Then said Eric: "More cheerful were we in the summer, when we put out of the firth, but we still live, and it might have been much worse." Thorstein answers: "It will be a princely deed to endeavor to look well after the wants of all these men who are now in need, and to make provision for them during the winter." Eric answers: "It is ever true, as it is said, that 'It is never clear ere the winter comes,' and so it must be here. We will act now upon thy counsel in this matter." All of the men who were not otherwise provided for accompanied the father and son. They landed thereupon, and went home to Brattahlid, where they remained throughout the winter. MAHOMETANS IN INDIA BLOODY INVASIONS UNDER MAHMUD A.D. 1000 ALEXANDER DOW (While Buddhism was giving place to Hinduism in India a new faith had arisen in Arabia. Mahomet, born A.D. 570, created a conquering religion, and died in 632. Within a hundred years after his death, his followers had invaded the countries of Asia as far as the Hindu Kush. Here their progress was stayed, and Islam had to consolidate itself during three more centuries before it grew strong enough to grasp the rich prize of India. But almost from the first the Arabs had fixed eager eyes upon that wealthy empire, and several premature inroads foretold the coming storm. About fifteen years after the death of the Prophet, Othman sent a naval expedition to Thana and Broach on the Bombay coast. Other raids toward Sind took place in 662 and 664, with no lasting results. Hinduism was for a time submerged, but never drowned, by the tide of Mahometan conquest, which set steadily toward India about A.D. 1000. At the present day the south of India remains almost entirely Hindu. By far the greater number of the Indian feudatory chiefs are still under Brahman influence. But in the northwest, where the first waves of invasion have always broken, about one-third of the population now profess Islam. The upper valley of the Ganges boasts a succession of Mussulman capitals; and in the swamps of Lower Bengal the bulk of the non-Aryan or aboriginal population have become converts to the Mahometan religion. The Mussulmans now make fifty-seven millions of the total of two hundred and eighty-eight millions in India. The armies of Islam had carried the crescent throughout Asia west of the Hindu Kush, and through Africa and Southern Europe, to distant Spain and France, before they obtained a foothold in the Punjab. The brilliant attempt in 711 to found a lasting Mahometan dynasty in Sind failed. Three centuries later, the utmost efforts of a series of Mussulman invaders from the northwest only succeeded in annexing a small portion of the frontier Punjab provinces.