Surely no land on the globe has suffered so much from invasion as Hindustan? The mythical Snake-people first, coming from God knows where.... Then the Aryans, with their flocks and herds, from the Roof of the World.... Next the well-greaved Greeks, leaving their indelible mark on Upper India.... So through Parthian, and Scythian, and Bactrian, to the wild, resistless influx of Mongolian immigrations. Then finally Mahmûd and Mahomed, Tamerlane and Babar ... last of all, Nâdir the Persian. His was an unprovoked, almost an unpremeditated invasion. It burst upon India like a monsoon storm, swift, lurid, almost terrible in the rapidity with which action follows menace. And like that same storm it came, it passed, and the blue, unclouded sky seemed far away from the desolation and havoc that had been wrought. In many ways this, the last, was the worst of all the sacks which India had suffered. To begin with, it came so late in time. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century one does not expect a robbing raid on so vast a scale. It seems almost incredible that an army of eighty thousand men should march through a country bent on plunder, and plunder only. Then its sole object--gold--was such a mean one. No political reason lay at the back of the raid. Nâdir had no ambitions. He did not wish to add to his kingship; it was all wilful, wicked, merciless greed. Yet Nâdir-Shâh himself was not absolutely a mean man. He was a native of Khorasân, that is to say, an Afghân, born of no particular family, but born a warrior. At the age of seventeen he was taken prisoner by the Usbeks, but after four years of captivity made his escape. Then he took service with the King of Khorasân, but, believing himself ill-rewarded for a success against the Tartars, gave up his command, and became, frankly, a freebooter. A few years later, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, he threw in his fortunes with those of a Persian princeling _en retraite_, and in his name fought a variety of battles, in which he was invariably victorious. They ended in the nominal restoration of Tâhmâsp to the throne of his fathers. But behind Tâhmâsp sate Nâdir, who had become the idol of the Persian people; and small wonder, since he had raised the nation from abject slavery to such military glory as Persia has seldom possessed. It was necessary, however, to continue soldierly exploits; so Nâdir set to work to settle a dispute with the Turks who had taken Tabrîz. He had recovered it, when trouble in Khorasân called him back, and kept him employed for so long, that when he returned to the capital, Isphahân, it was to find that his puppet Tâhmâsp had, during his absence, become a person of much importance, and was exercising all the royal prerogatives. This did not suit Nâdir, so, on the excuse of lack of statesmanship in concluding a treaty with the Turks, he deliberately deposed Tâhmâsp, and set his infant son in his stead.