And for a time, in the reign of Masa`ud II_ (1098-1114), Lahore was the place of residence of the Ghaznevid sovereign.
He had studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sind, and perhaps even Hebrew; he had visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavide court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron.
The Bari Doab canal, which irrigates the Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Lahore districts, has been enlarged and extended so as to double its irrigation since it was projected in 1877-1878.
The Koh-i-nor, which was in 1739 in the possession of Nadir Shah, the Persian conqueror, and in 1813 in that of the raja of Lahore, passed into the hands of the East India Company and was by them presented to Queen Victoria in 1850.
He first crossed the Indus in 1748, when he took Lahore; and in 1751, after a feeble resistance on the part of the Mahommedan viceroy, he became master of the entire Punjab.