, decided to annex Japan, and in 1280 sent against it a huge armada, which met with precisely ths same fate that befell another and more famous expedition of the kind. It was totally destroyed hy a storm and of the hundred thousand men who set out to conouer only one or two out of every ten got bark to Korea

graves and the eager European speculator stood a weird bogy the geomantic system of China, known as Feng Shui, wind and water. Under this system it was taught that human fortunes were closely bound up with the configuration of the surrounding country. High poles, dominating the scene, must not be set up at random ; still less must there be a cutting through a hill where generations of ancestors may be lying entombed. But money, according to the Chinese proverb, can move the gods ; it can now undoubtedly move graveyards, and allow profitable telegraph-poles to pierce the sky. and long straight lines (abhorred by Feng Shui) to carry railway-coaches from one end of the Empire to the other.

After this digression we may return to the Sung Dynasty and its literature. It was the age of classical scholarship and systematic philosophy, in both of which one remarkable man easily takes first place Chu Hsi, A.D. 1130-1200, began life as an official, and rose to high posts, but he fell a victim to all kinds of malicious attacks, and had little chance of distinguishing himself as a statesman. What he did for the

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Confucian Canon may be summed up in a few words. Down to his date, scholars had understood and taught the Canon according to the interpretations which came into vogue after the revival of classical learning under the Han Dynasty. Chu Hsi revised the work of those early scholiasts and put forth a new version, based upon uniformity of interpretation throughout, in which words and phrases taken in one sense in one place were not, for mere convenience, taken in another sense in another place. He also distinguished himself as an historian and writer on metaphysics. He elaborated a cosmogonical theory according to which there was a time when nothing existed except ether. Gradually there was a coalescence of ether, forming a single spot, or nucleus. After lapse of ages, this nucleus separated into two, and these two began to whirl around one another. They represented the male and female forces in nature, and by their interaction the universe and all things in it were produced. The symbol of these forces is- well known, appearing as it often does on modern bronzes and porcelain, and in decorative designs-

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THE EMPEROR BURNS HIMSELF IN HIS PALACE.

The State of Sung and the Mongo s combined against the Kin Dynasty and besieged the Emperor at Ju-ning Fu. The town, held out until all the animals had been eaten, and then the Emperor burned himself in his palace so that his body should not fall into the hands of the besiegers. His heir, Chang-lin. was Emperor for a few days, but he was killed by his followers, and thus the Kin Dynasty ended.

generally. It shows the two original points, and exhibits, so far as possible in a diagram, the whirling motion to which creative powers are assigned. A similar theory of male and female principles was formulated by Aristotle, who regarded the former as the origin of generation and the latter of the material generated.

The extreme materialistic attitude of educated Chinese towards religious thought dates from the writings and influence of Chu Hsi. Confucius undoubtedly believed in God — an anthropomorphic God, who punished evil-doers, and whom some have tried to identify with the Jewish God of the Old Testament. On one occasion Confucius silenced a questioner by saying : "He who has offended against God has no one to whom he can pray." Now Chu Hsi had no place in his scheme of nature for a supernatural element ; and he seized on this sentence, which occurs quite early in the Confucian Discourses, to settle the interpretation of the important word once and for all. "The term God," he said, "means simply a

This temple supports in its centre a symbolical building where the Emperor used to sacrifice to the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth on the 21st December every year.

The Wu-shan Gorge is one of the most picturesque on the Upper Yang-tsze, a river which crosses China proper from west to cast and is 3,000 miles in length.

The Nankow Pass is a boundary of China pioper. This scene is within four miles of the Great Wall. On the left is a temple to the God of Literature.

The summer retreat, known as the Imperial Summer Palace, covers an area of twelve square miles, and contains very beautiful residences, lakes and gardens.

Memorial arches, such as this in the Summer Palace, are put up by special authority to commemorate the great. They are generally built of wood.

The tomb of Yung Lo, the third Ming Emperor, is approached by an avenue of stone animals and a double row of stone warriors.

Photos by\

This marble Buddhist arch is in the Nankow Pass, in one of the lines of defence behind the Great Wall, and is carved with figures from Indian mythology.

[J. Thomson, F.R.OJS.

The Peking Observatory was erected during the Yiian Dynasty, and contained many bronze instruments of beautiful workmanship and design.

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Story of the Nations

Principle. ' ' This was the death-blow of the old belief in a more or less personal Being, endowed with human attributes and interest in the welfare of the human race. From that date the masses began to believe more earnestly than ever in the Lord Buddha, and the educated classes in nothing at all. Chu Hsi. however, was hopelessly wrong. The old character for "God" is a picture after the form of a human being, with arms and legs.

It may here be remarked that the Buddhism of China involves a totally different creed from that which was originally taught by the great founder of this faith, and which still prevails in Southern India, Burma, Ceylon and Siam. The Buddhism of China was intro- duced, via Tibet and Nepaul, from Northern India, in the last of which a new development had already taken place. Holy men had been raised to the status of gods, to whom prayer was offered up, and even a Trinity had been called into being, not to mention the practice of incantations and magic, all of which were entirely alien to the original conception of Buddhism. In China the Lord Buddha himself has come to be regarded in the light of a Saviour, and he is now worshipped by a celibate and vegetarian priesthood with such accessories as holy water, flowers, vestments, litanies, lighted candles, incense, fasting, masses for the dead, etc., etc., strangely in keeping with the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church.

Under the first three Emperors of the Sung Dynasty the government was well administered. The Empire was divided into fifteen provinces, each under a Governor ; education and agriculture occupied Imperial attention, and in 1023 paper notes were issued to replace an unwieldy coinage. Meanwhile the Kitan Tartars were giving endless trouble in the north, and practically reducing the area of the Empire. Early in the twelfth century their rule was brought to an end by their old rivals, the Nii-chen Tartars, the forebears of the Manchus, who continued to maintain an aggressive attitude towards the House of Sung, until both sides were finally swept out of existence by the inrush of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. "Eighteen times was the throne transmitted," says the famous Primer for children, "and then the north and south were reunited."

This reunion took place under Kublai Khan, A.D. 1260-1294, the first Mongol Emperor ; for, although he stands fifth on the roll, his four predecessors, including the great Gengis Khan, never actually sat upon the throne of China, but, in accordance with common custom in such cases, were posthumously canonized by their filial descendant.

Kublai was greatly assisted in completing the conquest of China by a Mongol chieftain ol first-class military capacity, named Po-yen, who took service under him

Painted specially for this work]

MARCO POLO RECEIVED BY THE EMPEROR. Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian, visited China in 1274 bearing a lettei from Pope Gregoiy X to Kublai Khan, and pent twenty-lour years in the East holding high civil office ior three years as Governor of the city of Yangchow. The Mongol Court at which he was received was fur more magnificent than European Court of the game date

I'lthll'll s;, .,-,,///// /„,' ,7,,'x

A TCKXIXC POINT t\ IXIUAX Ht.STORY.

In 11,:,. fayacbbandra .lai rhandl i;ah;,ru:,, ,,r Kuimm lu-l.l a *»•„,/„,„, «m. the pul,li<- oholee of n ImsbuinI f"r hiv daughter KanaoJ. and l-nthvimj Chnulmn mat I'ithom) of l)«llii ami Ajin.-r. hi, r,,ii«in. tr.ok Hir «,|,p,,rt unity t,, mrry her off The

feud thus ttenerated l,,iw,e,, the two K,eat KaJiHit rulers of the Hindu frontiers enabled Muhammad Ghori who had

irown Hi,- Miihiiiniiuiilaii Dynasty established l,y Miihininl ot (iha/.ni in I he of Delhi :inrl .Northern India which led eventually t,, the Mughal Kinpire.

for n Ifindii i,ririrf->.

- Pnnjal,. to found, in 1193, the Sultanate Thic famous su-nnammira wns the l,,«t held

The Chinese

'05

Po-yen had a fine martial appearance ; his plans were deep-laid, and he was decisive in action. He handled an army two hundred thousand strong as though it had been one man, and his lieutenants looked up to him as a god. We meet him in the pages of Marco Polo, where he is loosely spoken of as "a Baron whose name was Bayan Chingsan, which is as much as to say Bayan Hundred-Eyes".

We obtain an excellent view of the empire under the Mongols from the travels of Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian, who visited China in 1274, bearing letters from Pope Gregory X. to Kublai Khan, and who spent twenty-four years 'n the East, holding high civil office for three years From his pages we gather that the magnificence of the Imperial Court, the wealth of the large provincial cities, and the general prosperity of the people, were far ahead of anything in Europe at that date. The area, too, of the empire was extended more widely than had ever before been the case. Korea, Burma and Annam. were added to a domain which already extended over Central Asia and included even Russia. In 1280 Kublai decided to annex Japan, and sent against it a huge armada, which met with precisely the same fate that befell another and more famous expedition of the kind. It was totally destroyed by a storm, and of the hundred thousand men who set out to conquer, "only one or two out of every ten got back to Korea".

With the death of Kublai, the glory of the Mongol Dynasty rapidly came to an end. The last of a succession of alien and now feeble rulers fled before an opponent who represented the pure Chinese tradi- tion ; and the displacement of the Mongols by the incoming Mings involved nothing like the prolonged and bloody resistance which had been offered by the Sungs to the Mongols. The whole country was glad to be rid of the "stinking Tartars", who had done next to nothing for the empire since the days of Kublai Khan and the exe- cution of the Grand Canal which with the aid of the natural water- ways of Southern China, practically united Peking with Canton. Some few great artists had indeed come to the front, and the modern novel and the modern stage-play had both been introduced to an eagerly receptive public. At the present date, when China is covered with theatres and the shops of vendors of novels, it is difficult to under- stand that prior to the Mongol Dynasty the drama was represented by some kind of operatic perform- ance, of which we really know nothing ; while readers of fiction had to be content with short stories of incidents mostly based upon the supernatural. Now there is a perfect embarras de richesses in the matter of historical tragedies and broad farces of historical novels, love

Painted siminllii fur this irvrk}

A. FUTURE EMPEROR ADMITTED AS A BUDDHIST NOVICB.

Chu Yuan-Chang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, began life as a mwlioy. and later on decided to enter the Buddhist priesthood, for which purpose he enrolled himself as a novice in a temple. But events were too strong for him ; he joined the revolutionary movement, obtained an important command, won victory after victory and finally proclaimed himself Emperor.

K

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Storv of the Nations

stories, and other kinds with the exception only of the "problem" variety which is (wssihly to reach China later on.

The House of Ming enjoyed a span of three centuries of rule, 1368-1644, shared among sixteen Kmperors. Readers must have already begun to realize that efficient rulers are to be found at the begin- ning rather than towards the close of a dynasty, and the present instance is no exception to the rule The founder of the Ming Dynasty began life as a cowboy, and later on decided to enter the Buddhist priest- hood, for which purpose he enrolled himself as a novice in a temple. But events were too strong for him : he joined the revolutionary movement, gradually obtained an important command, won victory after

victory ; and finally proclaimed himself Emperor, with his capital at Nanking. Popularly known as the Beggar King, in allusion to the poverty of his early days, he has also been called the Golden Youth, probably from the prosperity which came to him as a comparatively young man. The wars he waged were successful, and the reforms he intro- duced into the administration of the empire were all framed with a view to the national welfare.

The second Emperor was a nonen- tity, who disappeared after a reign of only four years , but the reign of the third Emperor, fourth son of the founder, rivalled in glory that of his father. In 1421 he transferred the capital to Peking, where it has re- mained ever since, and dispatched various military expeditions against the Tartars costing vast sums of money with very little result.

During the first hundred years of Ming rule the knowledge of dis- tant countries was widely extended Chinese junks visited the shores of Arabia, and there is reason to believe that they even reached Zanzibar, while tribute was received from Siam, Java Sumatra, and Ceylon.

The art of making porcelain at- tained to a pitch of excellence never before equalled, and surpassed only under the Manchu Emperor K'ang Hsi. It was carefully fostered by (he iirst Emperor of the Mings, who rebuilt an old Imperial factory which is still in working order ; and several of the later rulers took a deep interest in its development.

The sixth Emperor was an ardent Buddhist, and spent huge sums on temples ; but although his immediate Court may have been influenced to some extent by this, the great body of the literati remained faithful to the teachings of Confucius. Inasmuch as Buddhism absolutely forbids the taking of life we may ascribe to His Majesty's faith an edict which forbade the sacrifice of concubines, as heretofore at liis death.

It would appear, however, that slaughter m war is excused trom the application ol the rule, as tins same Buddhist Emperor led an army against the Oirads, who had been giving continual

Painted sjteriaUil for this u*ork]

THE KI.1XIK OF L1KK

After only reigning two months, the fourteenth Ming Emperor was poisoned by an oflieial, who administered a. drug which he said was the elixir of life. , All through Chinese history to this date Chinese rulers had heeome infatuated with the idea of securing immortality hy means of a drug.

J'ninfril specially for this u-rirk]

SIAMESE ENVOYS PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE EMPEROR OF CHIN \

. *£»:££%& K^EKSE IETS*- of it±m r *** — ** — >

Stem, .lav,,, Sunmtra, and Ccvlon. In the , c u c th °VC" ^ '" /Mm"KIT- " hik' "*««» "a.s re^ivoJ fro

«t...ny, ivory, etc. bian'OS" '•"»"'"-">» i-- -'"> Planting tribute of popper, satin, ambergri

io8

Story of the Nations

trouble, with a view to extermi- nate them ; instead of which result his army was routed and he him- seif was taken prisoner. Some time after his release he was forced against his will to reascend the throne, but he was ultimately de- posed and sent into banishment.

During the reign of the eleventh Emperor, who occupied himself chiefly in searching for the elixir of life, the Portuguese appeared in China, and in 1520 an envoy, named Thome Pires, succeeded in reaching Peking. He was sent back to Canton and died there in prison, after three years' incarceration. The Portuguese were followed in the next reign but one by the Spaniards, two priests of that nation arriving from Manila on a proselytizing mission in 1575 ; and the next European nation to arrive was the Dutch, who succeeded in establishing themselves on the island of Formosa until 1662, when they were expelled by the celebrated pirate-chieftain Koxinga.

Meanwhile the Manchus were rising to power under their great leader Nurhachu. They invaded Korea and threatened Liao-yang, meeting with only a feeble resist- ance from the ill-paid soldiery and corrupt officers of the Mings. The long and disastrous reign of the thirteenth Emperor came to

an end in 1620, and the fourteenth Emperor mounted the throne of a bankrupt empire to rule over a discontented and rebellious people. After a reign of two months he was poisoned by an official, who administered a drug which he said was the elixir of life.

It is extraordinary how, all through Chinese history down to the date last mentioned, various rulers have become infatuated with the idea of securing immortality by means of a drug. There is an old story from feudal days which is very much to the point in this connection. Some person sent to one of the feudal princes a phial said to contain the elixir of life. It was duly received by the gatekeeper of the palace and handed on to the Chief Warden. "Is this to be swallowed ?" inquired the latter. "It is," replied the gatekeeper, whereupon the Chief Warden promptly swallowed it. The prince was exceedingly angry, and ordered the immediate execution of the perpetrator of such an outrage. But the Chief Warden suggested that if the drug really possessed the property of conferring im- mortality, he was then beyond the reach of His Highness's vengeance ; whereas if it did not, it would be more fittingly called the elixir of death, and the prince would be the laughing-stock of all. His life was spared.

The mandate of the Ming Dynasty was now evidently exhausted, and with the hour arrived the man. A

Painted specially for this work]

THE JAPANESE RAVAGE THE COAST OF CHINA.

In 1592 the Japanese invaded Korea, and the Japanese regent, Taikosama, was going to appoint himself king of the peninsula when a Chinese army defeated the Japanese, while the Chinese fleet cut off their retreat. The Japanese sent an embassy for peace to Peking, but in 1597 they sent an army again to Korea, and defeated the Chinese. They also destroyed the Chinese ships and made raids on the const s.

The Chinese

log

quondam village beadle, who had turned brigand and was known as the Rebel Li, headed in 1640 a small gang of desperadoes, and overrunning parts of Hupeh and Honan, was soon in command of a large army. By 1644 he was ready to march against Peking, and forthwith proclaimed himself Emperor of a new dynasty

The moment was unusually opportune. Wu San-kuei, the one Chinese general of first-class rank, was away opposing the Manchus and fully occupied in trying to arrest their advance. He was hurriedly recalled by the distracted Emperor, but it was too late ; Peking was taken and pillaged, and the Emperor hanged himself. On hearing this news, General Wu came to terms with the Manchus, and invited them to assist in the expulsion of the Rebel Li and the recapture of the capital.

The rest of the story is summed up in the fable of the horse that sought the aid of man against its enemy the stag. The Manchus helped indeed to get rid of the Rebel Li, and then annexed the empire for themselves. But just as the Mongols, being an alien race, experienced endless difficulties, through a long series of years, in displacing the Sungs, a native dynasty, even though effete and corrupt, so did the Manchu Tartars meet with dissatisfaction and resentment on all sides, which it took many years to allay, and a thread of which may be said to have run through their all but three centuries of power.

The first thing the Manchus did was to make the "pigtail" style of coiffure obligatory throughout the empire. Al- ready there were a certain num- ber of Chinese who, mostly from fear, had shaved their heads as a token of submission to the new -rulers; but this was confined to the north, where the change of dynasty was an accomplished fact. In the south resistance to the order was obstinate and prolonged, and was only swept away gradually, as the Manchus bit by bit succeeded in estab- lishing their administration. Altogether, the reduction of the country was carried out in a wise and statesmanlike man- ner, great concessions being made to popular prejudices by the Tartar conquerors. These last were not, and they must have fe't that they were not, on the same intellectual level, or in any way to be compared, from the point of view of civilization, with . the van- quished Chinese. The Manchus were skilled archers and bold horsemen, with little or no knowledge of the arts and crafts in which the Chinese were so distinguished, and they had been possessors of a written language only since

Pninted sjirciallii for thi» work]

THE LOOTING OF PEKING

BY THE REBEL Li.

The Rebel Li hail been a village beadle but he turned brigand and was soon at tne head of a large army. In 1044 ho marched against Poking, and pillaged it : he then proclaimed himself Emperor, and the founder of a new dynasty. The Manchus were invited to conn: in and assist in the repression of Li, and having done this they decided

to stay and annex the empire for themselves.

no

Story of the Nations

1599. On one head they were quite clear : they had got hold of China and they meant to-

keep it.

This they were enabled to do chiefly owing to the great abilities and sterling virtue? of several

of the early Emperors. The third of his line, 1655-1723, is popularly known by his year-title,

K'ang Hsi, in accordance with the custom which has prevailed since the beginning of the Ming

Dynasty. He succeeded to the- throne as a child of eight, and became actually the ruler of the Chinese Empire at the- age of twenty. He was then, faced with a very serious re- bellion.

Several of the provinces, decided to set up independent governments, and six or seven years of fighting elapsed before this trouble was at an end. It was shortly followed by raids upon outlying parts of the em- pire by the Kalmuck Tartars, against whom the Emperor led an expedition in person, the upshot being an extension of Chinese frontier to Kokand. Badakshan, and Tibet. This reign was marked, too, by an extraordinary revival of learn- ing, earnestly encouraged by the Emperor himself, who either initiated Or sanctioned the pub- lication of many important aids- to study.

The fifth Manchu Emperor was a grandson of K'ang Hsi. He reigned under the year-title of Ch'ien Lung, and his fame rivals that of his grandfather. Both monarchs occupied the throne for sixty years, thus completing a full Chinese cycle ;

THE INTRODUCTION OK THE PIGTAIL. The fVrst thiui? the .Mmielius did was to make the "pigtail" <tyle of coiffure

lions on a large scale, and in extending the frontiers of the empire ; both were warm patrons of literature, and the nominal, if not real, editors of a series of works in the hands of every student of to-day.

In 1795 Ch'ien Lung, who had previously received Lord Macartney in audience, abdicated in favour of his son, and died three years later. From that hour Manchu rule was on the downward grade. The son, who reigned as Chia Ch'ing, neglected his duties and gave himself up to a life of pleasure and debauchery. Hence, family feuds, secret society risings, and plots, which cost vast sums to put down. From 1805 to 1809 the coast from Shantung to Tongking was infested with pirates who fought pitched battles with the Imperial navy and almost stopped trade. The Emperor himself was once attacked.

obligatory throughout the empire. In the north there weir already n errtain number nf Chiue.-e who, mostly from fear, had shaved their heads as a token or -nbniission to the new rulei : but in the south resislanee (u the order \v;is obstinate and prolonged, and WHS only swept away tnadnally. I'pon the abdieal ion of the Manehits ir t'.'!'.' the wearing of the pii^ail was uenerully diseonl lulled

both were successful in sup- pressing anti-dynastic rebel-

HJI perm iaslon of] [ Undent-ami (fr fmlmrnoil.

LORD MACAKTXKY ARRIVES IN CHINA.

In 1793 Lord Macartney was sent to China as the British Ambassador for the extension of British commerce. He landed on August 6, and was received by the aged Ambassador with great hospitality. The Chinese barges of the Embassy are here shown preparing to pass under a bridge.

' -

By prrmlttioa ,,f\

LORD MACARTNEY HECKIVKD HY THE EMl'EROR.

On December II, 17!)!!. the Kmperor, who is here -ecu approaching the reception tent, received Lord Macartncv at .Idml. Many rest riel ions had been placed upon trade with China and British subjects treated in a sr>'--l> unjust manner. The Q failed to obtain redress for British i;rievanee>.

Painted spe natty for this icorJM

COMMISSIONER LIN DESTROYS THOUSANDS OF CHESTS OF OPIUM.

Tao Kuang, the successor of Chia Oh'ing, began his reign with good intentions, but was unable to make headway against the evil influence of the age. Following the example of his father, he treated British merchants with contempt, encouraging the injudicious action of the great patriot, Commissioner Lin, who destroyed 20,291 chests of opium, and so bringing upon China a disastrous war, with a heavy indemnity to pay.

I'ainlnl .•.•/'""'"".'/ tar thin irork]

A BATTLE BETWEEN PIRATES AND THE IMPERIAL NAVY.

One of the later Manehu Emperors, Chia Ch'ing, neglected his duties and gave himself up to a life of pleasure and debauchery. From 1805 to 1809 the coast from Shantung to Tongking was infested with pirates, who fought pitched battles with the Imperial navy and almost stopped trade. The pirate iunks are seen in the centre of the picture, the Imperial vessels to the left.

The Chinese

in the streets of Peking, and again nearly assassinated in his palace by a band of conspirators who had broken in. His successor, Tao Kuan;;, seems to have begun with good intentions, but he was un- able to make headway against the evil influence of the age. Following the example of his father, •who had repelled the embassy of Lord Amherst, he treated British officials with contumely and British merchants with contempt, encour- aging the injudicious action of the great patriot Commissioner Lin, who destroyed twenty thousand two hundred and ninety-one chests of opium, and bringing upon China a disastrous war, with a heavy indemnity to pay. His son, who succeeded in 1851, would not have stood much chance, even if he had been fitted for the task, of repairing the fallen fortunes of his house. The T'ai-p'ing rebellion broke out, nominally as a Christia'fc., as well as an anti-dynastic movement ; whole provinces were devastated and more or less denuded of population; and the rebels were within an ace of overthrow- ing the Manchu Dynasty. To add to the difficulties of the hour, England and France sent a joint expedition to secure trading and other rights ; and in 1860 the allied forces entered Peking.

The next two reigns were overshadowed by the strong- willed and brutal personality of the famous Empress Dowager, during which period dissatis- faction with Manchu rule was secretly fomented all over the empire.

Dr. Sun Vat -sen, who died in 1925, was the moving spirit of the new rebellion; its organ- izer, and collector of the funds which made a revolution poss- ible. He was called, among

By permission of]

(T. H. I'arkrr Bros.

BLOWING UP CHINESE JUNKS.

In 1841, owing to the hostile attitude of the Chinese, a proclamation was issued to the effect that any attacks would be put down by force. Trade con- tinued for some time, but soon severe measures were taken, nnd several Junks \vtTo blown up.

Hi/ permission o/l IT1, fl. f'nrkrr Urn*.

THE TREATY OF NANKING.

In August 1842, the English fleet arrived at Nanking, and the Chinese agreed to a treaty of peace, the chief effects of which were the opening of five trade ports, the cession of Hong-Kong, the release of all English prisoners, and tho payment of the sum of twenty-one million dollars.

t Of]

STORMING THE TAKU FORTS.

In 1858 Lord Elgin, owing to lurtlii-r trade difficult ies. sailed with tho Hi-itish and French fleets to the mouth of the Peiho and attacked the Taku IWt>. Their capture led to the concession of further privileges under the Treaty of Tientsin.

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Story of the Nations

other hard names, a dreamer ; at any rate, it must be conceded that he dreamed the downfall of the Manchus to some purpose.

The fact that twenty years of disorder has followed the establishment of the new regime is only an instance of history repeating itself. At a moderate computation of time, it took Liu Pang seven years, 209-202 B.C., before he could establish himself on the throne as first Emperor of the Hans, at the end of which dynasty, four hundred years later, the country was torn to pieces for sixty years before China was united again under one ruler. The fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 was also followed by fifty years of unstable government, until the empire was once more firmly re-established under the Sungs. The Mongols, who displaced the Sungs, occupied by 1240 all China north of the Yang-tsze, and in 1260 Kublai Khan proclaimed himself Emperor at Xanadu, a summer retreat about one hundred and eighty miles north of Peking ; but it was not until 1279 tnat the last trace of resistance to his arms had altogether

till permiminn '>f\

>' <ll>c Lnnrton Flertrotvrif Aocnrn.

THE CHINO-JAI'ANESK WAR, 1834 The Chino-Japanesc war was caused by the action of China in keeping control over Korea after sending troops to nupprcs* a rebellion. Li Hnng Chang had spent large sums of money in ur^ani/in1.; n F.nropi-an drilled army, but the Chinese were decisively beaten in the war. The onerous terms imposed by Japan were mitigated at the' instance nf the Powers, but China was forced to pay a heavy indemnity and to cede Formosa.

faded away. The Mings, who drove out the Mongols, took about twenty years to accomplish their aim , and the Manchus, who in turn drove out the Mings, took nearly as many more. A Manchu chieftain actually proclaimed himself Emperor of China in 1635 ; but it was not until 1644 that the first recognized Manchu,- or Ch'ing, Emperor mounted the throne, and even then his rule was far from being accepted by the people at large. In 1912 the malign sway of the later Manchu Emperors was brought to an end, but the ease with which the change was effected was deceptive, as the long years of civil strife which have followed have disastrously proved. The signal for the revolution was a mutiny of troops at Wuchang in October 1911, and immediately, like a house of cards, the outworn Imperial System came tumbling down. In February 1912, the boy-Emperor was forced to abdicate, and (he Chinese Republic was in being.

THE REPUBLIC FROM I()I2

THE republic in China has had a troubled existence. Yiian Shih-k'ai, the first President, was elected in the face of strong opposition from the southern provinces, who only agreed to accept him on the under- standing that the capital was removed from Peking to Nanking. A Cantonese, T'ang Shao-yi, became

H'l permigiion of] \llif Japan Sorietv.

THE CAPTURE OF PING-YANG, 1894.

At Ping- Yang, in Korea, General Tso, who was beheaded for his defeat in the campaign, was attacked by the Japanese Field- Mil rshal. Count Yamagata, with very superior forces. Of the Chinese, 2,300 were killed, four or five thousand wounded, and a still greater number taken prisoners, others dispersed and put to flight. The Japanese loss was very small.

TUB HOXER MOVKMKXT, 1900.

I'll n-iirt ion, n-y ant i-iorei;:n movement assumed dangerous proportions in 1900, when the "Boxer rebels", with the approval of the Dmvuifei-Knipress, bemin to i nininit outrages upon forfigners and native Chii*tians. The foreign legations in Ivkimj were hcsiegeil. nii'l the intei-iiiit innal army t hat niai-elinl to their irlic'f did not arrive until the ilefcmlcr-.' I'm id and ammunition were nearly exhausted.

In

THE REVOLUTION, 1911.

In 1911 the Chinese rebelled against Manchu nile and elected Sun Yat-tien to be the head of a provisional government February 1912, the Emperor formally abdicated and a republican form of government was inaugurated. Sun Yat-sen resigned big office In favour of Yuan Sbih-k'ai. who became the first President of the Republic. The illustration shows a part}- of Chinese with special permits leaving Nanking in November 1911, under the supervision of the Captain of the Gate.

The Chinese

117

Prime Minister ; but, an attempt being made to assassinate him, he fled, and a mutiny of troops was used by Yuan as a reason for keeping the capital at Peking. The Cantonese Radical party, which dominated the political situation, set to work to thwart Yuan at every turn, and he replied by drastic steps, including the summary executions of two generals accused of plotting against the Republic.

Elections for the Provincial and National Assemblies took place in 1912, and in 1913 they commenced to function. A new Nationalist party preponderated and stood for decentralization and provincial Home Rule as opposed to the President's policy of personal rule from Peking. He raised a reorganization loan from foreign banks, and with the help of this foreign money he defied the Nationalists, who broke into open rebellion. The revolt, though assisted by Japanese and Young China generally, soon collapsed, and by the end of the year Yuan was firmly in the saddle. He suppressed the Assemblies and put in their place a nominated Council mainly composed of his favoured officials of the Manchu regime. On the petition, engineered by himself, of the provincial governors at the close of 1913, Yuan assumed the role of Dictator.

The Original Constitutional Drafting ( 'minniitrc of 1!)13, photographed on the steps of the Temple of Heaven, where

the Draft was completed.

W hen the date fixed tor the convocation of the new parliament approached, a movement for the establishment of a monarchy was set on foot. Yuan readily agreed to become the titular, as he was the virtual, sovereign, and a referendum of supporters was adopted as the method to legalize the change. But the Japanese Government set up a most determined opposition, and soon after Yuan adopted the throne a rebellion, headed by Tsai Ao, a young officer who had been educated in Japan, spread over the whole of South China. This time the South, supported by Japanese intrigues, arms and money, succeeded, and the rule of Yuan ended with his death on June 6, 1916. Shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, Japan demanded Tsingtao from Germany, and, receiving no answer, she invested the place and took it on November 7, 1914. She followed this up by a series of demands on China, known as the "Twenty-one demands", the effect of which was to make Japan predominant in China at the expense, not only of Germany, but also of all the West- ern nations, including Japan's allies.

Li Yuan-hung succeeded Yuan Shih-k'ai as President ; but the parliamentary struggle continued.

Story of the Nations

RH courtesy of\ 4.U Encampment

ol "Tne Punitive

\3faior Isaac Newell, U.S. Military Attache. Expedition" of 1916 on the Upper Yangtze

It now lay between the Nation- alist majority and a conserv- ative military clique which controlled the Peking execu- tive. A new bone of conten- tion between North and South was found in the invitation of the American Government to China in February 1917 to sever relations with Germany. The military party recom- mended a declaration of war, but this was opposed by the Parliament. A deadlock en- sued, and an attempt was made in July 1917 to restore the Manchu Dynasty. This again failed ; but President Li resigned. His successor, Feng Kuo-chang, had as little success with the Nationalists. A formal declara- ation against Germany was issued on August 14, and this was followed by the secession of the southern provinces, which proceeded to form an independent government at Canton. Both North and South now angled for Japanese support, and, though Japan never actively moved against the Cantonese Govern- ment, the bulk of the assistance she gave to the warring factions in money and arms went to the North. All through the presidency of Feng Kuo-chang the discord and dissension continued. Serious attempts were made since Hsu Shih-ch'ang became President (September 1918) to heal the breach and to form a unified Government, but these met with very little success.

To give in fullness of detail a record of the various partizan struggles which have troubled the peace of China during 1918-1928 would be as tedious as it would be fruitless. The Nationalist Govern- ment, though it continued to exist, was not strong enough to suppress the various War Lords who ranged the country, gaining transitory power. Among the more important were VVu P'ei-fu, Chang Tso-lin, the master of Manchuria, and Feng Yu-hsiang, popularly known as the Christian General £ These three, now in alliance, now in opposition to one another, now nominally in support of the central government, now in rebellion against it, kept the North in a state of confusion and anarchy for several years. Meanwhile, at Canton, an extreme ultra-radical Government maintained a separate existence. The only point upon which these warring elements were united was their foreign

policy. This aimed at the recovery of the special rights granted to foreigners, and tended to inflame public opin- ion against the European and especially the British population. An anti-British boycott in 1925 produced a sit- uation which threatened to be dangerous. In 1926 a new personality appeared on the Chinese stage. This was Chiang K'ai Shek, the leader of the Nationalist armies, who in thr ensuing years has proved him- self a man of great strength

and wisdom and has done

much to restore order to the

Hevivai of the Imperialistic \Vm>hip of Heaven l>y Yiinn Shih-k'ai in I'.HI-

•RESIDENT OF MAXCHUKUO AND HIS WIFE. In 191'.', while still a buy, the' former Emperor of China, the last of the Manehu Dynasty, was lorced lo abdicate by the revolutionaries, ("nder his republican name of Mr. Henry P'u he \vas living as a private citizen when he was elwted first 1'rfsident of the m-\\ st;itc of Manehukno, created by the .Tai>;uies( jiftcr tln-ir invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

I2O

Story of the Nations

stricken country. From the time that

he came to the fore the power of the

War Lords waned. Wu P'ei-fu was

defeated, Chang Tso-lin maintained a

stubborn resistance but was already in

full retreat, when a bomb put an end

to his life and career. The Christian

General, though he saved himself for

the moment by allying his forces to

the National cause, gradually ceased

to be dangerous. In 1927 a Central

Government was established at Nanking,

and it really seemed that the childhood

ailments of the new republic were

nearly over and that China was slowly

developing on modern lines into an or- dered and prosperous State, when the

new troubles developed which created

a fresh menace to peace in the Far East. Japan, with her growing population, had long looked upon Manchuria as a possible outlet for expansion. She had acquired important treaty rights and had vast commercial interests. Finding these threatened, by the state of the country and the Nationalist feeling displayed by the Chinese, they determined upon, an annexationist policy. With incidents so frequent between the two countries pretexts for intervention were not far to seek. The Japanese invaded Manchuria on September 18, 1931, and in 1932, having broken down the disorganized resistance by which they were opposed, set up the puppet state of Man- chukuo under the presidency of the former Emperor of China, who had been deposed as a small, boy :n 1912. Almost coincident with the invasion of Manchuria, hostilities had been opened in. Shanghai, the Japanese being incensed by the boycott directed against their goods. Fortunately this second unofficial war was of short duration. The Japanese, already sufficiently engrossed with the Manchurian affair, and probably fearing that they would become embroiled with the other powers occupying the International Concession in Shanghai, withdrew their troops after minor successes.

Against both these Japanese incursions the Chinese protested vigorously to the League of Nations, under the auspices of which a Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Lytton, was sent to Manchuria. The Commis-

MARSHAL CHIANG K'AI SHEK The Nationalist leader who has done much to strengthen the authority of the Central Govern- ment. He is now in arms ngainst the Japanese

MARSHAL CHANG TSO-LIN One of the most successful Chinese "war-lords" main- tained his supremacy over Man churia until he was killed by n bomb in 1928

sion though it presented a cautious and impartial re- port, decided against the pretensions of Japan on all major issues. After much dolib- eration at Geneva the Comm i t tee of Nineteen, and subse- quently the Assembly of the League it- self, endorsed

Ynrs.

JAPAN KSK CAM!

.MUKDEN.

In September, 1931, the Japanese invnded Manctnirin, and having broken down the disorganised resistance by which they were opposed, set up (lie puppet state of Muuchukuo. Tbis aerial view of the huge cnmp outside Mukden gives an idea of the strength of the Japanese forces '-M^iired.

the main re- commenda- tions of the Report, a de- cision which, ledtothe with- drawal of the- Japanese dele- gates. Mean- while Japan- took matters- into her own- hands by in- vading and overrunning the Province of Jehol and capturing the city of that name.

DATES OF INDIAN HISTORY

(Most of the early dates and many Hindu dates up to the Muhammadan Conquest in 1193 are still controversial.)

EMPIRES AND CHIEF HISTORIC DYNASTIES.

DATE.

CHIEF EVENTS.

INDIAN TRADITION: Before 600 B.C.

3500-2500 B.C. 2500-1200

1200-800 800-600

Dravidian occupation. Aryan immigration and settlement in Northern India. Dravidian civilization in Southern India. Vedic culture in the North. Great War of the Ufahabftarata, c. 1000. Consolidation of Hinduism. Struggles of the Katnayana with the South.

ANCIENT INDIAN DATED HISTORY:

c. 600 B.C.-C. A.D. 751.

4 MAGADHA SUPREMACY (N.K. India) : QIJUNAGA DYNASTY : Before 630-361 B.C.

NANDA DYNASTY : 361-321 B.c. MAURYAN EMPIRE : 321-184 B.C.

QUNCA DYNASTY : 184-72 B.C.

KANVA DYNASTY: 72-27 B.C.

II. OTHER KINGDOMS: ANDHRA DYNASTY (S. INDIA ):22O B.C.-A.D. 236. WiiSTKRN SATRAPS : 150-388 A.D. INDO-PARTIIIANS : 250 B.C.-A.D. 50. KUSHAN DYNASTY : A.D. 45-225.

540-468 563-483

327-325 321-297

291-273 274-237 257-244 248-140

165-140 140

i44-"5

A.D. II3-I34

134-152 150 I50-I6I

249 300

Magadha was one of sixteen kingdoms stretching across India from Gandhara (Peshawar) to Bengal. Aryan migration into the Deccan. Vardhamana Mahavira, Jina : founder of Jainism. Gautama Siddharta, Buddha : founder of Buddhism. 515-509. Darius Hystaspes on the Indus. Alexander's irruption. 326. Battle of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) : defeat of Poms (Paurava). CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA (SANDRAKOTTOS). 305. War with Seleukos Nikator of Syria (Babylon). BINDUSARA (AMITRAGHATA, AMITOKRATES). ASOKHAVARDHANA (ASOKHA). General extension of Buddhism. Monolith Buddhist edicts; early siupas (topes) at Sanchi, etc. Baktrians and Parthians established in Afghanistan ; "Greek" coins. Brahmanic reaction against Buddhism. The Yue-chi tribes break out of China and expel the Cakas (Scythians), who invade Baktria. Mithridates of Parthia occupies Baktria (Afghanistan), and drives the f';ikas into N.W. India, where they set up Satraps. 126. ^akas, Baktrians, Parthians and Yue-chi (Kushans) all mixed up in Baktria and N.W. India. Menander, Baktrian, invades India and turns Buddhist ; King Milinda of "the Questions". GAUTAMIPUTRA SATAKARNI. 126. His agent Chashtana, founder of the Great Satraps. SRI PULUMAVI (Smo POLEMICS). 139. Jain scriptures committed to writing. Sivaskandavarman Pallava's horse sacrifice (asvamedka.).

RUDRADAMAN MAHAKSHATRAPA.

Rise of the Kalachuris of Chedi (Haihaya). Vigorous revival of Hinduism; revision of the Puranas and ancient works on Science and Literature.

ill. GUPTA EMPIRE . 319-520.

319-326 375-413 375 430 435-800 490 515-523

CHANDRAGUPTA I. 326-375. SAMUDRAGUPTA. CHANDRAGUPTA II. {VIKRAMADITYA, BIKRAMAJIT, RAJA BIKRAM). Kalidasa, poet. 399-414. Fa Hsien, first Chinese traveller. White Huns (Ephthalites) in N.W. India. 470-513. Toramana at Sakala (Panjab). Gurjara (Gujar) Dynasty of Bharoch (Gujarat). Chalukhyas of Badami (Deccan). 495. Valabhis of Gujarat. MIHIRAGULA; driven out by Rajput combination. 540. Death in Kashmir.

IV. SRIKANTHA OF THANESAR AND KASAUJ (Northern India) : 585-666. VALABHI (Dcccan) : 495-766. CHALUKHYA OF BADAMI (Deccan and Southern India) : 525-747.

600

606-648

625

631-671 636

640-650

713-855

747

Revival of Saiva Hinduism in S. India; the Tevaram (Tamil) hymns. HARSHAVARDHANA (HARSHA, SILADITYA) SRIKANTHA. 609-642. PULIKESIN 11. (SATYASRAYA) CHALUKHYA. 615-1127. Eastern Chalukhyas of Vengi(S. India). Embassy of Khusru II of Persia to Pulikesin II. 629-645. Hiuen Tsiang, Chinese traveller. Chach Dynasty of Sind (Brahman). 635-754. Lichhavis of Nepal. First appearance of Arabs on the Western coasts. 71 1-71 2. Arab conquest of Sind. Tamil irruptions into Ceylon under Narasimhavaiman Tallava. Karkota (Naga) Dynasty of Kashmir. 735. Capture of Chitor by the Sisodhia Rajputs. 766, of Gujarat. Rise of the Rashtrakutas under Dantidurga. 757-888. The Rahtors of Gujarat.

MEDIEVAL HINDU INDIA : 750-1193. KASHTRAKUTA (Deccan and South India) : 747-982. RAJPUT STATES : from 815 onwards. CHOLA {Southern India) : 900-1250. CHALUKHYA OF KALYANA (Deccan) : 975-1200. KALACHURI OF OIKDI (Central India) : (580) 925-1195. CIIANDELLA <>i Hi. NDEI.KHAND (Northern India) : 900-1289.

774 794-814 815-973

825 962-1181

980-1053 979-1002 1001-1026 1033 1040- 1069 1048-1310 1070- uo8 1076-1127 1097-1187

1192-1193

Jewish colony at Cochin, 780—820. Sankaracharya, reformer. GOVINDA III ; patronage of the Digambara (naked) Jains. 940-971. KRISHNA III. Rise of Rajput States. 815-1249. Silaharas (Konhan, Bombay). 831-1289. Chand.llas (Bundelkhand). 840-1161. Palas (Bengal). 855-1128. Utpalas (Kashmir). 862-948. Kings of Mahodaya (Kanauj). 875-1228. Rattas (Saundatli). 902-1025. Shahiya (Lahore and Kabul). 902-1432 . Chudasaroas (Girnar, Junagadh). 940-1242. Chalukhyas (Solankhi) of Anhilwad (Gujarat). 950-1193. Chauhans (Ajmer and Delhi): 968-1162. (Nadole). 973-1183. Chalukhyas (Kalyana). Conversion to Islam of Cheruman Perumal. last Cbera King of Malabar. Mubammadan Dynasty of Ghaznj (Ghaznavides). 983. Muhammadan Gakkhars (Khokars, Panjab). Atisa, Buddhist revivalist of Tibet. RAJARAJACHOLA, THE GREAT. 953-999. DHANGADEVACHANDELLA(RAJADHANGA). The fifteen raids of Mahmud of Ghazni. loss-iico. KIRTIVARMAN CHANDELLA. Ghazi Miyan of Bharaich (Oudh); first great Muhammadan saint in India. SOMESVARA I, CHALUKHYA. 1042-1063. KARNADEVA KALACHURI. Hoysala-Ballalas of Dwarasamudra (Halebid in Mysore). KULOTIUNGA CHOLA I. Great output of Tamil literature. VIKRAMADITYA VI (VIKRAMANKA) CHALUKHYA. 1127. Ramanuja, reformer. Rise of Rajput States. 1097-1193. Gaharwars of Kanauj. 1128-1183. Kalachuris of Kalyana. 1150-1325. Kakatiyas of Warangal (Decran). 1187-1309. Yadavas of Deva^iri (Daulatabad). Muhammad Ghori defeats and slays Prithiviraj Chauhan (Rai Pilhora) of Delhi.

MEDIEVAL MVHAMMADAN INDIA •

1193-1526. "93-1205

SULTANS OF DELHI, 'GHORI : 1193-1205.

1204-1261

MUHAMMAD GHORI (MUHAMMAD BIN SAM, SHAHABU'DDIN, MU'IZZU'DDIN). Venetian trade with India after capture of Conslanlinople by the Crusaders.

"SLAVE KINGS" OF DELHI : 1206-1293.

1206-1210 1211-1230

1266-1287

1292

KUTBU'DDIN AIBAK; slave of Muhammad Ghori. SHAMSU'DDIN ILTUTMISH (ALTAMSH) : slave of Kutbu'ddin Aibak. Hindu Dynasties. 1230-1824. Indrayamsa of Assam. 1261-1798. Chand of Kumaun. GHIYASU'UDIN BALBAN : son of slave of Muhammad Ghori. 1282-1338. His son founds Balban Dynasty of Bengal. Mughal invasion.

SULTANS OF DELHI, KHILJI (TURKI) 1290-1320.

1296-1316 1309-1312 1318-1320 -

ALAU'DDIN KHILJI (MUHAMMAD SHAH). Extension of power to the South. The slave eunuch and general, Malik Kafur, raids S. India: 1316, murdered. The slave minister, Malik Khusru : reign of terror in Delhi : 1320, murdered.

SULTANS OF DELHI, TUGHLAK (TuRKi) (Northern India) : 1320-1414. BAHMAM OF KULBARGA (Deccan) : 1347-1525- (Hindu) VIJAYANAGAR EMPIRE (South India): 1336-1563.

1325-1351 1335-1370

MUHAMMAD TUGHLAK : the "mad" King of Delhi. Local Muhammadan Dynasties. 1335-1586. Kashmir. 1336-1377. Malabar (Raim-shwaram, S. India). 153^-1478. Ilv;i> Shuln of Bengal. 1370-1596. Faruki of Khandesh (Deccan). 1328-1427. (Hindu) Recklis of Kondavidu fS. India).

1351-1388

1354-1379

. nda). FIROZ SHAH TUGHLAK : sound administrator ; canals, reads, light taxation.

BUKKA I. Of VlJAYANAGAR. 1379-1406. HARIHARA Of- \'lj A YANAGAR.

EMPIRES AND CHIEF HISTORIC DYNASTIES.

DATE.

CHIEF EVENTS.

SULTANS OF DELHI : SAYVID, 1414-1451 ; LODI (AFGHAN) 1451-1526 (Northern India). SHARKI OF JAUNPUR, 1394-1493 (Northern India.) GUJARAT (Deccan), 1396-1583. ILYAS-SHAHI, !339-i487; HABSHI, 1487-1492 ; HUSSAIN-SHAHI 1493-1576 (Bengal).

1396-1411 1398 1401-1440

1411-1442

1417-1467

1428 1438-1460 1451-1489 M53 1469-1485

1485-1512

1497-1499 1506-1518

MUZAFFAR SHAH OF GUJARAT. 1399-1731. Hindu Rajas of Mysore. Invasion of Hindustan by Timur Lang (Tamerlane) Mughal : sack of Delhi. IBRAHIM SHAH OF JAUNPUR. 1401-1569. Ghori and Khilji rulers of Malwa (Rajpu- tana). AHMAD SHAH OF GUJARAT. 1414-1421. SAYYID KHIZR KHAN, SULTAN op DELHI. Zainu'l-'abidin of Kashmir: iconoclast. 1421-1446. Active career of Jasrat Khan Ghakkar (Pan jab). Ahmad Shah Bahmani (1422-1435) founds Bidar (Deccan). MAHMI i> SHAH I, ILYAS-SHAHI OF BENC.AL : 1446, founds Gaur and Tanda. BAHLOL LODI OF DELHI. 1489-1517. SIKANDAR LODI OF DELHI. • Turks in Constantinople : Venetian monopoly of trade with the East. Rise of medieval reformers. 1469-1538. Guru Nanak (Sikhs). 1479. Vallabha (Hindu Vaishnava). 1480-1518. Kabir (North India). 1485-1527. Chaitanya (Bengal). Rise of the Five Shahi Dynasties of the Deccan. 1485-1588, Ima'd of Bcrar. 1490-1595. Nizam of Ahmadnagar. 1490-1661. 'Adil of Bijapur. 1492-1609. Barid of Bidar. 1512-1672. Kutab of Golkonda. Voyage of Vasco da Gama to India. 1500. First Portuguese settlement (Calicut). Portuguese power at its zenith under Affonso D'Albuquerque. 1509-1530. KRISHNADEVA RAYA OF VIJAYANAGAR.

MODERN INDIA FROM 1526. MUCHALS AT AGRA : 1526-1556. SUR AFGHANS AT DELHI: 1539-1555.

1526-1530

1530-1556

1539-1545 1542

BABAR. 1526. Battle of Panipat : first use of field guns in India. Holocausts- of Rajput women (jauhar) : 1528, Chanderi : 1532, Raisin : 1567 Chitor: 1757, Bobili (Vizagapatam). HUMAYUN (intermittently). SHER SHAH SUR. Father of modern Indian administration. Francois Xavier, first Jesuit missionary to Goa.

MUGHAL EMPIRE : 1556-1774.

1556-1605 1565 1600

1595-1599 1602-1761 1605-1628 1612 1615

1620 1628-1658

1640-1690

1658-1707 1659

1697 1702-1708 1706

1707 1710-1739

I7U-I759

1733-1739 1749-1761

I75I-I767

1756 I759-I76I

AKBAR. 1573. Marries Jodhbai of Marwar (Hindu). 1575-1589. Todar Mai : financial administrator. 1576 Foundation of Fatehpur Sikri. Battle of Talikota : fall of Vijayanagar Empire. 1578. Rise of Wodeyar Dynasty of Mysore. Queen Elizabeth's Charter to the London East India Company. 1608. Factory at Surat. 1617. Scottish E. I. Company. First Dutch voyage to the South Seas. 1605. Factories in India. Struggles between various foreign East India Companies. JAHANGIR. 1611. Marries Nurjahan. Danish E. I. Company. 1616. Factory at Tranquebar. French E. I. Company. 1664. Compagnie des Indes. 1667, in Cochin : 1674 -in Pondicherry. Sahuji Bhonsla : commencement of Maratha power. SHAHJAHAN. 1631. Death of Mumtaz Mahal. 1632-1645. The Taj at Agr»in her memory. Foundations of English power : 1640, Madras : 1645, Imperial patent to trade ; 1665, Bombay : 1690, Calcutta. AURANGZEB 'ALAMGIR. Persecution of Hindus. Sivaji Bhonsla: extension of Maratha power. 1664. Assumes royal titles. 1677. Levies chauth (Maratha indemnity cess). European piracy in the Indian Ocean. 1718. Rise of the Angria pirates (Bombay). United E. I. Co. 1714-1727. Austrian Ostend Co. 1731. Swedish E. I. Co. First Protestant missionaries : Danes in Tranquebar. 1726. First British mission, Madras. Rajput League against the Mnghals • rise of the Maratha Confederacy. Break up of the Mughal Empire. Local Muhammadan powers. 1710. Nawabs of the Carnatic (Arcot, Madras). 1712. Savvids of Barha ("the king-makers", Hindustan). 1713. Nizams of Haidarabad. 1724. Nawabs of Oudh. 1727. Rohilla Afghans. 1739. Nawabs of Bengal. Maratha States. 1714. Peshwas of Poona. 1727. Gaikwars of Baroda. 1732- Holkars of Indore. 1739. Bhonslas of Nagpur. 1759. Sindhias of Gwalior. Nadir Shah : sack of Delhi. Haidar 'Ali of Mysore. 1756. Ahmad Shah Abdali • sack of Delhi. 1761. His defeat of the Marathas at Panipat. Clivc's Indian career. 1751. Defence of Arcot. 1757. Battle of Plassey. 1764. Government and reforms : battle of Buxar (Hector Munro). Capture of Calcutta by Suraju'ddaula, Nawab of Bengal : the Black Hole. Destruction of French power in India (Eyre Coote). 1765. Rise of the French military adventurers. 1767. Gurkhas overrun Nepal.

EAST INDIA COMPANY'S RULE : GOVERNORS- GENERAL : 1774-1858.

1774-1785 1786-1793

1798-1805 1803

1807-1813

1814-1816 1816-1818 1823-1828 1828-1835

1836-1842

18.12-1844 1844-1848

1848-1856

WARREN HASTINGS. 1788-1795. Trial. 1782-1799. Tipu Sahib (Sultan) ot Myaore. LORD CORNWALI.IS. 1787. Overland communication with Europe. 1793. Per- manent revenue settlement, Bengal. LORD WELI.ESLEY. 1798-1839. Ranjit Singh : Sikh power in the Panjab. Victories cinsolidate British power. Lake at Delhi and Laswari : Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) at Assaye, Asirgarh, ami Argaon : Harcourt at Cuttack : Woodington at Baroda : Monson at Aligarh. 1804. I.ake at Dig 1 1 ' LORD MINTO. 1808. Napoleon's designs on India: the "Russian scare" com- mences. 1809. Treaty of Amritsar (Ranjit Singh). Nepal campaign : Gurkhas enlist in British Annv. Maratha, Rohilla and Pindhari (freebooters from 1812) Canij ai«n : battle of Kirki. LORD AMHERST. 1824-1826. First Burma War : Arakan and Tenasserim annexed. LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 1829. Suppression of the Thags (highwaymen) and s.iti (widow-burning) : 1830, of female infanticide. LORD AUCKLAND. "Doctrine of Lapse" enforced against childless Native Rulers. States annexed. 1838-1842. First Afghan War. LORD ELI.ENBOROUGH. 1843. Battle of Miani : annexation of Sind. 1844. War with Sirulhia : battles of Maharajpur and Panniar. LORD HARDIM.K. 1845-1849. Sikh War : 1845, battles of Mudki and Firozshah ; 1846, Aliwal and Sobraon ; 1849, Chilianwala and Gujrat : annexation of the Panjab. LORD DAi.nm MI . "Doctrine of Lapse" continued : more States annexed. 1852. Second Burmese War : annexation of Pegu. 1856. Annexation of Oudh.

1856-1862 1864-1869 1876-1880 1884-1888

1899-1905 1910-1916

1917 1916-1921

1926-1931 1931

LORD CANNING. 1857-1859. The Mutiny and its suppression : 1859. Rewaius to Sikh and other chiefs for services. 1862. End of "Doctrine of Lapse". LORD LAWRENCE. 1864. Bhutan War. 1867. Abyssinian War. 1868. Hazara Campaign. Lottn LYTTON. 1877. Proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India at Delhi. 1878-1880. Second Afghan War. LORD DIIFFERIN. 1885-1889. Third Burmese War: annexation of Burma. 1885. National Congress started. LORD CURZON. Partition of Bengal. Tibet expedition. LORD HARDINGE. 1911. King George V crowned Emperor: Imperial capital at Delhi. Expe-Iilion to Mesopotamia. LORD CHELMSFORD. 1917. Mr. Montagu's announcement. 1921. New constitution, inaugurated. LORD IRWIN. Much political unrest. 1930. Simon Commission report published. LORD WII.LINGDON.

India

123

CHAPTER III INDIA. Edited by LORD MESTON, K.C.S.I., LL.D.. etc.

PREHI STO RIC INDIA

IN dealing with India, we find ourselves considering a continent of many peoples rather than a country inhabited by a single dominant nation. This continent has been occupied in succession by many alien races, which have immigrated from outside from time to time, and have become mingled into a genera' population, consisting of many elements, traces of which are to be found to-day all over the land. One

Painted specially for this work.]

THE DAWN OF LIFE— BUILDING A HOME.

The earliest Inhabitants of India appear as small, black, curly-haired, nomadic savages, entirely naked, or habited in short leaf skirts and ornaments made of natural objects. They lived in leaf shelters and obtained their living from roots, seeds and fruits, and killed small birds, animals and fish, which they secured by means of spears, arrows and adzes tipped with teeth and flakes of hard natural materials. They could swim and climb well, and got about the jungle with the agility of monkeys.

prominent result, largely owing to the physical features of the country, is that every stage of civiliza- tion is still to be observed there, from the most primitive and savage to the most highly cultivated and civilized. The immigrants have belonged to three varieties of the human race, black, yellow and fair, and are represented now by two distinct main types — "short, dark, snub-nosed and often ugly, and tall, fair, long-nosed and often handsome" — in short, refined and unrefined. The history of this mixed population, as a whole, can be best studied in five chief epochs : Prehistoric, Northern Hindu, Southern Hindu, Muhammadan Sovereignty, and British Rule.

Traces of man are to be found in India as old as elsewhere in the world, where geologists and pre- historians have been able to work, and an imagination trained in the observation of existing savages

I24

Story of the Nations

in the southerly regions of what is now the Asiatic continent, enables us sparsely to populate the country with its earliest inhabitants — short, black, curly-haired savages of good physique, scattered about in small groups and nomadic in habits. A race of this kind is now represented, in such purity as is possible at this period of the earth's history, by the Andaman Islanders.

To this population an imagination trained in the observation of another kind of savage still exist- ing on the Indian peninsular — dark, but browner, larger in build, but comely, stronger, snub-nosed, broad-faced, long-haired — shows us tribes introducing themselves from somewhere, perhaps from regions no longer to be traced on the earth's surface. These were not higher in the scale of civilization, nor had they a better capacity for mental expansion. But their strength was sufficient to let them gradually

Painted s/ieciallu for this work.]

THE EARLY MORNING OF LIFE— THE DAILY BREAD.

The earliest Indian savages were gradually ousted by another pace of the same general civilization. Hut these were long- haired and comely, though snub-nosed and broad-faced, and browner, stronger and larger than their predecessors. Their descendants still live on in difficult isolated localities in the same low scale of civilization. They were driven out of the better lands by Dravidian races of the same general physical type, but endowed with a high capacity for mental development. The Dravidians now occupy all Southern India as u highly civilized race.

supersede the aborigines and to take their place generally on the Indian continent. For the present purpose we may call them the Kolarians.

Time that can only be measured geologically — that is, by changes in the earth's surface — must be reckoned with before we can proceed further, and we must imagine that India has assumed its present general geographical shape : an isolated land surrounded by wide seas and immense mountains penetrable practically only on the north-west and north-east. But we must not conceive the India of the time as that of to-day. The great rivers did not then run in their present courses. Even up to comparatively modern times there was an important river, now lost, which watered the present great arid desert of Rajputana and Sind. Right across the middle of the peninsula there was a mighty barrier of hills and dense jungle, intersected by large rivers, which divided the north from the south,

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Story of the Nations

and it was so important that in later Hindu times it had definite recognition and a name, Mahakantara (the Great Forest).

Into this land there migrated from somewhere, perhaps from the north, perhaps from now submerged tracts, another race of similar general physical type to the last, but with the crucial difference of possess- ing a capacity for high mental development. This race, for which the usual name Dravidian may be conveniently adopted, spread itself everywhere, and as surely by degrees ousted the Kolarians as they had removed the black aborigines, leaving them only the more inaccessible regions as their portion. They became a very different people, and were the barbarians, the demon and monkey tribes of the

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ARYANS SETTLING IN INDIA.

The primitive Aryans settled wherever they went in stockaded villages, leading a simple agricultural lilt-. Milk \vus their principal beverage, and open-air sacrifice, performed by the men to the singing of hymns, formed their chief religious rite, in which the women had no part. In time they intermarried with the older inhabitant" and propagated the mixed darker-skinned race which covers most of Upper India to-day.

records and legends of the later invaders. This view of them, however, does not mean that they were inferior in civilization to those who thus "miscalled" them.

At some time in the far-away days the Dravidians were themselves, by a slow process still to be observed on the north-eastern frontiers, troubled by a great irruption from the north by waves of a yellow race from the uplands of what is now Western China, which had spread itself over the whole of Further India and the Himalayan Mountains. This race was broad of nose and face, long-haired, short and sturdy, and of equal mental capacity and general civilization. But they did not get far beyond the north-east of their new country, the modern Assam and Bengal, where they mingled with the population and considerably affected it.

Long ago, somewhere in the Europeo-Asiatic Continent, there dwelt, in the dim ages of the past, a tall, fair, long-nosed, long-haired people of refined features and of a commanding capacity for mental development. They split up and migrated into many lands in groups which formed the bases ol leading

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nations of the present day. A great branch of this race was further divided into two portions, of which- one occupied the modern Persia, and is now represented in India, under a very much later immigration, by an isolated and numerically insignificant, but financially powerful, race, the Parsis. The other found its way to the Indus and across into India. But by the time it had done this it had a civilization equal to that of the Dravidians, and a considerably developed religious system, consisting of worship of ancestors and the dead, combined with that of personified divinities, representing natural phenomena, and aspects of life. These gods they propitiated by prayer and sacrifice, with an established ritual and hvmns.

.- . i i1

Painted spiritilltt for tins u-ork.]

A HERMIT IN TIMES BEYOXL) DATES.

Tapas, or penance by heat, i.e. austerity of life, finds a place in the Rigvcda, the curliest collection of Aryan hymns. In Intel Jays, of which, however, the history is still traditional, society and religion considerably developed, and the value placed on austerity greatly increased, bringing about the advent of the hermit. He was usually a man advanced in years, who led an idle. ascetic life of contemplation near a shrine on the outskirts of his native village and was kept In rude comfort by the younger eeneration.

Slowly and surely they lought their way, mingling with the people already in possession,. until they dominated the whole peninsula, except the extreme south, to which the political supremacy of the Uravidians was eventually restricted, though after an immense struggle they succumbed to the religious and domestic institutions of the aliens, and are now amongst their staunches! supporters This conquering and pervading race, which we may style the Aryans, called the plains in the northern portion of country, which they occupied politically, Aryavarta (the Aryan territory) after their own title for themselves. This region was long ages afterwards called by the Muhammadans, Hindustan, or the land of the Hindus. The country to the southwards, that is, the central forests and hills, the Aryan immigrants called Uakshina (the land on the right hand), because of its situation during their onward progress. It is now the Deccan (Dakhan). The extreme south always remained to them Dravida (the Dravidians' land), now roughly the Madras Presidency. The Brahmanic, or priestly, religion they set

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up has been called Hinduism, of which Jainism and Buddhism were great reformations, and the history of India, until the Muhammadan domination twelve hundred years after Christ, is the story of the doings of its followers, the Hindus.

UNDATED HISTORY

WE have now, in say 2000 B.C., an intelligent military and pastoral-agricultural nation, consisting of tribes under chiefs, established be- yond the Indus amongst t he natives, leading a simple family life, and earnestly following its religion. Their chief rite was open-air sacri. fice without temples or images, and at their sacrifices they sang or re- cited hymns. They were divided into three classes : warriors, priests, and agriculturists. The influence of the priest (Brahman) tended con- stantly to increase, owing to super- stition, until it overwhelmed the rest. The priests were organized in three orders : sacrificer, singer and worker, and there were schools for educating each. It was this education for a set purpose that led to that social predominance of the Brahman which has lasted to the present day. Collections of hymns, believed to be revelations to inspired singers, were com- mitted to memory in the Brahman schools, and formed, about 1250 B.C., the Rigveda (science of praise) the lasting value of which is that the allusions in it enable us to put together the whole life of the people, intellectual and social. In the Rigveda a late hymn assigns a separate divine origin to each of the three categories of the Ayran invaders : to the Brahmans or priests, the Kshatriyas or warriors, the Vaisyas or the people (agriculturists and traders). A similar origin was also provided for a fourth category, the Sudras, native servants or aborigines. This division of the social organization under a divine sanction was long afterwards further developed by confining the Rigveda to the priesthood and dedicating a veda, or science, to each of the other two Aryan classes • the Sdmaveda (science of chants) for the warriors, and the Yajurveda (science of sacrifice) to the people. To these, much later towards dated historical times, was gradually added a fourth, the Atharvaveda (science of ritual) for the non-Aryan servile and unattached native population. Thus were the foundations laid for the system of caste that so greatly

I'ainifd specitillll fur //i/s irork.]

AN EXHORTATION BY MAHAVIRA. THE JINA, 560 U.O. Varilhamana .Mahavira was born in 599 n.o. and died in 527, spending nis lite in promoting Jainism, a reform of the ancient Brahmanism that has lasted to the present day. He grave an extreme sanctity to life in any shape, endowed everything observable with a living soul, anil exacted the severest asceticism even to entire nakedness (difjambara, sky-clad).

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THE LAST DAYS OF BUDDHA'S TEACHING, 489 B.C. Buddha died in 483, aged eighty years, preaching his doctrines to the end. These differed greatly from the teaching of Mahavira and the Jains. He built up his theory of life without a soul, and taught that release from the consequences of evil deeds was obtainable by an ascetic rectitude of life.

distinguishes India from the rest of the world. Even in the days of the Rigveda the rudiments of certain ideas appear which have dominated Hindu life ever since : of a supreme lord who is behind the gods and divinities, of aus- terity of life, and of burning the dead as a development of sacrifice.

The Aryan immigrants have imposed themselves on the abori- ginal natives in exactly the same way through all time, more by the activities of the priest than by the exertions of the warrior, more by absorption than by conquest. This method of obtaining command was so slow that their supremacy synchronized with the development of themselves, and by the time they

had obtained the social control of Aryavarta they had mingled with the population and had become the Hindus — the natives, the inhabitants of the soil, a people far removed from their ancestors from the West. Beyond the warrior marched the priest, turning the gods of the aborigines into representa- tives of the Aryan theocracy and assimilating their practices, while he taught them his own. Thus sprang up the old Brahmanic faith, a blend of specially developed aboriginal Western ideas with those of aboriginal India. The progress of the priest furthered the principle of caste. Once the idea of divine origin for each separate community and mode of life had taken root, it developed comparatively quickly, as new tribes were taken into the fold, new occupations arose, and difficulty of communication

this necessitated the erection of in a certain social isolation, until Hindu India became an agglomer- ate of small local societies, at the head of which the Brahman every- where managed to remain in his own infinite divisions. It is this individual isolation of the Hindu communities, while dwelling to- gether politically and following a common form of religion, that has prevented them from combining against the outsider and made them the prey of successive in- vaders. They have not succumbed through inferiority of intelligence or fighting capacity.

In the long process of spread- ing over the land the Indo-Aryans had developed in civilisation pari passn with the Western peoples of the same general descent. They had raised up kingdoms, domesticated the useful animals,

between distant congeners made them strangers to each other. All new castes and new subdivisions of castes, each living alone

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I'HASENAJIT OF KOSALA (OUDH) PAYS A VISIT, 520 B.C. The seen, of Buddha's labours as a preacher was largely laid in Magadha (Southern Bihar), between which and Kosala there was ii hit I IT family feud, in which Prasenajit, King of Kosalu, was eventually worsted. One of Buddha's early triumphs was the winning over of Prasenajit, who paid him a ceremonial visit that baa become famous in Buddhist story.

'///>/ /or this work.]

AJATASATTU OF MAGADHA MAKES A MIDNIGHT CALL, 495 B.C.

The cause of the quarrel between Ajatasattu of Magadha and Prasenajit of Kosala was that Ajatasattu had slowly poisoned his father Bimbisara, one of whose wives was the sister of Prasenajit. Ajatasattu was ultimately pardoned by Prasenajit, who gave him his daughter to wife. His crime, however, weighed on his mind, and he could not sleep, so he visited Buddha at midnight with a great procession of elephants, accompanied by only one male attendant and a great retinue of women, in order to obtain 1 1 lief of conscience.

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including elephants, contrived wheeled conveyances, set up constant communications by paths through hill and forest, reached the ocean, raised up a large trade with the West both by land and sea, become wealthy, and had learned the use of the precious metals and money and the arts of architecture in stone and brick and of writing — though this last for want of suitable materials came late to them for the purposes of literature. The intellectual advance was marked by an increase in the power of the Brahman priest as the interpreter and even controller of the will of the gods. It was the age of priest-governed sacrifices. Those at coronations, at assumption of supreme authority, at times of great stress (human sacrifice, actual or by substitute), became general public functions. The social progress was in the direction of the patriarchal authority, and women became inferior and men ate apart.

By 1000 B.C. religion had greatly developed. There came into the mental conceptions a personal Creator and a mysterious universal soul beyond all else. The old gods had become generally forgotten, while Siva, the mountain and mundane god, and Vishnu, the heavenly sun-god, came to the front. The value placed on austerity brought about the advent of the hermits. These were always ascetic idlers, secluded wanderers and mendicants, the monks and even nuns of India. Some of them conceived and taught by precept the doctrine of harmlessness, sometimes even then carried very far : destroying nothing that lived, not even the twig of a tree. The VMas and their traditional interpretation were now handed down by heart from generation to generation with extraordinary verbal accuracy in great priestly schools, which in time multiplied and specialized. Through one of these every Brahman priest

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ANATIIAI'IXnAK.VS CHEAT ACT OK CHARITY, 183 H.C.

One ill liiiililhn's chief haunts was the .Matanti, the Harden nf I'riner .Ma uf Sravasti. ami amongst his prominent supporters \vas the princely merchant Anathapimluku. After Huddha's deat h he bought the Jetavana fur as much bullion as could he spread over it, dedicated it for a monastery of the new order of monks instituted hy Kuddha. and built within it two shrines, (iandakuti and Kosambakuti, famous in Buddhist story. The scene of the dedication hy libation uutl purchase with ingots ol metal is ;?. favourite one in ancient Ifuddhist sculpture.

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•

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PORUS AWAITS THE ATTACK OF ALEXANDER. JULY 326 B.C.

When Alexander invaded the Panjab, he was vigorously resisted by a skilful commander known to European history as Pome. He had a powerful army, and was held in great respect by Alexander. But by movements conducted with extraordinary skill Alexander manoeuvred him into a position between the Hydaspes (Jhelum) and some low hills in which his force became Immobile — long lines of elephants and infantry in the centre, chariots and cavalry on each flank. Alexander attacked the flanks with cavalry, throwing the whole force into confusion, and the elephants became unmanageable. The appearance of the Indian force to the Greeks was that of a walled city, with the elephants as the turrets.

had to pass. This made them study language as a science and created for each school an oral tradition (Brahmana) , now embodied in a tedious, uninteresting literature, except for the light it throws on manners and superstitions.

The schools began to philosophize, but never really got beyond inquiry. Nevertheless, they set up doctrines. This world is an illusion. The one reality is the Absolute, unchanging, inert, unknowable. The varying fortunes of individual men were explained by the transmigration and reincarnation of personal souls expiating the action of former lives, with a final release at last by reabsorption into the universal soul. So the merit of actionless, ascetic life in this world became the passport to release from rebirth. The necessity of oft-recurring rebirth before sufficient merit can be accumulated to obtain release led to the idea of the cyclic destruction and recreation of the whole earth. Out of this grew the conception of the Four Ages, of which the present is of course the fourth. And through it all the Brahman priest was the divine interpreter to all the rest of the Indo-Aryans, initiating them into Hinduism and all its rights by an act of spiritual birth, of which the devotional threads over the left shoulder are to this day the outward sign, whence all representatives of the three original Aryan orders of society are "twice-born". The initiation in the case of girls, for whom no education was provided, was represented by marriage, and this interpretation of marriage led to the ideas that affected Hindu life ever afterwards. Girls were married, that is, initiated, while very young, before puberty, a custom which brought about child-marriage of both sexes, and only the child- less widows could remarry, that is, undergo true initiation, though later on even this was prohibited in

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A FEAT OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 326 B.C.

Alexander the Great was as brave as he was capable, and on his return from India in 326 B.C. he was strongly opposed by the Malloi (Malava) on the Indus. He was the first to scale their fort. The ladder broke, and for a time he was fighting alone, "a magni- ficent figure", on the wall. He soon leapt down into the citadel, fighting at bay, and was severely wounded.

(systematic enumeration), which was "godless", in that it referred everything to Nature.

The whole social fabric was then in the hands of the Brahmans, and this naturally produced sturdy opponents. Among these there stand out two of noble birth, whose work has survived ever since ; of the one in India and of the other outside it. They were contemporaries, Mahavira, the Jina (conqueror), the founder of Jainism, and Gautama, the Buddha (knower), the founder of Buddhism ; and it is because we are able to date their deaths with sufficient cer- tainty as taking place respectively in 468 and 483 B.C. that the undated history of India conies to an end. The • Brahmans carried on their religious services in Sanskrit (refined Aryan language), which was not understood by the people, who spoke one or other of the Prakrits (vulgar Aryan tongues), or another language altogether. So both the Jains and the

the case of the orthodox. Another trend- of thought, subsequently all-important, arose at this time. The Brahman taught everywhere that the God behind the gods,, the Absolute, was unknowable, and that the worship of the gods could therefore- go on unchanged, and this enabled them to gather all and sundry of the non-Aryans— the Sudras and all the wild tribes, Mlecchas, Dasyus, Hanu- mans — into their religious fold by finding places in their subordinate pan- theism for all the objects of aboriginal worship.

At first philosophies, each with its attendant cosmogony, multiplied apace, and there were many which were gradually focused into two fundamental outstanding schools. Brahman, the world-soul, be- came Atman, the universal self, and identical with the personal self. So self- knowledge was sacred knowledge and showed the way to the great release. Thus was laid in self-contemplation the foundation of the Vedanta (end of the Veda) school of metaphysics. In its- speculations the Vedanta philosophy re- cognized an intelligent creator, and it had all along an opponent, working, however, to the same end — release — in the Sankhya

ANCIENT INDIAN COINS. Reading from left to right : Punch-marked copper, 500 B.C.; Antialkidas of Baktria, 160 B.o. ; Cast copper, 450 B.O. ; Ujjayini (Ujain), 250 B.C. ; Kanerkes (Kanishka the Kushan), A.D. 100 ; Ayodhya, Oudh, 100 B.C. ; Andragoras of Parthia, 300 B.C. ; Eukratides of Uaktria and India, 170 B.C. : Euthydemus of Baktria, 220 B.C.

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Buddhists taught in one of the ordinary Aryan dialects of the day, which, however, in its turn long afterwards became sacerdotally fixed and as unintelligible to the people as Sanskrit itself. Their teachings are phases of the old Indian philosophies and constituted Reformations of the ancient Brahmanism. The prominent points in the Jain philosophy are the extreme sanctity of life, the endowment of everything observable with a living soul, and the severest ascetic simplicity, even to the extent of being entirely naked (digambara, sky-clad). The Buddhists, on the contrary, built up their theory of life without a soul and thought that release was attainable by a mildly ascetic rectitude of life. Throughout the Indian

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CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA ENTERTAINS HIS BRIDE FROM BABYLON, 303 B.C.

The first great empire in India, the Mauryan, was founded by Chandragupta, a rebel relative of the preceding Nanda Dynasty, who had been a fugitive in Alexander's camp. There he learnt the arts of creating and commanding a large army. In 305 Seleukos Nikator of Syria (Babylon), one of Alexander's generals, then creating his immense Asiatic empire, attacked India. After a protracted struggle with Chandragupta, peace was made, and a Greek narrative has been (doubtfully) interpreted a meaning that he gave a daughter in marriage to the Mauryan Emperor.

schools of thought, even the most ancient, there is much that is as noble and elevated as anything to be found elsewhere.

As in the case of the Vedas and the Brahmanas, the teaching and philosophies of the schools were handed down orally in the shape of Aranyakas for the hermit and Upanishads for the wandering monk.

These with the Vedas and Brahmanas were the Hindu Canon of Revelation. There was also a large body of other sacred productions of lesser authority, which formed the Tradition. At this time, too, minstrels repeated versified epics to the people. Of these there has come down to us the Ramayana ("concerning Rama"), relating the story of a purely human hero of Kosala (Oudh), who has since become the representative of the godhead itself, through an immense philosophic extension of the original poem.

Story of the Nations

NORTHERN HINDU INDIA

600 B.C. — A.D. IIQ3 THE DAYS BEFORE THE MAURYAN EMPIRE (60O — 321 B.C.)

AT the time when Mahavira, who was born in 540 B.C., and Buddha, who was born in 563, began to

consolidate their respective schools of philosophy, the Aryan terri- tories in India stretched eastwards from Gandhara (Peshawar) to Magadha (Southern Bihar), and southwards as far as Avanti (Malwa), with Ujjain as its chief city, which still exists under its original name. They were divided into many tribal kingdoms, con- ventionally sixteen in number, and of these three stood out promi- nently : Kosala or Oudh, Magadha or Bihar, and Avanti or Rajputana- Malwa.

In Magadha there reigned the Qi9unaga Dynasty, of which the fifth ruler, Bimbisara (543-491) enlarged his borders by marriages and founded Rajagriha (Rajgir, near Gaya), which appears so fre- quently in Buddhist legend and story. He abdicated in favour of his famous son, Ajatasattu. but this did not prevent the latter from murdering him, a crime that weighed on Ajatasattu's mind and brought about a remarkable mid- night visit to Buddha in the hope of curing the consequent sleepless- ness It also brought on a war, as a wife of Bimbisara was the sister of Prasenajit of Kosala, who attempted to avenge the wrong done to her. This was, however, the beginning of Ajatasattu's event- tual successes as a fighter, which included his marrying Prasenajit's daughter, and finally the annexa- tion of Kosala. Three important things are connected with this period : the foundation by Ajatasattu of Pataliputra or Patna as his capital, the massacre of the Sakya clan to which Buddha belonged by Prasenajit's successor, and the fixing on the since famous Buddhist site Sravasti on the Rapti, now buried in the Nepalese jungles, as the capital of the extended Magadha kingdom.

I'ainted sprcinlln t»r '/"'.< n-nrk.\

ASOK.VS KNVOY DECLARE.-* 1'EACE, L'lil H.t;. The great loss of life, want and misery caused by the war with the Kalinga- along the eastern coast of India, previous to the annexation of the country to his empire, weighed heavily on Asoka's mind for years, and he never again, during his long reign, allowed war in his territories where it could be avoided. The ill list i at ion shows the wild tribes rejoicing at the declaration of peace after the Kalinga, war.

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H7K Painter! specially for Ihia u:ork.]

ASOKA'S MISSIONARIES SET UP AN EDICT PILLAR AT LAURIYA NANDANGARH, 244 B.C.

The most important of the Mauryans and one of the three outstanding emperors in Indan history \\;is Asoka (274-237 B.C.), grandson of Chandragupta. The horrors of the Kalinga war, waged early in his reign, made him turn to the peaceful doctrines of Buddha, and by 259 he had become an emperor-monk. Before his death he had been the greatest personal distributor of missionaries ever known, and is one of the few men who have controlled the faith of a large portion of mankind. Part of his method was to set up edict pillars along highways of communication inscribed with his religious and administrative views.

While Mahavira was still young, and before Buddha had reached the zenith of his preaching, there occurred an event on the north-western borders of India which produced a permanent effect on the subsequent history of the Peninsula. Towards the end of the sixth century B.C. India was invaded by Darius the Great, ruler of the then huge Persian Empire, who annexed the rich, densely populated and prosperous Indus Valley, which thus became a Persian province. So rapid and complete was the domination that Indian archers were included in the Persian army of Xerxes that was defeated at Plataea in Greece in 479. Darius was one of the great administrators of antiquity and maintained a system of viceroys or Satraps (Kshatrapavan), who sent him a fixed annual tribute. The Indian dominion formed one of his Satrapies and produced a revenue paid in gold that was important even to him, and it was under his orders that Skylax of Karyanda in Asia Minor had made his famous and informing voyage down the Indus and along the shore of the ocean to the Red Sea. But the permanent results of contact with such an empire as that of Darius, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indus, were the establishment of a trade between India and the West, the introduction of a syllabic alphabet, and the acquirement of a knowledge of the methods by which imperial government becomes possible that sank deeply into the minds of native Indian rulers, as is shown by subsequent events.

In 361 there occurred a typically Indian change of dynasty. An illegitimate son of the last <Ji9unaga King by a Sudra woman, and therefore, in those days, a person of low origin without caste or any social position at all, usurped the throne and founded an unpopular dynasty of nine

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kings known as the Nandas, which lasted nevertheless down to 321, when it was brought to an end by a revolution placing on the throne a relative, Chandragupta, afterwards the great Mauryan Emperor.

During the days of the Nandas, however, an event happened which has become famous in all story. In 526 Alexander the Great, in the course of the most remarkable progress in the world's history, moved eastwards from Greece and invaded India by the Khaibar Pass, since so often used in history, being partly attracted thither by the reports collected in 380 by Ktesias, the Greek physician at the Persian Court, of the importance and wealth of the Nanda kings of Magadha, known to him as Nandres. After a hospitable reception at Taxila (Takshasila) , then the largest city in the north-west of India, and a great seat of Buddhistic learning, he was vigorously resisted in the difficult country between the Indus and the Bias (Hyphasis) by one of two brothers, who were known in India as the Pauravas, but are now usually called Porus. By a battle fought on tactical lines, which showed the military genius of Alexander and are even now well worth the study of soldiers, Porus was defeated and Alexandrian rule was extended to the Panjab and Sind. On Alexander's death in 323 Chandragupta's (Sandrakottos) military capacity so completely wiped out in three years all that the great Greek conqueror had done politically that Indian writers have not even mentioned his raid.

Alexander was, however, no mere raider at any period of his astonishing career, and his work had a permanent effect on India. He founded cities at important points, of which Patala (Haidarabad in Sind) is still important, constructed harbours, docks and lighthouses, and instituted surveys and

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MIIiINUA ASKS QUESTIONS, 140 1>.1 .

After the deaths of Seleukos Nikator and Asoka, the great empires they controlled broke up, and on the uorth-western frontiers of India beyond the Indus the country (Baktria and Parthia) came to be held by rulers of Greek descent. Conspicuous amongst these was Mcnandcr of Kabul, who penetrated far into Northern India and created a capital at Sagttla (Sialkot in the Panjab). He had strong leanings towards Buddhism, and his religious disputations with the great teacher Xagasenn have been preserved in a famous classic, the Milindaiiantiti, the Questions of Milinda (Menander).

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inquiries into the institutions of his newly acquired subjects. He taught statecraft on a large scale and generalship to the Indian chiefs, making known to them the European system of organizing, disciplining, arming, drilling and leading armies, and thus rendering possible the work of the great native Emperors that succeeded him in later generations. He strengthened the trade-routes and intercourse between India and the West to such an extent that the Indian and Greek art, letters, science and commerce reacted on each other, for wherever he went he was accompanied by men eminent in all these matters, and he

introduced an artistic coinage among many other invaluable things. His in- vasion was indeed even more important

.-.. \ .•'„•' •- '(?'.»- ^ : :.fet5^/"V-S**./s-;'J and beneficial to Indian life than that

' - 'ME****5I^^K'^£ ' V ^^-i/ "-V^?.-^- '• "- - T 'V.-o £si&3ws>%HK^4^&Jj£ of his great predecessor, Darius, and

marked a turning-point in the history of the Peninsula.

THE MAURYAN EMPIRE, 321-184 B.C., AND ITS SUCCESSORS TO 2J B.C.

CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA first seized Patna, then the capital of Magadha, through the agency of Chanakya, a capable Brahman and afterwards his minister, whose "A rthasastra" ("Treatise on Politics") is the most valuable document that has survived relating to the system of administration and social life of early Indian times. In twenty-four years Chandragupta, who had been a fugitive in Alexander's camp and an apt pupil indeed, made himself master of all Northern India, from Patna to Kabul, by means of a very large and thoroughly organized paid standing army, consisting of four arms — elephant and chariot corps, cavalry and infantry — maintained in fixed proportions. His forces were under defined controlling authorities, one for each arm, and two others for transport and supply and for a navy lor the great rivers.

Chandragupta has come down to us as a man of commanding capacity — stern, vigorous, alert — who lived, nevertheless, under careful guard and in daily fear of assassination, while he worked all day long at the administration of his great dominions. But, great as his achieve- ments and military organization show him to have been, the outstanding figure of his dynasty is his grandson Asoka (Asokavardhana, 274-237), a truly mighty man of the past, in war, in administra- tion and in moral character, whose beneficent sway extended over all his grandfather's empire and southwards almost to the modern Madras. He was never suzerain of quite all India, but approached as nearly to it as any subsequent ruler except the British King-Emperor. The horrors of the Kalinga war to the south at the beginning of his reign so affected his mind that he turned more and more to the peaceful doctrines of Buddhism for spiritual guidance, became the staunchest of all its royal supporters, and finally assumed the garb and vows of a monk as early as 259, holding that

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OONDOPHARNES HECEIVKS A LETTKU KKOM ST. THOMAS There arc many stories connecting the Apostle St. Thomas with India, one of whieh tells of his writing to the Indo-Parthian King Gondo- uharnes (Guduphara). who ruled at Gandhara (Peshawar) between A.D. 25 and 4.5, n letter from Syria to announce his intention of visiting India

I'ninlid sjicriiillv fur this ii-urk.,

KANISHKA INAUGURATES MAHAYANA (NORTHERN) BUDDHISM, A.D. 100.

The Kushans were one of the chief Central Asian tribes that overran the country Just beyond the frontiers of India in the eentury before rhrist, and afterwards became a ruling race in Northern India itself. The greatest of the Kiishaiis was the conqueror Kanishka JKiinerkcs of the "Greek" coins), who did such great things for Huddhism by founding the Mahayana or popular gorgeously ritualistic form of it that his fame for ages has been spread from end to end of Asia. But he destroyed the philosophic Buddhism and substituted for it a superstitious polytheistic idolatry.

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A STREET SCENE

tJl ,,*,

IN TAXILA. A.D. 260. For quite a thousand years Takshasila, better known by Us Greek name Tazila, was the greatest city in N.W. India, through Hindu and Buddhist times, from the days of Darius, 500 B.C., to at least A.D. 500. Its ruins, not far from Peshawar, are now being systematically excavated and are yielding rich archaeological results.

the chiefest conquest of all was by the Law of Duty (Dharnui). Thereafter he governed as the gracious Emperor (Piyadasi, Priva- darsin), a man of affairs, who was also a monk, working continuously every day for what he conceived to be the good of his people. The policy which has preserved his fame was the enforcement of his moral views by a wonderful series of in- scriptions on rocks and stone pillars along the ancient highways through- out his empire, some of which still exist from the Panjab and Oudh on the north, to Orissa on the east, to Mysore on the south and to Kanara and Kathiawar on the west. Kind- ness to animals, purity of life and body, with reverence, toleration and liberality even to the unpopular, were the doctrines they promulgated. But As5ka was not content with spreading his faith merely over his own wide dominions. He was the greatest personal distributor of mis- sionaries ever known. These in- cluded his own near relatives, and he sent them to the Himalayan re- gions, to the Tamils of the extreme south, to Ceylon, and to the Greek monarchies of Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia and Epirus. His monks educated everywhere, and it was on his initiative that Buddhism became one of the chief religions of the world, a position it still holds. Asoka is thus presented of the leading a large portion of

to us as one have controlled the faith of

characters of all time —one of the few men who mankind.

The Empire began to break up immediately after his death, and the Mauryan Dynasty finally disappeared in a palace revolution, when its last representative was killed by Pushyamitra £unga, his military commander, who founded the CJunga Dynasty In 72 B.C. this was ousted by the Brahman Kanvas, who in turn gave place in 27 to the Andhras of the Deccan, who, with the famous Jain King Kharavela of Kalinga on the east coast, had made themselves independent very soon after the death of Asoka. The history of this period of decay is naturally obscure, but it is clear that none of Asoka's successors ever held anything like his authority in the country.

The Mauryan civil administration was as effective as the military, and the most striking point in it is its wonderful modernity. A lingua franca for the Empire was found in Magadhi, just as another was found much later on in the still existing Hindustani, which is now being rapidly replaced by English. This fact shows that there must have been a general spread of reading and writing. There was, too, the same religious tolerance as nowadays distinguishes the British Empire in India. The supreme

India

government was centralized, but local government was often entrusted to the natural chiefs of distant parts, while the frontiers were protected by specially appointed wardens. The traditional Indian system of controlling everything by boards of five members (panchayat) was also then in full swing, and the capital, Pataliputra, had a municipality governed by six such boards. Crown land rents were the mainstay of the revenue system, and on the land were assessed water-rates according to the mode of irrigation adopted, which was under a special government department. There were also an excise system, with both on and off licences for the drinking-houses, and a host of other minute regulations for controlling the revenue and keeping order. The regulations of these times were, in fact, of the same general type as those devised under British rule at the present day ; but the laws, both civil and criminal, administered by judges and magistrates, with appeal to official censors, were enforced with infinitely greater severity ; private life was interfered with by a system of espionage which would nowadays be looked on as intolerable, and slavery of a mild kind was prevalent. All this supplies food for serious reflection. It shows that the principles of sound government never change, for the success of the Brahmanist, and subsequently Buddhist, Mauryan Empire was due to precisely the same methods of imperial rule as that which very long afterwards attended the efforts of the other two general Indian Empires — of the Muhammadan Akbar and the Christian Victoria.

In Mauryan days the caste system tended to harden and become hereditary in occupations and pro- fessions, and on the whole the people lived and dressed much as they do now, with the same fondness for jewellery. There was the same unguarded condition of house and property as now exists. There were a few very large towns, but the population was agriculturist by chief occupation, with the same liability to famine as persisted down to our own times. It contained, as now, a numerous class of clever artists in the metals and in wood and stone, and many skilful rule-of-thumb engineers. The oldest known building not of wood is the tope (stupa, mound) over relics of Buddha at Piprawa, now on the Nepalese frontier,

VIKHAMADITYA GUPTA GOES FORTH TO WAR, A.D. 395.

One of the great figures of ancient India whose fame has come down to modern times in legend and story is the Gupta KnilitTor Chandragupta II, surnamed Vikramaditya. nowadays corrupted into Bikramajit and still more popularly into Raja Bikram. His most famous exploit was a march across India, ending in the conquest of the Western Satraps of Surashtra, now known as Kachh and Gujarat.

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which dates from about 450 B.C. The railings of the Mahabodhi Temple at Buddh-Gaya, in Bihar, and of the great Sanchi Tope in Bhopal, and also Asoka's pillars, attest the skill of the mason and stone- carver in his days. The remains at Sanchi, Buddh-Gaya, Bharhut in Baghelkhand, at Amaravati on the Kistna River, are all proofs of the fact that the successors of the greater Mauryas, though small personages in comparison, were by no means of no consideration, and that, though they reverted to Hinduism, they were tolerant, perrritting those under them to become mighty

builders and workers in stone for their own faith.

The main facts of the religious beliefs of the period are that Brahmanism became crys- tallized and the influence of the Brahman caste paramount ; but the Brahmans left out of their ken large sections of the people as being beneath their ministration — a state of things that has lasted to this day. Later on, under Asoka's influence, Buddhism became the general religion, but the very popularity given to it by his missionary efforts laid the seeds of its eventual undoing ; for the creed was too cold and elevated for the public, which soon brought into it the pantheism taught by the lower class of Brahman and the cast-iron methods advocated by the Hindu thinkers of classifying, numbering and labelling all ideas. Buddhism was also powerless to prevent the ever-increasing spread of the caste system. Indeed, it was at this time that the modern Hindu images definitely assumed their appear- ance and dress and the temples their present form. The learning of the schools was still handed down orally, and this practice gave rise to the Sutras, or versified aphorisms, which have been aptly styled a sort of telegraphic code, tabloids of condensed knowledge, easily committed to memory.

In popular sacred literature the great Buddhist Canon (Tipitaka, the three baskets) was completed about 200 B.C. in the form of sermons (sutta], some of which are beautiful reading indeed, conveyed in an easy mellifluous tongue known as Pali, or the "Language of the Texts". But the Hindus.

who now stood as rivals to the Buddhists, did not lag behind, and created their six Vedangas, or members of the body of the Veda, turning the popular heroes Rama and Krishna into incarnations of Vishnu.

Meanwhile Siva, as a god, held his own as the typical ascetic, and hence arose the two great rival divisions of Hinduism, the Vaishnavas and the Saivas. There was much frank idolatry, but into it all was woven the philosophy of the Atman, or Universal Soul. In popular literature the second great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, appeared. Originally it was an heroic poem relating ancient Aryan wars between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, both descendants of Bharata of Delhi (Hastinapura), and in a supplement Krishna appears as a purely human hero. The poem in time was enormously enlarged, until it became an epitome of Hinduism, and Krishna, in a much later addition, the Bhagavadgita ("The Song of the Adorable"), appears as a fully established god.

Painted speciallu for this work.} KALIDASA INDITING THE "CLOUD MESSENGER". A. D. 375.

The most productive period of Sanskrit literature was that covered by the Gupta Empire (319-520), and the greatest of the elassieal Sanskrit poets was Kalidasa, who flourished in the days of the Gupta Emperor Vikramaditya. One of his poems, the Megluidutu (Cloud Messenger), and his famous play. Sakunlala, are still household words in India

'fd sprrtnllll lor tiny tr<trk,\

THE KHAN JAHAN SHOWS AKBAR HIS PRINCELY CAPTIVES.

In 1506 several of Akbar's near relatives, known as the Mirzas or Princes, raised a rebellion in the Punjab, which was carried on Intermitti'iitly fur some years. Husain Knli Khan, one of Akbar's gencnils. iiftrrwardH better known as Tin- Khan Jahan, captured tin- fort rf-s of Nagarkot in l."»72, and shortly afterwards took several of the Mirzas prisoners. In the following year he produced his captives dn ••.-< -il in Animals' skins, with their eyelashes fastened together, to Akbar in audience. The Emperor ordered their eyes to be opened, and treated them with great consideration.

I'ainteil

TIIK DEFEAT OF THE EPHTHAHTES, OR WHITE HUNS A.D. 528

In the fifth century, when the Central Asian hordes known as the Huns were still the- curse of Europe, auotbci body of them known as the Ephthalitea, or White Huns, were overrunning all Northern India, nnd establishing a sort of government. The last ruler, Mihiragula, was so outrageous a tyrant that a combination of the falling Gupta Dynasty and the rising Yasodhannnn ol Mahva rebelled and overthrew him in 528. He died in Kashmir in .140, and the power of the Huns disappeared for ever

N

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THE NORTHERN INVADERS AND THE KUSHAN EMPIRE (155 B.C. — A.D. 319)

WHILE the Mauryan Empire was yet at the zenith of its strength it was not left undisturbed by the rulers further west. Thus, in 305 B.C. Seleukos Nikator (the Victorious), King of Syria (Babylon), invaded India after the break-up of the Empire created by Alexander.

The envoy whom he subsequently accredited to Chandragupta's Court, Megasthenes, left a lost but invaluable account behind him, so constantly quoted by Greek and Roman authors that fortunately much of it has come down to our time. This western raid was the forerunner of long, tur- bulent days in the north and west. in comparison with which the many and great troubles caused to the dying Mauryan Empire by the Andhras on the south were as nothing.

After the death of Seleukos Nikator his huge Babylonian kingdom was upset by a revolution about 250 B.C., while Asoka was still alive. By this revolution Parthia, lying to the south- east of the Caspian Sea, and Baktria, the country between the Hindu Rush mountains and the river Oxus, came to be held by kings of Greek descent Raids on Asoka's Empire began soon after his death, and Antiokhos III. King of Syria, overran the borders as far as Kabul in 206. His example was followed by his son-in-law Demetrios, the Baktrian, in 190, who took the Panjab and Sind. Thereupon all the country west of the Bias river came to be divided up between a number of local principalities under Baktrian and Parthian rulers. One of the former, Menander of Kabul and Sialkot in the Panjab, and afterwards the celebrated Buddhist king Milinda of "The Questions", invaded India in 144 B.C., penetrating as far as Oudh to the east, and Rajputana and Kathiawar to the south. In 140 Mithridates of Parthia annexed the western Panjab to his Empire. All this caused confusion enough, but about the same time it became worse confounded by an irruption into Baktria of wild nomad tribes from Central Asia, called by the Indians the (Jakas. They, too, had rulers of their own, who overran Surashtra (Kathiawar), where they set up governors-general known to history as the C^aka Satraps. On top of all this the Yueh-chi another swarm of Central Asian nomads, swept down on Baktria and Kabul. Of these the leading clan was the Kushan, the king ol which, known to us by the Greek name of Kadphises II, made himself master of all the country on the frontier and of Northern India as far as Benares. His successor, Kanishka (succeeded about 120 A.D.), became one of the greatest of all Buddhist monarchs, and his fame rivals that of Asoka throughout all Asia north of India In the

Painted specially for fAts work.]

FA HSIEN AT THE RUINS OF ASOKA'.S PALACE, A.D. 407.

The Chinese Buddhist monk Fa Hslen was the first of a long series of monastic visitors from China to India between the fifth and eighth centuries. In 407 he visited I'ataliputra (Patna) with three followers, and has left an account of the Palace of Asoka which was then standing.

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course of a reign of thirty years he immensely extended the Kushan Empire formed by his predecessor, until it comprised Kabul and North India as far south as the Narbada river, and also Kashmir, as well as Khotan and Kashgar in Central Asia. It was this dynasty that in 78 A.D. founded the celebrated (Jaka Era, called later on the Era of Salivahana, made a general east and west trade again possible, and enriched the earth with the beautiful Gandhara sculptures. At some time in the third century the Kushan Empire came to an end : it is not yet known how or when, as the confusion then prevailing makes history and chronology very obscure.

Two important facts emerge from the general confusion. In A.D. 65 Rome had its way with the Parthian Empire and in 60 was made that voyage (preserved to us in the priceless journal, the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea) which opened up the East to Roman activity and laid the foundation of a subsequently immense trade. It is also alleged that about A.D. 34 Thomas the Apostle introduced Christianity into India in the days of the Parthian king Gondopharnes.

The religious development of the people preserved its calm and steady way in the midst of all the political tribulations. In A.D. 82 the Jains split into halves over the burning question of clothes and became the Digambaras (sky-clad), or naked, and Svetambaras, or clad in white. The Hindus worked out their six systems of orthodox philosophy, each with its school of aphorisms and commentaries thereon, the Vedanta School being the greatest. Meanwhile the Vaish- navas propounded their great theory of incarnation (avatara), which had much to do with their ultimate victory over Buddhism, as it declared Buddha to be one of the many incarnations of Vishnu, and thus it brought him and his doctrines theoretically into the Hindu fold. Buddhism itself in other ways had undergone downward changes. Images of Buddha and certain supposed predecessors were set up in shrines which the general public worshipped, however much the monks might have looked on them merely as stimulants to emotion. And then the Buddhists of the Kushan Empire under Kanishka's influence split Buddhism in two. The older Buddhist became an arhat (deserving) and so attained nirvana, but the newer one became a Bodhisattva, who, though he became entitled by sanctity of life to nirvana, remained alive as a god to help the seeker after salvation, while Buddha became a great saviour

l'«int</l specially for this work.] THE EMPEROR HARSHA PAYS HOMAGE" TO BUDDHA, A.D. 645.

One of the great figures of Ancient India in Harshavardhana, or, shortly, Harsha, of Thanesar and Xanuuj (fi06-fi48), the last Buddhist to form an Empire. Hiuen Tsiang, the Chinese traveller, describes how on a state occasion he and his heir apparent did homage to an image of Buddha.

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god. The old or humble path (Hinayana) could only appeal to the few, whereas the new or great path (Mahdyana) was open to all. It was very popular, whence Kanishka's abiding fame, and spread over all Central and Eastern Asia, though not to Ceylon nor to modern Burma, and to this day the greatest of the Bodhisattvas, Amitabha, is worshipped, as Amida, by the Japanese. But it destroyed Buddhism

as a philosophy and substituted for it a polytheistic idolatry with a gorgeous ritual and very much superstition.

The outstanding literary event of the period was the reduction of the Buddhist orthodox Scriptures (Tipiiaka) to writing in 80 B.C., and presumably at the same time of the Hindu sacred texts as well. About a century afterwards the new Mahayana Buddhist canon followed suit. The Ramdydna by additions now became a Vaishnava text, devoted to the cult of Krishna as the actual Brahman or the Absolute, and to the promulgation of the KarmaySga (performance of duties) doctrine, which united philosophic renunciation of this world with practical everyday life. At this time, too, there arose poems known as Dharmasdstras, composed of dharmasutras, or rules of behaviour for all classes. Of these the Manava Dhar>nasastra, or the Laws of Manu, took shape about 200 A.D. and became famous in all subsequent times. The momentous import of this code of law to the Hindu is that by it no widow, not even a virgin, could remarry.

THE GUPTA EMPIRE (A.D. 319 — 520)

THE political whirligig of the times now takes us back to Bihar, of which Pataliputra or Patna was then, as now, the capital, though it was shifted later to Ajudhya (Ayodhya) in Oudh. Its ruler, another great Chandragupta, laid the foundations of his fortunes by a political marriage, and crowned them by pushing his authority as far as the River Sutley in the Panjab, and thus creating the Gupta Empire. In 320 he celebrated his coronation by founding the Gupta Era. His successor, Samudragupta of the long reign (326-375), a mighty warrior, administrator and patron of letters, in the course of his many adventures, made an extraordinary raid into Southern India, which centuries later was imitated by the Muhammadan adventurer Malik Kafur. His successor, the Raja Bikram of legend, was Chandra-

/?}/ permission of] [the Secrctan/ of Hlate for India.

AN ANCIENT CORONATION.

The original, a fresco in the caves of Ajanta (Deccan). still exists in colours and was painted about A.D. 500. The upper part of the panel shows the Kiiu' on his throne being anointed with consecrated oil poured out of eurlhrn vessels, while ho touches offerings made by the Queen. Other figures in the vestibule to the hall where the King sit<= arc bringing more offerings and oil. Mendicants without arc begging for alms. Below women arc presenting heads to a priest in token of the human sacrifices made on such occasions.

frpecuilly for this work.'

THE END OF A LONG AND PROSPEROUS REIGN.

In the centuries immediately preceding the Muhammadan conquest the Chandellas of Mahoba and Khajurabu were one ot thu most powerful Rajput ruling Families. The name that has come down most prominently to modern times is that of Raja Dhanga, who ascended the throne at flf ty-five and reigned with success forty-six years. In 999, when over 100 years old, he drowned himself at the confluence of the Ganges and Jamna at Prag (Allahabad). To the Hindu this was a fitting end for a very old man after a life of prosperity, as it brought him entire salvation.

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Painted specially for this work.l

MAHMUD OF GHAZNI'S FIRST SUCCESS, A.D. 1000.

Mahmud of Qhazni in Afghanistan (997-1030) vowed a. jihad or holy war against the idolaters of India, and between 1000 and 1026 he raided Northern India fifteen times, meeting in his first expedition the forces of the frontier Rajput ruler, Jaipal Shahiya of Kabul and Lahore. In the mountains of the Khaibar Pass about Jalalabad, the scene of the disaster to the British troops in 1842 Jaipal's array was surprised by a snowstorm, which enabled Mahmud to gain his first success.

gupta Vikramaditya, another mighty man of the past (375-413), who extended his sway as far to the west as Rajputana and Kathiawar. In the reign of the fourth emperor, Kumaragupta (413-455). yet another swarm of Central Asian nomads, the Ephthalites, or White Huns (Huna), commenced their depredations and finally overcame the Dynasty by 520.

The reigns of the chief Guptas, comparable in individual length to those of the Mughal Emperors later, created a time of strong government, and literature everywhere flourished. Among the Hindus rose the Pur anas (concerning the old days), purporting to relate ancient history, but really popular sectarian works, each in favour of particular deities. Secular literature also flourished greatly, and so many enduring works on rhetoric, grammar, astronomy, romance, the drama and poetry (kavya, something inspired) were produced that this is the golden age of Sanskrit literature in the opinion of many scholars. In 454 an important literary event occurred in the completion of the canon of the Svetambara Jains.

The general peace that prevailed induced the erection of great and beautiful buildings of all sorts, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. Of the Buddhist shrines the Mahabodhi of Buddh-Gaya, and of Hindu temples Bhuvanesvara in Orissa, still survive to attest the skill and taste of the period, besides many of the most beautifully ornamented caves.

THE WHITE HUNS, AND THE LAST HINDU EMPEROR, HARSHA OF KANAUJ (A.D. 495 — 648)

THE White Hun rule did not last long in Northern India, which, while they held the supreme power

India

became a province of their immense Central Asian Empire, extending in those days from Persia to Chinese Turkestan. In 528 a combination of Indian chiefs drove out the tyrannical Hun ruler, Mihiragula, and forced him into Kashmir, where he died some years later. But this did not end the White Hun influence, for many of their tribes remained on in the Panjab and Rajputana and brought about changes which have definitely affected the population to the present day.

Then came a time of general internecine fighting and confusion until Harsha of Thanesar (Sthanesvara), in the Panjab, the son of a prominent opponent of the Huns, in so short a time as six years made himself master of Northern India from the Sutlej to Ka.thia.war and Gujarat in the west, and to Assam and Bengal in the east, fixing his capital at Kanauj, now marked by ruins on the Ganges between Cawnpore and Farukhabad, and taking his well-known titles of Harshavardhana and Siladitya. He was the last of the Hindu imperial rulers, and died in 648. There followed another period of anarchy, during which the whole country was divided into innumerable petty States, chiefly governed by Rajput rulers.

The White Huns were destroyers and pillagers, but Harsha was anything but that, and he was fortunate in having a great literary character, Bana, to write up his deeds and prowess for him. He was also visited by the celebrated Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsiang. In Indian story Harsha appears as an accomplished man of letters, as well as their munificent patron, a tireless worker, and a strong tolerant ruler.

The religious history of this time is best considered from the rise of the Guptas in 319 to the death of Harsha in 648. The Hindu literature is filled with the odium theologicum > is thoroughly sectarian, undignified and pretentious. It is chiefly marked by an attempt to popularize

Painted Sjieciitlbi for this work.

MAHMUD OF OHA/XI'S LAST SUCCESS, A.D. 1026.

During the last of his fifteen incursions into India Mahmud of Qhazui attacked the Jats on the Chenab off Mtiltan, and inflicted a crushing defeat on them just before his final return home in 1020. He organized a huge fleet of boats armed with iron s]. ike- on bow and sides and filled with archers who, in addition to bows and arrows, carried vessels of naphtha. The Jats acted on the defensive and their fleet was soon broken up and burnt.

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Painted speciaUu for this work.}

SANKARACHARYA TALKS OF THE ONE GOD, A.D. 815.

After the beginning of the eighth century, Hinduism became deeply affected by a long series of popular reformers. The most learned of these was Sankaracharya, whose doctrines of a single impersonal deity and the unreality of this world have guided the philosophic thought of many educated Hindus ever since.

Burma, Siam, and Java, and through the continent ment, whose memory is, in consequence, still green in those regions. The great Nalanda School of Buddhism in Bihar was founded in the sixth century, and produced a long array of important scholars. This period was an opportunity for Jainism, and its comparative purity of precept and practice gave it that hold on the thoughtful mercantile classes which it has never since lost.

THE RULE OF THE RAJPUT CLANS (A.D. 648—987)

TAKEN all round, the people now known as the Rajputs (sons of the chiefs) are not of Aryan origin, but of various descent, generally foreign, though sometimes aboriginal ; for during the many invasions a great number of miscellaneous tribes from the north and west had settled in India, each with its ruling family and its "people", and thus were set up clans held together by a highly developed sense of chivalry. The same process has gone on in the case of the more closely knit and powerful of the aboriginal tribes. By the seventh century all these had become thoroughly Hinduized and had adopted the Hindu law of right conduct (dharma). So the ruling families were taken into the Aryan Hindu fold and became Kshatnyas, while the "people" followed in a gradation of castes beneath them.

the theory of the three-fold form of the Absolute in the person of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer ; but it was never really grasped by the people. At this time, also, the cult of Krishna as a god came into promi- nence at Mathura, with all the sensuousness involved in the legends of his heroic and amorous exploits as a man, which were elaborated to capture the masses. It gave rise afterwards in the tenth century to two influential popular works, the rhapsodical "Bhagavata Purana" ("Ancient History of the Adorable") and the erotic "Gita Govinda" ("Song of the Cowherd or Krishna").

Generally speaking, both Hinduism and Buddhism steadily became coarser and ap- proached each other ; but the latter, both in its pure and debased form, was widely spread t>y Devoted missionaries east and south to of Asia to Japan under Harsha's encoura<*e-

Paintcd specially for tfi is work, j

KIRTIVARMAN CHANDELLA VISITS 111-i TKMPLE

AT 1CHAJUKAHU, A.D. 1065.

The sacred place of the great Chandella clan of Rajputs was Khajurahu in Central India. It was the delight of their rulers to beautify it with a series of splendidly carved and ornamented temples; that of Kirtivarman Chandella (1055- 1100), a mighty prince in his day, to the Hindu god Kaudariya Mahadeva, is one of the finest.

••• 7

I'aiittctl specially for this wwfc.l

RAMANUJA CONTEMPLATING HIS PHILOSOPHY OF THE ONE PERSONAL GOD, A.D. 1100. The doi'tilncs of the reformer Sankaracharya held undisputed sway over India for throe centuries until the rise of another great Vnishimva teacher, liaumimja (1070-1127), also a South Indian. He toned down his predecessor's philosophy by preaching a mod'fled inunimn (visishthadvaita) which became very popular, and practically brought about the still prevalent worship of n - personal God (Vishnu) in combination with that of images.

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The number of petty tribal states created by the Rajputs, some of which have survived to the present day, was very great, but only a few were able to enlarge their boundaries to any extent. Thus there were still Guptas in Bihar in the seventh century. At the beginning of the ninth the Palas of Bengal held sway also over Bihar, and had Oudh in their power, while towards the end of it the Parihars of K a n a u j (Panchala) on the Ganges set up an empire for a time of almost the same extent as Harsha's. The Chandellas of Jejakabhukti (Bundelkhand) and the Kalachuris of Chedi, to the south of the Kanauj kingdom and the Jumna river, were important general ruling races about A.D. 1000, when the Muhammadan irruptions seriously began to affect Hindu India.

THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUESTS (A.D. 987—1193)

As far back as 712, and within a century of the death of Muhammad, the Arabs had invaded Sind from Mekran along the shores of the Indian Ocean, and overthrown the ruler and established a Muhammadan kingdom there. Nearly three cen- turies later, in 987, Amir Sabuktigin of Ghazni in Afghanistan originally a slave, began to raid the Panjab, invading the territory of Jaipal of Lahore, and after varying fortunes of war a great combination of Rajput chiefs was routed somewhere in the mountains of the Khaibar Pass. In 997 Sabuktigin died, and his son, the famous Mahmud of Ghazni, the first Musalman chief to take the title of Sultan, vowed a holy war (jihad) against the idolaters of India, and invaded it some fifteen times between A.D. 1000 and 1026. He died in 1030, having retained only the province of Lahore out of all the regions he had overrun. His dynasty lasted on after a fashion till the last unworthy representative was expelled from Lahore in 1186 by Shahabu'ddin of Ghor, near Herat, also known to history as Muhammad-bin-Sam and Sultan Mu'izzu'ddin, under whom the Muhammadan conquest of Northern India was effected in 1193. It is a mistake to suppose that Mahmud of Ghazni was merely a wild, ruthless destroyer. Fanaticism and greed no doubt induced him to raid, but he lived a magnificent life, was a great builder, and a noted entertainer of Muhammadan poets and men of learning. To his munificence in this direction Persian epic poetry owes the 'Shahnama" ("Story of the Kings") of Firdusi, and Orientalists the important "Memoir on India" of Albiruni, the mathematician and astronomer, who accompanied him in his Indian expeditions.

At his death all India east of the Panjab was still Hindu, and for the century and a half ot peace irom without between that event and the advent of Shahabu'ddin Ghori, it was ruled as before by Rajput

fainted specially for thie work.'i

WORSHIP AT KARLI IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST A.D 20. One of the finest Buddhist Cave Shrines eyer erected in India is that of K-i r'i between Poona and Bombay on the top of the Bhor Ghat mountains separating the Dcccan plateau from the Konkan plains on the sea-coast. It dates from the second century B.C. and is in excellent preservation. It has a most remarkable roof of wooden beams still in good order under the real roof of natural rock.

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chiefs, who lived in fine palaces with splendidly appointed Courts, built large and beautiful temples, and entertained men of Hindu letters and learning, laid the foundations of the vernacular literatures by encouraging bards, and fought one another endlessly. Of these Bhoja, the Pawar of Dhara in Malwa, Jaichand (Jayacchandra), the Gaharwar of Kanauj, and the warlike Chauhan, Prithiviraja (Rai Pith5ra) of Delhi and Ajmer, have become famous in legend ; the first as the model ruler and patron of Sanskrit literature and the two latter for their stand against the invaders. Anangapala, the Tomara of Delhi, in 736, built the temple there, out of which the Mosque near the famous Kutab Minar was afterwards constructed by the Musalmans. The Palas of Bengal remained Buddhists at Munger and Bihar till the last days of their rule, and sent missionaries into Tibet to try to purify their faith as followed in that country.

The death of Harsha in 648 marked a great change in the religion of the Hindus. Buddhism began to disappear in India and to make way for the modern Hinduism, which differs much from the old original Brahmanism. The ancient sacrifices were replaced by worship at the temples and festivals celebrated in private houses, and many new divinities from aboriginal sources were absorbed from the new castes, along with processions, shows and dramatic representations. Siva and Vishnu still remained supreme, and their worship had many points in common, but with this difference, Siva was now generally represented by the phallic emblem and Vishnu by images. A new theory had, however, by this time been introduced. The gods came to be looked on as inaccessible, and each to be represented by his sakti (energy) or wife, who acted for him, and was approachable by mankind. This gave rise to a new sect, the Saktas, which soon divided into two groups, called the right and left hand who, respectively in a respectable and an immoral manner, worshipped Kali as the emanation of Siva of the phallic emblem. Their manuals were called tantra (the looms), and the Tantrika Schools thus set up spread widely, especially in Tibet, where they still exist.

Concurrently with all this, the doctrine of bhakti or taith made great strides, and was the

Painferl SftccinUi/ for tin'* trork.

THE LAST STAND OF THE RAJPUTS AGAINST THE MUHA.MMADANS IN 111)-.' A.I)

1'rithivirai (Raj Pithora) of Ajmer and Delhi, the greatest warrior among the Rajput chiefs and hero of the escapade with Raja Jaichand's daughter at Kanauj in 1175, met the conqueror Muhammad Ghori twice at Tarain, near Thancsar. In the Panjab. In 1191 he defeated and wounded Muhammad Ghori. who. however returned in 1192 and utterly routed, captured and executed him.

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foundation of the disputations of ascetic reforming Acharyas, or spiritual guides, who appeared about A.D. 700 as the heads of schools of thought. Their procedure was to comment on the old sacred books relating to revelation and tradition. The greatest of them was Sankara (Sankaracharya, 780-820), who commented on the Vedanta philosophy, teaching to the effect that this system advocated an unqualified monism (advaita], while at the same time he accepted the doctrine of the incarnations of Vishnu. In this way the worship of a single personal God was combined with that of images. His doctrine prevailed until noo, when Ramanuja, a great teacher of the South, challenged it, and produced a modified monism, together with the doctrines of faith and surrender to God

Painifd speciallti for this work,}

ARRIVAL OF THE JEWISH PILGRIMS AT COCHIN, A.D. 68.

Jewish refugees settled along the Western coasts of India at various early dates, mostly traditional. The largo Jewish colonies at Cochin and elsewhere on the Malabar or Western coast of South India claim an origin in the migration of 10,000 families in A.D. 68 direct from Palestine itself, during the troubles which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jews under the Roman Emperor Vespasian.

The temples, such as Hindu at Khajurahu and Jain at Mount Abu, raised at this period were splendid and elaborately decorated with sculptures, but occasionally these were very indecent. The main social outcome of the times was the burning of widows with the bodies of their husbands. Such widows became sati (suttee), or holy women, a term commonly applied to this form of suicide itself.

SOUTHERN HINDU INDIA

IOOO B.C. — A.D. 1563 BEFORE THE ARYAN DOMINATION (lOOO — 232 B.C.)

SOUTHERN INDIA, as distinguished from the Northern, may be said to commence with the Narbada river as its Northern boundary, but it has always consisted of two main divisions : the Deccan (Dakhan),

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Story of the Nations

Painted specially for this work.}

CUTTING AN INSCRIPTION AT VATAPI, A.D. 578.

Mangalisvara Chalukhya caused a well-known in- scription to be cut in 578 on a pilaster in the veranda of one ot the famous caves at Badarai.

colonizing. The Aryan immigrants brought their religions of the day with them : the old Brahman- ism, and then, in due course, Buddhism and Jainism. These by de- grees so entirely super- seded the original faith of the Dravidians that it disappeared altogether in the case of the edu- cated classes. However, what the Dravidian faith originally was is still apparent in the ubiqui- tous "devil-worship" of the uneducated in the south, which is primitive Animism, or belief in spirits that can harm and hence have to be pro- pitiated by ceremonies, in which ecstatic dancing

which meant "the South" to the Aryans, extending as far as the Krishna river, and the real South beyond that boundary to Cape Comorin (Kumari, Kumari). In the days before dates the whole country was held by powerful Dravidian tribes of much civilization of their own, and for historical purposes it must be further divided up : the Deccan into Maharashtra, Maratha Land, on the west, and Telingana, Telugu Land, on the east. South of the Krishna to the Tungabudra river the country was occupied in chief by tribes allied to the Telugus, and the extreme south by the great Dravidian race of the Tamils.

The Aryans entered the Deccan in the sixth cen- tury B.C. and colonized Berar (Vidarbha) and Kalinga (East Coast). In a hundred years they were sufficiently numerous to have a social law-book of their own, the Code of Apasthamba. The principal city was Pratisthana (Paithan) on the Godavari, with Bharu- kaccha (Bharoch, Broach) as the trading port to the west. The tribes whom the Aryans found to be in occupation were the Telugus under Andhra rulers on the east and the Rattas (Rashtrakutas, Marathas) on the west. The country immediately to the south of the Deccan, however, still remained chiefly in the various occupation of a number of tribes driven there by the Aryans from the north, and of the same general descent as the then existing Dravidians. In the extreme south the Tamils always held their own, and there the Aryans never penetrated to the extent of

Painted speciallii for this work.]

A SINGHALESE KAIL) INTO SOUTHERN INDIA A.D. 1175. The territories of the Pandyas and the Cheras, two ancient dynasties in the extreme south of India, were constantly the prey of neighbouring rulers, and in 1 1 7 !> the strong King of Ceylon Parakramabahu, invaded an 1 overran the Pandyan kingdom.

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takes a prominent place The southern peoples had advanced in civilization quite as far as the Aryans when the latter came amongst them. Indeed, if anything, they had progressed further. There was a very early over-sea trade, both to the east and the west.

The Jewish king, Solomon, received continuous consignments of valuables from the Malabar Coast as early as the beginning of the tenth century B.C., and the China sea-trade of Babylon went by way of the Dravidian coast towns down to the sixth century B.C. This maritime commerce was kept up later on, through the centuries, with the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, as each in turn became supreme in the western parts of Asia.

Painted specially for fftis work. }

VIKUAJMANKA CHALUKHYA SENDS A FRIENDLY LETTER TO KULOTTUNUA CHOLA

Fortunately 1'or the Southern portions of India, there reigned for many years respectively in the Deccan and in South India proper two powerful contemporary monarchs, Vikramanka (Vikramaditya VI) Chalukhya (lOTG-ll-'T), and Kulottunga Chola (1070—1118), who kept the peace towards each other. Literature and architecture and the arts of peace generally flourished ereatly, and many a fine ruin of to-day dates from that period.

THE HINDU DECCAN (237 B.C. — A.D. 1325)

DATED history in the Deccan commences practically with the death of the great Mauryan emperor Asoka, in 237 B.C., when Buddhism and Jainism were in the ascendant. It is very complicated, because the country was always anybody's land, open to the rule of the strongest for the time being. It is, however, necessary to know the outlines in order to understand historical allusions and the conditions obtaining in modern times

The Andhras made themselves independent of the Mauryans under a dynasty known as the Satakarnis (Satavahana), which managed to keep its head above water till A.D. 236. In the two centuries about the birth of Christ they were an important power, and held practically all the Deccan and the remains of the Mauryan Empire as well. The inscriptions they left behind them enable us to reconstruct the

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Story of the Nations

Kuilv Indian Jewellery.

Early Indian Jewellery.

conditions under which the people lived Architects and sculptors were obviously highly skilled. Through- out the Deccan trade-routes were kept open, travelling was comparatively safe, trade and industrial guilds abounded which looked after charitable endowments, and large seaports and trading centres existed under their own municipal government. The Satakarni Dynasty impartially allowed the Brahmans, Budd- hists, and Jains to follow their respective religions side by side.

At first Buddhism was much the most prosperous, and it is to the early Andhra period (220 B.C.-A.D. 100) that India owes some of its most magnificent cave temples, at Karli, between Poona and Bombay, and at other places.

On the north-west of the Deccan proper lie Kathiawar (Saurashtra) and Gujarat (Gurjararashtra), the country of the Gujars (Gurjara), a people that early immigrated into India from the north-wesi. Their dated history commences in the third century B.c , when they succumbed to the Mauryans. Then came the Baktrians, Parthians, and Cakas (Scythians), as rulers with their foreign Governors or Satraps, who warred with the Andhras incessantly, and were finally beaten by Gautamiputra Satakarni in A.D.I26.

But on the decline of the Andhra power the descendants of Chastana, a C. aka governor set up by Gaut- amiputra, who had become Hindus, made themselves independent under the title of Mahakshatrapa (Great Satraps). Their ascendency lasted till it was overthrown by the mighty Gupta Emperor, Chandragupta Vikramaditya, in 388. It produced one important ruler, Rudradaman (A.D. 150-161), who governed a large extent of country on the West Coast from Gujarat to the Konkan. The Guptas did not stay long and after them came the White Huns, and then, in 495, a Gujar chief set up a great dynasty at Valabhi, near Cambay in Kathiawar, which with much trouble remained there and in Gujarat till 766, when it was destroyed by Arab Musalman invaders, and its descendants became the Sisodhias of Mewar (Udaipur) the premier Rajput chiefs of to-day. Finally, when the Muhammadans came as permanent conquerors- in 1296, Gujarat was in the hands of the Baghela Rajputs. The Mahakshatrapas were strong Hindus for political reasons, but they did not interfere with the allied faiths in the Deccan. The Valabhi kings were Hindus from the beginning and they behaved with equally praiseworthy forbearance. About the same time as the Qaka Mahakshatrapas were rising in Gujarat, another foreign tribe of Parthians, the Pallavas-

(Pahlavas), penetrated into Southern India and became Hindus for the sake of politics, but to their credit they never persecuted the other faiths.

By constant warring they upset everything in the Deccan for 350 years. Their capitals were Kan- chipuram (Conjeveram) and Vatapipura (Badami) in the South Maratha country. The Rashtra- kutas (Marathas) resisted them persistently but unsuccessfully until 525, when the Chalukhyas, Solanki Rajputs from the

/?)/ permission of] [the Secretary of State for i

THE RUINS OF THE KAILASA. This, the most astounding of the many Hindu rock-cut temples, is in the Deccan at Ellora, and was finished under the Kashtrakute, king Krishna I in A.D. 760. It is cut out of the solid rock

north, dislodged them and drove them south. From that time forward for two hundred years, till 747, there was war between the Pallavas and the Chalukhyas with- varying success.

The Chalukhyas pro- duced one of the great rulers of India in Puli- kesin II (Satyasraya, 609-642), almost exactly contemporary with the remarkable Northern Emperor Harsha, whom he kept in check on the Narbada in and after 620. He had a checkered but most important career.

MAURYAN INDIA, ASOKA'S EMPIRE, 260 B.C.

INDIA IN THE SECOND CENTURY A.D.

THE LAST PHASE OF ANCIENT INDIA, A.D. 350-750

MEDIEVAL HINDU INDIA, A.D. 750-1200.

MAPS OF INDIA FROM 260 B.C. TO A.D. 1200.

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and by 630 was by far the most powerful sovereign in the south, but in 642 he was nevertheless killed in defending his own capital from the Pallava king, Narasinghavarman. The Chalukhya power was, however, restored by his son and lasted on till 747.

The wars of the Pallavas made the conditions of life much rougher than in the Andhra days as regards trade, but industries and arts at any rate did not decline, as is proved by the paintings in the Ajanta Caves, and the rock-cut temples and caves at Ellora near Aurangabad, constructed under the Chalukhyas, and by their buildings generally. Pulikesin II lived in magnificent state and kept up a well-equipped and trained army, and was, in fact, so famous in his day that the Arab writers of the time knew of him, and so great a monarch as the Sassanid king Chosroes II (Khusru Parvez, 590-628) thought it worth while to send an embassy which reached him in 625. It has been pointed out that the temples cut out of solid rock, so as to stand both in the open and in caves, were not architectural freaks, but the result of a deliberate policy which combined cheapness, as skilled labour was then paid, with impressiveness on the populace.

In 747 the last Chalukhya was overthrown by a Rashtrakuta (Maratha) vassal, Dantidurga, who founded a truly warlike dynasty, which at one time extended its boundaries from the Kaveri river to Malwa in the north. They were in power till 982, when they were overthrown by a descendant of the Chalukhyas. This proceeding has caused some historical confusion, for in the days of the great Pulikesin, his brother and viceroy at Vengi, on the east coast, became independent and founded there, in 615, an important separate dynasty lasting on till 1070, or for more than four hundred years. This is now known as the Eastern Chalukhyas, and so the new dynasty of 982 with the same descent, which ruled from

Painted specially for this work. ]

THE DEFEAT OF PULIKESIN II CHALUKHYA BY MAHAMALLA PALLAVA AT BADAMI, A.D. (ili.

In the second century a Western Asian tribe known as the Pallavas established itself as a ruling race in the East and South of India where for many centuries it carried on an incessant struggle with its neighbours. The great Chalukliyan King, Pulikesin II inflicted many defeats on them, but in his old age Narasinghavarman, or Mahamulla Pallava, an important ruler, overthrew him in. 642, and for a short time the Pallavas were supreme in the Chalukhyan dominions.

India

163

Painted specially lor this wnrk,\

RAJARAJA CHOLA INSPECTS THE BAS-RELIEF OF HIS EXPLOITS AT TANJORE, A.D. 995.

One of the most famous of the South Indian kings was Chola, Rajaraja the Great (ace. 985), who spent the first seven years of his reign in the rapid expansion of his dominions by carefully prepared campaigns, and the last fourteen years in an equally careful consolidation of his extended territories. He was a great builder, the Subraraanya Temple at Tanjorc being his chief architectural achievement. Part of its elaborate. ornamentation consisted of a series of scenes of his military performances

Kalyana on the west coast, has been called the Later Chalukhyas. It existed till 1200, producing some remarkable personages.

In these times the Deccan was constantly troubled by incursions of Tamils, notably under the great Chola king, Rajaraja (died 1016). A successor who reigned from 1070 to 1118, Kulottunga, the con- temporary of another long-reigned monarch, the Later Chalukhya Vikramanka (1076-1128), kept the peace, and between them these wise rulers allowed the arts of peace to flourish greatly in the south. Literature became important and very many fine buildings arose, while under the Eastern Chalukhyas of Vengi Telugu vernacular literature received a great impetus.

During this period Buddhism gradually and peacefully gave way to Hinduism without ill-treatment of any consequence. Jainism was, however, for a short period less fortunate. Bijjala, a Jain viceroy of part of the Chalukhya Kingdom, usurped the supreme power about 1163, and left the effects of his rule all over Southern India to this day. His minister, Basava, was a fanatical Hindu and promulgated an erotic Saiva creed, whereby his followers were enjoined to wear a small phallus (lingam) as a symbolic article of costume, and he bitterly persecuted the Jains. On this question he and his master came to blows and disposed of each other, but Basava's sect still exists in numbers as the Lingayats.

After the deaths of the two strong contemporaries, the usual anarchy occurred, out of which emerged certain local dynasties : the Hoysala-Ballala of Dwarasamudra (Halebld) in Mysore, and in the Deccan the Yadavas of Devagiri (Daulatabad), and the Kakatiyas of Ekasilapuri (Warangal). These were the kingdoms that the Muhammadans found on their inroads into the south, and overcame between 1309

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and 1325. They were not small people, and were as wonderful builders, and lived in as great state, as any of the other dynasties of the time.

THE FURTHEST SOUTH (350 B.C. — A.D. 1563)

FROM all known time there were three ruling powers in Tamil Land, or true Southern India, ever con- tending for supremacy : the Pandyas in the extreme south, the Cheras on the Malabar Coast, and the Cholas of the Kaveri catchment area. They are heard of by name historically from 350 B.C. By A.D. 150

KfLOTTUNGA CHOLA INSTRUCTS HIS SURVEYORS, A.I). 1086.

Hujaraja Chola of Southern India (died 1016) and his equally great descendant Kulottunga Chola spent much of tholrtimciii camping about the country. Rajaraja instituted a revenue survey of his dominions, and in 1086 Kulottunura carried one out on an extensive scale in the same year as William the Conqueror in England.

their internecine struggles admitted the Hinduized Parthian Pallavas to power at Kanchipuram (Conjeveram), and for seven hundred and fifty years these foreigners fought the powers in the Deccan at intervals with very varying success, and struggled with rebellions at home, especially in Mysore, where the local dynasties gave trouble continuously. Early in the tenth century Parantaka Chola (907-947), of Uraiyur near Trichinopoly, finally overthrew the Pallavas, and a century later Rajaraja Chola (985- 1016) conquered the whole of Southern India. His work was consolidated by the great ruler Kulottunga Chola, who reigned beneficently for over forty years (1070-1118). After him there was much anarchy, till the Muhammadans, under Malik Kafur, made confusion worse confounded in 1310 by falling on Southern India and establishing at Madura, the Pandya capital of the extreme south, Muhammadan governors who stayed there till 1358. The constant raiding of Hindus on each other and the horrors of

From original* in Indian Section., OIUECTS OF INDIAN ART \yictoria and Albert Museum.

Reading from left to right the objects are : Illuminated tempera painting, early 18th century : blue and white Delhi jar and cover, 18th century ; fine printed cotton fabric, Madras, 18th century ; silver-gilt enamelled betel-box, Lucknow, 17th century ; carved crystal toilet-tray, formerly jewelled, Delhi. 10th or 17th century ; Kashmiri lacquered spinning-wheel, early 10th century ; Khatmandu censer, Nepal, 19th century ; Mogu jewelled jade box, Delhi, about 1600 ; jewelled jade crook-head, about 1600; steotype carving, Gandhara influence, Kashmir, fith century ; copper and brass ewer, 1819, Yarkand ; gold damascened steel helmet Lahore, about 1700 ; tunic worn over chain mail by Rajput horseman, 17th century ; carved crystal bowl, Delhi, abont 1600 ; round bidri-work vase late 17th century : inlaid marble column, Mogul, Delhi, early 17th century ; cabinet, sbisham wood inlaid with engraved ivory, Hoshiarpur, late 17th century : gold necklace, Bombay, 19th century : a so in centre, Delhi jewelled piece, 17th century, and pendant, Mogul 17th century beneath, left, Delhi forehead pendant, gold and jewels 18th century right, Jaipur enamelled gold pendant, about 1800 : Travancore curved ivory casket. 17th century.

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Story of the Nations

the Muhammadan conquest brought about the curious effect of raising up a great Hindu kingdom, in 1336, at Vijayanagara (Bijanagar), on the Tungabudra, by two refugees claim- ing royal descent from both the Yadavas and the Hoysalas. This kingdom lived on till 1565, when its last arrogant ruler was overthrown by a Muhammadan combination from the Deccan at the famous battle of Talikota, and its splendid capital destroyed for ever. The Vijayanagara rulers conducted their government in an even more mag- nificent style than their predecessors. Theirs was the great Bisnaga king- dom of the Portuguese, and its repre- sentatives at Vengi lasted in indepen- dence after its overthrow long enough to grant the si te of the modern Madras to Francis Day in 1639.

In a very rapid survey covering nearly two thousand years the his- tory of the Furthest South reads like a tale of continuous anarchy and war for all that period ; but such an impression would give an entirely incorrect idea of the Dravidian peoples at any time. As early as the first century A.D. Tamil had become already so universal and so polished a literary tongue that Tiruvallavar, a low-caste weaver of Mylapore (Madras), could produce the Rural, a book of moral distichs of so high a quality as to be a delight to the readers of the present day, and in the centuries that followed some of the finest Tamil poems were produced. At the same time, the Tamils were no mean builders and carvers in stone, as is attested by the rock-cut Hindu buildings at Mamallapuram (the Seven Pagodas, south of Madras) in the fourth century A.D. and by the Buddhist tope at Amaravati on the Krishna in that following, and many another fine temple in the South. The fighting Hindu Pallavas were great builders. One of them, Mahamalla (625-645), the Narasinghavarman who slew the great Pulikesin II, so added to the Seven Pagodas that the place was named after him. It was under their rule, which favoured Vaishnavas and Saivas alike, that Jainism and Buddhism gave way before Hinduism in the Furthest South : Buddhism altogether, and Jainism also except in Mysore and the West. Many stately buildings were erected, and Tamil literature was greatly enriched by a remarkable series of hymns, some of which were Jain.

The great Chola conqueror Rajaraja spent the last fourteen years of his reign in attending to the administration and architecture of his dominions, including the erection of the temple at Tanjore, the finest example of the Tamil style. Soon after his accession, he showed remarkable administrative capacity by causing a revenue survey to be made of his kingdom ^ The whole of the long reign of his equally great successor Kulottunga was devoted to the national progress in days of peace, and in 1086, the year of the

I'aintt-il s/

THE MURDER OF MUHAMMAD GHORI, A.D. 120B.

The great Muhammad Ghori, the conqueror of Northern India and first Sultan of Delhi, when journeying to Ghaznifrom Lahore had pitched his tent "on the bank of a pure stream in a garden filled w.th lil'Ci, and jasmines". He was at his evening prayers, when some fanatical Muhammadan sectaries rushed up "like the wind towards His Majesty", and killed him and his attendants

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Domesday survey of William the Conqueror, he carried out a revenue survey of all his dominions. He also performed another most remarkable act by abolishing internal customs duties and the trade tolls between the constituent parts of his empire, which the people hated. Apart from these two extraordinary men the Cholas were, on the whole, enthusiastic builders and good administrators. In war or peace they issued their orders themselves to secretaries, who communicated them to viceroys of provinces, which were each divided into districts, all under a great body of executive officers, and very careful records were maintained. Taxes, paid in gold or in kind, were very numerous, but the main source of revenue was the land-tax, assessed not on individuals, but on villages as a whole, which were each controlled by a com- mittee working under very precise regulations. Roads and irrigation works, some of them on a large scale, were maintained. The Cholas, though themselves Hindus, were tolerant of others, except for a short period after Kulottunga, when there was a persecution of the Jains and of the followers of the reformed Hindu doctrines of Ramanuja.

Between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., during the time of the formation of modern Hinduism in Northern India, an important religious movement arose in the South, which had a remarkable effect on the whole future of that religion there. Wandering religious bards of various castes, known as the Alwars and Adiyars, preached respectively a popular Vaishnavism and Saivism by means of. beautiful lyrical verse, offering salvation to all. At the end of the eighth century rose the great Sankaracharya, as famous in the North as in the South, and propounded his doctrine of a single God, and about noo came the equally influential Ramanuja, with his modification of his predecessor's teaching, which turned Vishnu into a personal God. In the thirteenth century Ramanuja's followers split up into the Vadagalai and Tengalai sects, who differed on the question of divine grace, holding it respectively to be the result of

t for this work.]

DEATH OF THE SLAVE KING, KUTBU'DDIN AIBAK OF DELHI, A.D. 1210.

The first "Slave King" of Delhi (1206-1210) was Kutbu'ddin Aibak, a shrewd and energetic prince and a great builder. His end was tragically sudden, as he was killed by a fall from his horse, which fell on him and crushed him, while playing a game of rltitmjiin (polo) in a. field outside the city.

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co-operation, the combined action of God and man, and of surrender, the irresistible influence of God on man.

THE MUHAMMADAN SOVEREIGNTY (A.D. 1193-1774)

BEFORE THE MUGHAL EMPIRE (1193-1526)

FROM the time that Shahabu'ddin Ghori and his lieutenants over- ran Northern India, the whole country as far south as the Krishna River may be said to have known no peace at all for three hundred and fifty years : not, indeed, until the days of the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, and even then only in a distinctly modified form. In Shahabu'ddin "Ghori's 'time it was just conquest piecemeal with awful bloodshed and misery, resulting in the abandonment by Rajput chiefs of their holdings in Northern India, and their departure to various points in the hills and rough country of Rajputana and Central India, in many parts of which their descendants still rule locally under British suzerainty.

One proof of the kind of life that the early Muhammadan rulers themselves had to lead lies in the fact that it was in their days that the lingua franca arose which has since become the great Hindustani language. It is based on Western Hindi, the language around Delhi, with a free admixture of Arabic and Persian forms. Its proper name is Urdu Zaban, or the language of the camp (urdu).

After the death of the conqueror in 1206 there arose a curious dynasty, possible only in the social conditions that have obtained in the Western and Central Asiatic countries from all time, where slavery has borne a complexion very different from that commonly given it by stay-at-home Englishmen of the present day. The great military leader to whose capacity the conquest of Northern India was chiefly due was Kutbu'ddin

HI/ permission oft (The Secretary of State for India.

THE KUTAB MINAR, NEAR DELHI, A.D. 1230.

The thirst Miilmiiunadan tower in India is that known as the Kutab Minar (tower), near Delhi. ]t was crertr.l by shamsu'ddin lltutmish, the third of the "Slaye Kings" of Delhi (1211-1236), and obtained Its name from the shrine of Kutub'ddin Ushi a Mubammadan saint, which i» close by.

fainted

THE END OF THE BUDDHIST -MONKS, A.D. 1193.

By the time Muhammad Ohori overran Northern India and founded Muhamiuadan rule, the only princes still protect In* Buddhism \V*TI- the I'alas of Bengal, whose capital was Hihar. One of the invading generals, Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji, boldly attiickcd liihar with a few followers, whereon the 1'ala kinsr lied and left the monks to their fate. Most of them were slaiiKht'-n-.l. and Huddhism finally disappeared from India. Their sucred books, which no one left behind could read, much pu/./led the conqueror from the Wi-st.

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Aibak, a Turkoman, bought as a slave by Shahabu'ddm Ghori, and still legally a slave, although com- mander-in-chief, when his nominal owner died. Kutbu'ddin Aibak, soon after his master's death, made himself the first Sultan of Delhi, and it is noteworthy that several of his con- temporaries with whom he set up close alliances, matrimonial, social and other, were military chiefs and lords in Sind, Bihar, and other provinces, and at the same time technically slaves of the great Sha- habu'ddin Ghori. One of them was Shamsu'ddln Iltutmish, a Turkoman and Governor of Bihar, who practic- ally succeeded Kutbu'ddin Aibak as Sultan. Later on, Ghiyasu'ddin Balban, yet another prominent man of the same class, after long acting as prime minister, seized the throne and became an important monarch. But with his effete grandson this odd dynasty of "slave kings" came to an end after existing for about eighty years, and gave way to the Turko- man Dynasty of the Khiljis in 1290. It produced one remarkable woman, Raziyatu'ddin, who was a capable ruler from Delhi on behalf of an incompetent brother for a short time after 1236.

The days of the "slave kings" were no doubt days of horror in many respects, but remarkable acts of peace were nevertheless, per- formed under their able direction. Ghiyasu'ddin Balban, for instance, was a conspicuous patron of Persian literature, and the beginning of the "Indian practice" of that language (Muhawara-i-Hind) is due to the men of letters who flourished under him.

However inexcusable the many cruelties perpetrated by the members of this dynasty may have been, their destructive zeal was due to fanaticism. It was a duty to God, in the eyes of the early Muham- madan invaders, to abolish all images and all temples and institutions of any religion not after their own pattern. With them the long days of toleration, which had so distinguished the rulers of India, disappeared. But the world owes the celebrated tower near Delhi, known as the Kutab Minar, to Shamsu'ddin Iltutmish, and to Kutbu'ddin Aibak the foundations of the great mosque beside it, which he built out of the beautiful Hindu temples erected by Anangpala six hundred years previously, producing a blend of Muhammadan style with Hindu construction that is not only striking in its comeliness, but invaluable to the history of modern Indian architecture. Wherever the lieutenants of these rulers went they erected and endowed mosques, colleges, and other religious institutions, whilst destroying every existing thing of the kind that was Hindu and stood in their way. Hindu learning came to a standstill for a long while, and Budd- hism disappeared for good in the very first year of the conquest, 1193, when Bakhtiyar Khilji, one of the

intftl specially for this work.}

THE LAST ACT OF MALIK NAIB KAFUU, A.D. 1316. In the course of an extraordinary career, a Hindu eunuch slave became the renegade Muhammadan favourite of 'Alan'ddin Khilji of Delhi, on whose behalf he executed a wonderful series of raids into Southern India which are still remem- bered. He then became 'Alau'ddin's Minister, and on his death controlled the country as an atrocious tyrant. One night on retiring to rest he took a sword from an attendant, flourished it wildly and cave it back, whereon he was at once run through and killed

India

171

•generals of Shahabu'ddln Ghori, took Bihar, and brought to a pathetic end the last monastery of Buddhist monks there, which was still flourishing under the patronage of the Pala Dynasty of Bengal.

The Khilji Dynasty was short-lived, lasting only thirty years, but it did great things nevertheless, and •was represented by at least two remarkable men who made history : the fanatical, cruel, arbitrary and yet capable 'Alau'ddin Khilji, who in 1294 made the first successful attempt to extend the Muhammadan power southwards, and the energetic slave Malik Kaffir, who was a military commander of high capacities and overran the Deccan in South India to the great enrichment of himself and his master. In Malik Kafur's career the political possibilities of Oriental life are again prominently brought to notice. He was a Hindu renegade and a eunuch, the first of many such to rise to great social heights and to become a leader and administrator of consequence in both military and civil life. In 1320, the Khiljis were succeeded by the Tughlaks, who came of a mixed, high-class Turkoman slave and Hindu descent, were governors of the Panjab, and were placed on the throne by nobles rebelling against the Khiljis. They lasted ninety years and produced a remarkably capable but unbalanced ruler in Muhammad Tughlak, who reigned for twenty-six years (1325-1351), and has been described as "learned, merciless, religious and mad". He •certainly tried some wonderful schemes. Without any adequate cause, and for a time only, he moved the •capital seven hundred miles from Delhi to Deogiri in the Deccan, to which he gave the name of Daulatabad, forcing the people of Delhi to migrate first there and then back again. He grossly misapplied his armies •on vainglorious expeditions, where they suffered unspeakable hardships and accomplished nothing. He tried to oblige his people to accept copper and brass tokens as silver •coins, and issued a stamped leather note currency without any bullion support behind it ; schemes which •not even his vengeance when opposed could make to succeed. He com- mitted wholesale massacre on alto- gether insufficient provocation and finally he ruined his kingdom. All the while his own opinion of himself was that he was a perfectly just ruler and that to obey him was to obey •God. But the most remarkable thing about him is that he died from natural disease undisturbed in his bed, thus proving the awe in which his mad abilities kept those about him. This man of contra- dictions was eloquent of speech, sober and moral in his life, an ac- complished scholar in Arabic, Per- sian and Greek philosophy and learning of all kinds, and conspicu- ously brave. Fortunately for India he was succeeded by his cousin, Firoz Shah Tughlak, a man of peaceful ways and lofty character, who •reigned for thirty-seven years (1351- 1388).

Under the earlier Khiljis the times were no doubt hard, and to make matters worse at the beginning of their ascendancy there occurred in 1291 one of those memorable

ih:lifl sfuriatljt for this ""/•/,•. MUHAMMAD TUOHLAK

ORDERS SILVER,

ins

A.D.

II R ASS 1330.

COIN'S TO PASS VOK

Muhammad Tughlak, who reigned at Delhi fiom 1325 to 1351, was the author of many curious schemes. One of those was an attempt to force the people to accept, as silver, copper and brass money, on which he had engraved : 'Ho who obeys the King, truly ho obeys God". The penalty of refusal was death, but tno measure ignominiously failed nevertheless.

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Story of the Nations

-X^

Painting in Ajanta Caves, about A.D. 500, showing head decoration and eonch shell used as a musical instru- ment.

unstable but scholarly Muham- mad Tughlak the literature of Islam naturally flourished in all its branches. His successor, Firoz Shah Tughlak, was a born builder and engineer, and spent all his long reign in constructing an adequate capital, Firozabad, near Delhi, where to this day is to be found in Firoz Shah's Lit (pillar) a famous specimen of one of Asoka's inscribed iron pillars (stambha), which he re- moved from Ambala. But he did a much greater service to his country in creating a system of canals from the Jumna to

general famines that have peri- odically devastated India from all time, and this one, of course, fell with full severity on the un- fortunate Hindus. But like the "slave kings", both the Khiljis and the Tughlaks liked to show their capacity for the works of peace and employed the treasure wrung elsewhere from the Hindus in enlarging and beautifying their capital at Delhi, and even the wild 'Alau'ddin Khilji, who amongst his other disqualifications for un- controlled power was illiterate, essayed unsuccessfully to imitate the Kutab Minar. Under the

From oritftnaia in Indian The copper seal of the Warden of the Frontier of Srivadra. A.U. 6th or 7th century.

Jumna -Sntk-j canal, a magnificent work

constructed l>y Firoz Shah Tughlak

(A.D. 1351-1388), one of the greatest

administrators India ever had.

by the Mongol nomad tribes, who had united under a single ruler, usually known as Chinghiz Khan. Called by the Indians Mughals and by the English Moguls, these tribes began to worry North India in the days of the "slave kings", and while the capable Khiljis were in power they raided incessantly but in- effectively, some of them settling as Muhammadans at Mughalpur near Delhi. These unlucky settlers were, however, wiped out by a characteristic act of treachery perpetrated by 'Alau'- ddin Khilji in 1297. But a real

Copper-gilt relic casket (circa A.D. 100),

containing fragments of bones said to

be those of Buddha.

the Sutlej, some of which have been utilized by British engineers in more recent times.

The Tughlak Dynasty hung on till 1414, after a fashion, but its practical end came in 1398 with the invasion from the west of the Mongol chief TImur Lang (the lame), better known to readers of histories written in English as Tamerlane. At the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury a new terror had commenced to harass the population of Central and Western Asia in the form of depredations atten- ded with unspeakable cruelties

[J'iclorin >niii .Uhni .V

Ail cart hrmviiiv printing block, Kannu district, .Hb century.

lly i

the Secretary of State for India-

A CORNER OF THE HOYSALESVARA TEMPLE AT DWAUASAMUDRA (HALEBID), A.D. 1244. The Hoysula-Ballala Dynasty of Mysore (1048-1310) came to the front in consequence of the trouble that arose on the deaths of the grreat contemporary South Indian monarehs, Kulottunsa Chola in 1118 and Vikrainanka C'halukhya in 1128. They were magnificent rulers, and built splendidly at their capital, Dwarasamudra, now represented by the ruins at Halebid in Mysore. The great temple of Hoysalesvara. built by Vira Soiuesvara Hoysala (1234-1254). Is acknowledged to be the acme of South Indian architecture.

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Story of the Nations

AN INSCRIPTION OF SIKANDAR SHAH OF BENGAL, A.D. 1363. The forms of Arabo-Persian script adopted by the Muhannnadan rulers of India in their inscriptions arc often so beautiful as to bo additional ornaments to the buildings on which they are placed. The illustration shows the inscription on the ruined fort of Devikot, near Oaur, stating that a tomb to the saint Maulana Ata was built by Abu'l-Mujahid Sikandar Shah, son of Ilyas Shah in A.H. 765 (A.D. 13fi3).

.

opportunity for the Mongols rame at last, when a long burlesque struggle for the throne of Delhi commenced between the descend- ants of Firoz Shah Tughlak. Then Timur swept down on Delhi, which he sacked without mercy, and so thoroughly did he ravage town and country that an awful famine and pestilence followed in his wake.

Like the White Huns of the fifth century, these new Central Asian irrupters were only raiders and ravagers, and accomplished nothing but "brigandage on an imperial scale".

After a while Timur fortunately departed for Samarkand, whence he had come, leaving a noble Sayyid (descendant of the Prophet) named Khizr Khan, in charge of Delhi and its surroundings. He set up the Sayyid Dynasty, which maintained a precarious authority over very limited dominions in a state of continuous war till 1451, when it was ousted by the Lodis, the only real Pathans (Afghans) to sit on the throne of Delhi. The first two of these, Bahlol and Sikandar Lodi, are regarded by Muhammadan historians as good rulers, but by Hindus as terrible iconoclasts. Later on the public troubles caused by claimants of the Lodi family to supreme power, induced a frontier noble, also a L5di, to apply, in 1524, to the Mughal ruler, Babar of Kabul, for help. This paved the way for the Mughal sway over India, and brought about the foundation of a stable imperial dynasty, whose power lasted, amidst many troubles towards its latter end, till 1774, when it gave way in its turn to British rule, though the dynasty did not die out nominally till 1858. Sikandar Lodi was the first monarch to reside for a time at Agra and make it an imperial city, and while he was there the earthquake occurred in 1505 which has become memorable all over India and Persia, and created a sensation which is not yet forgotten. His name is preserved near by at Sikandra, where Akbar's tomb was erected to its enduring fame.

It is obvious that while history was being made in the fashion above described, effective power was

frequently confined to the neigh- bourhood of the capital, and that accordingly there were numerous Muhammadan governors of pro- vinces and subordinate Hindu states, whose subordination was merely nominal. Actual indepen- dence often ensued. Thus there were important independent Muhammadan governors (after- wards kings) in Bengal from 1202 to 1576, in Akbar's day, with a great capital at Gaur ; another set at Jaunpur from 1394 to 1479 ; a third in Gujarat from 1396 to 1572 with Ahmadabad as the capital. Mfihva and Khandesh also had independent Muhamma- dan rulers, while in the Dcccan there were first the great Bahmani Dynasty of Gulbarga and Bidar, whose dominions stretched from sea to sea, and then

, "

Painted specially lor this work.]

DELHI AFTER THE SACK OF TIMUR LANG, 1398. The weakness nnd (iiiari-cls of the descendants of the first strong Tughlak Sultans of Delhi gave the Mongol (Muahal) tribes led by Timur an opportunity of raiding India, and in 1398 they swept down on Delhi. The sack was so severe that It led to a great pestilence and BO savage that even Timur devotes several pa<rcsin bla Memoirs (Mulfutat-i-Timuri) to excusing it.

India

175

the celebrated five Shahi Dynasties, which were formed by Turkoman and Hindu renegade military adventurers, and mostly succumbed to Mughal power only in the days of Aurangzeb as late as 1672. These were no petty States, but important and powerful kingdoms, under rulers who were generous patrons of literature and the arts, lived magnificently, and built splendid cities, as the ruins attest at Golkonda, Gulbarga, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, Gaur, Pandua, and many another place. Ahmadabad in its glory was the finest city in India, and its builders have left their skill in design and construction as a legacy amongst the people to this day, while the architec- ture of Jaunpur gave a name to a style, the Sharki, after the title of its dynasty. The Deccan kingdoms were in no way behindhand, and at Bijapur, the capital of the Adil Shahis, a dome still stands which is yet the largest in the world.

Taken all round the Muhammadan kings were, however, despots whose rule was an unfortunate period for the Hindus, and it produced one lasting social effect detrimental to the whole country. Mainly in self-defence the upper classes of Hindus began to seclude their women, a custom which has since universally descended as low down the social scale as family funds will permit. The Zenana system of India, which has done so much injury to many millions of human beings, dates from the insecure time for Hindus in the early days of Muhammadan domination, and its origin accounts for the tenacity with which it is maintained by the women most affected by it.

The Hindus and Hinduism were not, however, by any means altogether ousted from authority during the pre- Mughal days. , There was the empire of Vijayanagar, covering after a fashion the whole South, which on its break-up in 1565 left behind it independent Naiks or Palegars, all over the South, and the present State of Mysore. There were the Sisodhia Rajputs of Mewar (now of Udaipur), with • Chitor as their capital, which stood siege after siege, all famous in Hindu song and story, before it was destroyed by Akbar in 1567. And there was the kingdom of Orissa, which, too, only finally succumbed to Akbar. While Muhammadan literature and art nourished elsewhere, the Hindu religion with its concomitant literature, art and architecture, was equally alive here, and many of the finest Hindu structural remains and literary work date from the period between the conquests of Shahabu'ddln Ghori and the arrival of the Mughals.

Though, on the whole, the years of the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries make up a period of perpetual war with indiscriminate, merciless fighting, it does not follow that individual towns and villages

Painted speriaUy for this irork.l

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT AGRA A.D. 1505. A widespread and violent earthquake still remembered took place all ovei Hindustan and Persia in 1505, and did great damage at Agra, then a capital of the Lodi Afghan Dynasty. The Muhammadans of the time believed that no such earthquake had ever occurred and "supposed that the day of resurrection had arrived". •

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Story of the Nations

saw a great deal of it. The ordinary citizens who lived under it were left alone to do largely as they pleased socially, with recurring intervals, not necessarily close together, of sheer nightmare, times of over- whelming horror, which they regarded much in the light of the epidemics and famines to which also they were always liable. As each bad period passed by, life recovered its ordinary routine more or less completely. Sometimes, of course, there was no recovery, and what was left of the villages and towns departed miserably elsewhere, but this was by no means commonly the case.

Among the troubles that afflicted the Hindus were the forcible methods of conversion adopted by the Muhammadans : by the sword, by taxation by the administration of the law, by terrorism and by inter- marriage. In a desperate hope for easier times whole tribes went over to Islam, at any rate nominally,

.<' i ' "NI*

Painted specially for tins work.\

THE FLIGHT OF SULTAN UUSAIN SHARKI OF JAUNPUH, A.D. 1479.

From 1 394 to 1479 Jaunpur, now in the province of Agra, was the scat of the famous Shark! ( East <>rn ) Kings, who were power ful military commanders, great builders in a style of their own, and distinguished patrons of Persian and Arabic literature. The last of the line was the unlucky Sultan Husain, who was so uniformly beaten by Bahlol Lodi, the Pat han king of Delhi, that defeat was said to have become a second nature to him. Finally, in 1479, he fled to the Ilyas-Shahl King of Bengal, under whose protection he lived lor many years.

and many existing Muhammadan families trace their*" conversion" to this period, and as a matter ol course the mixed families of Musalman immigrants could not be Hindus. All this produced its effect on Hinduism, for Buddhism disappeared for good and Jainism lay low. Especially effective were the des- truction of temples and religious foundations, which drove the religion to the home and its simpler faith, and the doctrine in the Muhammadan creed, "There is no God but God", paraded publicly before minds already imbued with the monistical teachings of the Vaishnava schools of Sankaracharya and Ramanuja. On the other hand, the mode of conversion adopted by the Muhammadan invaders naturally brought about its own revenge and reacted on their form of Islam. The converts, and through them their foreign leaders, were unable to resist the Hindu philosophy and trend of thought. They never got over either

India

177

the native superstitions or the caste system, and so for the people Muhammadanism in India has taken on a form peculiar to itself and in its essence is Hinduism modified by the teaching and philosophy of Islam.

The influence of the Muhammadan flood over Hindu India on religious practice and belief reached its full height practically within the period of the pre-Mughal rulers, which thus becomes a most important time in Indian history Left to itself, the Hindu religion had evolved to this extent : belief in one God of love with the worship of minor gods and their images for help in practical life, in an individual soul, in salvation by faith and devotion (bhakti, adoration), in teaching through the vernacular, in the guidance of set preceptors (guru, weighty), in initiation with a password and a sacramental meal, and, finally, in orders of ascetics. The great promoter of all this was Ramananda (c. 1350-1400),

Painted speciaHv tor Ihl.t work.]

THE FOUNDATION OK AN EMPIRE, 133SI

A long series ol raids by the Muhammadan power? at Delhi had devastated the Deccan by the opening of the fourteenth centurj. During a lull in the operations a petty oh'eftain of Anagundi, Sangaum T , succeeded in establishing (1339) the dynasty of Vijayanagar, the last Hindu Empire in Indin The Empire finally foil at the hattle of Talikota (1.5(>.V>. and Its magnificent capital is now the ruins of Hampe

a Southerner and member ot Ramanuja's sect, but without its exclusiveness, and he had one immensely influential disciple in Tulsi Das (1532-1623), who used the story of the Ramayana to teach his doctrine of bhakti. or salvation by the adoration of God (Rama), in one of the finest poems ever written in the East

Alongside the cult of Rama arose that of Krishna, which produced much beautiful poetry in various tongues from Bengali on the east to Marathi on the west. The difference between them is that the latter appeals to emotional excitement, using the erotic elements in the fabled life of Krishna for that purpose. All the modern Bhagavatas are followers of sects which recognize one or other of two main divisions of these two cults.

Between 1480 and 1518 Kabir. a most remarkable man and low-class Muhammadan disciple of

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Story of the Nations

Ramananda, preached a deistic doctrine distinctly affected by Muhammadan influence. While his teaching is Hindu in form and he calls God "Ram", he vigorously condemned the theories of caste and incarnation and the practice of idolatry ; the first of course without effect. His sayings and epigrams, however, on the other two points have had an enormous sway over modern Indian peasant and working- class theology, and are popular everywhere. His sect, the Kabirpanthis, include both Hindus and Musalmans. In Guru Nanak (1469-1538) Kablr had a follower in one sense even greater than himself, for he founded the religion of the Sikhs (Disciples) in the Panjab, a sect which included many kinds of men. Later on. his tenth successor, Guru Gobind Singh (1675-1708), turned it into a military Order, the Khalsa. which embraced all the Hindu warlike elements in the north-west, thus creating that Sikh

Paintrd sprrifillir fftr this

KAMINK SCKKEREKS DROWN Til KMSKLVKS IX THE JAMXA.

F:roz Shah Khilji overthrow the dynasty <n the Slave Kings or Delhi in Itixii. in the same year a terrible lamine n.-mrrcd throughout Northern India. It is best described in the actual words of the contemporary chronicle : "In the Siwalik (Himalayan foothills) the dearth was greatly felt. The Hindus of that country came into Delhi with their families, twenty or thirty of them together, and in the extremity of hunger drowned themselves in the Jamna."

military population with which the British have had so much to do Nanak condemned idolatry and Gobind Singh abolished caste within the Khalsa ; but caste has, nevertheless, come back among the members, just as it has done elsewhere in India. Kabir's great object was to unite Hindu and Musalman, but, nevertheless, the Mughals never had a more implacable enemy than the Sikhs. The deistic teachers had a great effect on the vernacular literature, and produced popular works in many languages and dialects.

In Southern India, too, the Hindu religion steadily developed, and in the fourteenth century there arose at Vijayanagar a Canarese teacher, Madhvacharya, who taught an exclusive dualistic Vaishnava doctrine (dvaita), and founded a sect, the Srimadhva, which is numerous and influential. It inculcates caste, personal cleanliness and temple ritual. Also, among the Saivas there was produced in Tamil, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Saiva Siddhanta (estab- lished truth), books for teaching their special system of philosophy by a series of acharyas (teachers).

i8o

Story of the Nations

Painted specially for this

THE MEDIEVAL REFORMER KABIR AND HIS SONS 1510.

Among the most remarkable and influential of the medieval religions reformers was Kabir (1480-1518), the author of muiiy a pithy couplet and epigram. He was a Muhammudan weaver who followed the Hindu philosophic reformer llamanauda, and though he called God by the Hindu name of Ram he taught a pure monotheistic ileism still accepted by mauy of the poorer classes.

But underneath all the Hindu philosophies ot the thoughtful and educated, and the veneer of Muham- madan teaching, there has run continuously from end to end of India, and still runs as strongly as ever, a rich vein of aboriginal animistic superstition. To the Hindu the unseen but ever-present spirit that can harm and sometimes help is the hero or godling, to the Muhammadan he is the saint, and to the aborigines simply the spirit, "devil" as the British have taught them to call him. All such beings or creations of the mind exhibit everywhere a strong family likeness, and they and the ceremonies connected with them are to the illiterate public — still an overwhelming body in India — as important as all the rest of their religious notions. Time, conquest and philosophy have brought this about in India : for the Hindu public a belief in a supreme God, plus the orthodox gods, plus the aboriginal spirits ; for the Muhammadan public a belief in a supreme God, plus the saints : for the aboriginal tribes their spirits in the general body of which the Hindu gods and the Muhammadan saints are included

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE (1526-1774)

BABAR (1526-1530) was a pure Mongol (Mughal), being descended on his lather's side Irom Timur and on his mother's from Chinghiz Khan, and had already had a remarkable career when he was summoned to India in 1524, to intervene in the quarrels of the Lodis, his whole youth having been spent in fighting. His hereditary principality was Farghana (Kokhand), now in Russian Central Asia, and after having been driven out of that, seizing Kabul and trying to regain Timur's Empire of Samarkand, he had

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181

turned his attention to India in 1519, when he occupied the Panjab for a time, having performed the remarkable feat of introducing European artillery into the campaign. So when he was invited to India he was fully prepared.

In 1526 he fought a battle at Panipat, fifty miles north of Delhi, the natural scene of many a fight through all time in India, where he showed himself to be a general after the type of Alexander, effectively using his new weapon of artillery against the ancient Indian system of using elephants, slew Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, and was proclaimed Badshah (enthroned king) at Delhi and Agra. Two more decisive battles, one against the Rajputs at Kanwaha (Khanua, near Fatehpur Slkri) in 1527, and the other against the Afghan ruler of Bihar on the Ghagra (Gogra) in 1529, made him military master of all Northern India. But that was all he could manage, and he died in 1530 before he could consolidate his conquests. Polished, literary, fearless, strong-willed, of great military capacity, affectionate and a passionate admirer of the beauties of nature, he has left a pleasing and naive record of himself in his Memoirs (Tuzak-i-Babari), though he could not accomplish more before his death than the foundation of the Mughal Empire.

Babar's successor was his son, Humayun (1530-1556), an amiable man, highly educated, with a strong taste for science ; generous and merci- ful, but too weak and unstable for the ^^g^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^i^^^ times, and so he passed a troubled life on the throne, generally off it and fighting to regain it. In 1539 Sher Khan, a Sur Afghan, ruler of Bihar, seized the throne from him, and, as Sher Shah Sur, established a short- lived but notable dynasty. He was a remarkably able man, reforming the coinage and laying the founda- tions of a revenue system afterwards made famous by the Emperor Akbar. His dynasty soon broke up, and Humayun recovered his throne from the Sur family in 1555, only to be accidentally killed in the next year. His successor was the great Akbar (1556-1605), born and brought up in exile and in a hard school indeed.

Akbar was only thirteen when his father died, and was at first under the tutelage of Bairam Khan. Khan Khanan (Lord of lords), a powerful and imperious Turkoman commander, under whose regime Akbar overcame his first enemy, the Hindu leader Himu, a man of humble origin, as the form of his name implies. He had, nevertheless. first made himself Minister of the last feeble Sur king and then usurped the throne of Delhi as Raja Bikramajit (Vikramaditya) The defeat of Himu confirmed his hereditary rights to Akbar. In four years' time (1560) Akbar got rid ot

f'ninftrl xpeciaUv for this ww/e. I

AN INSPECTION OF SHER SHAH SUR'S GREAT NORTH ROAD, 1542

Sher Shah Sur was the lather oi modern Indian Administration, following ihe lead of his great predecessor, Firoz Shah Tughlak of Delhi (1351-1388), and giving it to his successors, Akbar the Great (1556-1605), Warren Hastings (1774-1785) and Lord Dalnousie (1848-1856). Among his beneficial works wa? the Great North Road, now part of the Grand Trunk Road of Northern India.

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Story of the Nations

his mentor, and then for thirty-five years he fought and laboured without ceasing to create and consolidate his great empire. In the course of the almost continuous war that followed his assumption of independent power, Akbar commenced his empire-building in 1567, by reducing the most powerful of the Rajputs, the Sisodhias of Chitor, and driving them to Udaipur, to be defeated again twenty years later on. After Chitor, Surat (Gujarat) fell finally, and then in due time Patna, Kabul, Kashmir and Sind. But all this took up the forty years of the reign, and it gave birth to many a well-known tale dating from these times : the sslf-sacrifice by fire (janhar) of the Rajput women at Chitor ; the heroic story of the princess, Chand Bibi of Ahmadnagar ; the "lightning" campaign in Gujarat, from which Fatehpur Sikri obtained its name of the City of Victory (faleh). In the meanwhile, Akbar had demanded the submission of the

Pain/fd special?!! for Htis vork.\

REJOICINGS AT THE 1URTH OF THE EMPEROR AKBAIl THE GREAT, 1542.

The second Mughal ruler in Northern India was Humayun, who reigned nominally from 1530 to 1556, but for sixteen years of that time (1539-1555) he was a fusit i\ >• from shcr shah Sur and his successors of the Sur tribe of Afghans, who ousted him from Delhi. So his son, Akbar, afterwards the grreat Mughal Kmpcror, was born at Amarkot. an unimportant fortress in the Hajputana desert, and brought up in a very hard school.

Deccan, and on the refusal of the rulers there he attacked them, with the result of the fall of Ahmadnagar and the great fortress of Asirgarh by 1601. By this time he was too old to do more, but he bequeathed an empire from the Krishna to the Himalayas and from Bengal to Afghanistan. He never quite suc- ceeded in his design of conquering all India and making Hindu and Musalman live together in harmony, and died in 1605, disillusioned, disappointed and disgusted with the behaviour of all his sons. He aimed very high, believing himself to be the Viceregent of the Most High, heaven-sent for the better government of the people. He certainly did his best, and with the Buddhist Asoka and the Christian British Queen this.Muhammadan ruler was one of the three greatest sovereigns that India has seen.

While Akbar was thus laboriously building up the Mughal Empire, the seed was being sown oi a yet

I'ninlnl specially for Ihte work.}

THE RAJPUT CEREMONY OF JAUHAR (HOLOCAUST), 1567.

This terrible ceremony has frequently been performed In Indian history. The most famous instance occurred when Chitoi was taken by the Emperor Akl>ar in 1567 The description in the contemporary chronicle is sufficiently impressive : "Jaiihar is the name of a rite among the Hindus. When they know for certain that there is no escape, they collect their wives and children, goods and chattels, heap firewood around the pile, and fire it with their own hands. After the burning is accomplished, they rash into the fight, and give themselves over to death."

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Story of the Nations

Prom the Indian Section

[Victoria, and Albert Museum.

JAI SINGH'S OBSERVATORY AT DELHI, 1719

Raja Jai Singh Sawai (the Excellent) of Jaipur (1693-1743) was a famous man of science. He built live observatories, viz. at Delhi, Benares, Mathura, Ujjain, and Jaipur. He was a benevolent governor under the Mughal Emperors, and built a large number of <tarai's (inns) and markets for the convenience of the people.

more vigorous plant that was ultimately to destroy his handiwork. In the days of the Lodis, the Portu- guese Bartholomeu Dias de Novaes had doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1486 In 1498 Vasco da Gama visited Calicut on the Malabar (Western) coast, and the reports of its riches induced further expeditions eastwards, until the great Affonso D'Albuquerque created a province in 1510, built a magnificent city, the Goa Dourada (Golden Goa) of travellers, and set up an important State, which had the monopoly of European trade in 1595. The first great blow to Portuguese power in India was the fall of its chief correspondent in international trade, the Vijayanagar Empire, in 1565. The mad proselytizing policy of Philip II, as King of Spain and Portugal, completed its downfall by 1625, so that it was never of any serious consideration thereafter. But before the end of Akbar's reign the Dutch and the English had arrived to join in the Indian trade with Europe, and had come into conflict with the Portu- guese and each other. Nevertheless, in Akbar's time the Europeans can hardly be said to have had any influence of consequence in India, and so far it is hardly necessary to note anything further than the fact that on the 3ist December, 1600, Queen Elizabeth gave her charter to the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies' . Thus came into existence what was eventually to become after many vicissitudes a ruling power in India, known to the common people as Kampani Bahadur.

Akbar was much more than a military conqueror. He was a real leader of men and had all the instincts of a very great administrator. Quite early in his career, when only twenty-two, he abolished the poll-tax on non-Muhammadans and then the tax on Hindu pilgrimages, imposed by his undiscerning predecessors, and he always discouraged oppression in the collection of his taxes, showing that, even at that young age, he understood that in order to rule successfully it is necessary to secure the good will of the people as a whole. He married Hindu princesses, and his successor Jahangir was the son of one of them. He raised Rajputs to the highest positions and they fought loyally for him Raja Man

f'aintiit *i>ri-iti//!/ fnr //i/.s work]

THE BURNING OF LAOASH.

In the roign of tin- ill -fated reformer, rnikngiim, l,ana-h was attacked by her hereditary foes, the men of the neighbouring city ot I 'IMIII;I, who ni;t<-;i(-n-tl tlic in ha hit a nts. sacked and liurnt tlit- cit> , and set even the tfnipU-s of tin- pods on fire. Through the reforms, l>y whicli I rukiutina had .succeeded in stamping out corruption among his officials, the state had been

disorgiiuisi'd and the army wrtikriii'd hnn-r the city fell an easy prry to In-r cncini<'>.

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Singh Kachhwaha of Amber (Jaipur) was his governor in Kabul, Bihar and Bengal. One of his best friends was the clever and capable Raja Birbal, a Brahman. And last but not least there was Todar Mall, the devout Hindu of the Khatri caste of Oudh, who was not only a good general, but also one of the greatest of all Indian administrators, to whom the British Empire owes the basis of its, land revenue system, the foundations of which had been laid by Sher Shah Sur. In his time the land revenue produced about nineteen millions sterling, and all the taxes about as much more, while the army practically corres- ponded to the modern British yeomanry in form, with artillery attached, and it was raised by thejagirdars and mansabddrs, or, as we should say, by lords-lieutenant and their deputies. Akbar was, however, faced with the universal and perennial trouble of a militia force, the making of false returns of strength, and he introduced elaborate regulations to try and prevent it. All the internal arrangements of the time are embodied in a work which has attracted universal attention, the Institutes of Akbar (Ain-i-Akbari) , compiled for the Emperor by a bosom friend, Shekh Abu'1-Fazl, who is looked on by his compatriots as one of the greatest masters of Persian style. Akbar was a great man as well as a great king, and, like his forerunner Asoka, he ruled his country for the benefit of the people with toleration and tact.

Akbar was succeeded by his eldest son, Jahangir, who reigned from 1605 to 1627 : a man very different from his father. Talented, intemperate, self-indulgent and good-natured when things went to his satisfaction, Jahangir was otherwise a ferocious tyrant. Among his many evil deeds in his father's life- time he caused Abu'1-Fazl to be murdered in 1602. He was clever enough, however, despite his weakness, to keep his great inheritance together and his rebellious sons at bay, with the help of his famous intriguing

Painted uprrinJJn for His icorfr.1

AKBAR PLAYS DRAUGHTS WITH LIVING PIECES AT FATEHPUR SIKRI, 1575.

J

The game of pachisi or chaupur is played with pieces nn a cross chess-board by two opponents, whoso object, under certain rules governed by the throw of cowries or dice, is to get all their men into the centre of the cross first. Akbar was fond of playing the game with the slave irirls of his Court as pieces, and constructed a Pachis Board at Fatehpur Sikri for the purpose, near the Diwan-J-Khas.

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consort, Nurjahan (Nurmahal), to whom and her capable brother Asa( Khan he practically left the government. Like many other great Indian rulers, Jahangir was a highly educated man, and wrote his own Memoirs (Tuzak-i-Jahanglri), in which he reveals his character in the most intimate manner, and there are also good descriptions of him by the British Ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, who was three years in India from 1615. Jahangir was an aesthetic lover of natural beauty, spending every summer in Kashmir, where his immense and beautiful buildings still abound.

After Jahangir came his magnificent son, Shahjahan, who reigned for thirty years (1628-1658), till he was deposed by his equally famous son, Aurangzeb. His wife was Nurjahan 's niece, Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the world-renowned mausoleum at Agra, commonly called the Taj, was constructed. Shahjahan reduced the whole Deccan to obedience in a seven years war (1630-1637), but beyond that his reign is chiefly remarkable for the splendour of his Court and buildings. Under him the country

I \iinled specially for this work.]

COINING MONEY FOR AFFONSO D'ALBUQUERQUE AT OOA, 1510.

The great Affonso D'Albuqucrque, who created an Empire for the Portuguese along the coast of India, between 150B and 1518, was a remarkable administrator. Amon? other things, wherever hu went he sot up a coinage of Portuguese money mainly for the encouragement of trade, and some of the novnl denominations he introduced arc still in existence.

enjoyed peace on the whole, but the mildness of his own rule was much marred by the cruelties he permitted his subordinates to perpetrate. He led a moral life so long as Mumtaz Mahal held sway over him, but after her death he strayed into the paths of a useless sensuality.

In 1657 Shahjahan became seriously incapacitated for all business, and the result was that his four sons fought for the supremacy, in which after a considerable struggle the third son, the wily and capable Aurangzeb, triumphed, and the others met their deaths. In the next year, with the help of his sister, Raushanara, Aurangzeb deposed his father, who was allowed to live on in luxury and sensuality till 1666, when he died in the veranda of his palace at Agra, whence he could behold his great creation, the Taj. He was at last buried beside the woman he had loved beyond all others. The redeeming feature of his latter end was that he had with him as an elevating companion his

I'aiiUed specially for this imrk.

PRINCESS CHAND BIB! DEFENDS AHMADNAOAK 1595

the wal, o, the fort

Chand Bibi,

^^

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Story of the Nations

other daughter, Jahanara, "an example of female modesty, beautiful, heroic, witty, generous, elegant, accomplished", whose grave near Delhi has still only grass above it, according to her request : "Let no one scatter over my grave anything but verdure, for such best becomes the sepulchre of one who had a humble mind."

Aurangzeb, known equally well to Indian historians as Alamgir, was forty when he came to th& throne, a man of strong character and fixed ideas. He reigned forty-nine years (1659-1707), and throughout that time he remained a fanatical Musalman, never deviating from his principles and his

Painted specially for this work.

A SAVAGE LESSON,

Soon after Jaliangir's accession, bis eldest BOD Kbusru rebelled unsuccessfully at Lahore, and the Emperor thought he would give him a warning by compelling him to ride on an elephant between long lines of his companions impaled on stakes. Jahan;ir*s own words describing this are : "I directed a number of sharp stakes to be set up in the bed of the river, upon which thrones of misfortune and despair I caused the three hundred traitors who had conspired with Khusru to be impaled alive."

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Painted specially far this work.]

HUMPHREY COOKE TAKES POSSESSION OF BOMBAY, 1665.

The first Governor sent from England to take over Bombay from the Portuguese was Sir Abraham Shipman, whose expedition fared very badly for nearly three years. Most of the party died, including Shipmau himself, but at last, in 1665, a small mud fort on the Island of Bombay was handed over to his secretary, Humphrey Cooke. The European dress of the period in India was that of the natives except as to breeches and boots.

notion of duty : to suppress infidels and idolaters and all heretics from his own sect, the Sunni Muham- madans. He was a capable man, a brilliant writer, an astute diplomatist, a courageous military commander, an able administrator, a just judge, and of ascetic personal habits ; but no considerations of his own advantage or public policy ever made him swerve from his fixed principles. The actions which his austerity induced him to perform broke up the Empire he sought so assiduously to extend and maintain all the years of his long life for the sake of what he considered to be the benefit of his people : their conversion, willing or unwilling, to his sect of Islam. His was the career of a bigoted missionary, invested with imperial authority, who carried out settled ideas to their logical end regardless of results, and it failed disastrously.

But for all his ill-treatment of those who disagreed with his religious views Northern India enjoyed profound peace for at least twenty years of his reign. His acts, however, in the end brought about rebellion and the complete alienation of the Hindus. He reimposed the poll-tax on unbelievers (jizya), destroyed sacred buildings and schools, built mosques in such holy places of the Hindus as Benares, and tried to kidnap the children of Rajput chiefs for "conversion". He did not massacre, but he worried perpetually. His clever defeat of his able eldest brother, Dara Shikoh of the large tolerant heart, had much to do with the further history of India, and one cannot help wondering what would have happened had Dara Shikoh triumphed and held the Empire together by his religious tolerance and not split it to fragments as did Aurangzeb by his fanaticism.

The European intruders into India had not advanced far enough in Aurangzeb's reign to affect the general history of his Empire, though they had progressed considerably towards the end of it, but a new and for the time a much more menacing power had come into existence soon after he assumed imperial authority. The old Maharashtra (Rashtrakuta) Hindu power of the Deccan once again appeared in the form of the Marathas under the able Sivaji, who was the son of Sahuji Bhonsla., a soldier of fortune and a fiefholder under the Bijapur kingdom in the Deccan. He afterwards became one of the greatest generals and military and civil administrators of Indian history. Sivaji began by annexing territory from Bijapur,

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and before his death in 1680 he had acquired practical supremacy for his people over all Western India.

But he had done much more. He had created the Maratha nation as the champion of Hinduism.

After Sivaji's death, Aurangzeb succeeded in getting possession of the remaining Musalman kingdoms

of the Deccan, Bijapur and Golkonda, but the Maratha power was ever becoming more efficient and the

Emperor's religious policy had des- troyed the efficiency of his own unwieldy armies, and thus the now very aged man of eighty-nine was forced into retirement and death at Aurangabad, not far from which he lies buried at Khuldabad in an unhonoured grave, in contrast to that of his great predecessor Akbar, which is still honoured by Hindu and Muham- madan alike. After the death of Aurangzeb (1707) the history of India is much concerned with the doings of the three great Brahman ministers of the ineffective successors of Sivaji at Poona, better known to history by their Persian title of Peshwa (leader).

The condition of India for the next fifty years was just chaos with "hell let loose" at times in places. Nominally there was sovereignty at Delhi, but there was no physical empire, nor were there any emperors that ruled. The political history of the time resolves itself into the varying struggles of local peoples and personages for sovereign power, and the rise of new States and authorities. Out of the general melee certain im'portant powers and person- ages emerged. Thus there were two foreign invaders who, for a brief while, wrote their names large on the page of Indian history. In 1739, Nadir Shah, the famous Afghan usurper of the Persian throne, swooped down on Delhi, and committed the notorious massacre there, carried off an immense treasure, and last, but not least, took away with him hundreds of skilled

Satanati ) and built a wattle and daub factory on the banks of the Hugli artizans. Nine years later (1748) his

from which he had to Hoc on account of troubles between the British and native authorities. He went to Madras until these were over. In 1690 he returned to liciiRtil. iiml with an armed party proceeded to Satanati and scrambled up the mud bank in the rains, to find only the remains of a burnt hut. out of which eventually ifrew the groat capital of Calcutta.

Paintfd specially far this imrk.}

JOB CHARNOCK FOUNDING CALCUTTA, 1690. In 1680 the noted factor. Job Charnock, fixed upon the site of Calcutta

successor in Persia, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani (Ab- dali) Dynasty of Afghanistan, invaded the Pan jab and annexed it. In 1756 he repeated the sack of Delhi, disappearing with his plunder, except for intermittent raids into the Panjab, and did one important, though unintentional, service to India by defeating the Marathas in 1761 at Panipat. Among the Indian Muhammadans, kingdoms were set up in Bengal and Oudh, the Rohilla Afghans made themselves independent in Rohilkhand, north of the Ganges, and in the Deccan a new power, which still exists, arose in 1723, when a Turkoman noble, Chin Kilich Khan, better known as Asa! Jah, became independent as the Nizam of Haidarabad, near the older Deccan capital of Golkonda,

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191

A scene at the Jlmla Jatra or Summer Swinging Festival in honour of Krishna.

Figures of Durga the goddess of destruction, at the great Autumn festival of the Durga Puja.

Meanwhile the Sikh Khalsa, or military Order, had become a political confederation, and began to ravage the Panjab and set up petty principalities. And, lastly, the Hindu Marathas had rapidly made themselves into an important Indian power under the great Peshwa, Baji Rao, and by 1760 had occupied most of Western India from the Himalayas to Mysore. But in 1761, on the historic field of Panipat,

a-puja : devotees in procession with iron spikes run through their tongues in honour of Mahadev (Siva).

i.Rimn Jatra : the ceremony of bathing Jagannath after his miraculous arrival at Serainpore in one night from Cuttark.

Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Muhammadan allies utterly defeated the Marathas, and broke the power of the Peshwas, leaving it to the Holkars of Indor, the Gaikwars (Gayakwad) of Baroda, the Sindhias of Gwalior, and the now extinct Bhonslas of Nagpur, all families of humble Maratha origin, to revive the power of their nation for a while, with the help of an army thoroughly organized and armed on the European model of the time The Marathas, of course, sacked the unfortunate Delhi, but they did much more harm

Uruirn '>n lliiltliii.inr No/ri/n.s-.] \]Sij permission tif the Nreretnrii of slnte for India.

The final ceremony at a Hindu mnrriauic (iiiijnh) : joininr tho Sannyasis (devotees) throwing themselves on to hoards

hands of the bridal pair over a lirass vessel of Mater. studded with nails carried on men's shoulders

HINDU CEREMONIES IN BENGAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Story of the Nations

than this. Their ru'.e included the levy of a heavy tribute (sardesmukhi] , and the extraction of the chauth, nominally a land-tax of a fourth of the land revenue, as the price of forbearance from ravage, but in reality a terrible blackmail extorted at odd times whenever practicable. The ascendancy of the Marathas was indeed a national terror, and meant the impoverishment of all but themselves, and the increase of power for that section of the Brahman caste to which the Peshwas belonged.

Indefinite and often indiscriminate authority exerted by the Marathas, the Sikhs and the Muhammadan States of Oudh. Bengal and the Deccan describes the state of India, when yet another power, the British,

arose, which was destined to imperial sway on a larger scale than any that had ever been known before. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries England, Holland, France. Denmark, Scotland, Spain, Austria, and Sweden all made bids for the S3aborne trade between India and Europe ; but of these only the companies established by England, Holland, and France rose to any position of importance. The Dutch arrived before the English, the English East India Company being formed in order to compete with the Dutch monopoly of the trade, and all through the seventeenth century there was a long-continued struggle between them for the command of the sea-borne trade, from which they ousted the Portu- guese in 1658. This rivalry con- tinued till just before the final triumph of the British in India over all other Europeans. The British East India Company had several English rivals until the time of Charles II (1660-1685), whose five charters gave it rights of rule, and after various vicissitudes it was endowed with political power by Parliament in 1708. The French first came into India as rivals of the British with the Compagnie des Indes in 1664, and for a long while there was a most serious struggle between them for supremacy, culminating in the final defeat of the French in 1761, as the result of want of backing and intelligent interest at home. The brave and capable French leaders in the East left a great legacy behind them in the form of many permanently valuable points in administration, and of teaching the British trading

fainted specially fur Hi in trork.)

THE BLACK HOLE, JUNE 20, 1756.

The Black Hole was the name of a guard-room lock-up used for refractory soldiers of the garrison of old Fort William in Calcutta. In 1756, Suraju'ddaula, «hc young and worthless successor if his grandfather, the great Allrardi Khan, Viceroy of Bengal, attacked Calcutta and drove out the English, except 146, who were confined for a whole night in the Black Hole while Suraju'ddaula slept. All but twenty -three died of heat and thirst. The sepoy guard posted outside the barred window amused themselves by ostentatiously pouring out water and drinking it before the eyes of the sufferers.

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193

Fainted fpfciatty for this worfc.l

THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY, JUNE 23, 1757.

At the end of 1756 Clive arrived in Calcutta from Madras to avenge the proceedings ot Suraju'ddaula, whom he defeated ta February of 1757, at Dum Dum. Thereupon Suraju'ddaula invited the aid of the French at Chandernagorc, which Cllve captured. He finally routed the allied forces at Plassey, near Kasimbazar, on June 23, 1757, against enormous odda. Suraju'ddaula, who showed great cowardice on this occasion, fled and was soon afterwards murdered. By this victory Clive made possible the British Empire in India.

community the importance in the then existing conditions in India of empire in order to make ' trade succeed.

The first attempts of the British Company at attaining practical political power in India were an unsuccessful armed resistance, undertaken with the sanction of James II, in 1686, against encroachments on the part of Shayista Khan, uncle of Aurangzeb and Viceroy of Bengal, and a successful blockade of Surat in 1690, which brought Aurangzeb, much occupied elsewhere, to terms. In 1696 Fort William was built at Calcutta, and trading went on quietly there until 1756, when Suraju'ddaula, the graceless Viceroy of Bengal, attacked Calcutta, inflicting on the European survivors the horrors of the Black Hole, a military guardroom lock-up, where one hundred and forty-six prisoners were confined in one room during a hot July night while the Viceroy slept. Only twenty-three came out of it alive. Revenge was, however, •soon forthcoming from Madras in the person of a great man, Robert Clive, who had already become famous. With a very small force Clive badly defeated Suraju'ddaula at Dum Dum, near Calcutta, and in the follow- ing year (1757) routed him at the famous battle of Plassey (Palasi), near Murshidabad, which led to his •death and the placing of his uncle, Mir Jafir, on the Viceregal throne as the candidate of the British Com- pany. Thus did the British begin to rule, and soon afterwards a quarrel with the new Viceroy, in 1759, backed by the Dutch, led to the end of Dutch power in India. Five years later, in 1764, Sir Hector Munro .gained a great victory at Buxar over the forces of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam, and in 1765 there followed the formal British occupation of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and part of Oudh by grant from the Emperor. In this year Clive, who had gone to England in 1760, returned for a short while, during which •he introduced real imperial sway for the Company, and, by raising the pay of public servants to a reasonable amount, aimed at purity of conduct and loyalty of service in India. To the efforts of this one individual, •then, are to be traced, first the origin of British empire in India by his victory at Plassey, and, secondly, the beginnings of the British system of administration. In 1767 Clive left India ill, only to be bitterly attacked by malignant calumny in England and to end his life by his own hand in 1774. Courageous, resourceful, indomitable of will, a born general and a far-seeing statesman : in the words of the final

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Story of the Nations

«!/ rirrmiesion of] \tlte Stmtary of State for India

THE ACTION ISETWEEN THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH OFF PULO AOR IN 1804. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Napoleon was the bugbear of the British in India and his intrigues were the cause of a great straggle. In 1804 the ships of the French squadron (in the foreground), under Admiral Linois, were routed by the East India Company's Indiamcn under Commodore (Sir Nathaniel) Dance off Pulo Aor, an island in the Straits of .Malacca.

judgment of Parliament upon his work, he rendered "great and meritorious service to his country". Clive's rule was followed by five years of mismanagement by incompetent and dishonest officials, in whose time occurred, in 1770, one of the worst famines on record. To them succeeded another great man, Warren Hastings, as Governor of Fort William in 1772 and Governor-General in 1774. Meanwhile in the south there occurred a life-and-death struggle between the French and the English. Dupleix, the able Governor

of the French settlements at Pondicherry, had de- vised the policy of inter- vening in native politics, captured Madrasin 1746, and carried on war 1 against the British till 1754, when his inappreci- ative masters in France recalled him, and left a really great man to die in poverty and disap- pointment. After this the British became pre- dominant in the Car- natic, and the French in the Deccan. By 1756 De Bussy. a capable French official, had taken possession of the Northern Circars, south of Orissa, and instituted a form of administration still used in part by the British Government; but by the folly of his superior, Lally, all his work was destroyed at the battle of Wandiwash , near Arcot, in 1760, and French power disap-

liy permission of\ [the Secretary of Htalr for I

THE TOMB OF JAHANARA BEGAM AT DELHI.

Jahanara Begam, one of the daughters of Shahjahan, generous, elegant and accomplished, has come down to modern times as the model of Muhammadan womanhood ami filial devotion, she died in 11180 and was buried near Delhi, in ac- cordance with her will, without a tomb over her. "Let no one scatter over my grave anything but verdure, for such best bo- comes the sepulchre of one who had a humble mind." The railings round her grave arc among the finest known examples of pierced marble work.

peared from tndia in 1761, except in so far as French officers and ad- venturers of note were able to harass British armies by capable lead- ing of those of native rulers until their final destruction by Lord Lake in 1803.

The year 1761 saw the destruction of the Maratha Empire, the disappearance of French rule in India, and at the same time the rise of a new temporary power in the south. Haidar Ali, an illiterate Muham- madan officer in the service of the Hindu kingdom of Mysore, one of those to survive the ruin of the Vijayanagar Empire, and a man of remarkable energy power of work, resource and general capacity, made himself master of the country owing to the weakness of the

A|TM>»hi of 0«rar B.rid « Bid.r J~~ Ku:*b >* Colkon

el N)X*m tt Ahmjd"»|*'

^/ Adll " Bij.p.r

MAPS OF MUHAMMADAN INDIA IN THE XlVth AND XVtn CENTURIES.

EARLY BRITISH EMPIRE

A.D. 1805.

MAP OF THE MUGHAL EMPIIiE.

MAI' OF THE EARLY BRITISH EMPIRE.

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Story of the Nations

THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS, 1788.

Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General (1774-1785), was with Clive the founder of the British Empire in India, but during his administration he made many enemies. On his retirement he was pursued by them with extraordinary rancour, which led to a trial before Parliament, lasting nine years (1786-1795). He was acquitted on all charges, but received no reward what- ever for his magnificent services to his country.

Marathas after their defeat at Panipat by Ahmad Shah Durrani. In 1769 he was a serious menace to the British at Madras, and it was not until 1780 that he was beaten by Sir Eyre Coote, to die unsubdued, how- ever, in 1782, but acknowledging the coming power of the British in pathetically prophetic terms. Thus, when Warren Hastings was called to govern, the English were in actual power over a considerable portion of India, and were alone among the European peoples in having any foothold in the country.

All the great Mughal Emperors, from Babar downwards, were men of cultured taste, which showed itself in literature, architecture, and the arts generally, and tecause their work is the most recent, the remains are nowadays the best preserved in India, and the most widely renowned over the world. The influence of the Mughal architecture is foreign, as these rulers brought the Persian style of the sixteenth r.entury with them : at first modified by the ideas of the Indians employed as builders and subsequently by the introduction of Italian stone-inlay. Their buildings are, however, among the most beautiful in the world in any style, and remarkable indeed, from Akbar's tomb to his father, Humayun, at Delhi and his buildings at Fatehpur Sikri, to Shahjahan's great masterpiece, the Taj at Agra, and his superbly magnificent palace at Delhi. Like their architecture, the literature of the Mughals was mainly Persian, so much so that some of the most famous works in that language were composed in India under their influence. But under them was initiated a new literature, which promises to be of permanent value and to go down to posterity as one of the most important of the world. The rough lingtia franca of the camp, Urdu, has been transformed into the highly polished and cultivated literary tongue now known as Hindustani, in which have been and are still being produced works of general importance and reputation in every branch of study, aesthetic and practical.

Perhaps no one fact shows the effect on popular domestic affairs of the general influence of the Mughal sovereignty and of the chaos at its latter end more than the state to which religion was reduced among the people under its sway. No proselytizing by force or otherwise was able to turn them as a whole from their ancient faith and they remained essentially Hindu, but after the days of the tolerant Akbar, the indifferent Jahangir, the unstable Shahjahan at first tolerant and then intolerant, and the sympathetic Dara Shikoh, no teacher or reformer of note arose, until long afterwards in the days when the Pax Britannica became established. Tulsi Das, the great poetical teacher of salvation by faith, died in 1623,

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197

and Dadu, the deistic follower of Kablr, the last to found a sect (Dadupanthi) of any consequence, died in 1603. After them, indeed, the sects and divisions of Hinduism lived on in places, but only after a fashion, under repression and discouragement, and the result was this : scholarship sank low, and a coarse, ignorant ritualism was the rule, covering a grossly immoral idolatry with all its worst features on the surface — immolation of widows, hook-swinging, ascetic torture, and so on. This was the Hinduism of the first days of British rule, and that which greeted the earlier English residents in the country, and is described in their records : a very different form of religion from that which had gone before and that which was to come afterwards and to exist in our own time.

Since the Mughal days the dominating influence on the people's daily life has been that of the British, and its present trend is largely due to the direction given it by the great Robert Clive. One of his lasting services to his countrymen, and that which brought about the subsequent attack on him, was his enforcement of the principle that honesty is the best policy in all public administration. The principle adopted by the Company in his day was to give grotesquely inadequate salaries, and to allow private trade within the limits of the country to make up for them, probably on the anticipation that servants so far beyond control would in any case peculate. 'It led to all sorts of evil : to demoralized habits of unlimited peculation both from the Company and from the people, high and low, and to endless insubordination, for, when once a man had acquired a private estate under the terms of his employment, dismissal had no terrors for him, and he proceeded to act for his own advantage in successful defiance of his masters. It led also to continuous bickering and trouble between the Company and their servants. But though in the records of the times the average Englishmen in India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

By permission of\ [the Secretary of Stale for India.

LORD CORNWALLIS RECEIVING THE SONS OF TIPU SAHIB AS HOSTAGES, 1792.

Tipu Sahib (1782-1799), the troublesome successor of Haidar All of Mysore, carried on a desultory war in the Madras Presi- dency against the English for many years. In 1790 he attacked Travaucore, which induced the Governor-General, Lord Cornwallls to take the field in person. Tipu Sahib was subdued for the time being, and in 1792 bad to pay a heavy indemnity, giving his sons as hostages for the payment.

198 Story of the Nations

are not revealed to us as men of a high class of character or mental attainments, their leaders were wonderfully acute men of business and judges of those with whom they had to deal, carrying on success- fully a large trade under extraordinary difficulties of financing and merchanting. Their account system was at first bad, and so arranged as to provide opportunities for hiding peculation, until Streynsham Master considerably discouraged it by a new and more correct method of book-keeping in 1678, thereby rendering a service to India the effects of which are felt to this day.

The Company's servants led isolated and not very elevated lives as a rule, and much of their time was taken up with undignified quarrelling among themselves, but many of them nevertheless acquired a knowledge of the Indians, their habits, religions, customs and history, which, though not by any means accurate, was much to their credit, considering their opportunities for literary study. There is a point

Painted feyl \R. K Porter

THE FINDING OK THE BODY OF TIPU 8AHIH AT SEKINUAPATAM, 17»!i.

The fourth and last Mysore War lasted exactly two months, and on April 4, 179U, SerinKapatam, the fortress of Tipu Sahib, the ruler of Mysore, was stormed by General Baird in seven minutes, Tipn hlmcclf beintr killed in the breach in the wall. Mysore was handed back to the Hindu Wodeyar Dynasty, which still holds it.

also in their lives which has been much misunderstood and misreported in the past. Large fortunes under the system of private trading were made in individual cases and comfortable competences in others, but as a rule Englishmen in India at that time were unsuccessful in "shaking the pagoda tree". Most of them died in the country, many in debt, while many others left but little property behind them, and not much of that ever found its way to heirs at home.

BRITISH RULE (from 1774)

THE RULE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY (1774 — 1858) THE CHILDHOOD OF A GOVERNMENT

THE system initiated by Ciive and kept up till the formal establishment of British imperial power in 1858 was that the Mughal Emperor reigned, but the British East India Company ruled wherever its territory

Maharawal Salivahan of Jaisaliner, 1891.

Shah Alam, -Mughal Kmpernr, 1759-1806.

Maharaja Ji

1 »!)•.'.

Maharaja D hangar Singh of Bikaner.

Akbar, the Great, Mughal Emperor 1556-1605.

Maharaja Sajan Singh of Udaipur. 1874.

Maharaja Ram Singh of Jaipur, 1835-1880.

Farrukhsiyar, Mughal Emperor, 1707-1712.

Jahangir, Mughal Emperor. 1605-162S.

Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, 1873.

Shahjahan, Mughal Emperor, 1628-1658.

Aurangzeb, the Great .Mughal 1658-1707.

From "The Rulers at Iiuliu anri the Chiefs of liajputana"]

[by T. H. Hendleu, C.I.E.

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Story of the Nations