38 GHAZNI AND GHOR other Turks in Asia was likely to be tempted to convert his distant Indian province into a kingdom. Troubles of this kind began very soon. Mahmud had left ALL Ariyaruk as governor and commander-in-chief in India. Under Mas'ud, this viceroy's power became dangerous, and he was allured to Ghazni, where his numerous fol- lowing of truculent retainers confirmed the fears of the court. Like many Turks, Ariyaruk had a weakness for drink, which proved his undoing. The wise vizir, Khwaja Ahmad Hasan Maimandi, who was in Oriental phrase " a great cucumber," or man of guile, led the unlucky general on; the king sent him fifty flagons of wine when he was already excited; the poor wretch staggered into the court, lured on by the conspirators, and there was an end of him. The whole miserable tragedy is described by the garrulous Baihaki, the chronicler of Mas'ud's court, with the vivid touch of an eye-witness. Such scenes were not uncommon at Ghazni, where zeal for the faith was often combined with a reckless disregard of the law of Islam, which forbids the use of fermented liquor. It was not merely that the soldiery and their officers indulged in drunken brawls; the Sultan Mas'ud himself used to enjoy regular bouts in which he triumphantly saw all his fellow topers " under the table." We read in Baihaki 's gossiping memoirs how " the amir "the Ghazni king adopted this title like his modern repre- sentative, the amir of Afghanistan went into the Firozi Garden and sat in the Green Pavilion on the Golden Plain, where, after a sumptuous feast, the army
