Shir Khan Treated
The Women Belonging To Humaynn With Great Respect, And Restored Them To
The Padishah.
Finding himself too weak for the conquest of Bengal,
Humayun determined upon endeavouring to reduce Guzerat; but abandoned in
His distress by his own Omrahs, he went into Persia, where the Sophi
supplied him with an army of 12,000 horse, to which he was enabled to
add 10,000 volunteers. With these allies, added to the troops that
continued to adhere to him, he invested Candahar, where his brother
Astarii Mirza had proclaimed himself king of Mogostan. The city was
taken and given up to the Persians. In the mean time Shir Khan made
himself formidable in Bengal, having an army of 400,000 horse. He took
the city of Calijor belonging to the Rajputs, meaning to plunder a vast
treasure contained in the temple at that place; but pointing a cannon to
kill an elephant belonging to the temple, the piece burst and killed
himself.
The present formerly mentioned, which was sent by the king of Guzerat to
the Grand Turk to obtain his assistance, was delivered at
Constantinople, where at the same time arrived news of the kings death.
But the great value of the present demonstrated the vast riches of
India, and made the Turkish emperor desirous of acquiring a footing in
that country, whence he thought the Portuguese might be easily expelled,
and their possessions reduced under his dominion. In this enterprise he
was greatly encouraged by a Portuguese renegado at Constantinople, who
asserted that the Turkish power might easily supplant that of the
Portuguese in India. For this purpose, the Turkish emperor ordered a
fleet to be fitted out at Suez, the command of which was given to the
eunuch Solyman Pacha, governor of Cairo. Solyman was a Greek janizary
born in the Morea, of an ugly countenance, short of stature, and had so
large a belly that he was more like a beast than a man, not being able
to rise up without the aid of four men. At this time he was eighty years
of age, and he obtained this command more by dint of his wealth than
merit, as he offered to be at the entire charge of the expedition. To
enable him to perform this, he put many rich men to death and seized
their wealth. Among others he strangled Mir Daud, king or bey of the
Thebaid, and seized his treasure. It might be said therefore that this
fleet was equipped rather by the dead than the living. It consisted of
70 sail, most of them being large gallies, well stored with cannon,
ammunition, and provisions; on board of which he embarked 7000 soldiers,
part Turkish janizaries and part Mamelukes; besides a great number of
choice sailors and galley-slaves, many of the latter being taken from
the Venetian gallies then at Alexandria, which were seized in
consequence of a war breaking out between the Turks and the republic of
Venice.
Solyman, who was both a tyrant and a coward, set out from Suez on the
22d of June 1538, ordering four hundred of the soldiers to assist at the
oars, and as they resisted this order as contrary to their privileges,
he put two hundred of them to death.
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