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34 MAHMTTD OF GHAZNI that stretched to the Caspian and Aral Seas and almost to the Tigris, and that covered, at least for the time, half the vast plains and teeming population of Hin- dustan. Brief as was the occupation of most of this immense territory, it was a stupendous feat of acquisi- tion. He was aided, no doubt, by the dissensions of his neighbours; the break-up of the Samanid kingdom and the divisions of the Buwaihid princes in Persia opened the road to annexation in the west, just as the jealousies of the Indian rajas favoured aggression in the east. But it must not be forgotten that Persia was full of Turkish chiefs of the same warlike temper as Mahmud's forefather's, and that his northern frontier was perpetually menaced by the vigorous and aggres- sive tribes of Central Asia, against whom, neverthe- less, he was always able to hold his own. When Hak Khan, the chief of the Turks on the Jaxartes, came south to invade Khorasan in 1006 with a great host of his dreaded horsemen, Mahmud did not evade the shock. He led his army in person against the troopers of the steppes, and after bowing to the earth in prayer, which he never forgot before a battle, he mounted his elephant and smote the enemy hip and thigh, driving them back to their own land. A great soldier, a man of infinite courage and inde- fatigable energy of mind and body, Mahmud was no constructive or far-seeing statesman. We hear of no laws or institutions or methods of government that sprang from his initiative. Outward order and security was all he attempted to attain in his unwieldy empire;