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Let us attend this valiant marauder on að nother or two of his plundering excursions into Hindoftan. At the holy fane of Kreeshna, at Mathura, he found five great idols of pure gold, with rubies for eyes of immense value. He found also there a hundred idols of filver; which, being melted down, loaded as many camels with bullion; and it will be remembered that the usual load which this powerful animal carries is from 750 to 1200 lb. weight, varying according to its magnitude. At the great temple of Sumnaut he found many thousand of gold and filver idols of smaller magnitude, a chain of folid gold, which was fufpended from the roof, and weighed forty maunds, befides an ineftimable hoard of jewels of the first water.* This prince, a day or two before his death, gave orders for the whole wealth of his treasury to be placed be fore him; and, having for fome time, from his throne, feasted his eyes upon the innumerable facks of gold, and caskets of precious stones, burst into tears; poffibly from anguish at the thought of leaving fo much treasure behind,

* See Herbelot on the article Mahmud, of Gazna; and Ferishta'; pages 73 and 86,

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but, far more probably, from the cutting reflection of having obtained it, from the plundered Hindoos, by a series of the most atrocious murders, under the founding and delufive name of conquest.

Astonishing as these accounts of the wealth, found by the firft conquerors of India, may appear, yet, when we confider that this is the accumulated undisturbed wealth of a great empire, that had, for nearly three thousand years, been absorbing into its bofom the gold and filver of the whole world, they will not be found abfolutely incredible, though poffibly, in fome degree, exaggerated by the pen of Eastern hiftorians. It should also be remem→ bered, that not only the whole western world had been thus long tributary to India for her gems, linen, and fpices, but that the mines of the Aurea Cherfonefus, generally thought to be Siam; thofe of Japan, productive of the pureft ore; thofe of Pegu, Sumatra, and Borneo, have immemorially, through one channel or another, fupplied the markets of India with these precious metals; and, when once imported either into India or China, we know that express and severe laws forbade its exportation, except when blended and incorporated

corporated with the brocades and other rich manufactures of those countries. In direct proof, however, that the above splendid details do by no means originate merely in the fanciful brain of the Afiatic biographers of the Gaznavide fovereign, may be adduced the almoft-infinite treasures obtained by Gengis, Timur, Baber, Nadir, and all the other fucceffive plunderers of Hindoftan, down to the, fordid wretch, who, not many years fince, tore down the plates of filver from the ceiling of the Divan of Delhi, broke up the floors of that palace for concealed treasures, and after having meanly feized on and fold the robes of the feraglio, endeavoured to extort, by the most excrutiating pangs of famine, from the humbled emperor and his attendants, that wealth which the repeated ravage of his limited domain did not permit the laft of the race of Timur to poffefs. The riches obtained in these invafions fhall be difcuffed in the fucceeding Sections, in which I shall recount the wealth of modern times, and the fources of it, and compare it with that of the ancient world. I fhall commence with an hiftoric view of the fucceffors of the hero of Macedon, who, flushed with conqueft,

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conquest, and loaded with the spoils of plun dered Afia, are urging their triumphant progrefs to the refpective kingdoms, which they have mutually, but faithleffly, ftipulated to make the limits of their ambition.

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SECTION II.

The Author, in this Section, returns to the Confideration of the Wealth obtained by ALEXANDER, and its Difperfion by his Succeffors, the PTOLEMIES of EGYPT, the SELEUCIDE of SYRIA, and the MACEDONIAN Sovereigns. -A Defcription, from ATHENAEUS, of a magnificent Festival, of the Phallic Kind, celebrated at ALEXANDRIA in EGYPT, in which a very large Portion of the Golden and Silver Spoils of BABYLON was displayed. A Second Defcription, from the fame Writer, of the fplendid Pomp and Proceffion folemnized by ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, at DAPHNE, in SYRIA; and exhibiting a fill farther Display of the plundered Treafures of the PERSIAN Empire. A Third, from PLUTARCH, of the Riches found in the Palace of PERSEUS,

VOL. VII.

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