The little kingdom of Afghanistan which we have seen rise on the north-eastern frontier of India established its complete independence towards the middle of the century, after long fighting, with varying fortune, against Persia. On her other boundary, westward and northward, Persia was engaged, on the whole successfully, in perpetual fighting against the Turk; but the result, except as it indicated a decrease {125} in Turkey's striking force, had little or no effect on the Great Story. Under the famous Shah Nadir, Persian armies had penetrated as far eastward as Delhi. But after Nadir's death, in 1747, his eastern conquests were lost. On its north-western border, India was menaced by Chinese armies, that conquered the warlike Ghurkas and subdued Nepal. At no other moment of our story does China appear so successful or so aggressive in arms or so likely to play an important part in the world drama. Her great emperor Keenlung had come to the throne in 1735, commencing a reign of no less than sixty years. Nor even then did he leave the throne to die, but voluntarily relinquished it to his son--to the fifteenth, in seniority, of his many sons. This, however, was the farthest limit of Chinese extension in the direction of India. The Ghurkas, a {126} tribe of martial hill-men destined to distinguished service under the British flag in later years, soon regained their independence. China contented herself with a much disputed sovereignty over the more northern province of Tibet. {127} CHAPTER IX THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR It is likely that until the latter half of the eighteenth century the people of Europe did not even begin to realise the full meaning of the great New World which Columbus had discovered for them in the West. Spain regarded it as a Tom Tiddler's ground where she would go and pick up gold. France and possibly England too had their foolish dreams. They expected enormous things from that vast continent of which the western limits were only gradually revealed to them. They expected enormous results which never were, nor ever could be realised. But they had no idea whatever of the yet more enormous effect which the finding of the new continent really was to have on the story. All that was hidden from their eyes.