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THE KOH-I-NUR.
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wild
tradition would have us believe that it was found no less than five
thousand years ago. If it were found then, and if it has been ever
since the contested prize of adventurers, thieves and all sorts of
marauders, we cannot be too thankful that forty-seven of those fifty
centuries are mercifully hidden from us.
Sultan
Baber was a great man, a mighty conqueror and a good writer. He has
left full and minute journals of his long adventurous life, which take
the panting reader through such a series of battles, sieges, conquests,
defeats, royal pageants and hair-breadth escapes, that at last one
cries out with wonder, " Can this man have been mortal to have lived
through all this ?"
Baber
came from good old conquering stock. His father was sixth in descent
from Tamerlane the Tartar, and his mother stood somewhat nearer to
Jenghis Khan. Following in the footsteps of his fierce ancestors,.
Baber invaded India, or as he himself complacently remarks: " he put
his foot in the stirrup of resolution and
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