p
■chap. ii.j sultan mahmood's wars. 45
mmf the unfortunate Rajah Jeipal. Not deterred by his father's fate, Anangpal a.d. 1005. encountered Mahmood near Peshawer, and sustained a defeat which compelled him to take refu<xe in Cashmere. The victorious sultan continued his march to Mooltan, and obtained the submission of its chief He would doubtless have exacted more rigorous terms than submission, and also made Anangpal feel the full weiglit of his vengeance, had he not been under the necessity of hastening home to repel the formidable invasion of a Tartar prince of the name of Elik Khan, who had hoped to make an easy comjuest of Khorasan while the Ghuznee forces were beyond the Indus. He had miscalculated ; and on the sultan's arrival, was obliged, after a signal defeat, to recross the Oxus with only a few attendants. On this occasion the sultan's victory was greatly aided by 500 elephants which he had brought from India. The Tartar horses would not face them ; and the soldiers, who had never seen them before, were overawed by their huge bulk and strange appearance, especially after they had seen the one on which the sultan himself was mounted seize Elik Khan's standard-bearer and toss him into the air with his trunk.
Anangpal's escape was only temporary, for Mahmood was no sooner lid of coalition of
. . . rajalis.
the Tartar invader than he hastened Ixick to India at the head of a formidable army. Anangpal meanwhile, anticipating the return of the sultan, had made exertions, and succeeded in forming a powerful coalition of rajahs against the common enemy of their freedom and their faith. Their united forces brought into the Punjab a larger army than had ever been seen in it before. Even the I sultan seemed to hesitate ; and instead of advancing with the headlong courage which he usually displayed, began to entrench himself in the vicinity of Peshawer. This sign of weakness added greatly to the strength of the confede- rates, who were daily joined by new auxiliaries, and received large supplies of money from all quarters, even the Hindoo women selling their jewels and meltinof down the gold of their other ornaments to assist in what was regarded as a holy war.
Mahmood kept within his entrenchments, well aware that if they were Defeat of attacked, his position would give him a decided advantage; and that if the Indians, through fear of this, refrained from attacking, their immense tumultuary force could not be long kept together. The first skirmishes were not to his advantage, for the Gukkurs, and other mountaineer tribes, rushing impetuously among the Mahometan cavalry, made such dexterous use of their swords and knives that hoi-se and riders tumbled to the ground, and, to the number of several thousands, were despatched in a twinkling.' Mahmood still remained motionless,
'The Gukkurs, Guckers, Gakkars, Guikkers, or mentioned in the text seems to indicate that, as their
Kahkares (for the name is spelled in all these different mode of warfare bore a considerable resemblance to
ways, and not always in the same way by the same that for which the Ghorkas of Nepanl have recently
author), are first mentioned in the history of the Arab distinguished themselves, they may have had a coni-
coiiquests in India, as forming a league with the Af- mon origin. This, however, is improbable, as their
ghans, and, in union with them, wrestinij; a tract of localities are very remote from each other. The Guk-
territory from the Rajah of Lahore. Their e.|iloit kurs, according to Elphiustone (Cabul, Introduction,
i
