Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/180

144 ALA -AD -DIN'S CONQUESTS IN THE DECCAN possessing himself of them, so that now, since the wise determination of the king had combined the extirpation of idolaters with this object, he was more than ever rejoiced to enter on this grand enterprise. The army left Delhi on the twenty-fourth of Jumada- 1-akhir, 710 A. H. (Oct. 31, 1309 A. D.), and after march- ing by the banks of the Jumna, halted at Tankal for fourteen days, where a muster of the army was taken. " After that the royal soldiers, like swift greyhounds, made lengthened marches for twenty-one days until they arrived at Kanhun, and in the course of seventeen days more, they arrived at Gurganw. During these seventeen days the Ghats were passed and great heights and depths were seen among the hills, where even the elephants became nearly invisible. Three large rivers, moreover, had to be crossed, and the passage of them caused the greatest fear. Two of them were equal to each other, but neither of them equalled the Narbada." After crossing those rivers, hills, and many depths, the raja of Telingana sent twenty-three powerful ele- phants for the royal service. For the space of twenty days the victorious army remained at Telingana, for the purpose of sending on the elephants, and they took a muster of the men present and absent, until the whole number was counted. And, according to the command of the king, they suspended swords from the standard poles, in order that the inhabitants of Ma' bar might be aware that the day of resurrection had arrived among them, and that the accursed Hindus would all