It came to the ears of the Sultán, that in the country of Táníshar there were many of that pe­culiar species of elephant, which they call Silmán. The prince of this country was high amongst the ungrateful deceivers, and of exalted relations amongst the rebellious and the sinful. Therefore he was one who merited that they should give him to drink a cup of the wine of the strokes of Islám’s sword, and that by means of the flame of the onset of her champions, they should strike into his es­sence the due of wickedness, so making him to know, that to drink their turns of this cup, and their turns of this calamity is the doom of the uni­versal Kaffir people, and that as other chiefs and deceivers of India have been sharers and partakers thereof, so his face could not be free, nor his path an asylum from the equitable sword; the Sultán thought good then to design this conquest, that thus the standard of Islám might be exalted by victory, and the figures of idols might be inverted by success in war. Accordingly he marched towards Táníshar with an army which had been educated in the chamber of the sacred war, and been trained by grace from on high, and contracted friendship with sword and spear, and obtained an acquaintance with infidel’s blood, and in the windings of those marches they passed a desert so dreadful, that a bird would not fly over its atmosphere, and a star would lose its way on its expanse, a place which nothing traversed but the wind, and on which nothing cast a shade except the Sun, with­out a report of water, or a vestige of habitation. But Providence granted aid, and they came out from that idolatrous and disgusting place, and ar­rived at (the enemy’s land). And before them they found a great river, a running stream full of water, lofty mountains, and the ground impracticable stone. Now the infidel sought his aid in those mountains, and became inspirited by their en­circling assistance. The army of the Sultán passed that water by two fords, and engaged the idolatrous forces on two sides. And when the king-falcon, the sun, hung his claws upon the cur­tain of his western retirement, (the day having been matured), the men of Islám made a charge, and scattered them all about the skirt of the rocks, and they took the path of flight and preservation from the heat of that battle and onset. And as for those stamping elephants and serried monsters which constituted the point of their confidence, and their remaining force, they left them on the spot, the Sultán’s elephants went after them, and brought them all to the Sultán’s halter-place. The army spilt so much blood that the water of that river was so full, and that stream so abundantly stained with gore, that it could not be used for purification and was forbidden to drinkers, and if the darkness of the night had not prevented it, not one of these wretches would have escaped with life,— all through the blessing which is upon Islám, and the wondrous religion of Muhammád, unto which by the kind promise of Heaven victory is pledged, and for the manifestation of whose sayings, the standard of the glorious Kurán speaks plainly, “He unto whom He sent his Apostle to guide him, and the faith of truth to lighten all to religion, even although the idolaters hate it.”— Kuran.