For close on these two hundred years the northern plains of India were a battle-field. Winter after winter, as the sun's power declined, and the curious second spring began of cold-weather crops and fruits and flowers, which to this day make the Punjâb seasons hover between the tropics and the temperates, there debouched from the snow-clad hills, all along the western and north-western frontier of India, long files of wild-looking horsemen, followed by camels, by foot soldiers; and somewhere, in their midst always, was the green flag of the Prophet, with its over-riding, overbearing crescent, telling its tale of rising power; the crescent which is an apt symbol of a fighting faith. What tempted these hardy northern folk into the wide plains of India? Was it, indeed, zeal for Souls? Hardly. By the way, as a sort of salve to conscience, such zeal was good to break an idol or two, or an idolater's head; but _au fond_, the money bags outweighed all other reasons for these recurring raids. For during those three centuries of Chaos, during the dark ages of degeneracy, India had grown rich-inordinately rich. Overlaid, and yet again overlaid with finikin fanciful ornamentations, almost incoherent in their diffuse discursive details, the temples were perfect mines of wealth; in some cases of useless, buried treasure, since in the gradual downfall OF the Hindu nation at large, the privileged class of Brahmans had closed their grip even on the power of the princes. The only thing which remained comparatively untouched, as in India it has ever remained untouched, being the slow-moving mass of the peasantry, who, willing bondsmen to Mother Earth, took no heed of anything save famine. The first swoop for plunder was made by one Mahmûd, King of Ghuzni, in November A.D. 1001. He must have entered India by the Khyber Pass, for on the 27th of that month, near Peshawar, he met and defeated King Jaipal of Lahôre. One can imagine the contest. The long-nosed, long-curled, long-bearded Ghuznivites, rough and ready in their skin-coats, their burly bosoms aflame with covetousness for creed and gold, their guttural throats resounding with the war-cry of Islam: "Kill! Kill! For the Faith!" And on the other side, the clean-shaven, oiled, scented Hindus lax with long centuries of ease, yet still full of pride, full of high courage. It was a foregone conclusion, despite the mailed elephants and the elaborate old War Office dispositions and compositions of corps and _cadre_ which had come down, we may be sure, from Chândra-gûpta's days. For once the East gets hold of a thing, it sticks to it.