grain which were beyond the power of his subjects to supply. The result was a rebellion among the Hazára, who had already been plundering, and now refused to pay taxes; so 'we beat them,' says Bábar, 'to our heart's content.' He now perceived that to feed his forces he must forage outside, and he already began to think of the riches of Hindústán. The stories of the soldier of Tímúr, told years before by the old woman among the Ailák shepherds, no doubt recurred to his memory, and the resolve to enter India grew more fixed and clear.
His first expedition, however, hardly touched the promised land of his dreams. He had intended, he says, to enter Hindústán, but was diverted from his project by the urgent advice of Báki. Instead, he fetched a circuit round the Afghán country, down the Khaibar, to Kohát, then past Bannu and the turbulent Bangash district to Isakhail; after which, skirting the foot-hills by Desht or Damán, he crossed the Gomal, and reached the Indus. Even in this slight view of the borders of India, he was impressed with the novelty of the scene. 'I beheld,' he says, 'a new world. The grass was different, the trees different, the wild animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, and the tribes of a different kind. I was struck with astonishment.' For a couple of days he marched along the bank of the frontier river, and then turned inland, crossed the Sulaimán range to the great lake called Áb-i-Istáda or 'Standing Water,' occupied Ghazni, and so returned to Kábul.
