*a&mtfsmto<w-~ : - '>,.
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 When Kings Rode to Delhi 

 
 "DlLLI DUR AST." 
 
 Native Proverb. 
 
 ("IT'S A FAR CRY TO DELHI.")
 
 The House of Timur ; 
 Timur, Babar, Humayun, Akbar, and .Tahangir.
 
 When 
 
 Kings Rode to Delhi 
 
 BY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'FROM THE LAND OF PRINCES,' 'JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE AND 
 HIS FRIENDS,' 'ON THE DISTAFF SIDE,' ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION 
 
 William Blackwood and Sons 
 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
 1913 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 "DS485 
 1)3 F4?
 
 TO 
 
 G. S., 
 
 F. M. F., 
 
 AND 
 
 N. F.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book is an attempt to treat the history of 
 Delhi as I had already treated the history of 
 some of the states of Rajputana in a former 
 book, 'From the Land of Princes.' 
 
 The principal sources from which it has been 
 taken are, first and foremost, the eight volumes 
 of the 'History of India as Told by its Own 
 Historians ' (edited by Elliot and Dowson) ; Fer- 
 ishta's ' History of Hindustan ' ; the Memoirs 
 of Babar ; the Memoirs of Gul-badan Begam ; 
 the Ain-i-Akbari, and Akbarnameh ; Manucci's 
 ' Storia do Mogor ' ; Hawkins' Voyages ; Sir T. 
 Roe's Embassy ; and Bernier's Travels. Among 
 modern writers, Todd's 'Annals and Antiquities 
 of Rajast'han ' ; Elphinstone's History of India ; 
 Keen's ' Turks in India,' and History of India ; 
 Erskine's ' Babar and Humayun ' ; Grant Duff's
 
 vm PREFACE. 
 
 'History of the Marathas'; S. Lane Poole's 
 ' Mediaeval India ' ; J. B. Cunningham's ' The 
 Sikhs ' ; W. L. Macgregor's ' Sikhs ' ; Forrest's 
 ' Cities of India ' ; and Fanshawe's ' Delhi.' 
 
 The book is intended only for the general 
 reader, or the traveller in India, and was written 
 in the hope of making some of these realise a 
 little of the fascination of the history of India 
 in what a Rajput, speaking to the author, called 
 "old-king-time." It is not intended for the 
 scholar, but, should such a one take it up, he 
 is entreated to remember that consistency in 
 spelling is almost unattainable in a work of this 
 kind. Certain names, such as "Meerut," have 
 been left in an incorrect form because it was 
 possible that the reader might have some asso- 
 ciation with them written thus ; others, probably 
 unfamiliar in any spelling, appear in one of the 
 forms approved by scholars and historians. 
 
 The illustrations are reproduced by permission 
 from drawings and miniatures in the India 
 Office. The portraits of Timur are merely con- 
 ventional, since no genuine likeness of him was 
 known to his descendant, the Emperor Jahangir. 
 Though Manucci calls her Ranadil, it seemed
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 allowable to suppose that the beautiful drawing 
 catalogued as " Gul Saffa, the mistress of Dara 
 Shekoh," represents the dancing-girl whose story 
 he tells. 
 
 My thanks are due to Sir Theodore Morison 
 for his great kindness in reading and revising 
 the proofs of the book ; to Sir "W. Lee-Warner ; 
 to Mr Foster, the Superintendent of Eecords at 
 the India Office ; to Dr Thomas, the Librarian 
 at the India Office, for his kindness in facili- 
 tating and directing my search for drawings ; 
 and to the officials of the London Library. 
 
 September 1912.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PROLOGUE : ON THE ROAD TO DELHI ... 1 
 
 I. MAHMUD OP GHAZNI ...... 9 
 
 II. THE TRIUMPH OP THE CRESCENT . . 25 
 
 III. THE SLAVE KINGS OP DELHI . . , . 47 
 
 IV. THE VENGEANCE POR BLOOD . . . . 75 
 
 V. SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI . .95 
 
 VI. A FLIGHT OP LOCUSTS . . . . .119 
 
 VII. THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE . 127 
 VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN . . . .155 
 
 IX. AKBAR PADISHAH . . . . . .179 
 
 X. THE PASSING OF A DREAM ..... 203 
 
 XI. THE WEST IN THE EAST . . . . .229 
 
 XII. THE LOVE OP AN EMPEROR .... 257 
 
 XIII. SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT . . . .281 
 
 XIV. THE CHILDREN OP SHAH JAHAN .... 305 
 XV. THE MOUNTAIN RAT . . . . . .327 
 
 XVI. THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA .... 355 
 
 XVII. THE SONS OF THE SWORD 383 
 
 XVIII. THE DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE . . . 405 
 
 EPILOGUE : ON THE ROAD TO DELHI 431
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FACIE 
 
 THE HOUSE OF TIMUR; TIMUR, BABAR, HUMAYUN, AKBAR, 
 
 AND JAHANGIR ..... Frontispiece 
 
 THE COURT OF TIMUR; BAYAZID IN AN IRON CAGE . 122 
 
 BABAR 144 
 
 HUMAYUN . . . . . . . . .160 
 
 AKBAR LEARNING TO READ 192 
 
 THREE FRIENDS 206 
 
 (a) AKBAR; (6) ABU-L-FAZL; (c) RAJA BIRBAL. 
 
 JAHANGIR 240 
 
 NUR JAHAN DRESSING HERSELF 264 
 
 JAHANGIR EMBRACING SHAH JAHAN .... 278 
 
 SHAH JAHAN 284 
 
 SHAH JAHAN AND HIS SONS VISITING A HOLY MAN . 290 
 
 DARA 8HUKOH 312 
 
 GUL SAFFA, THE MISTRESS OF DARA SHUKOH . . 320 
 
 AURANGZIB ......... 368 
 
 MOHAMMAD SHAH . . . . . . .414 
 
 NADIR SHAH . 416
 
 PROLOGUE 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI
 
 PKOLOGUE. 
 
 ON THE EOAD TO DELHI. 
 
 FEOM Delhi, past Panipat to Karnal and Thanesar, 
 stretches the great plain, a dreary yellow waste, 
 the dead level of its surface sometimes heaving 
 into slight undulations, sometimes broken by tufts 
 of coarse grass and low scrubby bushes showing 
 where a little moisture has struggled through the 
 burning sand but everywhere weighing upon the 
 beholder with the same sense of desolation and 
 flatness. 
 
 "Everywhere a silent void, as if the plain 
 were intended by Nature to be the battlefield 
 of nations." 
 
 If this were the intent with which the great 
 plain of Delhi was created, it has been fulfilled, 
 over and over again, through nearly three thou- 
 sand years. Long ago, in times when myth and 
 history had not been separated, a great battle 
 was fought near Thanesar, between two rival 
 clans, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, about
 
 4 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 
 
 1000 B.C. Two thousand years passed, and when 
 the fierce Muslim, Mohammad Ghori, swept down 
 from the north to destroy the Hindu temples 
 and to slay the idolaters with the sword, it was 
 upon this plain at Narain, beyond Karnal, that 
 the last Rajput king of Delhi met him, and 
 drove him back in 1191. Upon the same place, 
 a year later, the Rajput host again waited the 
 invader, and were defeated and mowed down by 
 thousands. It was the death-blow to the Rajput 
 dominion in Hindustan; never again has one of 
 the fire-born races ruled in Delhi. 
 
 More than three hundred years later, Zahir-ad- 
 din Babar, the Moghul, broke the undisciplined 
 host of the Sultan Ibrahim Lodi near Panipat, 
 and won Delhi for himself and his descendants. 
 On the self-same spot his grandson, Akbar, over- 
 threw the army of Bengal that would have driven 
 him and his Khans back to the northern hills 
 whence their fathers came. Nearly two hundred 
 years more, and Nadir Shah the Persian was met 
 on the plain by a feeble army and an unready 
 king, who had not the spirit to die well, though 
 they stood upon ground made holy with the 
 blood of heroes. Three - and - twenty years after 
 his coming, the leader of the great Maratha Con- 
 federacy sent round the word: "The cup is full 
 to the brim and cannot hold another drop," and
 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 5 
 
 led his host out of their fortified camp at Panipat 
 to be cut to pieces by the Afghans of Ahmad 
 Shah Daurani. 
 
 There is no wonder that the plain is haunted 
 ground, and that the benighted wayfarer may 
 still hear the shouts of phantom armies, the clash 
 of their weapons and the neighing of their steeds, 
 as he wanders over the darkling plain. For it 
 is a far cry to Delhi, and many have found it 
 farther than they could reach. 
 
 In the following pages are the stories of some 
 of those who took the road to Delhi. Some came 
 there only for the sake of spoil and plunder, 
 others came because it had been proved many 
 a time that who was master of Delhi could be 
 master of all Hindustan. 1 
 
 The story of the first battle upon the great 
 plain belongs to the far-off ages when the gods 
 came down from heaven and loved the daughters 
 of men. Few English readers have ever per- 
 severed from the first to the last of the 220,000 
 long lines of the Mahabharata, which tells of 
 the deadly feud between the five Pandavas, the 
 sons of Pandu, and their cousins, the hundred 
 Kauravas, the sons of the blind king Dhrita- 
 rashtra. Dhritarashtra divided his kingdom be- 
 
 1 Hindustan the "part of the Indian peninsula to the north 
 of the Vindhya Mountains.
 
 6 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 
 
 tween his sons and his nephews, giving the city 
 of Hastinapura (fifty-nine miles to the north-east 
 of Delhi) to the Kauravas, and the city of Indra- 
 prastha to the Pandavas. Not two miles out 
 of the Delhi gate, where the massive walls and 
 stately mosque of Sher Shah look across the plain, 
 the name of " Indrapat " preserves the tradition 
 that here, more than two thousand years before 
 the time of Sher Shah, the five brothers made 
 their fortress. 
 
 But the cousins could not be at peace with 
 one another, and at length each clan gathered its 
 hosts and encamped at Kurukshetra, "the field 
 of the Kurus," near Thanesar. 
 
 For eighteen days they fought, each singling 
 out his man and striving with him hand to hand, 
 while arrows fell about them, " sparkling like 
 the rays of the sun," and when the sudden Indian 
 darkness covered the plain, they lighted torches 
 and went on with the work. At length all the 
 Kauravas were slain, and the Pandavas became 
 lords of the realm. 
 
 For some time they ruled in such splendour as 
 no king in India knew, before or after them, 
 and then a curse fell upon them from the high 
 gods. There were signs in heaven and on earth, 
 everywhere portents of ill ; a great earthquake 
 slew many of their kin, others perished in a forest
 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 7 
 
 fire ; the nymphs of India's heaven cried from 
 the skies to the terrified people, "Arise, get you 
 hence ! " ; a mighty wave of the sea swept inland, 
 destroying one of the chief cities of Hindustan. 
 Then the five brothers took the fire from their 
 palace hearth and flung it into the bosom of 
 Mother Ganges, in token that they had clone 
 with the things of this world ; they left their 
 kingdoms and their state, and wandered forth 
 towards the rising sun, followed by their wife, 
 Draupadi, fairest of women, and their faithful 
 dog. On, on they journeyed till they reached 
 the everlasting snow of the Himalayas, and there, 
 first Draupadi, then the four younger brothers, 
 one by one, fell and perished by the wayside. 
 Only the eldest brother, with the dog, climbed 
 upwards till he reached the cloud-peak of Mount 
 Meru, where Indra, lord of the firmament, drinks 
 the amrita the water of life in his paradise, 
 the Swerga, with the lesser gods and with the 
 souls of those who have attained to everlasting 
 happiness. The gate opened wide to the Pandava, 
 who would not enter without his dog, and through 
 his love and loyalty, Draupadi and the four 
 brothers were released from the torments where- 
 with they were expiating their sins in the flesh, 
 and brought to dwell with him, blessed for 
 evermore.
 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 
 
 So, into the snows of Himalaya, or into the 
 dazzling radiancy of the Swerga, vanish the 
 forms of the brother kings who won their king- 
 dom on the great plain. After them, no other 
 figure is clearly revealed upon the road to Delhi 
 for over two thousand years.
 
 I. 
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030 
 
 "The standards of the Sultan Mahmud then returned happy and victorious 
 to Ghazni, the face of Islam was made resplendent by his exertions, the 
 teeth of the true faith displayed themselves in their laughter, the breasts 
 of religion expanded, and the back of idolatry was broken." 
 
 Tarikh Yamini of AVUttti.
 
 I. 
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 THE real history of India begins with the Muslim 
 conquest. 
 
 Strictly speaking, as has often been pointed out, 
 there is no such thing as the history of India ; 
 there are the histories of the different races who 
 from time to time have entered the country, for 
 good or for ill. Some have swept over the land 
 like a flight of locusts, blighting, wasting, destroy- 
 ing, but leaving no other trace to recall their 
 presence when time had covered the desolation 
 that they wrought. Others remained in the land, 
 took to themselves wives from its daughters, and 
 left the heritage that they had won with the sword 
 to children in whose veins flowed the blood of two 
 races. Then India conquered her conquerors ; as 
 the northern blood grew thin and feeble, they lost 
 their grip upon the sword-hilt, and when a fresh 
 flood of invasion swept down from beyond the 
 Himalayas, it engulfed them beneath its tide, or
 
 12 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 washed them away to some backwater, unheeded 
 and forgotten. 
 
 For nearly two thousand years after the Pan- 
 davas and Kauravas fought upon the great plain 
 beyond Delhi, the mists hang round about Hin- 
 dustan. Here and there a legend, a tradition, an 
 inscription on rock or pillar, may give a glimpse 
 of kings and princes. Alexander shows clearly, 
 for a moment, pouring libations to the three great 
 rivers, Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, before he turns 
 his back upon his farthest conquest. Chinese 
 pilgrims between 300 and 600 A.D. have some- 
 thing to tell of their experiences. But all is 
 broken and fragmentary, unsatisfactory as a puzzle 
 of which half the pieces are lost. 
 
 The mists do not roll back and leave the stage 
 clear until two years after Roderic, " the last of the 
 Goths," and the chivalry of Spain had been over- 
 whelmed in the eight days' battle on the banks of 
 the Guadalete. Then, in the year 712, the Arabs 
 occupied Sind. So far and no farther they ad- 
 vanced, for other than they were destined to reap the 
 harvest of Hindustan " in the name of the Prophet." 
 
 It was the Turks who were to tread the road 
 to Delhi, and it may be that the whole course of 
 Indian history might have been changed if the son 
 of a Turkish slave had not caught small-pox in his 
 boyhood, and, being ugly, resolved to be terrible.
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 13 
 
 Sabuktagin, the slave, had been bought from a 
 merchant of Turkestan by Alptagin, governor of 
 Khorasan, who set up an independent little 
 kingdom for himself in the heart of the Afghan 
 mountains, at Ghazni. 
 
 It once befell that the slave had gone out hunt- 
 ing, and rode down a tiny fawn. He lifted it to 
 his saddle, and was riding on, when he saw that 
 the mother had followed him, crying in her dis- 
 tress. Her piteous eyes went to his heart, so 
 that he gave her back her child. Fawn and doe 
 sped away to the herd, yet as she went the 
 mother turned back, again and again, to look at 
 Sabuktagin. 
 
 That night, in a dream, the Prophet appeared 
 to the slave, and told him that, since he had 
 had compassion upon helpless creatures over which 
 he had the mastery, God would give him the 
 mastery over a kingdom in reward ; let him not 
 forget to be merciful unto men in the hour of 
 his dominion. 
 
 On Alptagin's death, the dream was fulfilled ; 
 Sabuktagin became ruler of Ghazni in his place, 
 and soon found his master's shoes too strait for 
 him. Bound him were the wild Afghan tribes 
 masterless men, thieves and murderers, continually 
 at war among themselves, but capable of being 
 united for conquest and plunder. Down into the
 
 14 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 Kabul valley they followed Sabuktagin, under the 
 green banner of the Prophet the first Muslim to 
 enter India through those gates of the North- 
 West which have opened since then to many 
 flood-tides of invasion and returned, laden with 
 spoil, to tell the reivers of the hills what un- 
 imaginable wealth lay beyond the mountain 
 barriers. 
 
 For India was to the hungry Turk and Tatar 
 what " the Indies " were to be to the poverty- 
 stricken gentlemen of Spain. There was wealth 
 in the teeming soil of Bengal, yielding two or 
 three crops every year ; there was wealth of wheat 
 and palm in the upper provinces sugar-cane, oil- 
 seeds, flax, cotton, ginger, spices, and so forth. 
 Even the jungles had their harvests of lac and 
 silk cocoons. There was wealth of ivory, wealth 
 of gold and silver and precious stones, stored in 
 the palaces of the kings, or in those idol temples 
 which it was the duty of every true believer to 
 plunder and destroy. And all this was poorly 
 defended ; once beyond the gates of the hills, the 
 plains lay open to the invader, divided up into 
 petty kingdoms, ruled by petty kings, who were 
 too much at odds with one another to combine 
 against any foe. 
 
 The easiest method, in those times, to win both 
 spiritual and material advantage, was to wage war
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 15 
 
 against the infidel. Every Muslim who fell in 
 the strife was sure of attaining Paradise ; every 
 Muslim who survived if the place of cam- 
 paign were judiciously chosen had a good chance 
 of making his fortune. So, when Sabuktagin 
 died, King Mahmud his son vowed by God 
 and his Prophet that every year he would lead 
 a foray into Hindustan. 
 
 How that vow was kept during the years from 
 1000 to 1026, the Hindus knew to their cost. 
 Raja Jaipal of Lahore, whom Sabuktagin had 
 once defeated, could tell how he and his forces 
 and his three hundred elephants were routed near 
 Peshawar, and he and fifteen of his kindred 
 brought prisoners before the conqueror, their 
 necklaces of pearls and rubies, worth 90.000 
 guineas apiece, torn from them, and themselves 
 set free, in clemency or contempt. The rajas of 
 the Punjab could tell how Mahmud sent them 
 in headlong rout, and slew and spoiled for two 
 days upon end. The booty sent to Ghazni from 
 the virgin fortress of Nagarkot could tell how the 
 men of the hills fell upon the golden ingots and 
 cups of silver, gold and silver pillars, "jewels 
 and unbored pearls and rubies shining like sparks 
 or iced wine, emeralds as it were sprigs of 
 young myrtle, diamonds as big as pomegranates." 
 Kanauj, then the chief city of Hindustan, girt
 
 16 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 with walls thirty miles round, could tell how her 
 seven forts yielded in a single day, and how the 
 neighbouring princes and chiefs were swept down 
 by " the devilish Afghan spearmen, until the slave- 
 markets of Persia were glutted, and a servant 
 could be bought for a couple of shillings." 
 
 Every new victory brought fresh volunteers from 
 beyond the Oxus, to swell the Muslim host. No 
 hill was too steep, no snow too heavy, no river 
 too swift, to stay the conqueror's march, and the 
 terror-stricken Hindus whispered that " the Image- 
 breaker" and the armies who followed him were 
 not men of middle earth. United, the Hindu rajas 
 might have defeated them over and over again; 
 but then, as ever, they were divided by feuds and 
 jealousies, and could make no stand against a host 
 welded together by the two mightiest passions 
 that can sway the soul of man religious zeal, 
 and greed of gain. 
 
 The crowning hour came in the winter of 1026, 
 when Mahmud led his army across a desert three 
 hundred and fifty miles broad, where there was 
 little water, and still less forage for the horses, 
 to attack the great temple of Somnath then 
 the richest and most famous shrine in India. 
 Here was the holy place of Siva, and the stone 
 that had fallen from Heaven. More than ten 
 thousand villages had been bestowed upon the
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 17 
 
 temple. A thousand Brahmans daily served its 
 shrines, five hundred dancing - girls sang and 
 postured at its gates. Three hundred barbers 
 were kept to shave the pilgrims who came from 
 all parts of India to the sacred place where the 
 souls of men met after separation from the body, 
 where the very waters of the Arabian Sea rose 
 and fell in unending adoration of the Moon-God, 
 the Lord of Birth and Death. 
 
 The long desert march was ended ; the rajas 
 who opposed Mahmud's progress were put to 
 flight; travel -stained and toil-worn, the army 
 gazed on the line of fortifications that linked 
 the mainland with the peninsula upon which the 
 temple sl~ood. The battlements were crowded 
 with armed warriors, and with priests who hurled 
 curses at the invaders in the name of the god. 
 For three days the battle raged round the walls ; 
 each day the Muslim were driven back, pierced 
 with arrows, flung headlong from scaling-ladders. 
 On the third day, fresh reinforcements came to 
 the besieged, and the besiegers turned to flee. 
 Then Mahmud flung himself from his horse upon 
 the ground, and called upon the One True God, 
 the God of battles, to come to the help of His 
 own as Elijah might have called before smiting 
 the priests of Baal. Then once more he led his 
 men to the assault. With wild shouts of " Allahu 
 
 B
 
 18 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 Akbar," " God is great," they broke the enemy's 
 lines ; five thousand Hindus lay dead upon the 
 field at the close of day, and the garrison, to 
 the number of four thousand, took to their boats 
 and escaped by sea. 
 
 Over the dead and the dying, amongst a 
 swarm of fanatic priests who spat defiance at 
 him, humming like angry bees, but not daring 
 to resist further, and weeping votaries who called 
 in vain upon the Great God, with hands clasped 
 round their necks, Mahmud and his captains forced 
 their way into the shrine. All within was dark, 
 mysterious ; no ray of sunlight was ever suffered 
 to rest upon the fifty-six pillars, adorned with 
 precious stones, that supported the roof; in the 
 centre hung a single lamp, its light flickering 
 over veils covered with gems, over the great gold 
 chain, fifteen hundred pounds in weight, the pride 
 and glory of the shrine, that supported the bronze 
 bell sounded by worshippers when they came 
 to pray, and over the rough men, with the 
 reek of battle still upon them, who came stamp- 
 ing where never any feet save those of the 
 priests had trod. Right before them was the 
 idol itself. 
 
 " Hew the accursed thing in pieces," commanded 
 Mahmud; "let one piece be set in the threshold 
 of my mosque at Ghazni, and another in the
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 19 
 
 threshold of my own palace, where true believers 
 may trample upon them." 
 
 Then the priests fell upon their faces and 
 entreated the conqueror ; they alone knew where 
 all the treasures of the temple were hidden- 
 treasures far exceeding those which he saw around 
 him. Let him take the last pearl, the last grain 
 of gold-dust, and spare the sacred image. 
 
 The captains were ready to hear the prayer; 
 idol -breaking was good sport, besides being a 
 religious duty, but there was more solid satis- 
 faction in acquiring riches. Mahmud whirled his 
 mace about his head. " On the day of Resurrec- 
 tion, let me hear the call, ' Where is that Mahmud 
 who broke the greatest of the heathen idols ? ' : 
 he cried, " not ' Where is that Mahmud who sold 
 it to the infidels for gold?'" and he cleft the 
 
 o 
 
 image asunder. As his followers pressed round, 
 eager to smite in their turn, from a hollow 
 within it there poured forth diamonds, pearls, 
 rubies a secret store, which the Brahmans had 
 hoped to keep for themselves when all else 
 was lost. 
 
 So runs the story, which has been a joy and 
 an example to true Muslims of countless genera- 
 tions ; and it is unkind, with modern commen- 
 tators, to point out that there was no image in 
 the central shrine at Somnath only a rude
 
 20 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 stone cylinder (which being solid could not 
 contain treasure), such as may be seen all over 
 India to this day. 
 
 More than a year passed in plunder and con- 
 quest, in putting down one king and setting up 
 another, before Mahmud turned from Gujarat, 
 and set his face once more to the northern hills. 
 The road by which he had come was blocked by 
 two hostile armies, and his forces were so thinned 
 by the sword and the climate that even he durst 
 not offer battle to the enemies of the faith. 
 Certain Hindus undertook to guide him, by way 
 of the salt deserts to the east of Sind, and he 
 set forth when the hot season was already far 
 advanced that hot season which no words can 
 describe to those who have not experienced it, 
 when the blind white glare of the sky is as 
 brass overhead, and the ground is as iron under- 
 foot, when there is no rest by day or by night, 
 even for those in dwellings built to exclude the 
 sun's rays. For three days and nights Mahmud 
 and his army wandered among the sands, without 
 water, tortured by the mirage, or the saline en- 
 crustations that mocked them with visions of 
 distant pools and lakes, their throats dry, their 
 tongues lolling out of their mouths with thirst. 
 Many of the troops went raving mad, and perished 
 miserably among the wastes and ridges of sand.
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 21 
 
 Then Mahmud turned upon the Hindu guides, 
 and ordered that they should be put to the tor- 
 ture. In the extremity of torment, one of them 
 laughed aloud. "We are Brahmans, and priests of 
 Somnath ! We have led the spoilers of temples, 
 the slayers of cows, astray in the wilderness, and 
 here shall their bones whiten, to tell how the 
 Great God was avenged." 
 
 The army was distracted ; some rushed to and 
 fro, cursing the day when they came into India ; 
 some lay down in dumb despair and died. As 
 was his wont upon the battlefield, Mahmud pro- 
 strated himself, and called upon the One True 
 God to preserve his warriors. When a quarter 
 of the night had been spent in prayer, a light 
 shone to the north of the camp. " Lo, a sign 
 from Allah ! " Mahmud rose and led his army 
 thither, and after a long night march they found 
 water. Not yet, however, were their distresses 
 over, for the wild Jats of the Salt Eanges fell 
 upon them as they emerged from the desert, and 
 it was a wearied and forlorn remnant that came 
 back to Ghazni. 
 
 A retaliatory campaign against the Jats in 
 the following year was Mahmud's last expedition 
 into India. For the next four years he enjoyed 
 the fruits of his labours, enriching Ghazni with 
 cisterns, aqueducts, and a mosque which was the
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 wonder of the East, founding and endowing a 
 university, conversing with philosophers, divines 
 and astronomers, and poets whom he compelled 
 to his court, and in leisure moments copying out 
 the Koran "for the good of his soul." 
 
 In the year 1030 he died on the whole, the 
 finest example of a Muslim conqueror that we 
 shall meet until we come to Babar five hundred 
 years later. Severe to his enemies, he was not 
 vindictive or wantonly cruel ; he w r as inflexibly 
 just ; though he slew the idolaters by thousands 
 in fair fight, he never massacred them in cold 
 blood for the sake of religion. In his family 
 relations he was a striking contrast to Eastern 
 potentates of all times, who habitually poisoned, 
 blinded, or imprisoned inconvenient relations, for 
 the better security of their thrones. Unfortun- 
 ately for his reputation, he affronted the Persian 
 Homer, Firdausi, who fastened upon him the re- 
 proach of avarice, which his lavish gifts to art 
 and learning would disprove. Yet a picturesque 
 tradition is stronger than fact, and amid the 
 splendours of Ghazni men told how their founder, 
 on his deathbed, loved his treasure so much 
 that he would have it all brought before him, 
 and then wept bitterly because he must leave it. 
 And in Sa'adi's " Rose-Garden," we are told that
 
 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 23 
 
 in a vision a king of Khorasan saw Mahmud " dead 
 for a hundred years," his body turned to dust, 
 but his restless eyes still rolling in their sockets, 
 looking for the gold that had passed into the 
 keeping of another. 
 
 The vision was true, in another way from that 
 which the poet intended : the gold was all that 
 remained of Mahmud's conquests. He was a great 
 soldier, a man of infinite courage and exhaustless 
 energy in body and mind, but he was no builder 
 of empires. He could make conquests, but he 
 had no power to retain more of them than the 
 spoil that he bore away to the mountains. All 
 that he won in Persia was lost to his descendants 
 within ten years of his death, and though they 
 kept the Punjab, it was taken by a stronger 
 power, with the other possessions of the Ghazna- 
 wid kings, in the following century. 
 
 In the Fort at Agra may yet be seen a pair of 
 sandal-wood gates, brought from Mahmud's tomb 
 at Grhazni by order of Lord Ellenborough, who 
 imagined them to be part of the spoil that the 
 Idol-breaker carried away from Somnath. There 
 was to have been a formal restitution to the 
 Brahmans, but before that could be arranged it 
 was proved that the gates could have had no con- 
 nection with Somnath or with Mahmud, as they
 
 24 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1000-1030. 
 
 dated from a period considerably later than his. 
 They are almost the only relics left in Hindustan 
 to recall the name of one who pointed the way 
 upon the Delhi road to succeeding generations, 
 though he himself never reached the city.
 
 II. 
 
 THE TKIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 
 1191-1206 
 
 "Surely never was a tragedy, not even of the house of Atreus, of deeper 
 and more moving woe. It is the story of Juliet and her Romeo, but involving 
 in the pathetic fate of these Rajput lovers the doom of a great mediaeval 
 Aryan empire." Sir G. BIBDWOOD.
 
 II. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 
 1191-1206. 
 
 IN Delhi, long ago, there was a great raja, named 
 Anangpal. At the entrance of his palace he had 
 placed two stone lions, and by their side he had 
 fixed a bell in order that those who sought justice 
 might strike it, whereupon he would summon 
 them before him, hear their complaints, and 
 render justice. 
 
 One day, a crow came and sat on the bell and 
 struck it, and the raja asked who it was that made 
 complaint. "It is a fact, not unknown, that bold 
 crows will pick meat from between the teeth of 
 lions; as stone lions cannot hunt for their prey, 
 whence could the crow obtain food ? " So the 
 raja ordered that as the crow had thus complained 
 of hunger, some goats and sheep should be killed, 
 upon which it might feed for several days. 
 
 This tradition of Old Delhi has come down to us 
 through a Muslim poet of the early fourteenth
 
 28 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 century, whose high-spirited indifference to dates 
 leaves it uncertain whether the raja were Anangpal 
 L, the Tuar, who refounded Delhi in 730 A.D., and 
 left the Arrangpur Band near Old Delhi as his 
 memorial, or his namesake, Anangpal II., who 
 repeopled the city in 1052, as an inscription on 
 the Iron Pillar testifies, six-and-twenty years after 
 Mahmud of Ghazni had led his last expedition 
 into India. 
 
 Delhi is supposed to have been colonised from 
 Kanauj, one of the oldest and greatest states in 
 India, during the sixth century, and it was then 
 that they set up the Iron Pillar which stands to 
 this day in the court of the Kutb Mosque. The 
 Hindus say that it rested upon the head of the 
 great World-Serpent, who upheld Mount Meru and 
 the seven divisions of the earth upon his great 
 coils. There came a foolish King of Delhi of the 
 Tuar race, who, not content to take the story upon 
 trust, must needs move the pillar, in the hope of 
 seeing the snake. Wherefore the curse fell upon 
 him that his kingdom also should be removed. 
 
 If there be any foundation for this story, the 
 hero is probably the last King of Delhi, defeated 
 in battle by one of the Tomara race, whose line 
 became Kings of Delhi in their turn. Tuar and 
 Tomara alike were Rajputs, and Rajputs ruled 
 what were the three other greatest kingdoms of
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 29 
 
 India at that time the Chauhans at Ajmir, the 
 Rathors at Kanauj, the Baghilas at Gujarat. 
 
 The Rajputs were all sprung of the Kshatriya or 
 warrior caste that caste which grew so powerful 
 in the mythical ages of Hindu history that the 
 god Vishnu became incarnate as Parasu Rama in 
 order to destroy them, and restore the authority 
 of the Brahmans. In these days, though Rajput 
 communities are to be found all over India, they 
 are the ruling race only in the deserts and sand 
 wastes and rugged hills of the country that is 
 called after them, Rajputana, whither they fled 
 when the Muslim conquerors drove them from 
 cities and plains. Chief of all is the Maharana of 
 Udaipur or Mewar, whom men call "the Sun of 
 the Hindus," descended from a prince who expelled 
 the Arabs from Sind when they had been estab- 
 lished there for just one hundred years. 
 
 In many ways the Rajputs bear such a strong 
 resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland that 
 one might seem to be reading some of Walter 
 Scott's stories, with trifling differences of names 
 and costumes. They had the same reckless daring, 
 the same devoted loyalty to the chief to whom 
 they were bound by the ties of their clan, the 
 same love of sport, the same readiness to take 
 offence and quarrel among themselves when they 
 could find no other enemy to give them employ-
 
 30 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 merit, a weakness which ruined them as it ruined 
 the Highlanders. Their women held a very 
 different position from other women in India ; 
 queens and princesses went in and out freely 
 among the men, sharing their sports and exercises, 
 and even riding with them to battle, until they 
 learned from the Muslims the custom of shutting 
 up the women behind the curtain. 
 
 After all these centuries, the Rajput bearing 
 remains what it was in their heroic age, something 
 that marks them out from all other races of 
 India ; the poorest is by birth a gentleman, and 
 therefore the equal of the greatest. To see a 
 Rajput on horseback, clattering through the 
 streets that his ancestors cleared with the sword, 
 or on foot, swaggering through the press in a 
 market-place, is to realise a scene from the legends 
 that tell how Prithwi Raj or Goman Sing went 
 forth " at the time when kings go forth to 
 battle." 
 
 T*he last Tomara King of Delhi had no sons, and 
 when he came to die, he left his kingdom to his 
 grandson, Rai Pithora of Ajmir, thereby uniting 
 Chauhans and Tomaras under one head. Fiercely 
 raged Jaya Chandra, Raja of Kanauj, the son of 
 another daughter of the Tomara, who had looked 
 to join Delhi to Kanauj and be over-lord of all the 
 Hindus.
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 31 
 
 There was a solemn rite called the Aswamedha 
 or Horse Sacrifice that only great kings might 
 celebrate. The horse was consecrated and set 
 loose to stray at its will, followed by the owner 
 or his champion. If any man ventured to 
 stop or turn it aside, the champion must give 
 battle, and if it went unchecked till the period of 
 its wandering was over, that was a sign that all 
 men over whose territories it had passed acknow- 
 ledged the supremacy of its owner. To these 
 material difficulties were added religious ones ; as 
 the celebrant of a hundred Aswamedhas became 
 equal to Indra, lord of the firmament, " the golden 
 god " was always on the watch against a rival, and 
 usually "carried off the sacred horse by fraud or by 
 violence, before it could be sacrificed with solemn 
 rites on its return. 
 
 In spite of all these obstacles, Kai Pithora 
 succeeded in performing the Aswamedha, the last 
 king, it is said, who was ever to celebrate it, and 
 was acknowledged as " Prithwi Eaj " or sovereign 
 lord. By way of retaliation, Jaya Chandra issued 
 invitations to the wedding of his daughter, who, 
 according to ancient usage, was to choose a 
 husband from among the assembled princes. A 
 solemn feast was to be made, and every one who 
 took part in it, down to the scullions in the 
 kitchen, must be of royal blood. Like the Aswa-
 
 32 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 medha, this feast is a claim to supremacy on the 
 part of the holder. 
 
 Rajas, princes, chieftains came from every part 
 of the land, for not one but had heard of the 
 beauty and wisdom of the Princess Sangagota. 
 Some say that Prithwi Raj was not invited, 
 others that he refused to appear as the vassal 
 of Kanauj. However it was, he came not, 
 and so Jaya Chandra had his image modelled 
 in clay and set up as doorkeeper the lowest 
 office of all. 
 
 The princes were gathered in the great hall at 
 Kanauj, and the Princess entered, bearing the 
 garland that she was to fling round the bride- 
 groom whom she chose. One glance round the 
 assembly, and she had turned quickly to the 
 right and thrown the wreath about the neck of 
 the clay image. An armed figure rose in her 
 path, strong hands swung her to the back of 
 the horse that pawed at the gate, and Prithwi 
 Raj himself was carrying off his bride. Through 
 five days they rode, while he and his com- 
 panions kept up a running fight with their 
 pursuers, and in the end he brought her safely 
 to Delhi. 
 
 Some miles beyond modern Delhi stands "Kila 
 Rai Pithora," the massive fort that he built to 
 defend his city, and within the circuit of its
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 33 
 
 walls remain many of the pillars of the twenty- 
 seven Hindu and Buddhist places of worship 
 that it contained in his time. He had need to 
 strengthen his defences. Jaya Chandra, though 
 he sent his daughter's wedding clothes after her, 
 had not forgiven his son-in-law, and would give 
 him no help against the enemy that advanced upon 
 Delhi in the year 1191, nay, some would have 
 it that he actually invited Mohammad Ghori to 
 chastise the prince who had robbed him of a 
 kingdom and a daughter. 
 
 The Ghaznawid kings, the successors of the 
 Idol-breaker, had continued to count the Punjab 
 among their dominions, and one of its governors, 
 who had been Mahmud's treasurer, made a raid 
 upon Benares, farther east than any Muslim army 
 had dared to go before his time. He only held 
 it for a few hours, and was then obliged to re- 
 treat, but he and his men used those few hours 
 to the best advantage, and returned with plunder 
 that recalled the days of Mahmud. In the 
 hundred years that followed, the kings of Ghazni 
 dwelt among their hills, with little or no influence 
 upon the history of India, until they were defeated 
 and driven out by another hill clan, the Afghans 
 of Ghor, who took Ghazni by storm, leaving 
 scarcely one stone upon another. Only the 
 marble tomb of the Idol-breaker and two tall 
 
 c
 
 34 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 minarets remain to show where stood the palaces, 
 libraries, museums, and mosques that he and his 
 successors founded. 
 
 The Ghaznawids took refuge in the Punjab, and 
 made Lahore their capital. In 1186 the last of 
 them was imprisoned by Mu'izz-ad-din, commonly 
 known as Mohammad Ghori, who with his brother 
 had succeeded to the chieftaincy of the Afghans 
 of Ghor. The brothers were descended from 
 Zohak, " the Snake," the first of kings to order 
 offending subjects to be crucified or flayed alive, 
 who was condemned to all eternity to be devoured 
 by the two serpents that sprang from the place 
 where Eblis had kissed his shoulders. 
 
 The elder brother, Ghiyas-ad-din, remained at 
 Ghor, while Mohammad followed in the path of 
 the Image-breaker. " Thirty years had Mahmud 
 ravaged Hindustan from the Indus to the Ganges ; 
 and for thirty years Mohammad Ghori harried 
 the same country in the same way." 1 Beginning 
 with the Arab colony in Sind, he worked sys- 
 tematically down to Lahore, and then advanced 
 upon Sirhind. 
 
 With such an enemy on their borders it was 
 time that all the Rajput powers forgot their differ- 
 ences and united to expel him. Over and over 
 again in their history had all their bravery bene- 
 
 1 S. Lane Poole.
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 35 
 
 fited them nothing, because they would not lay 
 aside some trivial quarrel for the common good. 
 Jaya Chandra wished to see his son - in - law 
 humbled, careless of what that humbling might 
 bring to the other Rajput states. Gujarat was 
 jealous of Delhi, and held aloof. Prithwi Raj 
 went forth alone to meet the invader at Narairi, 
 north of Kurnal, on the great plain outside 
 Delhi. 
 
 Mohammad's men had had no experience of a 
 Rajput charge, and at the first onset his right 
 and left wings fell back. A breathless messenger 
 rushed to him where he stood in the centre, and 
 advised him to look to his own safety, since the 
 day was lost. " Enraged at this counsel, he cut 
 down the messenger, and rushing on towards the 
 enemy with a few followers, committed terrible 
 slaughter." He charged the elephant of Prithwi 
 Raj's brother, the Viceroy of Delhi, and delivered 
 his lance full into the prince's mouth, knocking 
 out many of his teeth. Prithwi Raj, seeing his 
 brother's danger, sent an arrow through Moham- 
 mad's right arm, and the Afghan, faint with loss 
 of blood, would have fallen from his horse if a 
 faithful servant had not leapt up behind him and 
 carried him off the field. Some say that he 
 actually fell, and lay unconscious among a heap 
 of dead, until rescued by some of his bodyguard,
 
 36 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 who had returned under cover of night to search 
 for his corpse. His army fled headlong, and was 
 pursued by the exulting Rajputs for nearly forty 
 miles. 
 
 Mohammad went back to Ghor, aching with 
 the sense of defeat. The first thing that he did 
 on his return was to disgrace every officer who 
 had not followed him in his last desperate charge 
 to the Rajput's elephant, parading them round 
 the city like a string of horses or mules, with 
 their noses thrust into bags filled with barley, 
 "which he forced them to eat like brutes," and 
 then throwing them into prison. 
 
 A year was spent " in pleasure and festivity " ; 
 then he gathered an army of 120,000 chosen horse, 
 strong-limbed muscular Afghans and Turks, their 
 helmets encrusted with jewels, their armour inlaid 
 with gold and silver, and set off from Ghazni 
 without deigning to tell any man whither he led 
 them. 
 
 When he reached Peshawar, a wise old man of 
 Ghor prostrated himself before him and cried, 
 " King, we trust in thy conduct and wisdom, 
 but as yet we know not thy design." 
 
 Mohammad answered him: "Old man, know 
 that since the time of my defeat in Hindustan, 
 notwithstanding what appeared to the eye, I have 
 never slumbered in ease, or waked but in sorrow
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 37 
 
 and anxiety. I have therefore determined with 
 this army to recover my lost honour from those 
 idolaters, or die in the attempt." 
 
 Then the old man, kissing the ground, spake 
 once more : " Victory and triumph be thine at- 
 tendants, and fortune be the guide of thy paths ! 
 But, King, let the petition of thy slave find 
 favour in thy ears, and let those whom thou 
 hast justly disgraced be suffered with thee to 
 wipe out the sfcain upon their reputation." 
 
 So word was sent back to Ghazni that the dis- 
 graced officers should be set at liberty, and that 
 any who wished to retrieve lost fame might join 
 his army. One and all flocked to the camp, and 
 Mohammad, who had learned wisdom from the 
 old man, gave each a robe of honour according 
 to his rank. King and army athirst to cleanse 
 their tarnished honour in Hindu blood, they 
 moved down to Lahore, whence Mohammad sent 
 an ambassador to Prithwi Raj, summoning him 
 to accept Islam, or to meet the true believers in 
 battle. 
 
 Now the sense of impending evil hung heavily 
 over the Chauhan Raja, and by night the shadows 
 of doom fell across his spirit. He dreamed that 
 a woman, fairer than all the daughters of men, 
 seized him and bore him from Sangagota ; then 
 she disappeared, and he thought that a great
 
 38 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 war elephant bore down upon him and crushed 
 him, and he woke with panting heart and quiver- 
 ing lips muttering the Rajput war-cry. 
 
 He told his dream to Sangagota in the morning, 
 and she knew well that it portended death and 
 disaster ; but she answered him in the words 
 handed down to us by the minstrel Chand Bardai, 
 who had ridden with his master when Prithwi 
 Eaj brought the princess on his saddle-bow from 
 Kanauj to Delhi. 
 
 " Victory and fame to my lord ! Sun of the 
 Chauhans, in glory and in pleasure who has 
 tasted so deeply as thou ? To die is the destiny, 
 not only of man but of the gods. All desire to 
 throw off the old garment ; to die well is to live 
 for ever. Think not of self, but of immortality ; 
 let the sword divide the foe, and I will be one 
 with thee 1 hereafter." 
 
 Then the Raja went forth and performed sacri- 
 fice to the gods : but neither prayers nor offerings 
 could reverse the doom. 
 
 When Mohammad's ambassador reached him, 
 Prithwi Raj saw that here was the danger which 
 his soul had foreboded. He was not one to 
 change his creed at an enemy's bidding, but he 
 had seen enough of his enemy to fear that he 
 would not easily be driven back again without 
 
 1 Lit. : " I will be your ardhanga " your half -body.
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 39 
 
 the help that Kanauj and Gujarat refused to give. 
 While his council deliberated, he went to the 
 women's rooms and asked counsel of Sangagota. 
 
 "Who asks women for advice?" she began, as 
 if in mockery; and then cast self on one side 
 and rose to his need. " We are at once thieves 
 and sanctuaries, we are vessels of virtue and of 
 vice, of knowledge and of ignorance. . . . They 
 say : ' In woman there is no wisdom.' Yet woman 
 shares your joys and your sorrows. Even when 
 you depart for the mansion of the sun, we part not. 
 . . . We are as the lake, and you are the swans ; 
 what are you when absent from our bosoms ? " 
 
 Then the Raja understood that even though he 
 went to death, his wife would follow him, and 
 he mustered his hosts. When the day of parting 
 came, Sangagota armed him for battle. " In vain 
 she sought the rings of his corslet ; her eyes were 
 fixed on the face of the Chauhan, as those of 
 the famished wretch who finds a piece of gold. 
 The sound of the drum reached the ear of the 
 Chauhan ; it was as a death-knell to her ; and as 
 he left her to head Delhi's heroes, she vowed that 
 henceforth only water should sustain her. ' I 
 shall see him again in the mansion of the sun ; 
 but never more in Delhi ! ' ' 
 
 Only the Gehelot Raja of Chitor waited with 
 Prithwi R,aj upon the same field of Narain where
 
 40 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 he had vanquished Mohammad in the previous 
 year. Yet it was a goodly host that confronted 
 the Afghans on the opposite bank of the river 
 Sarasvati, with long miles of tents that covered 
 the plain, and standards and pennons streaming 
 against the eastern sky. So strong were they 
 in their own eyes that they wrote to Mohammad 
 Ghori pointing out their superiority in numbers, 
 and offering to allow him to retreat in safety if 
 he repented of his rashness in coming against 
 them. 
 
 Mohammad returned a courteous answer ; he 
 was only the general of his brother, and could 
 not retreat without leave. He would report their 
 offer to the king, and until an answer should 
 arrive, he should be glad if there might be truce 
 between the hosts. 
 
 The Rajputs assented, and passed the interval 
 in sports and revelling, till one night Mohammad 
 crossed the Sarasvati ere break of dawn, and fell 
 upon their camp. 
 
 Thrown into confusion at first, the Rajput 
 cavalry rallied, and held the Afghans in play 
 till the main body of the army had formed up. 
 All day the fight raged, and it was sunset when 
 Mohammad, who had learned something of Rajput 
 tactics from his disaster, lured them out of their 
 lines by a feigned retreat. As they thundered
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 41 
 
 headlong in pursuit, forgetting all else in the 
 delight of riding down a flying enemy, Mohammad 
 led his reserves twelve thousand men in steel 
 armour upon the scattered host. Panic and 
 confusion spread through the ranks of the Rajputs, 
 and "this prodigious army, once shaken, like a 
 great building tottered to its fall and was lost 
 in its own ruins." " For miles the stricken field 
 was bestrewn with castaway flags and spears and 
 shields, and heaped bows, and jewelled swords, 
 and plumed casques, and exquisitely chiselled 
 and damascened gauntlets, greaves, and breast- 
 plates, and gaily dyed scarves, intermingled with 
 the countless dead." 
 
 The Viceroy of Delhi, the Raja of Chitor, and 
 nearly a hundred and fifty princes and chieftains, 
 the flower of Rajast'han, lay dead upon the field. 
 Mohammad identified the Viceroy's body by the 
 mark of his own lance-blow, given in the former 
 battle. Of Prithwi Raj's fate many stories are 
 told. One says that he was surrounded and 
 taken prisoner, sword in hand, and murdered in 
 cold blood when the fight was over ; another, that 
 sent in chains to Ghazni, to be exhibited to the 
 populace when his conqueror should return in 
 triumph, he died on the way by his own hand. 
 Another story makes him dismount from his 
 elephant when the day was lost, and flee on
 
 42 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 horseback towards Delhi, being cut down by his 
 pursuers before he could reach Sangagota. A 
 sadder legend still probably without foundation 
 tells of a day when, grown old and blind in 
 prison, he was brought forth, like Samson, to 
 make sport for his enemies. However and wher- 
 ever he died, Sangagota saw him no more on 
 earth. Decked in her bridal jewels, she mounted 
 the pyre, and went to meet him through the 
 flames. 
 
 Ajmir was taken by assault, and its inhabitants 
 put to the sword, or reserved for slavery. Mo- 
 hammad's favourite slave, Kutb-ad-din Aybek, 
 took Delhi, and was left as Viceroy of Hindustan 
 while Mohammad went back to Ghazni for a while. 
 
 In the following year, when Mohammad re- 
 turned to India, Jaya Chandra of Kanauj led an 
 army against him. It was too late to save 
 daughter and son-in-law, too late to save the 
 Rajput dominion in Hindustan, nothing was 
 left to the miserable old man whose selfish re- 
 sentment had opened the way to the invader, 
 except to make a good end and he made it, 
 upon the banks of the Jumna, between Chandwar 
 and Etawa, fighting to his last breath. His body 
 was identified among the heaps of slain by his 
 case of false teeth, held together by gold wire. 
 
 Benares fell ; the idols in more than a thousand
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 43 
 
 temples were broken to pieces, the temples were 
 purified and consecrated to Muslim worship before 
 Mohammad's army, laden with treasure, took the 
 road to Ghazni. The Rathors of Kanauj fled into 
 the deserts of Marwar ("the region of death"), 
 where they have remained ever since. 
 
 Ghiyas-ad-din's death, a few years later, made 
 his brother king in name as well as in fact. By 
 this time the greater part of northern India had 
 fallen to him or to his lieutenants, and if Moham- 
 mad had been satisfied to enjoy it, he might have 
 founded a great Muslim kingdom in Hindustan. 
 But it was to the north, not to the south, that 
 his ambition pointed, and in an expedition against 
 the modern Khiva he met total defeat. Scarcely 
 a hundred men of his army were left with him to 
 cut their way through their enemies, and retire to 
 Ghazni. 
 
 At the news of this disaster, the chief cities of 
 his dominions promptly set up new rulers. The 
 Ghakkars a race of mountaineers living at the 
 foot of the Sivalik range " without either religion 
 or morality" overran the Punjab and seized 
 Lahore. Kutb-ad-din Aybek, faithful to his salt, 
 came to his master's help. The Ghakkars, caught 
 between two armies, were defeated and dispersed, 
 Lahore was recovered, Multan and the other 
 rebellious cities were reduced to order.
 
 44 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 
 
 Gathering a fresh army, Mohammad was on his 
 way to conquer Turkestan, when he was murdered 
 in his tent upon the banks of the Indus, in 1206, 
 by a band of twenty Ghakkars, sworn to avenge 
 the death of their king. " His spirit flew above 
 the eight Paradises and the battlements of the 
 inner heavens, and found those of the ten Evan- 
 gelists." " The treasure he left behind him," we 
 are told, " is almost incredible ; he had in diamonds 
 alone, of various sizes, four hundred pounds' 
 weight." 
 
 Cut short in the middle of his career, he had 
 yet achieved something. He had left a Muslim 
 ruler at Delhi, and from that hour, until the 
 proclamation of the White Queen, a Muslim has 
 been king there. 
 
 Prithwi Kaj, too, has left his mark, not only in 
 the massive lines of the fortifications he built to 
 keep out the invader, but in the hearts of his 
 countrymen, to whom he was " the personification 
 of every Eajput virtue, the pattern of all Rajput 
 manhood." To his story so it is said half the 
 men and women in India still listen on winter 
 nights. 
 
 It was afternoon on May 11, 1857 more than 
 six hundred and sixty years since Prithwi Kaj had 
 fled from the stricken field at Narain. The com- 
 panies of the 38th Native Infantry, set to guard
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRESCENT 1191-1206. 45 
 
 the powder magazine, broke from all control. 
 They would not kill their officers, like other 
 native regiments, but they would not wait in- 
 active, when the Great Mutiny had woke the 
 city at early morning. As they hurried to join 
 the comrades who were looting and burning in 
 all directions, their cry was the battle-cry never 
 heard in Delhi since the days of the last Chauhan 
 raja " Prithwi Eaj ki jai ! " l 
 
 1 " Victory to the kingdom of Prithwi ! " or " Hail to the king- 
 dom of Prithwi ! "
 
 III. 
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 
 
 KUTB- AD-DIN AYBBK . . 1206-1210 
 
 SHAMS- AD-DIN ALTAMISH . 1211-1236 
 
 EAZIYA- AD-DIN . . . 1236-1240 
 
 GHIYAS- AD-DIN BALBAN 1266-1287 
 
 "The whole country of India is full of gold and jewels, and of the plants 
 which grow there are those fit for making wearing apparel, and aromatic 
 plants and the sugar-cane, and the whole aspect of the country is pleasant 
 and delightful. Now since the inhabitants are chiefly infidels and idolaters, 
 by the order of God and his Prophet, it is right for us to conquer them." 
 Mcdfuzat-i-Timuri.
 
 III. 
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI. 
 I. 
 
 A WELL-MEANING friend once ventured to condole 
 with Mohammad Grhori because he had no sons 
 to come after him. 
 
 " What matters that ? " answered the Sultan. 
 "Have I not thousands of sons in my Turkish 
 slaves ? " 
 
 To Western minds it seems impossible that 
 slaves could ever take the place of sons, whereas 
 it was a matter of common experience in the 
 East. Too often does the son of a great man fall 
 as much below the common level as his father 
 rises above it : the slave was selected for some 
 special quality, owed his advancement to his 
 wits, and knowing that he was liable to be cast 
 down in an instant if he failed his lord, took 
 care not to disappoint him. 
 
 The slave whom Mohammad sent as his repre-
 
 50 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 sentative to Delhi was a Turkoman, Aybek 
 ("Moon lord"). Sold in childhood to a rich 
 merchant of Naishapur, his talents were soon dis- 
 covered by his master, who sent him to school ; 
 sold, with the rest of the estate, after the mer- 
 chant's sudden death, he passed into the hands 
 of Mohammad Ghori. 
 
 On a night of festivity, Mohammad distributed 
 rich gifts among all his slaves ; Aybek received 
 his share with the rest, but gave it away to his 
 fellows as soon as they were dismissed from the 
 presence. 
 
 This came to the ears of Mohammad, who sent 
 for Aybek and asked why he had not chosen to 
 keep his master's gifts. 
 
 " All that this poor slave can need is already 
 supplied by your Majesty's bounty," answered 
 Aybek, kissing the ground ; "he has no desire 
 to burden himself with superfluities, so long as 
 he retains your Majesty's favour." 
 
 This reply pleased the Sultan, who gave Aybek 
 an office near his person, and shortly afterwards 
 appointed him Master of the Horse. On Moham- 
 mad's disastrous expedition against Khiva, Aybek 
 was made prisoner, and loaded with irons ; a few 
 days later, the King of Khiva having been defeated, 
 Aybek was discovered sitting on. a camel on the 
 field, and welcomed with great joy by his master.
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 51 
 
 When Mohammad Ghori returned to Ghazni 
 after overcoming Prithwi Raj, he left Aybek, 
 now known as Kutb-ad-din ("Polestar of the 
 Faith"), as his viceroy in India, to carry on the 
 work of conquest. When he came back in the 
 following year, Aybek met him at Peshawar, 
 with a present of horses and elephants. It was 
 an arrow from the bow of Aybek that slew the 
 Raja of Benares in the great battle on the banks 
 of the Jumna. The Sultan rewarded him with 
 the present of a white elephant taken from the 
 Raja, which he ever afterwards rode, and which 
 is said to have pined away with grief at his 
 death. 
 
 Ajmir, Gwalior, and Gujarat yielded in turn 
 to Mohammad's viceroy, and one of his fellow 
 slaves took possession of Bengal in Mohammad's 
 name. 
 
 There is a story that seeing Aybek grow in 
 power every day, jealous rivals began to hint 
 to Mohammad that the slave was aiming at 
 nothing less than the kingdom for himself. Some 
 friend at Court sent information to Aybek, who 
 immediately left India and travelled at topmost 
 speed to Ghazni. One morning, when the Court 
 was all assembled, the Sultan asked whether 
 it were true that Aybek had revolted. 
 
 " Too true, alas ! " replied Aybek's rivals. " He
 
 52 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 has thrown off his allegiance we know for certain 
 that he designs to make himself king." 
 
 o o 
 
 Then the Sultan kicked the foot of the throne 
 upon which he sat and clapped his hands together, 
 calling "Aybek!" 
 
 " Here I am," answered the viceroy, as he came 
 forth from the place beneath the throne where 
 his master had hidden him. 
 
 In shame and terror, the accusers prostrated 
 themselves and kissed the ground. " I pardon 
 you this time," proclaimed the Sultan : " beware 
 how you speak against Aybek again." 
 
 " My son," Mohammad called the slave, and 
 Aybek was more faithful to him than many sons 
 in Oriental history to their fathers. 
 
 In 1206 came the reward. After Mohammad 
 Ghori had fallen under the daggers of the Ghak- 
 kars, his nephew and successor at Ghazni sent 
 throne, canopy, standards, drums, and other 
 tokens of royalty to Aybek, " desirous of secur- 
 ing his interest, and being by no means able to 
 oppose his power if he refused to acknowledge 
 him." 
 
 It needed no ordinary man to hold the sceptre 
 of Delhi, where the Muslim soldiers and officials 
 were a garrison in an alien land. The upper 
 classes lay dead upon the battlefields where the 
 Crescent had borne them down, or had fled be-
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 53 
 
 yond the reach of the invaders, but the middle 
 classes merchants and tradesfolk and the 
 peasants were many millions, while their con- 
 querors, though continually recruited from the 
 north, were few in number in comparison. The 
 Muslims, however, had a powerful ally in their 
 religion, while the Hindus were hampered at 
 every turn by the laws of caste. With the 
 Muslims, every man who could wield a sword 
 might strike a blow for God and His Prophet ; 
 with the Hindus, the warriors formed a caste by 
 themselves. With the Muslims, every man who 
 was not of Islam was bound to go, to quote the 
 words of one of their own historians, "into that 
 fire which God has lighted for infidels and those 
 who deny a resurrection, for those who say no 
 prayers, hold no fasts, and tell no beads. Amen "; 
 every one who accepted Islam was free to rise 
 to any rank or distinction in this world, and was 
 tolerably certain of a good place in the next. 
 The Hindus were equally convinced of the future 
 of those who differed from them in religion ; but 
 with them each man must remain in the caste 
 to which he was born. This in itself kept them 
 divided, while the faith of the Prophet united 
 men of every race and class against them. 
 
 Delhi prospered under Aybek's rule, if we may 
 believe the Muslim historians; "he continued to
 
 54 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 exercise justice, temperance, and morality ; his 
 kingdom was governed by the best laws," which 
 naturally means that preference was given to 
 Muslims, though we are told by another writer 
 that in Aybek's reign "the people were happy," 
 and "the wolf and the sheep drank together out 
 of the same pond." His reign was a short one ; 
 only four years after having been proclaimed 
 King of Delhi, in 1210 he was thrown against 
 the pommel of his saddle while playing polo at 
 Lahore, and received an injury which caused his 
 death. 
 
 He left an everlasting memorial of himself 
 within what had been the Fort of Prithwi Raj : 
 there he built the innermost court of the Kutb 
 Mosque in 1191, and six years later, added the 
 screen of arches in front of the west end of the 
 court. All his materials were taken from the Jain 
 and Hindu temples in the Fort, and the curious 
 may still discover Jain figures, half effaced, upon 
 the beautifully carven pillars, among flowers, 
 leopards' heads, bells, and tassels, or trace the 
 birth of Krishna above the window on the outer 
 side of the north wall. 
 
 " The Mosque is the depository of the grace of God, 
 The music of the prayer of it reaches to the moon," 
 
 says Amir Khusru, " the Parrot of Hind," who
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OP DELHI 1206-1287. 55 
 
 saw it less than a hundred years after the time 
 of Aybek. At the south-east angle of the court, 
 like the campanile of some Italian cathedral, 
 rises the tallest minaret in the world, the Kutb 
 Minar; begun by Aybek and completed by his 
 successors, it preserves the name of the Turkoman 
 slave who founded the Muslim kingdom of Delhi. 
 
 Four hundred years after his death men in 
 Hindustan had found no higher praise for gen- 
 erosity than to say, " Such a one is as liberal as 
 Kutb-ad-din-Aybek." 
 
 II. 
 
 In the days when Mohammad G-hori was making 
 his way gradually towards Hindustan, there was 
 a certain Khan of Turkistan whose youngest son 
 was remarkable for such grace, intelligence, and 
 beauty as excited jealousy in the hearts of his 
 elder brothers. One day, under pretext of taking 
 the child to see a drove of horses, they enticed 
 him from father and mother, and sold him to 
 the horse-dealers, who carried him to Bokhara, 
 where he was bought by "a great and noble 
 family," who nourished and educated him like 
 a son. 
 
 In after years, he was wont to tell how once
 
 56 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 he was given a piece of money and sent to the 
 bazaar to buy grapes. On the way he lost the 
 money, and " being of tender age, began to 
 cry for fear " : while he wept, a faquir came up 
 to him, and hearing his trouble, took him by 
 the hand, bought grapes, and gave them to him 
 with the words, "When you obtain wealth and 
 dominion, take care that you show respect to 
 faquirs and pious men, and maintain their rights." 
 The child promised, and did not forget to keep 
 his word : " It is firmly believed that no king so 
 benevolent, so sympathetic, and so respectful to 
 the learned and to the old as he was, ever rose 
 by his native energy to the cradle of empire." 
 
 From the great and noble family he passed to 
 a merchant, who brought him to Ghazni, and 
 offered him to the Sultan Mohammad. " No Turk 
 equal to him in beauty, virtue, intelligence, and 
 nobleness had at that time been brought to that 
 city," and when the Sultan offered a thousand 
 dinars in refined gold, the merchant refused to 
 sell him for so low a price. Thereupon the Sultan 
 gave orders that no one else should buy him, and 
 the merchant, after staying for a year in Ghazni, 
 in the hope of doing business, went back discon- 
 solate to Bokhara, taking his property with him. 
 
 After three years he again brought the boy to 
 Ghazni, and found that no one dared to purchase
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 57 
 
 him in defiance of the Sultan. Another year of 
 waiting had passed when Aybek, who had just 
 conquered Gujarat, came to Ghazni, heard of the 
 slave, and asked his master's leave to buy him. 
 
 " I said that no man should buy him in Ghazni, 
 and no man shall," returned the Sultan; "if you 
 want him, take him to Delhi and buy him 
 there." 
 
 So the slave was brought to Delhi, and became 
 the property of Aybek. The meaning and correct 
 pronunciation of the Turkoman name he had borne 
 up to that time are both unknown. The usual 
 form is "Altamish," which has no meaning, but 
 may be a corruption of a Turki word Il-tutmish, 
 " Hand-grasper." 
 
 The Viceroy of Hindustan, who had begun life 
 as a slave, loved the gracious youth, whom he 
 made chief of the guards and kept near his person, 
 calling him his son. When Aybek brought his 
 army from Hindustan to crush the Ghakkars, the 
 gallantry of Altamish attracted the attention of 
 Sultan Mohammad, who saw him ride into the 
 bed of the Jhelum to pursue the enemy, " sending 
 them from the tops of the waves through the 
 depths of hell." On learning that this was the 
 lad whom he had forbidden his subjects of Ghazni 
 to purchase, he called him into his presence and 
 bade Aybek " t$eat him well, since he was destined
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 to great works." Aybek then formally set 
 Altamish free, and made him indeed a son by 
 marrying him to one of his daughters. 
 
 Aybek's own son proved so unfit to take his 
 father's place that the principal men of Delhi 
 invited Altamish to rule in his stead. As Shams- 
 ad-din Altamish, the new king reigned in Delhi, 
 and had to fight for his throne with rivals in 
 various parts of Hindustan ; " but as he was 
 assisted by divine favour, every one who resisted 
 him or rebelled was subdued." 
 
 It was in his reign that Chingiz Khan, the 
 Mongol, swept across Asia, sending kings and 
 armies to right and left of him in desperate fear. 
 Jalal-ad-din, the Shah of what is now Khiva 
 successor to him who had been too many for 
 Mohammad Ghori was driven towards Lahore, 
 whither Altamish came to meet him with an army. 
 Beaten back, the Shah retreated towards Sind : 
 thither Chingiz Khan followed him, marching with 
 such haste that " there was no difference between 
 night and day, and no time for cooking food," 
 and cut his army to pieces. The Mongol army 
 wintered in the plains of Hindustan (1221-2), in 
 order to keep watch on Jalal-ad-din's movements, 
 and the unhappy Turkish governor of the pro- 
 vince in which they cantoned themselves, perforce 
 " bound the girdle of obedience round his waist,
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OP DELHI 1206-1287. 59 
 
 and provided all the supplies he could for the use 
 of the army." In the spring they returned to 
 Central Asia by the way they came. 
 
 After their departure Altamish gradually ex- 
 tended his authority, until nearly the whole of 
 Hindustan was more or less subject to him, and 
 in 1229 he was recognised as sovereign of India 
 by the " Commander of the Faithful," the Caliph 
 of Baghdad, who sent an embassy to Delhi. 
 
 Among all his conquests, he found time to con- 
 tinue some of Aybek's other work. He completed 
 the Kutb and added another courtyard to the 
 mosque, at the north-west corner of which his 
 tomb may be seen. " One of the richest examples 
 of Hindu art applied to Mohammadan purposes 
 that old Delhi affords," the Slave King's last 
 resting-place was probably built by the daughter 
 whose story is one of the saddest memories that 
 cling about the city. 
 
 III. 
 
 Altamish could conquer an empire and rule it ; 
 but, successful in all else, he was as unsuccessful 
 as King Solomon in training his sons. The eldest 
 died before him, and is buried at the village of 
 Malakpur, beyond Delhi ; of the others, each was
 
 60 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 more incompetent, foolish, and idle than his 
 brother. 
 
 As is often seen in the children of great men, 
 the daughter had all the talents and abilities 
 which the son lacked. Raziyat-ad-din 1 Begam was 
 her father's favourite, " although she was a girl 
 and lived in retirement." She could read the 
 Koran with correct pronunciation, and was so 
 capable in other ways that while he was at the 
 siege of Gwalior, he appointed her regent in his 
 absence. So well did she fulfil her trust that on 
 his return he ordered his ministers to prepare a 
 firman appointing her heir to the kingdom and 
 successor to the throne. 
 
 The scandalised ministers remonstrated ; it was 
 a thing without precedent to make a mere woman 
 rule over true believers, and could not be tolerated. 
 True, the Princess Raziya was the child of his 
 Majesty's chief wife, Aybek's daughter, while the 
 heir-apparent was the child of a slave, but a double 
 strain of royal blood could not atone for the dis- 
 ability of sex. 
 
 " My sons are devoted to the pleasures of youth," 
 answered Altamish ; " not one of them is fit to be 
 king. They are not able to rule the country. 
 After my death, you will find no one more 
 qualified to rule the state than my daughter." 
 
 1 " Devoted to the Faith."
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 61 
 
 It was afterwards agreed by common consent 
 that the " king had judged wisely," confesses a 
 Delhi historian ; but when Altamish died, custom 
 and religious prejudice were too strong for the 
 nobles of Delhi, who took Rukn - ad - din Firoz 
 Shah, Raziya's half-brother, and proclaimed him 
 king. 
 
 " He was very generous ; no king in any reign 
 had ever scattered gifts, robes of honour, and 
 grants in the way that he did." Singers, dancing- 
 girls, and buffoons grew wealthy by his favour ; 
 and even the common people shared in his largesse 
 when he rode out upon an elephant through 
 streets and bazaars, in his drunken jollity "fling- 
 ing tankas of red gold around him, for people 
 to pick up and rejoice over." He was handsome, 
 which makes for popularity with the crowd, 
 and his neglect of the affairs of state might have 
 done him no harm if he had found some com- 
 petent minister to rule while he reigned. 
 
 "Kings should possess all virtues that their 
 people may live at ease," says the chronicler 
 already quoted. " They should be generous, 
 that the army may live satisfied ; but sensuality, 
 gaiety, and the society of the base and unworthy, 
 bring an empire to ruin." 
 
 The moral is excellent, though it has little or 
 no application to Rukn-ad-din Firoz, who perished
 
 62 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 by reason not of his own vices, but the vices of 
 his mother. 
 
 This woman, Shah Turkan, had been a Turki 
 slave-girl, promoted to be the wife of the king, 
 flouted and scorned by the ladies of the harem 
 for her low birth. In her husband's lifetime 
 she could only console herself with a parade of 
 devotion, lavishing offerings upon shrines and 
 holy men ; now that her son's weakness gave 
 her an opportunity, she avenged past slights by 
 putting to a cruel death the rivals who had 
 mocked her. Her next victim was Kutb-ad-din, 
 Raziya's brother, whom she caused to be blinded, 
 and afterwards to be slain. 
 
 Raziya, careless of her own danger, attacked 
 mother and son with vehement reproaches. 
 Rebellion broke out in Hindustan, and while 
 the king led an army to repress it, Shah Turkan 
 plotted to seize Raziya and slay her as her 
 brother had been slain. 
 
 Now Altamish had made an edict that any 
 one coming to demand justice at his hands 
 should put on a coloured dress, so as to be dis- 
 tinguished at a glance among the white -robed 
 crowd. On a Friday morning, as devout Muslims 
 thronged to the chief mosque of Delhi, they saw 
 Raziya standing upon the terrace of the old palace,
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 63 
 
 looking down upon them. She was clad in the 
 garments of the wronged, and made an appeal 
 not to the king but to the people, reminding 
 them of the long reign of her father, and the 
 many benefits he had conferred upon them. Now 
 the wise old king was dead, and his daughter 
 must ask justice from those to whom he had 
 rendered it many a time. " My brother has 
 killed his brother, and now he would slay me 
 also." 
 
 As she pleaded before them, eloquent as the 
 wisest, helpless as the poorest, all Delhi rose in 
 revolt. The wicked queen -mother was thrown 
 into the prison she had prepared for her step- 
 daughter, and Rukn-ad-din Firoz, hurrying back 
 at the news of his mother's imprisonment, was 
 met by "an army of Turks and nobles," who 
 seized him and brought him before Eaziya. Some 
 say that she sent him to prison and that he died 
 there in a short time of the usual illness that 
 carries off deposed rulers in an Eastern country. 
 But one writer says that as he cowered before 
 her, Raziya turned away with the words, " Let 
 the slayer be slain," and that the people mas- 
 sacred him forthwith in revenge for his murdered 
 brother, whom they had loved. 
 
 The next heir to Delhi was only a child, so the
 
 64 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 nobles and officers agreed to obey the firman of 
 Altamish. Raziya was proclaimed King l of Delhi 
 the first woman to sit upon a Muslim throne, 
 the only woman to sit upon the throne of 
 Delhi until the days of Queen Victoria. 
 
 And now the real tragedy begins. There are 
 instances throughout the centuries of Muslim 
 women exercising power " from behind the veil " 
 as regents, from Chand Bibi of Ahmadnagar to 
 the present Begam of Bhopal. But they ruled 
 as women, not as men. Our Queen Elizabeth, 
 set upon a very insecure throne, with a very 
 imperfect title to it, among men in no way dis- 
 posed to submit to petticoat government, used her 
 sex as a weapon in the struggle, and prevailed. 
 But Raziya, like many a woman since her time, 
 thought that to ignore her sex was the only way 
 to prevail. So she flung aside the woman's skirts, 
 discarded the veil without which no decent 
 Muslim woman would be seen in public, wore 
 cap and tunic like a man, and gave audience 
 every day with uncovered face. 
 
 This was too much for respectable people, 
 such as her Turkish nobles, known as "the 
 Forty," in whose hands was all the real power. 
 It was nothing to them that " the King " led 
 
 1 King or Sultan not Sultana "Rex Noster," like Maria 
 Theresa.
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 65 
 
 her troops boldly and successfully against rebels, 
 pitching her tent in the midst of her army. 
 Courage in a woman was not needed, but decency 
 was imperative, and what decency was left to 
 one who allowed her Abyssinian Master of the 
 Horse to lift her on and off her steed " by raising 
 her up under the arms " ? 
 
 So the men rose against the woman who had 
 forgotten woman's wisdom. The Governor of 
 Lahore, the first to revolt, was obliged to sue 
 for pardon, but while Kaziya was on the way 
 to punish another rebel, Altuniya, Governor of 
 Bhatinda, all the Turkish chiefs in her army 
 mutinied. There was a conflict, in which the 
 Abyssinian slave was killed, and the Queen was 
 sent as a prisoner to Bhatinda, and her young 
 brother, Prince Bahram, made king in her stead. 
 
 In prison, Raziya seems to have made the 
 discovery that at direst need a lonely woman's 
 best weapons are usually feminine. She worked 
 upon her jailer, Altuniya, till either from love 
 or from policy he married her, and having raised 
 an army of Ghakkars, Jats, and other tribesmen, 
 the two rode forth together to regain her throne. 
 
 Defeated near Delhi, the dauntless Queen 
 gathered another army at Bhatinda, and again 
 tried conclusions with her brother. Again she 
 was defeated, her husband slain, and herself 
 
 E
 
 66 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 driven to fly to the jungles. As she urged her 
 tired horse by unfrequented tracks, she found 
 a peasant tilling his field, and begged him for 
 food. He gave her a piece of bread, which the 
 starving woman ate greedily, and then, worn 
 out by sorrow, fasting, and toil, she dropped 
 from the back of her horse to the earth and fell 
 into a deep sleep. 
 
 She still wore a man's dress, but as the peasant 
 eyed her, he saw the gleam of gold and pearls 
 beneath her upper garments, and guessed her to 
 be a woman. Then he feared her no more, and 
 killed her as she slept. He stripped jewels and 
 clothes from the corpse, which he buried in a 
 corner of his field, drove the horse away, and 
 carried some of the garments to the nearest 
 bazaar for sale. 
 
 But the gold-embroidered stuffs that had wrapped 
 a king's daughter were not gear for a peasant to 
 own, and the dealer to whom he offered them 
 haled him before the kotwal, who of course ex- 
 tracted confession with a beating. The poor body 
 was taken from its unhallowed grave, washed, 
 wrapped in a shroud, and reverently buried in 
 the same place. A shrine was erected there, and 
 pilgrims journeyed to visit the tomb of the hapless 
 woman who had ruled Delhi for three years and 
 a half, and known little peace until she slept in
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 67 
 
 the peasant's field. At the present day, her grave 
 is enclosed within the bounds of the new Delhi 
 that Firoz Shah Taghlak built at Firozabad. 
 
 " She was possessed of every good quality which 
 usually adorns the ablest princes," says Ferishta, 
 "and those who scrutinise her actions most 
 severely will find in her no fault but that 
 she was a woman." 
 
 " Sultan Raziya was a great monarch," says 
 the historian who moralised over her brother's 
 fate. " She was wise, just, and generous, a bene- 
 factor to her kingdom, a dispenser of justice, the 
 protector of her subjects and the leader of her 
 armies. She was endowed with all the qualities 
 befitting a king, but she was not born of the 
 right sex, and so in the estimation of men all 
 these virtues were worthless. May God have 
 mercy on her ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 A son and two grandsons of Altamish success- 
 ively followed Raziya. It is to be hoped that 
 the consciousness of no longer being under petti- 
 coat government was some satisfaction to the 
 men in the kingdom, for there was no other 
 satisfaction to be had. The Mongols took Lahore 
 and slaughtered the inhabitants, under Raziya's
 
 68 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 immediate successor, who was murdered by his 
 own generals ; the next king fell into bad com- 
 pany and "thus acquired the habit of seizing 
 and killing his nobles," who, not liking the habit, 
 deposed him and put him into prison " and he 
 died." Happily for the country, during the reign 
 of the third king, a peaceful and harmless person 
 who supported himself and amused his leisure 
 by making copies of the Koran " with great taste 
 and elegance," the real ruler was one of " the 
 Forty," Balban, a slave, who had been Chief 
 Huntsman to Raziya. 
 
 Altamish once commissioned a merchant to buy 
 slaves for him in Central Asia. Ninety and nine 
 did the king approve when he returned, but when 
 he saw the hundredth, a mean-looking little fellow, 
 he exclaimed, " I will not take this one." 
 
 " Master of the World ! " cried Balban piteously, 
 " for whom have you bought all these ? " 
 
 " For myself," laughed the king. 
 
 "Then buy me for the love of God!" pleaded 
 Balban. 
 
 " Good ! " laughed the king again, and he 
 bought the lad, whose father had been chief of 
 ten thousand horse in the district whence he him- 
 self had come ; but taking no farther interest in 
 him, he set^him among the water-carriers. * 
 
 Now astrologers had often told the king that
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 69 
 
 one of his slaves should take the kingdom from 
 his son. For a long time he heeded them not ; 
 then it came to the ears of his wife, and she 
 spoke of it, till he sent for the astrologers, and 
 by their counsel ordered a review of all his slaves, 
 that they might pick out the man who was to 
 take the kingdom. 
 
 Class by class, they paraded before the king, 
 and the water-carriers, who belonged to one of 
 the lowest grades, grew very hungry as they 
 waited their turn. So they sent Balban, " because 
 there was none among them more despised," to 
 buy food for them in the market. Before he 
 could return, the water-carriers had been called, 
 and in terror of being found out, put Balban's 
 water-bottle and pot on the back of another 
 youth, and made him answer to Balban's name. 
 King and astrologers failed to find the man whom 
 they sought, and Balban lived, to rise gradually, 
 as Aybek and Altamish had risen before him, 
 from slave to Sultan. 
 
 For twenty years he governed for the gentle 
 recluse who was his nominal master, putting 
 down rebellion, punishing conspiracy, ever alert 
 against a Hindu revolt or a Mongol invasion, 
 the two great perils which hung over the king- 
 dom. When his master died, as a matter of 
 course he stepped into his place. Inflexibly just,
 
 70 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 inexorably severe, it is little wonder to hear 
 that "from the very beginning of his reign, 
 the people became obedient, tractable, and sub- 
 missive." He cleared the highways of the robbers 
 who infested them, he harried the jungles where 
 thieves took refuge, he laid waste the villages 
 of marauders, he put brigands and rebels to the 
 sword, he built and garrisoned forts to secure 
 the roads. The punishments that he inflicted on 
 the rebellious Governor of Bengal and his officers 
 were so terrible that the beholders nearly died 
 of fear " such had never been heard of in Delhi, 
 and no one could remember anything like it in 
 Hindustan." But it was salutary severity, and 
 when his strong hand was removed from the helm 
 of state, men grieved bitterly for him whom they 
 named " the father of his people." 
 
 " He was a king bounteous and powerful ; 
 an elephant in his time would avoid treading 
 on an ant." During his forty years of power, 
 we are told, he never jested or laughed, or 
 allowed jest or laughter in his presence ; he never 
 conversed with persons of low extraction, and 
 none dared recommend them to him for employ- 
 ment. It was once intimated to him that a 
 parvenu, who had amassed vast wealth by usury, 
 would give several lakhs of rupees in return for 
 a single word from the throne ; Balban rejected
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 71 
 
 the proposal with infinite scorn. "What must 
 his subjects think of a king who would stoop 
 to hold converse with such a creature ? " 
 
 His hopes and his pride were centred in his 
 eldest son, Mohammad, whom in 1285 he sent 
 forth to battle against " the accursed Samar, the 
 bravest dog of all the dogs of Chinghiz Khan." 
 The Mongols were drawing nearer and nearer, 
 and it was no time to hold back even the son 
 whom he loved more dearly than his life. Fifteen 
 kings of Central Asia, dispossessed and driven 
 from their realms by the tide of Mongol invasion, 
 had taken refuge at the Court of Delhi, and their 
 presence was a continual reminder to Balban of 
 what might be the fate of the land he had 
 rescued from strife and disorder. 
 
 In those days India trembled in helpless, 
 abject fear before the advance of the hordes of 
 Chinghiz Khan, even as Europe had quailed 
 before the Huns. Like the Huns, the Mongols 
 were not human beings. They were descended 
 from dogs ; God had created them out of hell- 
 fire. "Their eyes were so narrow and piercing, 
 that they might have bored a hole in a brazen 
 vessel," says Amir Khusru, who, having fallen a 
 prisoner into their hands, had more opportunity 
 than he liked of examining them closely. " Their 
 stink was more horrible than their colour. Their
 
 72 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 
 
 faces were set on their bodies as if they had 
 no neck. Their cheeks resembled soft leathern 
 bottles, full of wrinkles and knots. Their noses 
 extended from cheek to cheek, and their mouths 
 from cheek-bone to cheek-bone. Their nostrils 
 resembled rotten graves, and from them the hair 
 descended as far as the lips." 
 
 And he adds other details which are too inti- 
 mate to be repeated here, though undoubtedly 
 they give the finishing touches to the portrait. 
 
 Prince Mohammad was not fated to overcome 
 these monsters. When the armies met near 
 Dibalpur, after a three hours' battle, the Mongols 
 turned to flee, followed by the victorious troops 
 of Delhi. The Prince and some of his attend- 
 ants, overcome by thirst, halted at the side of 
 a stream, and after drinking, he prostrated him- 
 self in thanks to God who had given him to over- 
 come. At that moment, two thousand Mongols 
 burst from the thicket in which they had been 
 concealed. The Prince, cheering his men, and 
 fighting desperately to the last, was cut down, 
 and scarcely one of his party was left alive 
 when the Mongols were put to flight by a 
 detachment of the Delhi army who came too 
 late to save him. 
 
 " Not a dry eye was to be seen, from the mean- 
 est soldier to the general." To the old king, now
 
 THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 1206-1287. 73 
 
 in his eightieth year, the loss of his son was a 
 death-blow. By day he held his Court with all 
 the solemn formality of one who never suffered 
 even his confidential attendants to set eyes upon 
 him, except when he was in full dress ; he trans- 
 acted business with ministers and officials, " as 
 if to show that his loss had not affected him." 
 By night, " he poured forth cries of grief, tore 
 his garments, and threw dust upon his head," 
 wailing for him who was long remembered by 
 his people as "the Martyr Prince." 
 
 He wasted away with the load of sorrow and 
 years, and died in 1287, last of the great Slave 
 Kings. "From the day that Balban, the father 
 of his people, died, all security of life and 
 property was lost, and no one had any confi- 
 dence in the stability of the kingdom. His suc- 
 cessor had not reigned a year before the chiefs 
 and nobles quarrelled with each other ; many were 
 killed upon suspicion and doubt ; and the people, 
 seeing the trouble and hardships which had be- 
 fallen the country, sighed for a renewal of the 
 reign of Balban."
 
 IV. 
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 
 
 JALAL-AD-DIN FIROZ SHAH . 1290-1296 
 ALA-AD-DIN .... 1296-1316 
 KUTB-AD-DIN MUBARAK SHAH . 1316-1321 
 
 " La spada di quassu non taglia in fretta, 
 Ne tardo."
 
 IV. 
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD. 
 I. 
 
 BALBAN, like his predecessors, had been unable to 
 train up a son to follow him. Bughra Khan, the 
 eldest surviving son, cared so little for Delhi that 
 he left his father's deathbed to return to Bengal, 
 where he could enjoy himself as he pleased. His 
 descendants ruled that province until well into 
 the fourteenth century. 
 
 Kai-kubad, Balban's grandson, was set upon 
 the throne a youth so carefully trained and 
 guarded by his grandsire's orders, that until the 
 day of his accession he had never been allowed 
 to cast eyes upon a fair damsel or to taste a cup 
 of wine, to do any unseemly act, or utter an im- 
 proper word. The result was, of course, that as 
 soon as he found himself lord of an empire, " all 
 that he had read and heard and learned he im- 
 mediately forgot." In less than three years his
 
 78 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 evil example had contaminated all classes, and he 
 had sunk to such degradation, moral and physical, 
 that the assassin who came to murder him in his 
 " hall of mirrors " found him a helpless paralytic 
 lying on a couch, and drove the wretched life out 
 of him "with two or three kicks." 
 
 There were murders, intrigues, and civil war 
 between the dominant race, the Turks, and the 
 Afghan Khaljis, a clan of Pathan adventurers, 
 before the land found peace under the Khalji 
 Muster-Master-General, Jalal-ad-din Firoz Shah, 
 " the mildest king that ever held a sceptre." 
 For some time he would not enter Old Delhi, 
 on account of the feeling against him, and when 
 his kindness and liberality had in some degree 
 conciliated the people, and he went in state to 
 the " Red Palace," he dismounted at the gate, and 
 sat in his accustomed place among the nobles in 
 the Audience Hall, out of respect to Balban's 
 memory. 
 
 Himself a pattern of integrity, he believed other 
 men to be true and upright as himself, and when 
 undeceived, he could not punish. The nobles 
 who had made insurrection in favour of Balban's 
 nephew, and were brought captive, " covered with 
 dust and dirt and their garments soiled," for the 
 new Sultan to punish, found themselves washed, 
 perfumed, dressed in clean garments, and given
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 79 
 
 wine to drink, and then dismissed with the kindly 
 assurance that " in drawing their swords to support 
 the heir of their old benefactor, they had taken 
 an honest rather than a dishonest course." When 
 thieves were haled before the Sultan for justice, 
 he would set them free on their taking an oath 
 to steal no more, observing to the indignant 
 spectators that he could not slay a bound man. 
 A Thug, taken in the city, turned king's evidence, 
 and was the means of capturing a thousand of his 
 fraternity. "But not one of these did the Sultan 
 kill " : he merely ordered them to be put into 
 boats, and conveyed to Bengal, where they were 
 to be turned loose to exercise their talents, 
 presumably, upon the subjects of another king. 
 To all remonstrance from his councillors he had 
 one reply, " I am an old man, and I have never 
 caused a Muslim to be killed : let me go down to 
 the grave without shedding more blood." 
 
 "Clemency is a virtue which descends from 
 God," observes Ferishta, " but the degenerate 
 children of India of that age did not deserve it. 
 The king's sentiments having become public, no 
 security was any longer found. The streets and 
 highways were infested by thieves and banditti. 
 Housebreaking, robbery, murder, and every other 
 species of crime, were committed by many who 
 adopted them as a means of subsistence. Insur-
 
 80 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 rection prevailed in every province, numerous 
 gangs of freebooters interrupted commerce, and 
 even common intercourse. Add to which, the 
 king's governors neglected to render any account, 
 either of their revenues or of their administration." 
 
 There were general complaints of the Sultan's 
 clemency, and certain disaffected nobles babbled 
 in their cups of deposing him or putting him out 
 of the way. "Men drink too much and talk 
 foolishly," was all he said when he was told of 
 their threats ; "do not repeat drunken stories 
 to me." 
 
 It happened one evening that there was a wine 
 party at the house of one of the nobles, and as the 
 liquor went round, the guests began to talk even 
 wilder treason than usual. They proposed setting 
 their host in the Sultan's place ; one vowed he 
 would slay the Sultan with a hunting knife, 
 another drew his sword and swore to make mince- 
 meat of him. Next morning, w r hen reflection and 
 severe headaches had somewhat damped their 
 ardour, they were suddenly brought before the 
 Sultan, who for once in his life had been stirred 
 to violent anger by the report of their boastings 
 over the wine. He upbraided them roundly in the 
 presence of the Court, while they trembled, and 
 " all men wondered where it would end." " Ah, 
 drunken negroes, who brag together and talk of
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 81 
 
 killing me ! " he exclaimed, flinging his sword 
 down among them. " Is there one of you who 
 is man enough to take this sword and fight it out 
 fairly with me ? See, here I sit ready for him. 
 Let him come on ! " 
 
 Not one among the culprits stirred, till a witty 
 noble, "the principal inkstand-bearer," gathered 
 courage to speak. "Your Majesty knows that 
 topers in their cups utter ridiculous sayings. 
 We can never kill a Sultan who cherishes us 
 like sons, as you do, nor shall we ever find so 
 kind and gracious a master ; neither will you 
 kill us for our absurd drunken ravings, because 
 you will never find other nobles and gentlemen 
 like us." 
 
 The Sultan himself had been drinking wine 
 perhaps to string himself to the necessary pitch of 
 severity. His kindly old eyes filled with tears, 
 and he pardoned them all ; only insisting that 
 they should remain on their estates and not be 
 seen in Delhi for a twelvemonth. 
 
 Another offender, who had written a lampoon 
 against Jalal-ad-din in the time of Balban, came 
 to Court with a rope round his neck, in expectation 
 of death : the Sultan called him forward, embraced 
 him, gave him a robe of honour and a grant of 
 land, and enrolled him among his personal attend- 
 ants. Never was Jalal-ad-din known to visit
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 offences with stripes, imprisonment, or other 
 severity ; " if he got angry with any of them, he 
 threatened them with his second son, Arkali 
 Khan, who was a hot-tempered man." 
 
 The strongest man about him was his nephew, 
 Ala-ad-din, whom he had brought up from infancy 
 and married to his daughter. The marriage proved 
 unhappy ; Ala-ad-din was on ill terms both with 
 his wife, and her mother who had great ascend- 
 ancy over the Sultan, and cast about for some 
 means to make himself so great that however the 
 women might intrigue against him, they could not 
 ruin him utterly. From Karra, of which place the 
 Sultan had made him governor, he had marched 
 upon Bhilsa, and captured idols and plunder from 
 the Hindus. There he heard much of the wealth 
 and elephants of Deogir (Devagiri) in the Deccan, 
 and made up his mind to go where no Muslim 
 conqueror had yet penetrated. The Sultan 
 granted permission for an expedition to some 
 country vaguely specified as "in the north," 
 believing "in the innocence and trust of his 
 heart" that Ala-ad-din wished to conquer some 
 unknown land whence he need never return to 
 the wife and mother-in-law with whom he could 
 not live in peace. 
 
 So Ala-ad-din led his men to Deogir, a land 
 exceedingly rich in gold and silver, jewels and
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 pearls, where the people had never even heard of 
 Muslims. After he had been absent from Delhi 
 for a twelvemonth, news reached the Sultan, who 
 was then near Grwalior, that he was returning 
 " with elephants and an immense booty." 
 
 The Sultan held festivities in honour of his 
 nephew's victory, and consulted with his advisers 
 whether he should go to meet Ala -ad -din, or 
 return to Delhi and receive him there. The 
 wisest of them all gave it as his opinion that 
 elephants and wealth in abundance were the cause 
 of much strife, and liable to turn the head of the 
 possessor. Let the Sultan march to meet his 
 nephew, then Ala-ad-din must needs yield up his 
 booty to the superior force, whether he liked it 
 or not. 
 
 But the Sultan " was in the grasp of his evil 
 angel." "What have I done to Ala-ad-din that 
 he should turn from me and not present his 
 spoil ? " he asked indignantly. He would take no 
 advice, he would not even listen to those who 
 came to warn him that Ala-ad-din and his army 
 intended treason. The old man, who had no 
 anger for evil-doers, grew angry with his best 
 friends, and said that they wanted to set him 
 against " his son." 
 
 Ala -ad -din now pretended to fear that his 
 enemies had poisoned his uncle's mind, and to
 
 84 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 reassure him, the Sultan promised to meet him at 
 Karra with only a small retinue. Almas Beg, 
 Ala-ad-din's brother, acted as his agent at Court, 
 protesting to his uncle that the victorious general 
 was in such fear of royal displeasure that he 
 carried poison in his handkerchief, and would 
 swallow it at a sign. Working in concert, the 
 brothers lured the Sultan to Karra in the rainy 
 season, and played upon his love for " his son " 
 until he consented to cross the river with only a 
 few personal attendants, leaving his escort on the 
 other bank. The river ran high, and while the 
 boat rocked on its swollen current, the Sultan 
 placidly read in the Koran for it was the time 
 of Ramazan while those with him repeated the 
 verses prescribed to men in imminent peril of 
 death. Obstinate to the last, the old man would 
 listen to no warning, and those who crossed the 
 river with him knew that they should return no 
 more. 
 
 When they reached the farther shore, Ala-ad-din 
 fell at the feet of his uncle, who embraced him as 
 if he were once more a little child, stroking his 
 beard and kissing his face. "I have brought 
 thee up from infancy," murmured the Sultan, 
 patting him tenderly upon the cheek ; " why art 
 thou afraid of me ? " 
 
 As the loving hand clasped his own, Ala-ad-din
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 85 
 
 gave a signal ; one of his following, " a bad fellow 
 of a bad family," struck at the Sultan with a 
 sword, but the blow fell short, cutting the as- 
 sassin's hand. Again the sword was brandished, 
 and wounded the Sultan, who fled towards the 
 river with the piteous cry, "Ah, thou villain, 
 Ala-ad-din, what hast thou done ? " 
 
 Another ruffian flung him down and hacked off 
 his head, while others slaughtered his attendants. 
 The head grown white with eighty years' labour 
 was set upon a spear, and paraded up and down, 
 while the conspirators raised the royal canopy 
 over the head of Ala-ad-din. 
 
 Sooner or later retribution fell on all who had 
 betrayed their master. At the end of three or 
 four years Almas Beg was dead, and four of his 
 confederates with him. The man who struck the 
 first blow was eaten up with leprosy. The actual 
 murderer went mad, and in his dying ravings 
 cried that Sultan Jalal-ad-din stood over him with 
 a naked sword ready to cut off his head. 
 
 Ala-ad-din went to Delhi, and " scattered so 
 much gold about him that the faithless people 
 easily forgot the murder of the late Sultan and 
 rejoiced over his accession." He reigned, and for 
 a while all things seemed to prosper to his wish. 
 Yet over him hung the doom, while he "shed 
 more innocent blood than ever Pharaoh was guilty
 
 86 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 of," and such a retribution destroyed his house, 
 the chronicler tells us, shuddering, as "never had 
 a parallel, even in any infidel land." 
 
 II. 
 
 The modern historian with the modern facility 
 for labelling and classifying, would probably write 
 down Sultan Ala-ad-din as a victim to "megalo- 
 mania " ; the Muslim historian, with unscientific 
 common -sense, considers that high position and 
 success turned the head of a man who was so illit- 
 erate that he could neither write nor read a word. 
 
 At first all his undertakings prospered. The 
 late Sultan's family were blinded, imprisoned, or 
 put to death. A Mongol invasion which swept 
 up to the very gates of Delhi was successfully 
 driven back by Zafar Khan, " the Rustam of 
 the age and the hero of the time," with whose 
 name the Mongols would rebuke their horses 
 when they refused to drink: "Why dost thou 
 fear ? Dost see Zafar Khan ? " That the great 
 Khan lost his life in the engagement caused no 
 distress to Ala-ad-din, who had begun to think 
 him too powerful, and to debate whether it were 
 better to poison him, blind him, or merely send 
 him with a few elephants to take Bengal.
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 87 
 
 The fastnesses of the western deserts where the 
 Rajputs had preserved their independence, the 
 fertile plains of the Deccan where the very name 
 of Muslim had been unknown, yielded to Ala- 
 ad-din. His generals brought back to Delhi the 
 spoils from the great " temple of the golden idols " 
 in Southern India, and conquered almost to the 
 borders of Mysore. Chitor, the sacred city of the 
 Rajputs, was taken by storm, and sacked by Ala- 
 ad-din not for its wealth, say the Rajputs, for 
 little of that was left to them, but for love of 
 the fair Princess Padmani, whose carven palace 
 still looks over crumbling stones and climbing 
 weeds in her deserted city. 
 
 As success followed success he became intoxi- 
 cated, and according to the idiom of the historian, 
 "quite lost his hands and feet." "Despatches of 
 victory came in from all sides ; every year he had 
 two or three sons born, affairs of state went on 
 according to his wish and to his satisfaction ; his 
 treasury was overflowing, boxes and caskets of 
 jewels and pearls were daily displayed before his 
 eyes, he had numerous elephants in his stables, and 
 seventy thousand horses in the city and environs, 
 two or three regions were subject to his sway, 
 and he had no apprehension of enemies to his 
 kingdom, or of any rival to his throne." He 
 talked of founding a new religion in emulation
 
 88 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 of the Prophet, of leaving Delhi in charge of a 
 viceroy, and going forth to conquer the whole 
 habitable world. On his coins and in his pro- 
 clamations he styled himself " the second 
 Alexander." 
 
 At one time his successes abroad seemed likely 
 to be overthrown by rebellions at home, but the 
 Sultan, waking from his dreams, showed a sense 
 and a ferocity that soon reduced his subjects to 
 order. He came to the conclusion that it was 
 superfluity of wealth that was the chief cause 
 of sedition, inasmuch as it gave the disaffected 
 the means of raising disturbances. He, therefore, 
 instituted a rigorous system of taxation ; all his 
 subjects were " pressed and amerced " on one 
 pretext and another, until scarcely a penny of 
 ready money was left to any but certain nobles, 
 officials, and bankers. "The people were all so 
 absorbed in obtaining the means of living that the 
 name of rebellion was never mentioned." The 
 Hindus, we are told, " had not even time to scratch 
 their heads," and the Muslims were in little better 
 case. 
 
 All feasts and entertainments were prohibited, 
 since hospitality might be used as a cloak for 
 conspiracy. A system of spies was established, 
 and kept all men, good or bad, under such close 
 observation that " nobles durst not speak aloud
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 89 
 
 even in the largest palaces, and if they had any- 
 thing to say they communicated by signs." Dicing 
 and wine - drinking were forbidden, and detected 
 buyers and sellers of intoxicating liquor were 
 put into holes dug outside the Badaun gate, 
 " which is a great thoroughfare." Here many 
 of them died, and the sight of their sufferings 
 deterred others from offending. Those who were 
 unable to exist without liquor, had to go out 
 to villages twenty or twenty-four miles away to 
 procure it. 
 
 Then Ala-ad-din " requested the wise men to 
 supply some rules and regulations for grinding 
 down the Hindus," and the wise men conscien- 
 tiously set to work upon them. All Hindus 
 were condemned to pay the jiziya, or poll-tax, 
 a hated imposition that continued until the days 
 of Akbar. No Hindu was to be able to keep a 
 horse to ride on, to carry arms, to wear fine 
 clothes, to chew betel, or enjoy any of the 
 luxuries of life. Such a strict watch was kept 
 over the assessments that no revenue officer durst 
 accept a bribe to deal gently with his victims. 
 Payment was enforced by blows, confinement in 
 the stocks, imprisonment and chains. The system 
 worked so thoroughly that "no Hindu could hold 
 up his head, and in their houses no sign of gold 
 or silver or of any superfluity was to be seen."
 
 90 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 An invasion of the Mongols in 1303, when 
 they bivouacked in the suburbs of Delhi for 
 two months, brought home to the Sultan that 
 if he wished to do no more than maintain the 
 conquests he had already made, he must increase 
 and strengthen his army. In order to enable 
 the soldiers to live upon small pay, he fixed a 
 price for all necessaries of life. Certain districts 
 were commanded to pay their taxes in grain, 
 which was stored in the royal granaries and 
 sold in lean years to the inhabitants of Delhi 
 at the price regulated by the Sultan. There 
 were stern laws against " forestalling and re- 
 grating," and the Sultan was kept informed of 
 the market transactions. After a market over- 
 seer had received twenty blows with a stick, 
 once or twice, for reporting a trifling rise in 
 prices on account of deficiency in the rains, no 
 one attempted further variations in the tariff. 
 It was possible, however, to give short weight, 
 and this the dealers did, " especially to ignorant 
 people and children," until the Sultan's spies 
 having brought word of it to their master, the 
 offenders were seized by an inspector, who took 
 from their shops whatever was wanted to make 
 up the correct amount, and then cut from their 
 haunches pieces of flesh equivalent to the weight 
 of which they had cheated their customers.
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 91 
 
 After a few object-lessons of this kind, the 
 Delhi traders became noted for their honesty ; 
 they were even known to give the purchaser 
 something more than his due. 
 
 Many reforms can be worked by a despot who 
 is merciless, and Ala-ad-din's cruelties were with- 
 out parallel in the previous history of Delhi. 
 " Up to this time no hand had ever been laid 
 upon wives and children on account of men's 
 misdeeds," but he made the families of criminals 
 suffer death, torture, and outrage worse than death, 
 and prisoners of war, rebels, and other offenders 
 paid for their misdoings in such manner as cannot 
 be described. "No consideration for religion, no 
 regard for the ties of brotherhood or the filial 
 relation, no care for the rights of others, ever 
 troubled him." 
 
 There is this much to be said for him, that 
 under his rule his subjects preserved their lives 
 if not their property, and though stripped bare 
 by his exactions, none else, from tax collector 
 to highway robber, durst take a penny from 
 them. Moreover, the Mongols were repulsed, 
 until "all fancy for coming to Hindustan was 
 washed clean out of their breasts," and " no one 
 cared about them or gave them the slightest 
 thought." 
 
 Some of his work still remains in Delhi, notably
 
 92 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 the Alai Darwaza beside the Kutb Minar, and 
 the extension of the court of Altamish. Fortun- 
 ately he had not time to complete the great 
 minaret which, in one of his extravagant dreams, 
 he purposed " to raise so high that it could not 
 be exceeded," to tower far above the Kutb Minar. 
 Its vast base stands in the centre of the court 
 that he built, probably as the workmen left it 
 at his death. In constructing a new fort at 
 Delhi, we are told, he was mindful of the condition 
 that a new building must be sprinkled with blood, 
 and "sacrificed some thousands of goat-bearded 
 Mongols for the purpose." 
 
 In his latter years his successes were changed 
 into disaster. Trusting no one, he removed all 
 men of experience from his administration, and 
 filled their places with eunuchs and young slaves. 
 He lavished honours upon his commander -in - 
 chief, Kafur, thereby alienating his amirs and 
 khans. His sons, " brought prematurely from their 
 nursery," gave themselves up to every form of 
 licence ; there was revolt in Gujarat, which spread 
 to other parts of his kingdom, and the terrible 
 Sultan, helpless with dropsy, could no longer put 
 down the rebels, "though he bit his own flesh 
 with fury." Whether the disease killed him, or 
 whether he was murdered by his favourite, is an 
 open question. In January 1316 his corpse was
 
 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 93 
 
 brought from the Red Palace and buried in the 
 tomb by the Kutb Mosque. 
 
 The story of what followed can only be indi- 
 cated faintly. Kafur seized upon the government, 
 as regent for one of Ala-ad-din's sons, a baby 
 of six. Murders, Windings, and spoliation con- 
 tinued for five weeks, at the end of which time 
 " God be thanked that it entered into the heart 
 of some slaves of the late king that they ought 
 to kill this wicked fellow," and they did. Then 
 another son of Ala-ad-din became king, under 
 the title of Kutb-ad-din Mubarak Shah, and the 
 events of his reign of five years are best left in 
 the comparative obscurity of the Delhi chronicles. 
 
 He was governed by a favourite calling himself 
 Khusru Khan, a Hindu pariah. With this man for 
 counsellor and accomplice, tortures, mutilations, 
 scourgings, imprisonment, wholesale murders and 
 executions, were rife throughout the land, until 
 a wild night in March when the Sultan's headless 
 body was cast into the courtyard of the palace, 
 slain by the man whom he had delighted to 
 honour. 
 
 Khursu had himself proclaimed as " Sultan 
 Nasir-ad-din"; the horrors of his four months' 
 reign must be left unwritten. To sum them up 
 briefly, every man of the late Sultan's kin, all 
 his personal attendants, all the great nobles, were
 
 94 THE VENGEANCE FOR BLOOD 1290-1321. 
 
 slaughtered ; the women of every degree were 
 given to the outcast followers of the new Sultan. 
 Then Taghlak, the Governor of the Punjab, came 
 with the surviving remnant of the old nobility 
 to Delhi, defeated the usurper whose gold had 
 not been able to buy the loyalty of the army 
 and put him to death. When Taghlak asked 
 whether any were left of Ala-ad-din's blood whom 
 he might set upon his old master's throne, the 
 answer came from all men present that not a 
 single one of the whole stock was left alive. 
 Jalal-ad-din was avenged.
 
 V. 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 
 
 GHIYAS-AD-DIN TAGHLAK . 1321-1325 
 MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK . 1325-1351 
 Fmoz SHAH 1351-1388 
 
 : If a holy man eats half his loaf, he will give the other half to a beggar, 
 But if a king conquers all the world, he will still seek another world to 
 conquer." 
 
 Sa'adi.

 
 V. 
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI. 
 I. 
 
 ONCE upon a time, in the days before Mohammad 
 Ghori had destroyed the four great Rajput king- 
 doms, the chief of holy men, the venerable Khwaja 
 Sahib of Chisht, was walking round the Kaaba 
 when a voice came from Heaven and bade him 
 go to Medina. 
 
 Forthwith the saint journeyed to Medina, 
 where the Prophet appeared to him in a vision 
 and said : " The Almighty has intrusted the 
 country of India to thee. Go thither, and abide 
 at Ajmir. By God's help, the faith of Islam 
 shall be spread in the land, through thee and 
 thy followers." 
 
 So the Khwaja Sahib, nothing doubting, 
 journeyed to Ajmir, where the idolaters sought 
 to slay him. But when the saint looked upon 
 them, they were rooted to the ground with 
 terror, and instead of crying " Ram ! Ram ! " to 
 
 G
 
 98 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 their god, they could only cry " Rahim ! Rahim ! " 1 
 to the All-Merciful. Then in fear and contrition 
 they besought the Khwaja Sahib to remain with 
 them, and he made his dwelling on the southern 
 side of their city, near to where his shrine now 
 stands ; and the yogi who had been the spiritual 
 guide of Rai Pithora was converted, and became 
 his disciple. 
 
 But the heart of Rai Pithora was hardened, and 
 lie scoffed at the faith, and tempted the followers 
 of the Khwaja to do evil, till that venerable one 
 grew wroth, and laid a curse upon him. 
 
 Then came Sultan Mohammad, and slew Rai 
 Pithora before Delhi, and set his slave Aybek 
 upon the throne ; and through the help of the 
 Khwaja's prayers the whole country was brought 
 into the hands of Aybek. The saint died in 1235 ; 
 " he lived a hundred and seventy years ; God 
 knows the truth," says one of his biographers. 
 
 Since the time of the Khwaja Sahib, three 
 other holy men of Chisht had lived in India, work- 
 ing miracles and instructing disciples, and the last 
 of these was Nizam-ad-din- Aulia, known as " the 
 Commander of Assemblies," whose shrine has 
 been a resort for pilgrims and sightseers for 
 nearly six hundred years. 
 
 1 Ram, the Hindu invocation ; Rahim, " the Merciful," one of the 
 Arabic titles of God.
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 99 
 
 In his time Delhi was ruled by Ghiyas-ad-din 
 Taghlak, who had saved the land from the night- 
 mare of Khusru's reign, and had been elected to 
 the throne by the voice of all the surviving nobles 
 and officers when it was made clear that not one 
 of the race of Ala-ad-din was left alive. 
 
 A warrior of tried reputation, who had earned 
 his title of " Al-Malik al-Ghazi" by routing the 
 Mongols in nine and twenty battles, Taghlak 
 was the man whom the wretched kingdom needed 
 in its misery. He righted wrongs, so far as he 
 might, he punished the wrongdoers, he restored 
 order, he settled the land revenue upon just 
 principles. The land cultivation increased year 
 by year under his management. The Hindus 
 were taxed " so that they might not be blinded 
 with wealth," yet not so as to bring them 
 to utter destitution, and peace and prosperity 
 returned once more to the country. It is true 
 that his methods of restoring order were calcu- 
 lated to inspire terror as well as respect. On 
 one occasion, a false report of his death having 
 caused disaster to an expedition against the 
 rebellious province of Deogir, when the authors 
 of the report were discovered, he thus passed 
 sentence upon them: "Since they have buried 
 me alive in jest, I will bury them alive in 
 earnest."
 
 100 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 Now Taghlak designed a great citadel five 
 miles east of Old Delhi, to be built of giant 
 stones, such as no other king had ever used, 
 with a reservoir to be hewn out of the rock, 
 and within the fortress a tomb of red sandstone 
 and white marble, where he should lie when his 
 work was done. He was in haste to see it 
 finished, because he was the king, and also be- 
 cause he was an old man, and might not look 
 for many years of life. So he took all the 
 workmen that he could find, and set them to 
 build his fortress, and among them were the 
 men whom Nizam -ad- din -Aulia had hired to 
 make a tank for him. 
 
 The saint was also an old man, and loved 
 waiting no more than the Sultan, so he bought 
 oil, and when the workmen came away from the 
 fortress, at nightfall, he gave them lamps and 
 set them to labour at his tank till the dawn. 
 
 They durst not refuse, for it is ill to affront a 
 saint, but they grew faint and weary with work- 
 ing double tides, and the Sultan's overseers would 
 know the cause. Then word was brought to 
 Taghlak that the men were too feeble to work 
 for him by day after working for the saint by 
 night, and he commanded that no man hence- 
 forth should presume to sell or give oil to 
 Nizam-ad-din-Aulia.
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 101 
 
 Then the holy man betook himself to his 
 prayers, and a miraculous light arose from the 
 water of the tank when the sun went down, so 
 that the workmen had no need of lamp or torch. 
 
 But the Sultan had acquired much holiness 
 by warring against the infidel, and in his wrath 
 he laid a curse upon the water of the tank, and 
 it became noisome, so that no man could drink 
 of it. 
 
 Then the saint cursed the new city of Taghlak- 
 abad, saying, " Be it the home of the Gujar, or 
 rest it deserted." 
 
 In token whereof, to this day, the waters of 
 the saint's tank emit a stench of rotten eggs 
 when men and boys leap into them from the 
 top of the surrounding buildings, in his honour, 
 and for the amusement of visitors ; and Taghlak- 
 abad, deserted by Taghlak's son because it was 
 unhealthy and waterless, lies desolate, two small 
 Gujar villages huddled amidst its giant ruins. 
 
 Then the Sultan went on an expedition into 
 Bengal, where no ruler of Delhi had exercised 
 authority since the days of Balban, and while 
 he was busy there his eldest son, Prince Moham- 
 mad, grew impatient for the succession, and plotted 
 against him, seeking the help of the saint, who 
 vowed that never again should Taghlak set foot in 
 Delhi.
 
 102 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 When the news came that the Sultan was re- 
 turning in triumph, and expressing the intention 
 of making the saint pay for his treason, the 
 prince and the saint's disciples were seized with 
 fear. 
 
 "The Sultan comes!" they cried, "he is a 
 stage nearer to Delhi each day." 
 
 "Dilli dur ast" ("It's a far cry to Delhi"), was 
 the only reply of the saint, as he calmly told his 
 beads. 
 
 " To-morrow will see him here. Let us fly 
 before he comes." 
 
 "Dilli hanoz dur ast" ("It's still a far cry to 
 Delhi"), answered the saint, without stirring a 
 finger. 
 
 At the last stage of the journey the prince 
 came to meet his father and younger brother, 
 and feasted them in a wooden pavilion which he 
 had built for them beside the river. After the 
 feast, he asked leave to parade the elephants, 
 and the Sultan consented. 
 
 Taghlak sat in the pavilion, with his favourite 
 son, the boy whom he had taken with him on 
 his campaign, and beside them was a certain 
 shaikh, to whom Prince Mohammad said : 
 " Master, it is time for afternoon prayer." Mo- 
 hammad then left the pavilion to give orders to 
 bring up the elephants, and the obedient shaikh
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 103 
 
 descended to his prayers, without waiting to see 
 the parade. 
 
 Scarcely were prince and shaikh outside the 
 building when a crash was heard. The shaikh 
 hurried back, his prayers unsaid, and found that 
 at the touch of the foremost elephant the whole 
 pavilion had subsided. 
 
 Mohammad feigned great distress, and ordered 
 pickaxes and shovels to be brought at once. But 
 he made a sign to those in command of the work- 
 men which they understood too well to hurry. 
 After scientifically planning his pavilion, with 
 the help of his father's inspector of buildings, he 
 did not intend to lose the reward of his trouble 
 by a premature rescue. It was not till after 
 sunset that the tools were brought, and the men 
 began to dig in the dusk of a January evening. 
 
 The old Sultan was found under the fallen 
 beams, shielding his boy with outstretched arms, 
 as if he had striven to keep death away from him. 
 The young prince was dead ; there were dark 
 rumours that the father still breathed when the 
 workmen found him. His body was carried at 
 night to the tomb within the fortress, and Prince 
 Mohammad gained his heart's desire.
 
 104 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 II. 
 
 It was a misfortune for Hindustan that Mo- 
 hammad ibn Taghlak was given to trying ex- 
 periments. 
 
 A few centuries later, as a man of science, with 
 his researches under the control of legislation, 
 he might have lived not unhappily, achieved some 
 little good, and wrought no more harm than the 
 generality of men : as an Eastern despot, the 
 lord of three -and -twenty provinces a wider 
 realm than submitted to any King of Delhi, 
 save Aurangzib, he was a direful failure. His 
 reign "was a tragedy of high intentions self- 
 defeated." 1 
 
 He was upright, abstemious, and devout, saying 
 his prayers regularly, and punishing those who 
 did not follow his example. His bravery in the 
 field was renowned, and his private life without 
 reproach, according to the Law of the Prophet. 
 He was skilled in logic, astronomy, and mathe- 
 matics, eloquent and overpowering in controversy 
 with philosophers and learned men. His Per- 
 sian verses were acknowledged to be good, and 
 his Arabic and Persian letters were studied, long 
 after his time, on account of their literary style. 
 1 S. Lane Poole.
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 105 
 
 His caligraphy put the most accomplished scribes 
 to shame. He specially delighted in the study 
 of medicine, and went so far as to attend in 
 person upon those stricken by any remarkable 
 disease a proceeding which is not likely to have 
 alleviated their sufferings. 
 
 Add to this that he never spared himself 
 in carrying out what he conceived to be his 
 duty, that he established hospitals for the sick 
 and almshouses for widows and orphans, that he 
 was a liberal patron to learned men, and you 
 have the outline of what might have been one 
 of the best rulers that Delhi ever knew. 
 
 Three of his qualities spoiled all the rest the 
 zeal for experiment which was never satisfied, 
 the obstinacy that caused him to go on his way 
 without asking counsel of any man, and the 
 hard heart which made him callous to all the 
 suffering that he inflicted. After twenty-six years 
 of reign, only Gujarat and Deogir remained to 
 him of outlying possessions, and in the kingdom 
 of Delhi revolt and disaffection beset him on all 
 sides ; there was a deficit in the treasury, and the 
 land had returned to the poverty and misery 
 from which his father had rescued it. 
 
 The most vivid picture of him is that given 
 by Ibn Batuta, the Arabian traveller, who spent 
 some time at his Court :
 
 106 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 " Mohammad is a man who, above all others, 
 is fond of making presents and shedding blood. 
 There may always be seen at his gate some poor 
 person becoming rich, or some living one con- 
 demned to death. His distinguishing character- 
 istic is generosity. It rarely happened that the 
 corpse of some one who had been killed was not 
 to be seen at the gate of his palace. This 
 sovereign punished little faults like great ones, 
 and spared neither the learned, the religious, nor 
 the noble. Every day hundreds were brought 
 chained into his Hall of Audience, their hands 
 tied to their necks and their feet bound together. 
 Some were killed, and others tortured or well 
 beaten. It was his practice to have all persons 
 in prison brought before him every day except 
 Friday. This day was to them a respite, and 
 they passed it in cleaning themselves and taking 
 rest. God preserve us from evil ! " piously con- 
 cludes the traveller, who once fell into disgrace 
 with Mohammad and narrowly escaped death, 
 after being closely guarded by four slaves for 
 ten days. 
 
 It was his distinguishing characteristic that 
 first brought trouble upon Mohammad. Having de- 
 pleted his treasury with grants to savants, poets, 
 distinguished foreigners, and officials of every 
 grade, he attempted to supply the deficit by
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 107 
 
 laying a super-tax of five or ten per cent upon 
 the fertile plain of the Doab, between the Ganges 
 and the Jumna. The inhabitants were reduced 
 to beggary, and became rebels for want of other 
 means of support. The cultivators in adjoining 
 districts, taking alarm, set fire to their houses and 
 fled to the jungles, before the tax-collector should 
 come to take all that they had. Whole districts 
 fell out of cultivation, and famine spread through 
 the land ; in the Doab, and round about Delhi, 
 the people died by thousands upon thousands. It 
 next occurred to the Sultan that as Deogir was 
 in a more central position than Delhi, he would 
 make a new capital there ; and not content with 
 transferring his Court, he insisted that all the 
 inhabitants of Delhi should follow him to the city 
 which he named Daulatabad (" city of empire "). 
 Not one might stay behind. Every family, with 
 men-servants and maid-servants, and dependents 
 of every sort, was uprooted ; not even a dog or 
 a cat was left in the city and its suburbs, from 
 Taghlakabad, and the fort of Rai Pithora, where 
 the Slave Kings had built their palaces and 
 mosques among the ruins of Hindu temples, to 
 Siri, where Ala-ad-din had cemented his founda- 
 tions with the blood of Mongol prisoners, and 
 Jahanpanah, the new town which had begun to 
 rise between Old Delhi and Siri. The very trees
 
 108 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 were torn from the ground, and planted along 
 the road to Deogir, to give shade to the travellers 
 on their way. 
 
 The trees probably did not live long ; the people 
 bore uprooting even less well than the trees. 
 Some fell by the wayside, others pined from home- 
 sickness when they reached the Deccan. "The 
 Sultan was bounteous in his liberality and favours 
 to the emigrants, both on their journey and on 
 their arrival, but they were tender, and they could 
 not endure the exile and suffering. They laid 
 down their heads in that heathen land." 
 
 An attempt to translate some of the inhabitants 
 of other towns to Delhi fared no better ; many of 
 the strangers died, and the rest escaped back to 
 their homes. Soon afterwards the Sultan, who 
 had been putting down the revolt of Govenor of 
 Multan, led his army past Delhi, and found him- 
 self, on a sudden, almost deserted, every soldier 
 who belonged to the city hurrying back to his old 
 home. In a spasm of good nature, Mohammad 
 himself entered Delhi, and invited his troops to 
 return ; but after two years the old obsession 
 revived, and he carried off all the inhabitants of 
 Delhi a second time to Daulatabad. Even the 
 blind and the lame were dragged away by force, 
 and the noble city was left to the owls and the 
 jackals.
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 109 
 
 The deficit in the treasury still continued, and 
 the Sultan's next experiment was to issue copper 
 tokens instead of money. The ingenious Hindu 
 of course seized upon this opportunity of gaming 
 a little of the wealth which was considered un- 
 wholesome for him ; every Hindu house became 
 a mint, where forged tokens were coined. The 
 Hindus waxed fat, rode once more upon horses, 
 and ruffied abroad in fine clothes ; and the royal 
 treasury was filled with copper tokens of no more 
 value than pebbles. Trade was at a standstill, 
 and the old coins rose four- and five-fold in value. 
 The Sultan was forced to proclaim that whoever 
 possessed copper coins should receive their equiv- 
 alent in gold from the treasury. " So many of 
 these copper coins were brought to the treasury 
 that heaps of them rose up like mountains " in 
 Taghlakabad where they may still lie, beneath 
 the surface, to reward an enterprising excavator. 
 
 Mohammad's dreams of world -wide dominion 
 ended no better than his other dreams. He raised 
 a vast army to conquer Khorasan, which, after 
 being kept idle for a whole year, broke up, and 
 each man returned to his own occupation. He 
 actually despatched an army against China which 
 was destroyed in the passes of the Himalayas, 
 only ten men returning to Delhi with the news 
 of its fate. All these experiments ended alike,
 
 110 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 in increasing the financial ruin of the country and 
 in embittering the Sultan against the people, on 
 whom he visited all his displeasure for the failure 
 of his schemes. 
 
 His cruelty was beyond conception, and it 
 increased with what it fed upon. In the earlier 
 part of his reign he had caused a rebellious 
 nephew to be flayed alive, and had amused him- 
 self by hunting the inhabitants of a district near 
 Delhi as if they were wild beasts, making a battue 
 and hanging some thousands of the victims' heads 
 over the city walls. As the years went on, and 
 his empire dropped from him, bit by bit, rebellions, 
 famine, and pestilence wasted through the land, 
 and the foreign adventurers, whom he preferred 
 to the old noble families, repaid his favour by 
 treachery, he grew more and more vindictive. 
 Sometimes misgivings assailed him ; Barni, the 
 contemporary historian from whom the story of 
 this reign has been taken, tells us how the Sultan, 
 on his way to put down insurrections his usual 
 occupation in his later years, asked him how 
 kings in history had punished their subjects. 
 Barni quoted the example of King Jamshid, who 
 had approved capital punishment only in seven 
 cases. The Sultan replied that the world had 
 waxed very evil since the days of King Jamshid, 
 and that he would continue to punish the most
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. Ill 
 
 trifling act of contumacy with death till he died, 
 or until his subjects mended their ways. 
 
 So he continued his severities, and afterwards 
 regretted to Barni that he had not executed more 
 of his amirs before they could revolt. " I could 
 not help feeling a desire to tell the Sultan that 
 the troubles and revolts which were breaking out 
 on every side, and this general disaffection, all 
 arose from the excessive severity of his Majesty," 
 sighs the historian, " and that if punishment were 
 suspended for a while, a better feeling might 
 spring up." But he lacked the courage to do so, 
 and consoled himself by reflecting that certainly 
 it would be useless. 
 
 Deogir revolted under its Afghan viceroy, 
 Hasan Gangu, who became King of the Deccan, 
 where his descendants, the Bahmanid kings, ruled 
 till the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 Bengal also broke off the yoke of Delhi, and was 
 practically independent until the reign of Akbar. 
 " No place remained secure, all order and regular- 
 ity were lost, and the throne was tottering to its 
 fall." 
 
 For a while the Sultan lost heart, and Barni 
 notes as an extraordinary event that no one was 
 sent to execution for some months whereas, in 
 the usual way, " the execution of true believers 
 had become a passion and a practice." He then
 
 112 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 spent three rainy seasons in Gujarat, putting down 
 rebellion, and there fell sick of fever. He struggled 
 to shake it off, and led his army across the Indus 
 in pursuit of a rebel leader, but his strength failed 
 him. Barni says that he insisted upon eating 
 some fish which did not agree with him. If this 
 were another of his experiments, it was the last. 
 Mohammad Taghlak died on the banks of the 
 Indus, in March 1351. 
 
 III. 
 
 The merciless Sultan lay dead. A party of 
 Mongols plundered the baggage-train of his army, 
 and went off to their own country, and all the 
 khans, amirs, princes, and officials cried in their 
 despair, " Dilli dur ast ! Sultan Mohammad has 
 gone to Paradise, and the Mongols have come up 
 against us." 
 
 It was clear that nothing could be done without 
 a leader. Happily for the chances of peace, the 
 late Sultan had left no sons. After long delibera- 
 tion, nobles and officials elected to the throne his 
 cousin, Firoz Shah, who had been thoroughly 
 trained in the conduct of affairs of state by 
 Taghlak and Mohammad, and had lately been 
 viceroy of one-fourth of the territories of Delhi.
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 113 
 
 Firoz protested, vowing that he intended to 
 make the pilgrimage to Mecca, but in vain. The 
 nobles flung royal robes over the mourning 
 garments which he refused to lay aside, the 
 drums were beaten, and universal joy prevailed. 
 
 There was good reason for rejoicing. Firoz 
 was no unworthy son of a noble mother who 
 had given herself for her country. 
 
 Ghiyas-ad-din Taghlak had determined to make 
 the fortune of his brother Eajab by marrying, 
 and hearing that the daughters of Eana Mai 
 Bhatti of Dipalpur were very beautiful, sent to 
 demand one of them for Rajab. Now the Bhattis 
 are a Rajput tribe, descended from Chandra (the 
 moon), and when the proposal was made that 
 the Rana should give one of his daughters to the 
 cow- slaying Toork, he rejected it with haughty 
 and unseemly words. 
 
 Then Taghlak demanded that all the year's 
 tribute from the Rana's territory should be paid 
 to him at once and in ready money. 
 
 The people durst not resist, though they stripped 
 themselves bare, for it was in the days when Ala- 
 ad-din sat upon the throne of Delhi, and they 
 knew too well how he could punish contumacy. 
 The sound of their lamentation reached the mother 
 of Rana Mai, and she came to her son's house 
 weeping, with torn hair, to plead for them. 
 
 H
 
 114 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 Naila, the daughter of the Rana, stood in the 
 courtyard as the old woman came to the door, 
 and asked her why she wept. 
 
 "It is because of you that I weep," answered 
 her grandmother. " It is because your father will 
 not give you in marriage to the Toork that 
 Taghlak has laid this heavy burden upon the 
 people of the land." 
 
 "If to give me to the Toork will save my 
 people, send me to him at once ! " cried Naila. 
 "Think only that the Mongols have carried off 
 one of your daughters ! " 
 
 The grandmother went to the Rana and told 
 him of his daughter's words ; and he yielded for 
 the sake of the people. Naila was sent to her 
 bridegroom, and their only child was Firoz Shah. 
 
 The new king wasted no time ; he beat the 
 Mongols in a pitched battle, and then led his 
 army back to Delhi, which once more became the 
 capital. Here he set himself, as far as possible, 
 to undo or alleviate the evil wrought by his pre- 
 decessor. His first act was to seek out the heirs 
 of all those who had been executed by Mohammad, 
 and all those who had suffered mutilation by his 
 command, and make compensation to them. Each 
 was asked to sign a deed declaring that he had 
 received satisfaction, and these deeds, duly wit- 
 nessed, were placed within the grave where
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 115 
 
 Mohammad slept, in his father's mausoleum, "in 
 the hope that God in his great clemency would 
 show mercy to my late friend and patron, and 
 make those persons feel reconciled to him." 
 
 Taxation was lessened, judicial torture of all 
 sorts was forbidden, and " terrors were exchanged 
 for tenderness, kindness, and mercy." The Hindus 
 were still forced to pay the jiziya, and some of 
 their temples were destroyed, but no other special 
 severity was shown to them. Throughout a reign 
 of thirty-seven years, Firoz, adored by his people, 
 found there was " no need of executions, scourg- 
 ing or tortures." "Not one leaf of dominion was 
 shaken in the palace of sovereignty." His gener- 
 osity was great, and his management so judicious 
 that he could afford to be liberal without im- 
 poverishing the treasury. " Things were plentiful 
 and cheap ; and the people were so well to do and 
 enjoyed such ease, that the poorest married their 
 daughters at a very early age," aided by the 
 Sultan, who founded an institution for the pro- 
 motion of marriages. 
 
 He was a great builder, restoring and repairing 
 the tombs, mosques, and other foundations of 
 previous Sultans, besides constructing numerous 
 publicgworks of his own. He built another Delhi 
 at Firozabad, adjoining the modern city, and laid 
 out no less than one thousand two hundred
 
 116 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 gardens. A list of the works constructed in his 
 reign includes forty mosques, thirty colleges, 
 two hundred towns, thirty reservoirs, fifty dams, 
 one hundred hospitals, one hundred public baths, 
 and one hundred and fifty bridges. 
 
 In the third century before Christ, there had 
 ruled an Emperor in India named Asoka, " the 
 Beloved of the Gods," who became converted to 
 Buddhism, and sent yellow -robed missionaries 
 through Asia, as far as Syria and Greece, to preach 
 the Way of Renunciation. Inscriptions on rocks 
 and pillars tell of his mercy, his tenderness to 
 men and animals, his aspirations for a universal 
 toleration which anticipate the yearnings of the 
 Emperor Akbar, seventeen hundred years after 
 his time. At Topra and Meerut were two pillars 
 erected by him, with inscriptions and Firoz, to 
 whom the Buddhist Emperor was of course " an 
 idolater," conceived the idea of moving them to 
 Delhi. 
 
 So all the people of the neighbourhood were 
 commanded to help in the work, and to bring 
 quantities of the down of the cotton-tree upon 
 which the pillars might be laid. The removal 
 was satisfactorily accomplished, to the joy of 
 all good Muslims, who regarded it as a triumph 
 of religion as well as engineering. One pillar,
 
 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 117 
 
 which was set on the ridge, was broken by an 
 explosion early in the eighteenth century, and 
 has suffered from being left to lie upon the ground 
 for a hundred and fifty years ; the other, " the Lat 
 of Asoka," still stands in good preservation amid 
 such fragments as the building operations of the 
 Emperor Shah Jahan have left of Firozabad. 
 
 War was not to the good king's liking, though, 
 out of respect to Mohammad Taghlak's memory, 
 he occupied Sind, and brought its ruler to sub- 
 mission, at a great cost of men and treasure. His 
 great recreation was hunting, and he once lost 
 himself so completely in an expedition to capture 
 elephants that no word of him reached Delhi for 
 nine months. His only fault was that he persisted, 
 despite the law, in drinking wine of different 
 colours, " some yellow as saffron, some red as the 
 rose, some white." 
 
 When in old age he set down the record of the 
 works of his reign, he was able to thank God, 
 "who inspired me, His humble servant," for the 
 blessing bestowed upon him, and for all that he 
 had been guided to do for the realm over which 
 God had placed him. He was ninety years old 
 when he died, " worn out with weakness," in 1388 
 just a month after the Percy had yielded to the 
 bracken bush on the borders of Northumberland.
 
 118 SAINTS AND KINGS IN DELHI 1321-1388. 
 
 "The whole realm of Delhi was blessed with the 
 bounties of the Almighty" so long as he ruled, 
 and those who survived into the evil days which 
 followed his death, looked back with longing to 
 the good days of Firoz Shah.
 
 VI. 
 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399 
 
 "Ante faciem ejus ignis vorans, et post eum exurens flamma; quasi hortus 
 voluptatis terra coram eo, et post eum solitudo deserti, neque est qui etfugiat
 
 VI. 
 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 
 
 THE good days of Firoz Shah were the last that 
 Delhi was to know for many a year. 
 
 His gentle rule had made for prosperity and 
 content, but it had not made for strength, and 
 when Hindu rajas and Muslim nobles broke loose 
 and asserted their independence of Delhi, neither 
 of his successors was able to curb them. The only 
 one who showed signs of a masterful disposition 
 died after a troubled reign of less than four years, 
 and after his death two cousins of the race of 
 Taghlak claimed sovereignty in Delhi, one holding 
 his court at Firozabad and the other at Jahan- 
 panah. Both were helpless toys in the hands of 
 their mayors-of-the-palace, and the whole empire 
 which they aspired to rule had shrunk to the five 
 districts round the city of Delhi. 
 
 Then Timur the Lame, conqueror of Persia, 
 Mesopotamia, and Afghanistan, determined to lead 
 a holy war against the infidel, and in defiance of
 
 122 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 
 
 his amirs, who urged the obstacles put in the way 
 by impassable rivers and impenetrable forests, the 
 ferocity of the Rajas, and the might of their war 
 elephants, he chose India as the scene of his 
 campaign. In the spring of 1398 he led his army 
 over the frozen passes of the Himalayas, crossed 
 the Indus, and marched into the Punjab, carrying 
 fire and sword wherever he went. Thousands of 
 the inhabitants slew their wives and children, 
 before meeting their own death in battle or siege, 
 thousands more were slain in cold blood, after the 
 capture of fort, city, or town. 
 
 By December he and his host had reached 
 Panipat, but for once no opposing army was on 
 the historic battle-ground. It was at the very 
 gates of Delhi that the action was fought, on 
 17th December, beginning with a massacre of 
 100,000 Hindus who had been taken prisoner 
 since the crossing of the Indus. These, it was 
 suspected, might escape during the confusion of 
 the fight and join the other side ; it would there- 
 fore not be safe to leave them with the baggage, 
 since no man could be spared to guard them, and 
 it was against the law of Islam to set idolaters at 
 liberty. "In fact," as Timur explains in his 
 Memoirs, "no other course remained but that of 
 making them all food for the sword"; and he 
 records with pride how one of his councillors,
 
 The Court of Timur ; Eayazid in an Iron Cage.
 
 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 123 
 
 a learned man who in all his life had never killed 
 a sparrow, succeeded in murdering "fifteen idol- 
 atrous Hindus" in obedience to orders. 
 
 The battle was well fought on both sides, as 
 Timur admits, and he wept with pride and thank- 
 fulness when it ended in the rout of the men of 
 Delhi. He entered the city in triumph, cowardly 
 Sultan Mahmud, careless of what might befall his 
 people, fleeing away to the hills. 
 
 It was agreed that the inhabitants of Delhi 
 should redeem their lives and property with a 
 heavy ransom. But, as Nadir Shah was to dis- 
 cover, more than three hundred years later, there 
 was little chance of keeping control over barbarian 
 soldiers, flushed with triumph, religious enthusiasm, 
 and greed. There were brawls and disputes, which 
 ended in a hideous massacre, lasting for three 
 days. By the end of the third day the whole 
 city was sacked, every soldier had secured at 
 least twenty captives for slaves, and the booty 
 in rubies, diamonds, pearls, gold and silver, orna- 
 ments and vessels, and rich stuffs exceeded all 
 account. Timur picked out some thousands of 
 artisans and clever mechanics, as presents for his 
 friends, and ordered that all stone-masons and 
 builders should be reserved for himself, that they 
 might build a mosque at Samarkand to surpass 
 all others in the world.
 
 124 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 
 
 "When my mind was no longer occupied with 
 the destruction of the people of Delhi," he tells 
 us, "I took a ride round the cities," like any 
 modern tourist. After fifteen days' plunder and 
 festivity, he recalled that he had come to Hindu- 
 stan not to enjoy ease and splendour, but to slay 
 the infidel, and he departed, tempestuously as he 
 came. Meerut was razed to the ground, its men 
 slaughtered, its women and children led into 
 captivity. The sacred place of Hardwar, where 
 holy Mother Ganges falls from the mouth of a 
 stone cow, was defiled with the blood of its de- 
 fenders. Through the Sivalik hills, past Nagarkot 
 and Jammu, into Kashmir marched the hordes of 
 Timur, wading through rivers of blood, and leav- 
 ing ruin and death behind them, until they 
 returned to Samarkand in March 1399. 
 
 Sultan Mahmud crept back to his desolate 
 capital, and lived sometimes there, sometimes at 
 Kanauj, till his death in 1412 the last of the 
 house of Taghlak. 
 
 Delhi, henceforth, was no longer the queen-city 
 in Hindustan, but fallen to the level of the chief 
 town of a petty state. To such a low ebb had 
 sunk the empire of Mohammad Taghlak and Ala- 
 ad-din, that after the death of Mahmud no man 
 cared to call himself King of Delhi. A Sayyid 
 noble, Khizr Khan the Sayyids are of the race
 
 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 125 
 
 of the Prophet Mohammad ruled nominally as 
 Timur's deputy. His son and successor was mur- 
 dered by his own chief minister, who would also 
 have murdered the next Sultan if he had not 
 been anticipated by his Majesty. The Sayyid 
 dynasty fell into utter contempt, and was sup- 
 planted by the Afghan house of Lodi. The two 
 first Lodi kings, Buhlol and Sikandar, recovered 
 
 O ' 
 
 some of the lapsed territory of Delhi ; the third, 
 Ibrahim, after alienating his nobles and officials 
 by his haughtiness, disgraced, imprisoned, and 
 assassinated them, until a rebellious section, 
 headed by Ibrahim's uncle, Ala-ad-din, invoked 
 the aid of a foreign power. 
 
 Hindustan was like a ripe pear, ready for the 
 first hand with quickness to pluck it and strength 
 to hold it. As in the days of the first Muslim 
 conquerors, all India was divided into states, most 
 of which were at war with each other. Bengal, 
 which had cut loose from Delhi in the latter 
 years of Mohammad Taghlak, was ruled in turn 
 by a variety of dynasties, Khalji, Turk, Hindu, 
 and Afghan. Gujarat was under Muslim kings, 
 descended from a converted Rajput, who had held 
 the country in fief from Firoz Shah, and they 
 and the Rajputs of Me war, the dominant race of 
 Rajast'han, disputed the possession of Malwa, the 
 Rajputs gradually gaining the upper hand until
 
 126 A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS 1398-1399. 
 
 the defeat of Kanwaha broke their power, when 
 Gujarat carried off the prize. The Deccan in the 
 last years of the Bahmanid kings split into five 
 states, which had little to do with Hindustan until 
 the reign of Akbar. Beyond the Krishna lay the 
 great Hindu empire of Vijanagar, which under 
 various spellings, of which "Beejanugger" is the 
 most common, became a byword for wealth and 
 splendour with all mediaeval visitors to India, al- 
 though in history, art, and letters it left scarcely 
 a trace behind it. Practically it had no concern 
 with the story of Delhi. 
 
 Into all this confusion of warring interests, races, 
 and creeds, came the man who was to found a 
 dynasty that in its height of power occupied the 
 whole peninsula, and in its effeteness and decay 
 was a name to conjure with, in the days of Queen 
 Victoria. It is one of history's ironies that the 
 dynasty has always been known by the name 
 that of all names would have been most ab- 
 horrent to its founder, who lost no opportunity 
 of proclaiming his dislike and contempt for the 
 Mongols. Yet because to the native of India all 
 northern Muslims, if not Afghans, must be Mon- 
 gols, "the Great Moghul" passed into history, and 
 is a name not unfamiliar to numberless persons 
 who would be quite incapable of saying who or 
 what the Great Moghuls were.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO SEEK 
 HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530 
 
 "The Hour's come, and the Man."
 
 VII. 
 
 THE PEINCE WHO WENT TO SEEK 
 HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 
 
 ONCE upon a time there was a prince who went 
 out into the world to seek his fortune. 
 
 Like the princes of fairy tales, he was oppressed 
 by cruel uncles, who robbed him of his heritage ; 
 like them, he had a few faithful friends who would 
 not leave him ; and like them, at the lowest ebb 
 of his fortunes, he met an old woman for all 
 that we know, a fairy in disguise who pointed 
 the road that he was to take. 
 
 It was the close of the fifteenth century, when 
 everywhere old barriers were breaking down and 
 new worlds opening out to the adventurous. The 
 Portuguese had rounded the Cape of Storms, 
 while Columbus, seeking another way to India, 
 had found instead another continent. The Turks 
 had given the death-blow to the moribund 
 Empire of the East, while Ferdinand and Isabella 
 had driven the last Moorish king from Granada. 
 
 i
 
 130 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 The revival of classical learning was working 
 upon literature, upon art, upon religion. What 
 we call modern history was beginning in the 
 West when, in 1494, the king of the petty state 
 of Farghana, beyond the Oxus, 1 went up to his 
 pigeon-house to feed h,is pigeons. 
 
 The pigeon-house was built on to an outer 
 wall overhanging a precipice. For some unex- 
 plained reason this wall gave way, and the king 
 "was precipitated from the top of the steep with 
 his pigeons and pigeon-house, and so took his 
 flight to the other world." Humane, courage- 
 ous, affable, "eloquent and sweet in his conver- 
 sation," the old king was beloved of men, in 
 spite of the passion for war which had often 
 brought trouble upon Farghana, and in spite of 
 the strength of his fists ; " he never hit a man 
 whom he did not knock down," says his son 
 admiringly. 
 
 The heir to Farghana was a boy in his twelfth 
 year, named by his father " Zahir-ad-Din," "Pro- 
 tector of the Faith," but known to all time as 
 "Babar," "the Tiger," a name given him in 
 babyhood by his mother's father, Yunis Khan 
 of the Mongols, who could not pronounce the 
 letter Z. The boy had every right to have 
 something of the tiger in him. Through both 
 parents he was descended from the Mongol 
 
 1 Now called Khokan.
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 131 
 
 Chengiz Khan, who had ravaged Persia, Armenia, 
 and the land on both sides of the Oxus, from 
 the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea; through 
 his mother, from Timur the Lame, who, after 
 overrunning Persia, Mesopotamia, and Afghan- 
 istan, had descended into India, butchering men, 
 women, and children like sheep. 
 
 Of all his kin, Babar evidently felt the great- 
 est respect for his maternal grandmother, a lady 
 who upon one occasion fell into the hands of 
 her husband's enemy, and was given forthwith 
 as a wife to one of his officers. She made no 
 remonstrance or lamentation, but when once the 
 man had entered her room, superintended the 
 stabbing of him by her maids, had the corpse 
 flung out into the street, and sent word to his 
 master " I am the wife of Yunis Khan. You 
 gave me to another man, which is against the 
 Law of the Prophet, so I killed him. Come, 
 kill me, if you choose." 
 
 To her enemy's credit be it said, he did not 
 choose, and she was restored to her husband. 
 
 We hear less of Babar's mother, but the 
 courtesy and kindness that he showed, whether 
 as a homeless fugitive or as lord of an empire, 
 to aunts, sisters, and other uninteresting female 
 relations, is one of the most lovable features in 
 a prince worthy to stand beside the " courteous 
 knights " of ballad and romance.
 
 132 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 Of all the figures that move across the pages 
 of Indian history, Babar is the most attractive, 
 as he has drawn himself with an artist's vivid- 
 ness and a child's simplicity in his own Memoirs, 
 or as he appeared to his contemporaries. Never 
 had any man more of the joie de vivre, the over- 
 flowing vitality that enables its possessor to take 
 all gifts of Fortune's hand with gladness, and to 
 put some of his own spirit into those about him. 
 Everything, to him, was to be enjoyed as part 
 of the great game, whether it were fighting for 
 dear life against an enemy who had routed half 
 his followers "about as long before as it takes 
 milk to boil," drinking with boon companions 
 in a garden beneath the stars, toiling through 
 a mountain pass through many feet of snow for 
 a week at a time, or composing verses as he 
 galloped after a flying enemy. At a time when 
 "Nature-study," as we call it, had not been in- 
 vented, he knew the habits of every beast and 
 bird in his dominions, and among the records 
 of war and battle, set down the discovery of some 
 new species. When king in Kabul he made a 
 collection of the three-and-thirty different sorts of 
 tulip to be found on the skirts of the mountains. 
 When first in Hindustan, he observed "the grass 
 was different, the trees different, the wild ani- 
 mals of a different sort, the birds of a different 
 plumage," and forthwith noted all that he saw.
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 133 
 
 If he had not been a king and a warrior he 
 might have been an artist or a poet. He had 
 the gift of seeing beauty, and the power of sketch- 
 ing a scene or a character in a few strokes, so 
 that his friends whom we meet in the Memoirs 
 are life-like figures, almost every one of whom 
 we should recognise if they suddenly strode 
 back to us out of the past. Capable of terrible 
 bursts of wrath, but prompt to forgive, sharing 
 every hardship with his followers, giving away 
 the best that he had and keeping nothing for 
 himself, it is impossible to read of him without 
 seeing that he was of those princes of romance 
 whose power to " cast the glamour " continues 
 long after their bones have crumbled into dust 
 and their kingdoms have vanished. 
 
 Scarcely was his father cold in his grave when 
 his uncles, the Kings of Samarkand and Tashkand, 
 seized upon outlying parts of his territory ; Babar 
 managed to retain the main portion, " thanks to 
 the distinguished valour of my young soldiers," 
 says the boy king. Later, when he was still 
 only fifteen, the King of Samarkand died, and 
 Babar made a dash for the throne of Timur, 
 occupying it for "just one hundred days." His 
 capital, Andejan, meanwhile rebelled, and mes- 
 sengers sent by his mother and grandmother to 
 urge his return to Farghana found the lad re- 
 covering from a desperate illness. "My circum-
 
 134 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 stances prevented me from nursing myself during 
 my amendment, and my anxiety and exertions 
 brought on such a severe relapse that for four 
 days I was speechless, and the only nourish- 
 ment I received was from having my tongue 
 occasionally moistened with cotton. Those who 
 were with me, high and low, begs, cavaliers, and 
 soldiers, despairing of my life, began each to shift 
 for himself." Word was brought to Andejan that 
 he was actually dead ; and so, when only half 
 recovered, his speech still thick with weakness, 
 he dragged himself back to his own country, he 
 learned that his capital had surrendered to the 
 enemy. " For the sake of Andejan I had lost 
 Samarkand, and found I had lost the one without 
 preserving the other." 
 
 Then followed years of weary wandering with 
 his mother and grandmother who had been sent 
 to him after the surrender of Andejan and the 
 few who were true to him. Sometimes he was 
 obliged to throw himself upon the very unwilling 
 hospitality of his mother's relations ; sometimes 
 he was driven to lurk among the wild hillmen. 
 For a little while he recovered his kingdom of 
 Farghana, thanks to a tardy attack of remorse 
 on the part of the governor who had surrendered 
 Andejan during his illness. But he lost it again 
 through his own act : hearing piteous complaints 
 of the plunder and exactions of the ruffianly
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 135 
 
 soldiery who had just returned to their allegiance, 
 he issued an order that those friends of every 
 degree who had accompanied him in his cam- 
 paigns might resume possession of whatever part 
 of their property they recognised. " Although the 
 order seemed reasonable and just in itself, yet 
 it had been issued with too much precipitation," 
 he confesses. "When there was a rival at my 
 elbow, it was a senseless thing to exasperate so 
 many men who had arms in their hands. This 
 inconsiderate order of mine was in reality the 
 ultimate cause of my being a second time ex- 
 pelled from Andejan." A mistake in strategy 
 it may have been, such a mistake as Kobert the 
 Bruce made when he delayed his army's retreat 
 for the sake of "a puir lavendar." 
 
 " I could not, on account of one or two defeats, 
 sit down and look idly around me," he tells us, 
 but for the next few years there was nothing 
 save defeat and disappointment for the lad who 
 was only seventeen when he lost Farghana for 
 the second time. He then made another attempt 
 upon Samarkand, and took it by surprise, with 
 a handful of men, only to lose it again after a 
 long siege in which the poorer inhabitants were 
 reduced to feeding upon dogs' and asses' flesh. 
 Forage for the horses was not to be had, and 
 the mulberry trees, planted in happier days for 
 the silkworms that have made "silken Samar-
 
 136 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 kand " famous, were stripped of their leaves. The 
 soldiers and citizens lost heart, and began to 
 desert in small parties even Babar's friends 
 abandoned him, and he scarcely escaped with 
 life, and his mother. His eldest and most dearly 
 loved sister, Khanzada Begam, was intercepted 
 as they left the city or, as some say, was given 
 in marriage to the enemy, in exchange for her 
 brother's life. 
 
 Yet still the buoyant spirit was unquenched. 
 On the next day, as he rode away from the 
 city of Timur, his ancestor, he tells us that he 
 had a race with two of his officers ; and he dwells 
 with delight upon the first good meal that he 
 tasted after his long privation "nice fat meat, 
 bread of fine flour, well baked, sweet melons, 
 excellent grapes." "In my whole life I never 
 enjoyed myself so much, nor at any period of 
 it felt so sensibly the pleasures of peace and 
 plenty." 
 
 Upon persuasion, the husband of Babar's aunt 
 gave him a district among the Kuh-i-Suliman 
 hills for his winter quarters, and there he and 
 his followers lodged in the shepherds' huts. 
 Babar himself lived with one of the headmen, in 
 a house that was probably infested with vermin 
 and reeking with pungent smoke a sorry abode 
 for a king ; but here he was to meet his fairy. 
 
 His host's mother, then said to be of the age
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 137 
 
 of one hundred and eleven, was still vigorous 
 and talkative, and her constant theme was the 
 conquests of Timur in India. One of her relatives 
 had served in his invading army, " and she often 
 told us stories on that subject," says Babar, who, 
 wandering barefoot among the hills, like any 
 of the peasants around him, could look down to 
 the mists on the far horizon that showed where 
 the hills touched the plain of Hindustan. It is 
 a matter for disappointment to all his readers 
 that he never tells what the stories were. 
 
 Once more he recovered Farghana, after many 
 fights and skirmishes, which he thoroughly en- 
 joyed, even when his wounded horse flung him 
 on the ground in the midst of the enemy. Again, 
 and for the last time, he was expelled, forced to 
 fly for his life, and fell alone into the hands of 
 "unlucky perfidious clowns," who seemed to have 
 the worst intentions against him. Unfortunately 
 for us, the Memoirs break off when he is in 
 hiding in a garden in Karnan, expecting death 
 at every moment, and concerned only to perform 
 his last ablutions, as became a true Muslim. 
 When he begins them again, two years later, he 
 is on his way southwards at the head of a motley 
 crew. "The followers who still adhered to my 
 fortunes, great and small, exceeded two hundred, 
 and fell short of three hundred. The greater part 
 of them were on foot, with brogues on their feet,
 
 138 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 clubs in their hands, and long frocks over their 
 shoulders. Such was our distress that among us 
 all we had only two tents. My own tent was 
 pitched for my mother." Nevertheless, only four 
 months after thus setting out, Babar had marched 
 upon Kabul, the star Canopus, never seen by 
 him before, shining brightly upon his little army, 
 and "by the blessing of Almighty God, gained 
 possession of Kabul and Ghazni." 
 
 In Kabul he spent about ten years, more 
 peacefully than any that he had known since 
 early boyhood, or was ever to know again. 
 Though nothing in his eyes would ever equal 
 Farghana, the lost valley clipped by snowy 
 mountains, with its melons and pears, its tulips 
 and roses and fat pheasants which he wistfully 
 recalled to the end of his days, he learned to 
 love the cool gardens and running streams of 
 the country of his adoption, and has much to 
 say of all he found there, from the flying-foxes 
 to the thieves in a particular district which he 
 purposed to settle in his first moments of leisure, 
 "if Almighty God prosper my wishes." 
 
 Shortly after he became master of Kabul, his 
 mother, worn out by her sorrows and the hard- 
 ships of their wandering life, " was received into 
 the mercy of God." A year later, he married a 
 noble lady of Khorasan, whom we know only by 
 his name for her "Maham" "my Moon." At
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 139 
 
 the age of five, for reasons of state, he had been 
 betrothed to his first cousin ; "in the first period 
 of my being a married man, though I had no 
 small affection for her, yet from modesty and 
 bashfulness I went to her only once in ten, 
 fifteen, or twenty days. My affection afterwards 
 declined, and my shyness increased ; insomuch 
 that my mother used to fall upon me and scold 
 me with great fury, sending me off like a criminal 
 to visit her once in a month or forty days." 
 
 Perhaps it is not strange that this wife left him 
 during his misfortunes "induced," he declares, 
 "by the machinations of her elder sister." Since 
 then he had taken other wives, whose names and 
 children he enters in a business-like manner ; but 
 the "Moon Lady," to the end of his days, re- 
 tained the heart of the man who, courteous and 
 kindly to all women, had little time for love- 
 making. 
 
 There is nothing else about which we need 
 concern ourselves during those years of sovereignty 
 at Kabul, except that, while returning from a visit 
 to some jovial cousins in Herat, Babar met with 
 an adventure that was like to prove his last. The 
 season was advanced when he prepared to return 
 to Kabul, and there was risk in crossing the 
 mountain passes. Babar proposed to take the 
 longer and safer road, by Kandahar ; others of his 
 party insisted upon the shorter way across the
 
 140 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 hills, and prevailed. They had not gone far be- 
 fore the tracks were covered with snow ; the guide 
 lost his way, and never succeeded in recovering it. 
 An attempt to procure other guides from the wild 
 Hazaras, who lived among the hills, proved fruit- 
 less. The only chance was to go forward. Some 
 fifteen or twenty of the party dismounted, and 
 began to tread the snow, so as to make a road for 
 the horses. "At every step we sank up to the 
 middle, or the breast, but we still went on, tramp- 
 ling it down." 
 
 After a few paces, he who had led the way 
 would stop, exhausted, while another, who had 
 followed in his steps, advanced and trampled for a 
 few paces more. Then a horse would be dragged 
 along, sinking to girths or stirrups, and after 
 floundering heavily would be allowed to stand 
 still while the men dragged another through the 
 drifts. " The rest of our troops, even our best 
 men, and many that bore the title of Beg, without 
 dismounting, advanced along the road that had 
 been beaten for them, hanging down their heads. 
 This was no time for plaguing them, or applying 
 authority," says Babar, who had taken his share 
 with the roadmakers. 
 
 For several days they struggled on in this way ; 
 then a fearful snowstorm arose, and they halted, 
 perforce, at the foot of a pass, before the mouth of 
 a cave. Babar scratched a hole for himself in
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 141 
 
 a snowdrift. His followers urged him to take 
 shelter in the cave, but he refused. 
 
 " I felt that for me to be in a warm dwelling in 
 comfort, while my men were in the midst of snow 
 and drift for me to be within, enjoying sleep and 
 ease, while my followers were in trouble and dis- 
 tress would be inconsistent with what I owed 
 them, and a deviation from that society in suffer- 
 ing that was their due. There is a Persian pro- 
 verb that ' Death in the company of friends is a 
 feast.' I continued, therefore, to sit in the drift 
 till bedtime prayers," when a search - party an- 
 nounced that the cave was larger than at first had 
 been supposed, and would contain every one. 
 Whereupon Babar shook off the four inches of 
 snow that had settled on his head, and sent word 
 for all to come inside. 
 
 Next day the storm ceased, and they left the 
 cave whose shelter had saved their lives. Babar 
 notes, as if it were something remarkable, " That 
 night I caught a cold in my ear." In the terrible 
 cold of the next few days some of his following 
 lost hands or feet, and all were in evil plight 
 before they could reach Kabul, where Babar 
 arrived at last just in time to suppress a 
 rebellion. 
 
 It was during this visit to Herat that he 
 learned to drink wine. As he honestly avows, 
 " I had a strong lurking inclination to wander
 
 142 THE PEINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 in this desert," though he had never dared 
 show it ; and having once broken the strict 
 rule of abstinence in which Chengiz Khan's 
 descendants were brought up, he drank upon 
 every occasion and enjoyed it as whole-heartedly 
 as he enjoyed everything else. Henceforth, "We 
 had a drinking party " is a frequent entry in his 
 Memoirs ; or "I was miserably drunk," " I was 
 completely drunk," and, best of all, " looking down 
 from my tent on the valley below, the watch-fires 
 were marvellously beautiful ; that must be the 
 reason, I think, why I drank too much wine at 
 dinner that evening." Indeed, on his march from 
 Kabul to India, he seems rarely to have been 
 sober for a single day. 
 
 The chatter of the old woman in the shepherd's 
 hut was at last to bear fruit ; after a third un- 
 successful attempt on Samarkand, Babar realised 
 that if he were to sit upon the throne of Timur, 
 it was not the throne of Central Asia, but the 
 throne of the land beyond the hills, that had 
 seemed to beckon him ever since he reached 
 Kabul. After one or two raids, in the style of 
 former invaders, a way opened before him ; Ala- 
 ad-din, a prince of the Lodi race of Afghans who 
 had ruled Delhi for the last seventy years, came 
 to Kabul, imploring help against his graceless 
 nephew, Sultan Ibrahim, who had revolted even 
 his own kin. " India was seething with faction
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 143 
 
 and discontent" beneath the Afghan yoke, and 
 the Afghan Amirs, who held the chief offices of 
 trust and the principal fiefs, were divided amongst 
 themselves. A dash upon the Punjab in 1524 
 gave the inhabitants a foretaste of what they 
 might expect when, in November of the following 
 year, Babar descended upon the plains, his best- 
 beloved son, Maham's child, Humayun, leading a 
 contingent of allies from Badakshan. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1526 that he met the 
 forces of Sultan Ibrahim upon the plain of Panipat, 
 near Delhi, where the fate of India has been 
 decided over and over again where the belated 
 wayfarer may still hear the shouts of phantom 
 warriors and the neighing of their steeds. The 
 King of Delhi had an army of 100,000 men and 
 1000 elephants ; Babar had no more than 12,000 
 men. But he entrenched his camp, linking 700 
 gun-carriages and baggage-waggons, with hurdles 
 between each pair, and bided his time, quickly 
 realising that his adversary was " a young man 
 of no experience, who marched without order, 
 retired or halted without plan, and engaged in 
 battle without foresight." After a night attack 
 which was repulsed, battle was joined "by the 
 time of early morning prayers." By midday 
 the enemy were completely routed, and by after- 
 noon prayers, the head of Sultan Ibrahim, found 
 dead under a heap of slain, was brought to the
 
 144 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 conqueror, who took possession of Delhi and 
 Agra forthwith. 
 
 The booty was incredibly great, and Babar 
 distributed it royally. To Prince Humayun he 
 gave 20,000 and a palace with all its contents. 
 The family of the slain Eaja of Gwalior, in 
 gratitude to Humayun for his protection, had 
 given him an enormous diamond none other 
 than the Koh-i-Nur which, after years of straying 
 from one hand to another, bringing misfortune 
 wherever it went, now rests in the Tower of 
 London. Humayun delivered this to his father, 
 who bade him keep it for himself. To his chief 
 officers Babar gave from 1700 to 2800 apiece ; 
 every man who had fought had a share of prize- 
 money, and even the clerks, traders, and camp- 
 followers received gratuities. Friends at home 
 were not forgotten. Every soul in Kabul, man 
 or woman, slave or free, received elevenpence 
 " as an incentive to emulation." Babar's daughter, 
 Gul-badan Begam, tells how all the ladies of the 
 royal harem at Kabul were summoned into the 
 garden of the Audience - hall, to receive the 
 Emperor's presents. To each princess was given 
 a dancing -girl from Delhi, and a gold plate full 
 of gems, and four trays of coins, and nine sorts 
 of Indian stuffs kincobs, and muslins, and so 
 forth all chosen for her by Babar himself. 
 Jewels and stuffs were distributed to all the
 
 Babar.
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 145 
 
 harem nurses, and to his foster - brethren, and 
 " to the ladies, and all who pray for me," so 
 numerous a list that it was three days before all 
 was divided, and the solemn prayer and thanks- 
 giving made by the assembled ladies in conclusion, 
 as Babar had required. " They were uplifted 
 with pride," the princess tells us, and there was 
 no small cause for it, when the master of Delhi 
 found time himself to choose out gifts for each 
 of those whom he had left behind him. 
 
 The hot season of that year was unusually 
 oppressive at Agra, and many men dropped down 
 and died where they stood ; Babar's officers were 
 homesick for their hills, and demanded to return. 
 Babar himself was of opinion that " Hindustan is 
 a country that has no pleasures to recommend 
 it ... no good horses, no good fish, no grapes 
 or musk-melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold 
 water, no good food or bread, no baths or 
 colleges, no candles, no torches, not even a 
 candlestick." But he had no intention of giv- 
 ing up what he once had grasped. He summoned 
 his chief officers to a council, and spoke shortly 
 and sternly, concluding, " Let not any one who 
 calls himself my friend henceforward make such 
 a proposal. If there is any among you who 
 cannot bring himself to stay, let him depart." 
 The malcontents were silenced, all but one Khan, 
 
 K
 
 146 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 who returned to Kabul with the Emperor's 
 presents, after having, to Babar's great indigna- 
 tion, scribbled the following couplet upon the 
 walls of several houses in Delhi : 
 
 " If I pass the Sind safe and sound, 
 May shame take me if I ever again wish for Hind ! " 
 
 It was well for Babar that he had brought his 
 officers to his mind ; while in Agra he was de- 
 signing baths to allay the three chief curses of 
 Hindustan heat, winds, and dust and planting 
 gardens with roses and narcissus, there came the 
 news that a new enemy was at hand. Rana Sanga 
 of Mewar, 1 " the sun of the Hindus," the greatest 
 and noblest chief in India, who had defeated the 
 Lodi rulers of Delhi in eighteen pitched battles, 
 was laying siege to Biana, followed by 80,000 
 horse, seven Rajas of the highest rank, nine Raos, 
 and one hundred and four lesser chieftains, with 
 five hundred war elephants. 
 
 Babar went to meet him, and encamped on the 
 plain of Kanwaha, near Biana. As at Panipat, he 
 chained his gun - carriages and baggage - waggons 
 together to cover his front. " Among his ord- 
 nance was the cannon known as the ' Victorious 
 One,' which Ustad Ali, the chief artillery officer, 
 was hereafter to distinguish himself by firing at 
 the unprecedented rate of sixteen times a-day." 
 His men were in a panic ; a preliminary skirmish 
 
 1 Now the state of Udaipur.
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 147 
 
 had shown them that the Rajput was a differ- 
 ent foe from the mercenary rabble of Delhi, and 
 the royal astrologer, " a rascally fellow," " loudly 
 proclaimed to every person he met in the camp 
 that at this time Mars was in the west, and that 
 whoever should engage coming from the opposite 
 quarter would be defeated." 
 
 It was the decisive hour, and Babar was not 
 found wanting. As he went round his outposts 
 on a Monday morning, he was struck with the 
 reflection that he had always intended, at one 
 time or another, " to make an effectual repentance." 
 So, sending for all the gold and silver goblets used 
 in his drinking parties, he there and then ordered 
 them to be broken, and the fragments distributed 
 among dervishes and the poor, vowing never to 
 drink wine again, and, if victorious over " the 
 pagan," to remit the stamp-tax upon his Muslim 
 subjects. That night, and the following, amirs 
 and courtiers, soldiers and others, to the number 
 of three hundred, made vows of reformation, and 
 poured upon the ground the wine that they had 
 brought with them. 
 
 " Having thus knocked with all our might at 
 the door of penitence," Babar called all his officers 
 about him, and made a last appeal to the old 
 fanatical spirit of Islam : 
 
 " Noblemen and soldiers : every man that comes 
 into the world is subject to dissolution. When
 
 148 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 we are passed away and gone, God only survives, 
 unchangeable. Whoever comes to the feast of life 
 must, before it is over, drink from the cup of 
 death. He who arrives at the inn of mortality 
 must, one day, inevitably take his departure from 
 that house of sorrow, the world. How much 
 better is it to die with honour than to live with 
 infamy ! 
 
 " ' With fame, even if I die, I am contented : 
 Let fame be mine, since my body is death's.' 1 
 
 " The most High God has been propitious to us, 
 and has now placed us in such a crisis that if we 
 fall in the field, we die the death of martyrs ; if 
 we survive, we rise victorious, the avengers of 
 the cause of God. Let us then, with one accord, 
 swear on God's holy word that none of us will 
 even think of turning his face from this warfare, 
 nor desert from the battle and slaughter that 
 ensues, till his soul is separated from his body." 
 
 The words vibrated to the heart of every man 
 there ; from amir and beg to common soldier, 
 great and small seized the Koran and vowed to 
 conquer or to die. 
 
 On March 16, 1527, the armies faced each other 
 in battle array. On the one side were the Muslim, 
 burning with religious zeal and desperation, under 
 their Emperor, still young, despite his forty-four 
 years, above the middle height and strongly made, 
 
 1 A quotation from Firdausi.
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 149 
 
 his piercing dark eyes under the heavy arched 
 eyebrows glancing to right and left, as he rode 
 up and down to see that every man was in his 
 place. On the other were the " sons of princes," 
 tried warriors whose banners had waved over many 
 a stricken field, and ardent youths who thirsted to 
 win themselves a perpetual name. Their leader, 
 " the Lion of Battle," once strong and muscular, 
 with fair complexion and unusually large eyes, 
 was no more than the wreck of a man ; an eye 
 and an arm had been lost in fight, one leg was 
 crippled by a cannon-ball, and on his body were 
 the scars of eighty wounds. But the old lion was 
 not to be held back from the prey, and he rode 
 that morning beneath his standard, the golden 
 sun's disk, with its motto, " Whosoever keeps his 
 faith steadfast, God keeps him." 
 
 At first it seemed that once more the Lord of 
 Mewar was to prevail over the Lord of Delhi. 
 Never before had the Emperor's men faced a 
 Rajput charge, and as one after another the long 
 lines of saffron-robed horsemen dashed down upon 
 the right of their foe, their helmets garlanded with 
 the bridal coronet, their eyes reddened with opium, 
 their lances and swords dripping blood, the Muslim 
 fell thick and fast. But they held their ground 
 stubbornly, and for hours the battle wavered, the 
 Rajputs, for all their reckless valour, unable to 
 force the entrenchment, the Emperor's troops
 
 150 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 unable to gain one step. Then Babar sent word 
 to his flanking columns " to wheel and charge, 
 while at the same time he ordered his guns for- 
 ward, and sent out the household troops at the 
 gallop on each side of his centre of matchlock men, 
 who also advanced firing." At that instant, a 
 traitorous ally who led the Rajput vanguard, 
 turned and went over to the enemy. 
 
 "The whole raging sea of the victorious army 
 rose in mighty storm," says the official despatch 
 of Babar's secretary: "the valour of all the 
 crocodiles of that ocean was manifested. The 
 blackness of the dust, spreading over the sky 
 like dark clouds, raced backward and forward 
 over all the plain, while the flashing and the 
 gleaming of the sword within exceeded the glance 
 of lightning." The Rajput hosts wavered and 
 broke, while Ustad Ali's "huge bullets" ploughed 
 through their ranks. "They were scattered 
 abroad like teased wool, and broken like bubbles 
 on wine." The crippled Rana was hurried away, 
 to die of grief within the year, and some of 
 his host followed with him, but the greater 
 number remained on the field, where the dead 
 lay so thickly that there was not space to plant 
 a foot. 
 
 On a little hill overlooking the camp, Babar 
 piled a tower of the heads of his enemies, in 
 true Mongol fashion, as his fathers did before
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 151 
 
 him. The astronomer had the assurance to come 
 up and congratulate him upon his victory. " I 
 poured forth a torrent of abuse upon him," says 
 Babar, " and when I had relieved my heart by 
 it, although he was heathenishly inclined, per- 
 verse, extremely self-conceited, and an insuffer- 
 able evil-speaker, yet, as he had been my old 
 servant, I gave him a present," and a caution 
 never to show himself again. 
 
 Henceforth India lay at Babar's mercy. There 
 was another victory over the Rajputs when 
 Chanderi, the chief fortress of Malwa, was taken 
 by storm ; Sultan Ibrahim's brother and the 
 Afghan troops fled before him, and the inde- 
 pendent kingdom of Bengal which had showed 
 signs of sympathy with the Lodi claimant, was 
 forced to make a treaty of peace. Babar was now 
 able to send for Maham and the ladies of his 
 family, who had been left in Kabul. He had 
 intended to meet her on the way, but she 
 travelled post-haste, and at evening prayer- time, 
 one Sunday, " some one came and said to him, ' I 
 have just passed her Highness on the road, four 
 miles out.' My royal father" it is Gulbadan 
 who tells the story " did not wait for a horse 
 to be saddled, but set out on foot," and met her. 
 She would have dismounted from her litter, but 
 he forbade it, and walked in her train till he 
 reached his own house. The Memoirs only tell
 
 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO 
 
 us, " It was Sunday at midnight when I met 
 Maham again." 
 
 His eldest sister, Khanzada Begam, had returned 
 to him after an unhappy married life, and his 
 father's sisters came also to Agra, to see the 
 wonders of the infidel country that he had 
 conquered. The state architect was told that 
 whatever work the aunts required to be done 
 for their palace was to be given precedence over 
 everything else. Babar visited the old ladies 
 every Friday. " One day it was extremely hot, 
 and Maham Begam said, ' The wind is very hot 
 indeed ; how would it be if you did not go this 
 one Friday ? The princesses would not be vexed.' 
 His Majesty said, 'Maham ! it is astonishing that 
 you should say such things ! They have no father 
 or brothers ; if I do not cheer them, how will it 
 be done?'" 
 
 Maham was doubtless nervous at the thought 
 of Babar 's exposing himself to the burning winds 
 of Agra. He had been renowned for his strength ; 
 he could run along the battlements of a fort 
 carrying a man under each arm, and leaping 
 over the embrasures in his way ; it was his 
 custom to swim over every river to which he 
 came ; and he once rode from Kalpi to Agra, 
 160 miles, in two days. But his constitution 
 was breaking down under the strain of incessant 
 toil in the Indian climate, huge doses of opium,
 
 SEEK HIS FORTUNE 1483-1530. 153 
 
 and perhaps also from the effects of sudden and 
 total abstinence from wine after a long succession 
 of drinking-bouts. He was constantly suffering 
 from fever. The last entry in the Memoirs, 
 September 7, 1529, records his forgiveness of a 
 rebellious subject. 
 
 In the following year, Humayun fell ill at his 
 fief of Sambal, near Delhi. Maham started at 
 once for Delhi, "like one athirst who is far from 
 the waters." She brought the invalid by water 
 to Agra, where his father's doctors confessed 
 that they were powerless to cure him. Then a 
 holy man suggested to Babar that the sacrifice of 
 some most precious thing might be accepted by 
 God in return for the prince's life. The mullahs 
 perhaps with an eye to their own advantage 
 proposed that the great diamond should be 
 offered, but Babar rejected the counsel ; what 
 were diamonds to him in comparison with his 
 favourite son ? He would offer his own life as 
 a sacrifice. Three times did he walk round his 
 son (as men do even now, in India, "to take 
 away the evil") crying aloud, "0 God! if a 
 life may be exchanged for a life, I who am Babar, 
 I give my life and my being for Humayun." 
 He retired to pray, and was heard several times 
 to exclaim, " I have prevailed ! I have borne it 
 away ! I have saved him ! " That very day, 
 Babar fell ill, and Humayun rose from his bed
 
 154 THE PRINCE WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE. 
 
 and came out to give audience in his father's 
 place. 
 
 Babar grew daily weaker as Humayun recovered 
 strength. He fretted for his young son Hindal, 
 whom he had not seen for a long time, asking 
 " how tall he was ? " His last care was to 
 arrange marriages for two of his daughters. He 
 then called his nobles round him for the last 
 time, saying, "For years it has been in my heart 
 to make over my throne to Humayun, and to 
 retire to the Gold- scattering Garden. 1 By the 
 Divine grace I have obtained all things, but the 
 fulfilment of this wish in health of body. Now 
 when illness has laid me low, I charge you all 
 to acknowledge Humayun in my stead. Fail 
 not in loyalty to him. Be of one heart and 
 one mind with him. Moreover, Humayun, I 
 commit to God's keeping you and your brothers, 
 and all my kinsfolk and your people ; and all 
 of them I confide to you." 
 
 "Three days later" (December 26, 1530) "he 
 passed from this transitory world to the eternal 
 home. Black fell the day for children and kins- 
 folk and all. They bewailed and lamented ; voices 
 were uplifted in weeping ; there was utter dejec- 
 tion. Each passed that ill-fated day in a hidden 
 corner." 
 
 1 A garden near Agra.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN- 
 
 1530-1556 
 
 " Humayun, always more distinguished by courage than by 
 conduct." H. G. KEBNE.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN- 
 1530-1556. 
 
 So Babar slept beside a cool running stream amid 
 fragrant flowers, in that northern land for which 
 he had vainly longed, and Humayun his son, " the 
 Fortunate," reigned in his stead. To hold, and to 
 weld together, what Babar's hand had grasped, 
 would have been a hard task for any man ; only 
 an eighth part of all India equivalent to what are 
 now the Punjab and United Provinces had been 
 brought into any kind of order. To the east lay 
 Bengal, not even nominally under Moghul rule, 
 and to the south Malwa and Gujarat, united under 
 a powerful king, Bahadur Shah, who was backing 
 a rival claimant to the throne of Delhi one of 
 Humayun's own cousins. Rajputana was ever 
 ready for revolt, and a brother of the late Sultan 
 of Delhi was stirring up a rebellion in Bihar. To 
 meet all these dangers, Humayun had little help 
 from his own kin or followers ; the heat of the
 
 158 THE ADVENTDRES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 plains had sapped the fibre, moral and physical, 
 of the men who marched down with Babar through 
 the gates of the North, and the old spirit of 
 religious fervour had died away. Worst foes of 
 all were the three brothers, Kamran, Hindal, and 
 Akbar, whom the dying Babar had recommended 
 to Humayun's care : each not only failed the 
 Emperor, but betrayed and revolted against him, 
 over and over again, to be forgiven almost to 
 the limit of "seventy times seven." Any other 
 monarch of the time, in East or West, would have 
 made short work of them and their treasons ; but 
 Humayun, violent, hasty, subject to sudden fits 
 of rage, was merciful, even to weakness. 
 
 In spite of all the good advice and the tender- 
 ness which Babar had lavished upon his Moon 
 Lady's son, Humayun had fallen victim to the 
 fatal habit which had wrecked his father's health, 
 and was to be the ruin of many of his descendants : 
 at the age of three-and-twenty, when he ascended 
 the throne, he was already a slave to opium. Poet 
 and warrior, like his father, brave with something 
 of a fantastic chivalry that makes him spiritual 
 brother to the knights - errant who had vanished 
 from Europe before his day, alternating bouts of 
 fiery energy with long periods of inaction, when 
 he shut himself in his palace and would see no 
 one, combining a marked reverence for holy things
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 159 
 
 and holy names with a marked taste for exceed- 
 ingly bad company, good and evil were inextric- 
 ably blended in his character. To women on the 
 whole, and especially to Khanzada Begam, he 
 showed the courtesy and kindliness that we should 
 expect from Babar's son. Once we hear of his 
 going off by himself in a rage because the ladies 
 of his household had kept him waiting when he 
 wished to take them out on a picnic to gather 
 wild rhubarb. Another time, there was what we 
 gather must have been an unpleasant scene when 
 they ventured upon a joint remonstrance because 
 he had left them unvisited for many days ; they 
 were compelled to sign a declaration' that they 
 would be equally pleased whether his Majesty 
 came to see them or not. He had his father's love 
 of a joke, and once, in the midst of a magnificent 
 festival, we hear of great confusion caused by 
 a schoolboy trick played by Humayun, who, sit- 
 ting with Khanzada Begam under pearl - strung 
 draperies, turned the water-pipes upon some of 
 the guests engaged in scrambling for gold coins at 
 the bottom of a dry tank. Some men loved him, 
 and some respected him, though not as they had 
 loved and respected his father ; but with many 
 picturesque and estimable qualities, he was not 
 the man to guide the ship of state through the 
 very stormy waters now closing upon her.
 
 160 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 It would be tedious to follow in detail all the 
 changes in his fortunes. Kamran began by declar- 
 ing himself sovereign of Kabul and the Punjab, 
 thereby cutting off Humayun from the chief 
 recruiting - ground for his armies. Good luck, 
 rather than skill, gave him the victory over 
 Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, whom he chased from 
 place to place, driving him even out of the 
 strong fort of Champanir, which was finally scaled 
 by means of seventy-nine iron spikes driven into 
 its walls, Humayun climbing up the forty -first 
 amongst the Moghul soldiers. Gujarat and Malwa 
 and inestimable spoil fell into the conqueror's 
 hands, and demoralised both Emperor and army. 
 Humayun wasted a year in revellings in Malwa, 
 careless that Bahadur had stolen back to Gujarat 
 and was winning the hearts of the people, that 
 Prince Askari had set up an independent sov- 
 ereignty at Ahmadabad, and that a new and 
 terrible foe had risen against him in Bengal. 
 
 This was an Afghan, 1 Sher Khan, who had once 
 taken service with Babar, but soon left him, 
 contemptuously vowing, " If fortune favour me, 
 I can drive these Moghuls out of Hindustan ! " 
 Fortune favoured him now, as with artful show 
 of retreating he lured the Emperor, step by step, 
 
 1 " Tiger Lord " so called from his slaying a tiger that had 
 leapt upon the King of Bihar.
 
 Humavun.
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 161 
 
 into Bengal, to find the country laid waste on all 
 sides, and the capital strewn with corpses. Here 
 for six months Humayun feasted amid desola- 
 tion and death, while Sher Khan cut off all the 
 approaches to Bengal, well knowing that not one 
 of the Emperor's brothers would stir a finger to 
 help him. 
 
 After marching along the bank of the Ganges 
 beyond Patna, the forces of Humayun entrenched 
 themselves in a fortified amp opposite to the 
 forces of Sher Khan, and there the two armies 
 remained confronting each other for two months, 
 neither feeling strong enough to risk a battle. 
 Then, finding that his cattle and horses were all 
 dying, and that his faithless brothers sent no 
 reinforcements from Agra, Humayun entered into 
 negotiations with Sher Khan. A treaty was ar- 
 ranged, and the Emperor's forces were breaking 
 up their camp, in careless security, when before 
 the dawn of a May morning Sher Khan fell upon 
 them and cut them to pieces. Some were killed 
 in their sleep, some were cut down as they fled, 
 some were drowned. The Emperor himself, hur- 
 ried away by a few watchful followers, spurred 
 his horse into the river, where it sank exhausted 
 in mid-stream ; a water-carrier, seeing the lord of 
 Delhi like to be swept away by the current, took 
 him across to the opposite bank on an inflated 
 
 L
 
 162 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 skin, in the manner in which Eastern rivers have 
 been crossed since the beginning of time. 1 All his 
 possessions had to be left for the enemy, including 
 his wife, for whom he appears to have cared very 
 little. " I have nothing to give thee now," said 
 Humayun to Nizam the water-carrier, as he turned 
 his horse's head westwards, " but come to me in 
 Agra, and, if I live, thou shalt sit on my throne 
 for a whole day." 
 
 At Agra he met the brothers whose selfish 
 treachery had helped to work his undoing. 
 "What is past, is past," he told them; "we must 
 now all join manfully to repel the common enemy." 
 If such generous forgiveness shamed them for 
 the moment into a better mind, it was soon for- 
 gotten when, amid the bustle and stir of prepara- 
 tions for another campaign, the water - carrier 
 appeared to claim his reward. 
 
 Humayun kept his word royally : the peasant 
 was king for a day, and the skin sack that had 
 saved the Emperor's life was cut into little pieces 
 and stamped by the royal mint. The man seems 
 to have been too ignorant to use his brief power 
 either for others' harm or to an undue extent for 
 his own advancement, but sulky Prince Kamram 
 resented this new folly of his brother's, and 
 remembered it against him. 
 
 1 See the Assyrian sculptures.
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 163 
 
 After a year of preparation the armies took 
 the field again, and again found themselves 
 camped opposite to each other this time for a 
 month, on the opposite banks of the Ganges, 
 near Kanauj. There were constant desertions 
 from Humayun's army, and the leaders had lost 
 all heart; on the day in May 1540, when battle 
 was joined, twenty-seven of the amirs, overcome 
 with fear, hid the yak-tail standards which it was 
 their right to display. " Before the enemy had 
 let fly an arrow," wails the Moghul historian, 
 " we were virtually defeated, not a gun was fired, 
 not a man was wounded, friend or foe." In the 
 headlong flight the bridge over the Ganges was 
 broken down ; Humayun, pulled up a steep bank 
 out of the press of drowning and smothering 
 fugitives by a rope made of two turbans fastened 
 together, fled once more to Agra, shattered in 
 nerve and wandering in mind. Babbling of 
 strange portents, of supernatural allies that had 
 fought on the side of the Afghans, he only stayed 
 in Agra long enough to gather together a little 
 of his treasure before making for the deserts 
 of Sind with a few faithful friends. The Moghul 
 Empire in India had vanished, and Sher Khan 
 ruled in Delhi and Agra as Sher Shah, and " from 
 the day that he was established on the throne, 
 no man dared to breathe in opposition to him."
 
 164 THE ADVENTURES OP HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 Kamram, thinking as usual only of himself, had 
 taken possession of Kabul, made peace with Sher 
 Shah, and declined to help his brother, or even 
 to receive him. 
 
 The story of the banished Emperor's wanderings 
 in the fifteen years during which he disappeared 
 from Indian history would fill a volume. One 
 of the first places to which he drifted was Pat 
 or Patr (twenty miles west of the Indus), where 
 Dildar Begam, Hindal's mother, received him 
 kindly and made a feast for him. At the feast he 
 saw among Dildar's ladies a girl named Hamida, 
 daughter to Hindal's shaikh, of the race of the 
 Prophet, and fell in love with her there and then. 
 She was sixteen ; he was thirty-three, an opium- 
 drinker, and already extensively married. 
 
 Humayun went to pay a visit of ceremony to 
 his step-mother, and not finding Hamida there, 
 sent for her to come. The girl refused. "If it 
 is to pay my respects, I was exalted by paying 
 my respects the other day. Why should I come 
 again ? " This scene was repeated day after day ; 
 once Humayun sent Hindal who was furiously 
 jealous, having intended to take Hamida for 
 himself to bring back the wilful child, some- 
 times other messengers, who each complained, 
 " Whatever I may say, she will not come." To 
 all their remonstrances Hamida returned, " To
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYDN 1530-1556. 165 
 
 see kings once is lawful ; a second time it is 
 forbidden. I shall not come." 
 
 It speaks well for Humayun's forbearance 
 or for the real amount of power exerted by 
 women in a land where they are commonly 
 supposed to be of no account that for forty 
 days the girl "resisted and discussed and dis- 
 agreed." Then Dildar Begam, having pacified 
 Hindal, tried the eifect of a little motherly reason- 
 ing upon Hamida. " After all, you will marry 
 some one," she urged. " Who is there better than 
 a king ? " " Oh yes, I shall marry some one," 
 retorted Hamida, "but he shall be a man whose 
 collar my hand can touch, and not one whose 
 skirt it does not reach." Dildar " again gave her 
 much advice," and at last the shaikh's daughter 
 yielded to fate. 
 
 A dreary fate it must have been for the next 
 few months, wandering up and down the country 
 with a banished king who, for all his titles and 
 dignities, had not a roof over his head. At length 
 Humayun determined to throw himself upon the 
 protection of Maldeo, Raja of Mar war, the second 
 kingdom among the Rajputs. It was a desperate 
 device, for the Rajputs had no cause to love 
 "the Turk"; and moreover, Humayun at the be- 
 ginning of his reign had allowed Bahadur Shah 
 to sack Chitor, the crown of Rajputana, without
 
 166 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 attempting to save it, though summoned to its 
 help by the Queen-Mother. 
 
 To reach Maldeo's city of Jodhpur, Humayun 
 and his followers must pass through a desert 
 where neither food nor water was to be had ; 
 the fugitives lived for the most part upon the 
 ber - berries that they gathered by the way. 
 There is little nourishment in the sharp-tasting 
 fruit, no bigger than a bullace, but the juice is 
 refreshing, and it saved the fugitives from dying 
 of thirst. Jodhpur was not far off, and they 
 were looking forward to the luxury of good food 
 and water for themselves and their weary steeds, 
 and a bed for Hamida, whose sorrowful hour was 
 at hand, when they were met by a goldsmith 
 whom Humayun had sent on in advance, to 
 sound Maldeo's purposes. The hearts of all sank 
 as he drew near, and they saw that with one 
 hand he grasped the little finger of the other 
 the signal arranged beforehand by the Emperor 
 to show that the Raja was plotting treachery. 
 
 Maldeo had heard that Humayun was only 
 bringing a small band of followers with him, and 
 had determined in that case to give him up to 
 his enemies. " Their only chance of escape was 
 to plunge into the Indian desert known as ' the 
 region of death ' a waterless sea where the wind 
 piles up the sand in waves from twenty to a
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 167 
 
 hundred feet high. Here and there a few wells 
 or a spring may yield a little fresh water, but 
 the wells are from seventy to five hundred feet 
 in depth. The lives of all depended upon 
 their steeds, and those who fell by the way must 
 leave their bones to whiten the sands where the 
 mirage added mockery to their sufferings." 
 
 At midnight, Humayun and his handful of 
 followers began their flight to Amarkot, a fort 
 near the Indus, where they hoped to find refuge. 
 On the way the Emperor's horse fell dead ; " he 
 desired Tardi Beg, who was well-mounted, to let 
 him have his, but so ungenerous was this man, 
 and so low was royalty fallen, that he refused." 
 Maldeo's troops followed hard at their heels, 
 and Humayun might have been captured but for 
 a more loyal officer, who dismounted his own 
 mother from her horse to give it to his lord, 
 placing her on a camel and running by her side. 
 
 "The Moghuls were in the utmost distress for 
 water ; some ran mad, others fell down dead ; 
 nothing was heard but dreadful screams and 
 lamentations." There were false alarms of the 
 enemy's approach, and actual skirmishes with 
 them ; the rear lost their way in a night march. 
 There were three horrible days without water, 
 and when a well was reached, the people, mad 
 with thirst, flung themselves on the first bucket
 
 168 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYON 1530-1556. 
 
 before it reached the brink of the well, "by which 
 means the rope broke, and the bucket was lost, 
 and several fell headlong after it. Some lolling 
 out their tongues, rolled themselves in agony on 
 the hot sand ; while others, precipitating them- 
 selves into the well, met with an immediate, and 
 consequently an easier, death." 
 
 Only seven, with their Emperor, reached the 
 brick fortress of Amarkot, where the Raja not 
 only received them with every kindness, but 
 offered to help them to gain a footing in Sind. 
 Humayun, in one of his fits of untiring energy, 
 started off at once, with such forces as the Raja 
 could lend him, and on the way was overtaken 
 by a messenger to say that three days after his 
 departure, on October 15, 1542, Hamida Begam 
 had brought forth a son, Akbar, "the Great." 
 The royal father of a son was accustomed, on 
 receiving the glad tidings, to distribute jewels 
 and costly dresses among his courtiers. Hamuyun 
 had less to give than the poorest beggar who held 
 out a hand for alms at the gates of a mosque ; but 
 forms and ceremonies must be observed, and a 
 musk bag, that he carried with him, was solemnly 
 cut into little pieces and distributed among those 
 who shared his rejoicing. 
 
 When Hamida and the child were able to travel 
 they followed Huma3 7 un in his march upon Kan-
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 169 
 
 dahar, which Prince Askari held as Kamran's 
 viceroy, and refused to yield to its rightful lord. 
 They had braved the desert sands, and were now 
 to face the terrors of the hills. The cold was so 
 intense that the broth turned to ice as it was 
 poured from the camp-kettles ; warm clothing 
 was not to be had, and Humayun, in a moment 
 that recalls his father, divided his own fur cloak 
 between two of his followers. 
 
 They had halted for the night at a place about 
 130 miles south of Kandahar, when an Usbeg 
 youth urged his worn-out pony into the camp, 
 crying " Mount, mount, your Majesty ! I will 
 explain on the way. There is no time to talk ! " 
 Humayun mounted Hamida on his own horse, 
 and they fled through the night towards the 
 Persian frontier, followed by thirty men alone. 
 Scarcely were they gone when into the camp 
 rode the troops of Askari, the prince himself at 
 their head. " Where is the Emperor ? " he de- 
 manded of the attendants who had remained be- 
 hind with the baby Akbar. "He went hunting 
 long ago, your Highness." Askari might rage, but 
 the prey had slipped through his fingers, and he 
 must needs content himself with seizing upon all 
 that Humayun had left behind. Akbar and his 
 devoted nurse Maham were taken to Kandahar, 
 where Askari's wife took charge of the forlorn baby.
 
 170 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 As Humayun and his little band rode to Persia, 
 sick at heart and despairing, it chanced one day 
 that they rested during the heat of noon, and 
 Humayun slept. Then so men told at the Court 
 of Delhi in later years a mighty eagle swooped 
 from the sky, and hovered above the head of the 
 banished Emperor, keeping the sun from him 
 with its pinions until he woke. Then his at- 
 tendants cried out with joy, saying, " Surely thou 
 shall yet be Lord of Hindustan once more." 
 
 Now Mahommedans are divided into two great 
 sects, the Shias and the Sunnis, who, broadly 
 speaking, have for each other the cordial regard 
 that the Greek Church entertained for the Church 
 of Rome at the time of their severance. The 
 Turks are Sunnis, the Persians are Shias, and as 
 emblem of their faith wore the peculiar cap from 
 which they styled themselves " Kazlbash " " Red- 
 head." On reaching Persian territory Humayun 
 sent one of his most trusted officers, Bairam Khan, 
 as ambassador to Shah Tahmasp. After conven- 
 tional civilities, the Shah told Bairam plainly 
 that if he came to a Shia court, he must wear a 
 Shia cap. 
 
 "I am the servant of the Emperor," returned 
 Bairam, " and I may not change my dress with- 
 out my master's leave." 
 
 The Shah was not one to brook refusal. " Do
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 171 
 
 as you please," he told the ambassador, " but 
 learn what comes to those who disobey me." 
 And he ordered certain offending officers to be 
 brought into the presence, and there and then 
 put to death. Bairam gazed unmoved upon their 
 dying agonies, and still thrust aside the cap, 
 scornful as any of his contemporary Lutherans 
 who might have been invited to wear a scapulary. 
 He escaped with his life, to the wonder of all men. 
 
 Humayun, of less uncompromising nature, and 
 with more at Stake, was forced to apostatise. 
 Vainly did he offer his great diamond as a bribe ; 
 he must wear the loathed cap. If, according to 
 orthodox Sunnis, he lost his soul by compliance, 
 at least he gained some substantial advantages 
 by it, when Shah Tahmasp sent 14,000 horse to 
 help him conquer Afghanistan. 
 
 The gates of Kandahar were opened when 
 Humayun knocked upon them with his army 
 behind him; but the greatest treasure of all was 
 not within its walls. Kamran had sent orders 
 that Akbar was to be transferred to Kabul. 
 Travelling through rain and snow, over roads 
 infested by robbers, the boy was brought at peril 
 of his life to Kabul, where he fell into the keeping 
 of his great-aunt, Khanzada Begam, who wept 
 as she kissed his hands and feet because they 
 reminded her of Babar's. Old and weary as she
 
 172 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 was, she went to and fro between Humayun and 
 his brothers, labouring for peace, till illness over- 
 took her on one of her journeyings, and she died 
 a worthy sister of the brother beside whom she 
 was buried at Kabul. 
 
 Kamran fled from Kabul as Humayun ad- 
 vanced ; and Akbar, safe and sound, was given 
 back to his parents. 
 
 Fate had not yet finished her sport with 
 Humayun ; on an expedition to Badakshan he 
 fell ill apparently the same sort of illness that 
 had lost Babar Farghana and Samarkand. For 
 days he lay in a trance, nourished only by the 
 juice of a pomegranate which one of the Begams 
 squeezed into his mouth ; when he came to him- 
 self, it was to find that Kamran had taken 
 advantage of his absence to seize upon Kabul 
 and Akbar once more. 
 
 Through the heavy snow the Emperor hurried 
 back to Kabul, and summoned the fort to sur- 
 render. In reply, Kamran dangled from the 
 battlements, at the ends of ropes, the children 
 of two begs who were with Humayun ; he had 
 already slain three whose only crime was that 
 they were the children of one of his brother's 
 officers, and thrown their bodies over the walls ; 
 he would do the like with these, unless their 
 fathers would forsake Humayun and come over
 
 THE ADVENTURES OP HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 173 
 
 to him or at least open a way through the 
 lines, so that he might escape. 
 
 Then one of the fathers, Keracha Khan, 
 Humayun's prime minister, made answer, as 
 he watched his sons hanging in mid-air : " The 
 children must die some day, and how can they 
 die better than now, to serve their lord ? As 
 for my own life, it belongs to the Emperor, 
 but if Prince Kamran will return to his allegiance, 
 it shall be devoted to him from henceforth." 
 
 Kamran did not fulfil his threat, though some 
 say that he brought his nephew Akbar out on 
 the battlements, as a mark for the besiegers' 
 fire, to be saved by his nurse, Maham, who 
 covered the child's body with her own, while 
 the shot fell around them. Both were unhurt : 
 Kamran could hold the fort no longer, and 
 escaped by connivance of his brother Hindal, 
 while Humayun once more regained possession 
 of his capital and his son. 
 
 Still his troubles were not yet over while 
 Kamran remained to stir up strife. Time after 
 time was the prince forgiven, time after time, 
 in sheer wantonness, did he break away and 
 join himself to any rebels who might be in arms 
 against his brother. Once Humayun had to fly, 
 wounded, from Kamran' s men in such desperate 
 haste that he flung off his quilted silk cuirass
 
 174 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 as he rode, and was forced, when at length he 
 reached a place of safety, to borrow an old woman's 
 silk drawers to cover himself. 
 
 The tide was turning, however, and Humayun's 
 worst enemies were to be removed. Askari, kept 
 a close prisoner for some years after the taking 
 of Kandahar, was sent to Mecca. Hindal was 
 killed on almost the only occasion recorded when 
 he was true to his salt, pursuing after Kamran 
 during a night attack, and was as passionately 
 mourned by his brother as if this exception 
 had been the rule of his life. Finally, Kam- 
 ran, discredited and deserted, was given up to 
 Humayun by the mountain tribe among whom 
 he had taken refuge. Amirs, begs, courtiers and 
 officers, all pleaded for his death ; scarce one 
 among them but had lost kin and gear in one 
 or other of his continual rebellions. Humayun 
 could not bring himself to shed the blood of 
 his father's son ; at the same time, in common 
 justice to his subjects, he could not set the prince 
 at large. He compromised by blinding him, 
 and sending him to Mecca. Cruel as it seems, 
 it was no more cruel than Kamran had done 
 to others, and far less than he deserved, in 
 fact, according to the ordinary custom of Oriental 
 monarchs of that time, Humayun might have 
 saved himself and every one else much trouble
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 175 
 
 by having the operation performed on all his 
 brothers as soon as he had succeeded his father. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sher Shah, having proved himself 
 a just ruler and an excellent man of business, 
 as stern in putting down robbery upon the high- 
 roads as in checking peculation in the palaces, 
 had been mortally wounded while besieging a 
 fortress in 1545. The red sandstone mosque 
 that he built at Indrapat near Delhi still links 
 his name with the city where he was too busy 
 to dwell. " In a very short period," says a 
 chronicler, " he gained the dominion of the 
 country and provided for the safety of the 
 highways, the administration of the government, 
 and the happiness of the soldiery and people. 
 God is a discerner of righteousness." 
 
 His son was an incompetent and futile person, 
 whose reign of nine years left all things in con- 
 fusion. Then came the usual anarchy, reports 
 of which reaching Humayun at Kabul, made 
 him turn his thoughts southwards. Was it to 
 be with him as it had been with his father, and 
 was Kabul once more to be the stepping-stone 
 to Delhi? 
 
 Men noticed his gloom and abstraction, and 
 one day, on a hunting party, he opened his mind 
 to his nobles. Some of the inhabitants of Delhi 
 and Agra, weary of the strife between the three
 
 176 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 Afghan princes who severally pretended to the 
 throne, had invited him to come back ; but he 
 had no means of raising a sufficient army. 
 
 Some were for venturing it, others were for 
 prudence, and argued that it would be folly to lose 
 Kabul again in a mad attempt upon Hindustan. 
 Then one of those who were ready to take all risks, 
 spoke again : let them try fate as the wisdom of 
 their fathers had tried it many a time, by sending 
 on three of their number in advance to ask the 
 names of the first persons whom they met. If 
 the names were of evil omen, they would know 
 that Heaven was not on their side. 
 
 Humayun agreed, and the three horsemen 
 galloped away, and returned again. 
 
 " I met a traveller named Daulat (Empire)," 
 said the first. 
 
 " And I a man who called himself Murad (Good 
 Fortune)," said the second. 
 
 " And my man was a villager whose name was 
 Saadat (the object of desire)," cried the third. 
 
 Therefore Humayun doubted no longer, but 
 descended into the Punjab with 15,000 horse. 
 Lahore fell into his hands, the Afghans were 
 defeated, and Delhi and Agra owned him for their 
 lord once more. 
 
 Six months after his return to Delhi, fate shot 
 its last bolt. Close to the mosque of Sher Shah
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 177 
 
 is a three -storied building, known as the Sher 
 Mandal, and used at that time as a library. 
 Hither the Emperor came on a January day in 
 1556, and after walking to and fro upon the 
 terrace, sat down to enjoy the fresh air. Hear- 
 ing the muezzin's call to prayer from the mosque, 
 with his usual scrupulous reverence he rose, 
 repeated the Muslim confession of faith, and sat 
 down upon the narrow staircase leading to the 
 ground floor until the crier had finished. In 
 rising again he caught his foot in his robe, and 
 the staff on which he leaned slipped upon the 
 polished stone. The ornamental parapet was no 
 more than a foot high, and the Emperor fell 
 headlong over it to the ground. On the fourth 
 day after this he was a corpse. 
 
 " If there was a possibility of falling, Humayun 
 was not the man to miss it," says a modern 
 writer. "He tumbled through life, and he 
 tumbled out of it." 
 
 To this day his mausoleum is one of the sights 
 of Delhi. In spite of the green trees that sur- 
 round it, a rare delight in a land where all is 
 flat and dust-coloured, in spite of the solemn 
 grandeur of its red sandstone walls and marble 
 tomb, there is a shadow on the place ; " old un- 
 happy far - off things " seem to whisper there 
 among the sunshine and the flowers. For here, 
 
 M
 
 178 THE ADVENTURES OF HUMAYUN 1530-1556. 
 
 with Humayun his ancestor, lies Dara Shukoh, 
 son of Shah Jahan, murdered a hundred years 
 later by order of his own brother Aurangzib, 
 while he called upon the name of the Son of 
 Mary ; and here, a hundred years after Dara's 
 death, the last sons of the house of Timur took 
 refuge from the English who had come to avenge 
 murdered women and children.
 
 IX. 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569 
 
 " His Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court, Shadow of God.
 
 IX. 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 ONCE upon a time there was a king who dreamed 
 a dream. 
 
 Sitting on the throne of Delhi, he looked out 
 over Hindustan, and saw how marauders had de- 
 spoiled it and parcelled it out among themselves, 
 how chief warred with chief, and none was strong 
 enough to bid them cease. He heard the com- 
 plaints of the poor in time of war, slain, driven 
 forth homeless, carried away captive, because the 
 great men had quarrelled with one another, or in 
 time of peace ground down into the dust, stripped 
 bare, because the tax-gatherer extorted many times 
 more than was due to put into his own pocket. 
 He saw men persecuted and oppressed, shut out 
 from all honourable employment because they held 
 to the gods of their fathers, and he saw how the 
 poor among them might not even worship in their 
 holy places because they could not pay the tax 
 upon pilgrimages imposed by their conquerors. He
 
 182 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 saw what the women endured made to know the 
 pangs of childbirth when they themselves were but 
 children ; bound, living, to a husband's corpse on 
 a funeral pyre, while the Brahmans lit the flames 
 beneath them. Alien in race, his heart yearned 
 over the land, as the hearts of many aliens have 
 yearned since his day ; and he dreamed a dream. 
 He saw Hindustan at peace under the rule of a 
 strong hand, men of every tongue and race and 
 creed rising to honour and place in camp and 
 court, or dwelling in security on the land and in 
 the city, with no one to make them afraid. He 
 saw the women, grown to full strength, the 
 mothers of strong sons, who should all unite under 
 the banners of the Empire to repel a common foe. 
 He saw the multitude free to worship as they 
 pleased, unhindered and unmulcted, so they kept 
 the laws ; and he saw the wise bowing before the 
 One God who is not contained in temples made by 
 hands, the Father of all men, the Spirit who 
 clothes Himself with this material universe as with 
 a garment. 
 
 It was a dream. Akbar himself knew that it 
 would not last. Before he was laid in his tomb 
 at Sikandra, his books, raiment, and weapons 
 placed around him ready for his waking, with 
 mullahs to patter the Koran at his side, and 
 the Crucifix and the Virgin Mother to look down
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 183 
 
 upon his rest, the dream had faded away. Even 
 in our own day, after three hundred and fifty 
 years of progress, it has not been realised in full. 
 Yet it is something to have seen it, infinitely 
 more to have made it come true, though only 
 in part and for a little while. " Akbar's dream " 
 has become a byword among many of those who 
 have the vaguest ideas as to when he lived or 
 what he dreamed ; comparatively few know how 
 much he did to turn the dream into reality. 
 
 It was no time for dreams when Humayun 
 tumbled headlong down the stone staircase. 
 The Afghans were in possession of Bengal and 
 the Ganges valley, and an army from Bengal 
 was advancing upon Agra and Delhi. The 
 Moghul leaders were divided in their counsels, 
 and the new emperor was a boy of thirteen. 
 
 So desperate seemed the prospect that the 
 general cry was for a retreat upon Kabul ; but 
 there was one who had the wit to see that 
 the Moghuls must stand or perish, and this was 
 the "King's father," as men called the newly 
 appointed regent, Bairam Khan the same who 
 had defied Shah Tahmasp in the matter of the 
 Shia head-dress. He had come down from the 
 north with Babar, he had fought and fled with 
 Humayun, and his judgment prevailed. 
 
 Fervently must the Emperor's counsellors have
 
 184 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 wished that they had never listened to him when 
 news came that Agra had surrendered without a 
 blow, and then that Delhi had fallen. Tardi Beg, 
 the churl who refused his horse to Humayun on 
 the night march through the desert, left in 
 charge there, had been routed under the city 
 walls, and came flying with the remnant of his 
 men to Akbar's camp. To crown all, word came 
 from the north that the Prince of Badakshan 
 had seized upon Kabul, which had been placed 
 under the nominal regency of Akbar's baby 
 brother, Mirza Hakim. 
 
 Bairam, in no way dismayed, while the hearts 
 of those about him were trembling like reeds 
 in the water, prepared to meet the crisis. First 
 of all he ordered the execution of Tardi Beg, who 
 had forsaken his post when he should have held 
 it or died at it ; Tardi Beg and he had been 
 rivals for a long time, and even if death and 
 ruin were to overtake him to-morrow, there was 
 a grim satisfaction in the thought that he had 
 won the last move against his old enemy. Tardi 
 Beg's subordinates were put under arrest to dis- 
 courage the faint - hearted from following their 
 example, and Bairam reminded his army that 
 in case of defeat it was useless to run away, as 
 their homes were a thousand miles distant. 
 
 Needless to say it was at Panipat that the
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 185 
 
 armies met for the decisive battle. On the one 
 side was the boy Emperor, with the survivors of 
 the men who had followed his grandfather from 
 the north grizzled veterans, fair of face and 
 sturdy of limb, their ruddy colouring blanched 
 with many years' scorching in the plains, but 
 the old spirit coming back into their hearts as 
 they turned to bay where, thirty years ago, they 
 had smote the infidel, and piled a tower of victory 
 of the heads of the slain. 
 
 Facing them was a vast army of Afghans and 
 Rajputs, with fifteen hundred elephants and 
 thousands of horsemen, under the command of 
 Himu, the Hindu who had risen from a chandler's 
 shop to the command of an army. About twenty 
 years before he had offered to put down a re- 
 bellious petty chief of Biana if he were given a 
 small force. Adil Shah of Delhi had consented, 
 either for the jest's sake or because he considered 
 the matter of no importance. The Biana chief, 
 when he heard that a shopkeeper was coming 
 against him, sent his head groom to meet the 
 foe, and went off on a hunting expedition. The 
 head groom was soon disposed of. The furious 
 chief himself, hurrying to retrieve the blunder, 
 was surprised in a night attack, and his army 
 cut to pieces. Himu presented himself with 
 folded hands beneath the throne at Delhi, and
 
 186 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 when the delighted monarch would have dressed 
 him in a robe of honour, waved it aside. " It 
 was his Majesty's soldiers who won the victory; 
 let his Majesty's favours fall first upon them, 
 not on this unworthy slave who is only a poor 
 tradesman." 
 
 Since that day he had gained two-and-twenty 
 actions for his master, though always ailing, and 
 so feeble in body that he could never ride to 
 battle, and must be borne in a litter. From his 
 elephant " Hawa," " the Wind," he now directed 
 his army, a vast host, but held together only by 
 the strength of his personality. 
 
 The Moghul left yielded to the charge of the 
 elephants, and Himu penetrated to the centre, 
 where the Moghul archers kept up such a hail 
 of lances, arrows, and javelins, that the beasts 
 could not face it, and turned, regardless of their 
 drivers' blows, throwing their own ranks into 
 confusion. An arrow pierced through Himu's 
 eye ; he sank upon the floor of his howdah in 
 agonies of pain, and the troops of Bengal, think- 
 ing his wound mortal, broke and fled in all direc- 
 tions. With a supreme effort Himu tore out the 
 arrow, though the eye came with it, and encour- 
 aged those about him with voice and gesture. 
 But he was alone, in the very heart of the Moghul 
 army, and his mahout, terrified for his life, be-
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 187 
 
 trayed him to the foe. A body of horse sur- 
 rounded the elephant and urged it to the camp 
 five miles in the rear, where Akbar had been 
 kept during that November day. 
 
 Bairam Khan exulted savagely as the elephant 
 grunted and swayed into the boy's presence with 
 its dying burden. Here was a chance for the 
 Emperor ; let him draw his sword and make an 
 end of this infidel, and so earn the title of Ghazi, 
 a title as honourable and as sacred to Muslim 
 chivalry as was ever knighthood to a Christian 
 warrior when won on a stricken field after battling 
 against the Paynim. 
 
 Akbar turned fiercely upon his guardian. " How 
 can I strike a man who is as good as dead ? " 
 
 For answer, Bairam's sword gleamed in the 
 air, and at one blow Himu's head and body 
 rolled apart, while the boy burst into tears of 
 shame and indignation. Never was that blow 
 to be forgiven : in slaying a defenceless man, 
 Bairam had slain his own influence over his 
 pupil. 
 
 For the next few years the lad chafed in 
 silence beneath the yoke. Arrogant and master- 
 ful, Bairam was not one to conciliate by a show 
 of deference, even if Akbar had been one of those 
 who are content to take the shadow for the 
 substance. No man loved the Regent, and he
 
 188 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 had a dangerous enemy in Maham Anaga, 1 who 
 had more influence with the boy she had nursed 
 than any other human being. 
 
 At the age of sixteen Akbar went on a hunting 
 party, and was joined near Sikandra by Maham, 
 who declared that his mother was lying sick 
 unto death in Delhi. Whether the Emperor knew 
 the truth, or whether he was deceived, like 
 every one else, he hurried to the city, and once 
 there issued a proclamation that he had taken 
 affairs into his own hands, and that no orders 
 were to be obeyed unless issued under his own 
 seal. He sent word to Bairam, " Let our well- 
 wisher withdraw from all worldly concerns, and 
 taking the pilgrimage to Mecca on which he has 
 for so long been intent, spend the rest of his 
 days in prayer far removed from the toils of 
 public life." 
 
 Needs must ; but the old warrior's heart was 
 suffocating with rage. He to be cast aside at 
 the whim of a boy, and to be sent to tell his 
 beads, as if he were good for nothing else ! He 
 went obediently to Gujarat, it is true, avowing 
 an intention of taking boat to Mecca, but at the 
 last moment he could not bear the thought of 
 leaving place and power. He gathered troops 
 around him and broke into open rebellion only 
 
 1 Anaga : the title given to a foster-mother.
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 189 
 
 to meet total defeat, escaping barely with life 
 to wander among the Siwalik hills. 
 
 Thence he sent his slave to Akbar, owning 
 his wretched plight and asking for pardon. 
 Back came the answer : if Bairam Khan sues for 
 pardon, let him come and receive it from the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Was this the prelude to a more than usually 
 ceremonious execution ? the Khan must have 
 asked himself, when a guard of honour came out 
 to meet him at some distance from the camp and 
 brought him into the royal presence. There was 
 all the Court, gathered to see the disgrace of the 
 man whom all had hated, eyeing him in con- 
 temptuous triumph, men who a year ago would 
 have crawled at his feet. There in their midst 
 was the boy whom he had taught and trained, 
 for whom he had won victories, and against whom 
 he had rebelled. The old man burst into passionate 
 tears as he hung his turban about his neck in 
 token of deepest humiliation, and prostrated him- 
 self before the throne. 
 
 An arm was cast about him, a hand was raising 
 him ; he was standing once more in his old place 
 at the Emperor's side, at the head of all the 
 nobles, while a robe of honour was hung on his 
 shoulders. Bewildered he listened while the 
 Emperor's voice pronounced his sentence if he
 
 190 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 still hankered after a military life, the governor- 
 ship of Kalpi ; if he preferred the Court, an 
 honourable place and a pension ; if he purposed 
 to go to Mecca, an escort suitable to his rank to 
 accompany him. 
 
 The old soldier could have faced death, but 
 this kindness was more than he could bear. 
 Broken down with shame, he faltered that he 
 could no longer venture to remain in the presence ; 
 let him forget the world, and seek forgiveness 
 for his sins. 
 
 So to Mecca he went, after taking leave of 
 his pupil, who settled on him a pension of 50,000 
 rupees. Whether the " suitable escort " despatched 
 with him would have kept him out of mischief 
 is uncertain ; perhaps it was as well for his 
 virtuous resolutions that before he could leave 
 Gujarat he was assassinated by an Afghan whose 
 father he had slain in battle with his own hand. 
 Not yet, however, was Akbar free from tutelage ; 
 now that Bairam was removed from her path, 
 Maham Anaga was prime minister in all but 
 the name, using her influence to push the fortunes 
 of her family, and in particular of her ill-con- 
 ditioned son, Adham Khan, said to have been 
 the child of Humayun. Akbar could deny 
 nothing to the woman who had shielded his 
 body with her own, and to the }^outh who might
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 191 
 
 be doubly his brother, and Adham was honoured 
 with place and dignity which he knew not how 
 to support. 
 
 By this time the Afghans had been driven 
 back into Bengal, and the Ganges valley con- 
 quered as far as Jaunpur and Benares. The 
 Emperor's men held Ajmir and the strong for- 
 tress of Gwalior. The next step was to be the 
 reduction of Malwa, then under the easy sway 
 of an Afghan governor, Baz Bahadur, so steeped 
 in indolence and love of pleasure that he allowed 
 the Moghul troops to approach within twenty 
 miles of his capital "before he would quit the 
 pillows of ease." At the first onset he was de- 
 feated and sent into captivity, "with streaming 
 eyes and a broken heart." His treasures, his 
 family, and his harem fell into the hands of 
 Adham, who was in command of the imperial 
 forces. He sent a few elephants to Agra, and 
 kept everything else for himself. 
 
 Now Baz Bahadur had a Hindu mistress, one 
 of the fairest women ever seen in India, as renowned 
 for her skill in making verses as for her beauty. 
 " Seven long happy years did they live together, 
 while she sang to him of love." Kupmati, weep- 
 ing for the lover she had lost, was told to dry 
 her tears, for the Khan designed to show her 
 favour.
 
 192 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 Rupmati indignantly spurned the suggestion : 
 she had belonged to Baz Bahadur ; she would be 
 the toy of no other man on earth. Adham sent 
 back word that he could take what he wanted by 
 force if it were not given to him. 
 
 Rupmati listened in silence, and appointed an 
 hour at which she would receive her new master ; 
 she put on her richest dress and jewels, covered 
 herself with perfumes, and lay down upon a 
 couch to wait for him. Attendants knelt beside 
 her, and whispered in her ear that the Khan was 
 at the door ; she must rise to receive him. There 
 was no answer or movement, and when they 
 ventured to pull back the veil that her own 
 hand had drawn over her face, they found that 
 she would never wake again. 
 
 The scandal could not be hidden ; it reached 
 the Emperor's ears, and in haste he rode from 
 Agra to look into these matters for himself. 
 Word of his coming reached mother and son, 
 and while Adham laid treasure and spoil at the 
 Emperor's feet, vowing that he had only retained 
 it in order to have the honour of presenting it 
 in person, Maham superintended the murder of 
 two other women of Baz Bahadur's harem, that 
 they should tell no tales. The Emperor saw 
 through the flimsy excuse, and in bitterness of 
 heart went back to Agra, though for the sake of
 
 Akbar Learning to Read.
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 193 
 
 the ties that were between them, he would not 
 punish Adham save by refusing henceforth to 
 trust him with any command. 
 
 Dwelling at court, Adham brooded in sullen 
 inaction, jealous of all around him, most jealous 
 of the prime minister, Shams -ad -din, to whose 
 influence with the Emperor he attributed his 
 disgrace. One night when the Emperor had 
 retired to the harem, Shams - ad - din was sitting 
 in the hall of audience, reading the Koran aloud. 
 Adham swaggered in, followed by a band of 
 Uzbegs ; the prime minister continued his read- 
 ing without noticing the Khan, who suddenly 
 drew his dagger and stabbed him, then gave a 
 signal to the Uzbegs, who completed the work. 
 Then he sprang upon the terrace leading to the 
 harem, and knocked violently upon the door. 
 Hearing the noise, Akbar came out in his night 
 clothes, sword in hand, and saw the body of his 
 minister lying in the courtyard, whither he had 
 dragged himself in the last agony, and the 
 murderer standing on the threshold. "What is 
 this ? " he cried. " Hear me ! " answered Adham, 
 seizing his hands. A blow from Akbar's clenched 
 fist brought him to the ground. Then the 
 Emperor gave command to the bystanders to 
 fling the murderer over the terrace wall. Some 
 say that Akbar himself took the wretched man 
 
 I
 
 194 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 in his arms and kissed him once ere he sent 
 him toppling over two-and-twenty feet into the 
 court below. 
 
 This much is certain, that he himself went to 
 break the news to Maham Anaga. " Maham, we 
 have slain Adham," he told her. "His Majesty 
 has done well," she made answer, bowing her 
 head; but she could neither forgive nor forget. 
 Within forty days she was dead of a broken heart, 
 and Akbar buried her with her son at Delhi. 
 Maham's tomb has disappeared, but her son's 
 tomb, on the walls of the Lai Kot citadel, is yet 
 to be seen in all distant views of the Kutb. 
 
 Two or three years later Akbar was going in 
 procession through Delhi ; as he passed by the 
 mosque, built by Maham in the days of her 
 prosperity, an archer on the roof, pretending to 
 aim at a bird overhead, lodged an arrow span- 
 deep in the Emperor's shoulder. The assassin 
 was seized, and the nobles implored that before 
 his execution a little pressure should be put upon 
 him to reveal the names of his accomplices. But 
 Akbar refused ; confession under torture might 
 incriminate the innocent ; and if there had been 
 fellow-conspirators he had no desire to learn who 
 they were. So the man was cut to pieces there 
 and then, before the surgeons had taken out the 
 arrow from the Emperor's wound.
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 195 
 
 Akbar was not yet twenty when the death of 
 Maham set him free to govern according to his 
 will. Looking at him in the opening years of 
 his reign, there is much to recall Babar. He had 
 the same inexhaustible physical strength, seeming 
 not to know the meaning of fatigue. He could 
 ride from Agra to Ajmir (240 miles) in a day 
 and a night ; he was an unwearied polo player 
 (using fire balls when the sudden darkness of an 
 Indian night fell upon the game), and a mighty 
 hunter, who could cut down a royal tigress with 
 a single stroke when she crossed his path. With 
 only a part of Babar's unquenchable joie de vivre, 
 there were moments when he forgot kingdom, 
 dignity, and responsibilities, and flung himself 
 into whatever fate had provided in whole-hearted 
 exultation. "We read of him coming, in pursuit 
 of a rebel, to a ferry where there were no boats, 
 urging his elephant into the river " which was then 
 deep," despite the remonstrances of his officers, 
 and, careless of the fact that only a hundred of 
 his bodyguard had been able to follow, sounding 
 his kettle-drums before the enemy's camp. We 
 read, too, of a glorious day during the campaign 
 in Gujarat, when the Emperor crossed a river with 
 only one hundred and fifty-six men and fell upon 
 a thousand, drawing up his handful of followers 
 in a narrow lane formed by hedges of the prickly
 
 196 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 pear where only three horsemen could ride abreast, 
 himself in advance of them all, with two Rajput 
 princes to guard his head while he plied sword 
 and bow. 
 
 He had Babar's infinite capacity for being 
 interested in everything and every one, and his 
 experiments were the horror of orthodox Muslims 
 at his Court. He experimented in all directions, 
 from religion to metallurgy. It was bad enough 
 that an Emperor should soil his fingers by 
 making new kinds of gun -barrels warranted 
 not to burst or machines for cleaning guns, or 
 other devices which should have been left to a 
 craftsman. It was worse when he smoked tobacco 
 seduced by "a handsome pipe three cubits 
 long," which a courtier presented to him, although, 
 after a first trial, his Majesty did not care to 
 smoke again. When, with a view to ascertaining 
 the primitive religion, the Emperor took some 
 luckless babies from their mothers and shut them 
 by themselves in a house at Fatehpur-Sikri, with 
 attendants who were forbidden or unable to speak 
 a word to them, the orthodox bore it philos- 
 ophically : much harm was not likely to come of 
 the experiment especially as the poor children 
 grew up dumb ; but when his Majesty caused the 
 Hindu sacred books and the Gospels to be trans- 
 lated for his own reading, and held conferences
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 197 
 
 with Brahmans, Guebres, and Jesuits, all respect- 
 able persons were outraged. 
 
 He had little or nothing of Babar's delight in 
 sensuous pleasures ; he ate once a-day, and only 
 took meat twice a- week; his drink was Ganges 
 water ; he slept three hours out of the twenty-four, 
 and was never idle. The only luxury that he 
 allowed himself was perfumes, of which he was 
 fond beyond measure. Like Babar, he was subject 
 to sudden fits of rage, in one of which he flung 
 from the battlements a servant whom he found 
 asleep when he should have watched ; like Babar, 
 he would build a pyramid of the heads of his 
 enemies after a battle ; like Babar, he could 
 forgive over and over again, as only the strong 
 can forgive. 
 
 A story is told of him that during the campaign 
 in Gujarat, just before an action, he found a 
 young Kajput prince weighed down by a suit of 
 armour far too heavy for his boyish limbs. Akbar 
 took it from him, and gave him a lighter suit to 
 wear. Just then, happening to see another of the 
 Kajputs unarmed, he bade him put on the heavy 
 mail which the prince had stripped off. Most 
 unluckily, this last Kaja happened to be the 
 deadly foe of the other's house, and the boy, 
 furious that his armour should be profaned in this 
 way, tore off the Emperor's gift, vowing he would
 
 198 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 go "baresark" into the fight. Akbar thereupon 
 stripped himself of his armour. " I cannot allow 
 my chiefs to be more exposed than myself ; if they 
 ride to battle unarmed, so do I." 
 
 " He is affable and majestical," says a con- 
 temporary ; merciful and severe ; skilful in me- 
 chanical arts, . . . curiously industrious, affable 
 to the vulgar, seeming to grace them and their 
 presents with more respective ceremony than the 
 grandees ; loved and feared of his own, terrible 
 to his enemies." 
 
 He was beardless, of middle height, with a 
 stout, sturdy body, abnormally long arms, and 
 black eyes and hair. A wart on the left side of 
 his nose was considered to be an additional beauty 
 and a sign of extraordinary good fortune. His 
 voice was loud, clear, and ringing. " His manner 
 and habits were quite different from those of other 
 people, and his countenance was full of godlike 
 dignity," adds the son who did much to break 
 Akbar 's heart in the last sad years of his life. 
 
 Like his father, Akbar at the beginning of his 
 reign had to contend with a rebellious brother, 
 and rebellious cousins, who, one by one, were 
 brought to order. Then, by degrees, he added the 
 outlying provinces to his empire ; Chitor, the 
 stronghold of the Rajputs, was stormed in 1567, 
 and since that hour, when its garrison perished
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 199 
 
 sword in hand, lighted by the flames of the pyres 
 on which the women were burning, it has been a 
 forsaken city, where the doleful creatures of the 
 night cry in the palaces. Bengal and Gujarat, 
 Kashmir, Sind, and, in an evil hour, part of the 
 Deccan, owned the ruler of Delhi as their master. 
 
 With scarcely a year in his life in which he was 
 not at war, reducing a rebellion, putting down a 
 usurper, or annexing new territory, it is marvel- 
 lous that he accomplished so much as he did 
 in the way of internal reforms. In the year of 
 Adham's death the Rajput lord of Amber, an- 
 cestor of the present Maharaja of Jeypore, gave 
 his daughter in marriage to the Emperor. It was 
 unspeakable pollution for the descendant of the 
 moon to mingle his blood with that of the unclean 
 "Toork," but it was sound policy for Amber, 
 and for the Hindus in the Emperor's dominions. 
 Henceforth Hindus were chosen for the highest 
 offices, civil and military; a Eajput chief, Man 
 Sing of Jodhpur, was the first " Commander of 
 Seven Thousand," and fought against the "Sun 
 of the Hindus," the Rana of Udaipur, at the 
 Emperor's command. 
 
 For many years, in scrupulous observance of the 
 Prophet's commands, the Muslim conquerors had 
 levied a poll-tax upon all unbelievers; Akbar 
 remitted this, after his marriage with the princess,
 
 200 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 
 
 and also took off the tax upon Hindu pilgrims, 
 saying to those who remonstrated at this last 
 proceeding, that " although the tax fell on a vain 
 superstition, yet as all modes of worship were de- 
 signed for a great Being, it was wrong to throw an 
 obstacle in the way of the devout, and to cut them 
 off from their mode of intercourse with their Maker." 
 
 The Hindus were not equally pleased when he 
 forbade child marriage and animal sacrifice. The 
 burning of widows was horrible to him ; the 
 daughter-in-law of the Raja of Jodhpur, doomed 
 to the flames, found means to send him a bracelet, 
 whereby, in accordance with old Rajput custom, 
 he became her " bracelet -brother," bound to do 
 whatever service she required of him. Akbar rode 
 himself to save her, and forbade burning for the 
 future, save with the widow's consent. While the 
 Hindus murmured at these interferences with their 
 traditions, the Muslim were equally indignant at 
 the ordinance which forbade that captives taken 
 in war should be used as slaves. 
 
 Akbar's greatest achievement was the recon- 
 struction of the revenue. "The land-tax was 
 always the main source of revenue in India, and 
 it had become almost the sole universal burden 
 since Akbar had abolished not only the poll-tax 
 and pilgrims' dues, but over fifty minor duties." 
 
 1 S. Lane Poole.
 
 AKBAR PADISHAH 1556-1569. 201 
 
 It is impossible to give an adequate account of 
 the system worked out by Todar Mai, the great 
 Hindu financier; his threefold object was (1) to 
 obtain correct measurement of the land ; (2) to 
 ascertain the amount of produce of each half- 
 acre and the proportion it should pay to govern- 
 ment ; and (3) to settle the equivalent in money. 
 Though the actual amount yielded in revenue was 
 lessened, and the taxes and fees paid to the 
 revenue officers were abolished, more money 
 actually reached the treasury, as defalcations were 
 checked. The present land-revenue system of 
 British India is founded upon the principles that 
 Akbar and Todar Mai laid down more than three 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 Great was the disgust of the Muslim when they 
 saw the rise of Todar Mai ; greater still, when 
 everywhere in court and camp Hindus were 
 equally eligible with Muslims for office. Their 
 remonstrances had as little effect upon the Emperor 
 as his wise sayings about toleration had upon 
 them. There is a story told during the campaign 
 in Rajputana, of a Muslim who asked a brother 
 officer how he was to order his men to fire without 
 injuring the Hindu allies who were covering their 
 front. "Bah !" said the other, with a faith as robust 
 as that of Bishop Folquet at the siege of Albi, " let 
 fly in the name of God ! He knows His own."
 
 X. 
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605 
 
 "0 God, in every temple I see those who see Thee, 
 And in every tongue that is spoken, Thou art praised. 
 Polytheism and Islam grope after Thee. 
 Each religion says, ' Thou art One, without equal.' 
 Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer ; or church, the bells ring for love 
 
 of Thee. 
 
 Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque. 
 But Thee only I seek from fane to fane. 
 Thine elect know naught of heresy or orthodoxy, whereof neither stands 
 
 behind the screen of Thy truth. 
 Heresy to the heretic dogma to the orthodox 
 
 But the dust of the rose petal belongs to the heart of the perfume-seller. " 
 
 Abu-l-Fad.
 
 X. 
 
 THE PASSING OF A DKEAM 1569-1605. 
 
 TWENTY-TWO miles away from Agra, on a ridge 
 overlooking the plain, lies Fatehpur-Sikri, a city 
 of dreams, built of red sandstone that takes 
 marvellous colours at sunset and sunrise. Built 
 by Akbar, it was abandoned even in his lifetime, 
 and five years after its founder's death an 
 English traveller found it "ruinate, lying like 
 a waste district, and very dangerous to pass 
 through at night." To the traveller of our own 
 day it scarcely seems "ruinate"; in many places 
 the angles of the carven stone are as sharp as if 
 the chisel had left them last year. You may 
 walk beneath the balcony where Akbar stood 
 each day to give justice to the people, and 
 through the courtyard where he played at chess 
 in the cool of the evening, his pawns sixteen 
 beautiful slave - girls, richly dressed and covered 
 with jewels, who became the prize of the victor. 
 Here are the palaces of his wives " the house of
 
 206 THE PASSING OP A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 the Turkish Sultana," the house of Bibi Mariam, 
 where over the door may still be traced the 
 golden wings of the angel of the Annunication, 
 drawn by a Portuguese artist, the house of a 
 Hindu princess, with its little temple where she 
 worshipped her own gods. Here, too, are the 
 dwellings of his three dearest friends, Raja Birbal, 
 the Hindu minstrel, witty and wise, whose keen- 
 edged sayings were remembered long after he 
 and Akbar had gone to their appointed places ; 
 Faizi, the Poet Laureate; and Abu-1-Fazl, his 
 brother, scholar and mystic. These men came 
 on Thursday evenings to the lofty hall of the 
 Diwan-i-Khas, when the Emperor took his seat 
 on the platform above the carved central column 
 from which run four stone causeways, each 
 leading to a niche at the corner of the building. 
 In these niches sat representatives of different 
 religions, mullah and Brahman, Jesuit missionary, 
 Jew, or philosopher, and each argued his case, 
 sometimes with much violence on the part of the 
 mullahs, who thought the sword the best argu- 
 ment to use against heretics. 
 
 The empty courtyards now echo only to the 
 click of Western shoes and the gabble of the 
 guide ; they were crowded to suffocation at the 
 vernal equinox or on the Emperor's birthday, 
 when the ground was spread with two acres of
 
 Akbar. 
 
 
 
 Abu-1-Fazl. Raja Birbal. 
 
 Three Friends.
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 207 
 
 silk and gold carpets, when many hundred ele- 
 phants defiled before him, the leading one of 
 each company wearing gold plates set with rubies 
 on breast and head, followed by rhinoceroses, 
 lions, tigers, panthers, cheetahs, hounds, and 
 hawks. There were squadrons of cavalry, blazing 
 in cloth of gold ; there were the nobles " sparkling 
 with diamonds like the firmament," wearing herons' 
 plumes in their turbans ; and in the centre of all 
 was the solitary figure upon the throne, arrayed 
 in plain white muslin. 
 
 When the moonlight is steeping halls and court- 
 yards, sitting in the old Record Office, near the 
 entrance gate, or climbing the narrow staircase 
 by which Akbar's ministers went up to the 
 " House of Dreams," where the Emperor slept, 
 you may hear the dreams and the ghosts rustle 
 their wings, and whisper all night long. Or 
 you may come forth at dawn and sit in the 
 courtyard where he used to sit, meditating on 
 Life and Death till the sun rose, and he bowed 
 before the symbol of Him who gives light to 
 the world. As has well been said, "Fatehpur- 
 Sikri is now a body without a soul " ; but the 
 shadow of Akbar's soul yet seems to hover within 
 the charmed city that he built and then deserted. 
 
 Babar had had the simple faith of a child and 
 a soldier, Humayun, though devout, had been
 
 208 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 anything but orthodox ; in Akbar, a penetrating 
 sense of the reality and constant presence of 
 God was joined to a complete indifference as to 
 religious forms, or rather, looking through the 
 form to what lay behind it, he was ready to 
 accept all forms for the sake of what they were 
 intended to convey. The Jesuit fathers from 
 Goa found him ready not only to listen to them, 
 but to incline to their side in their disputes 
 with the champions of other faiths. One of his 
 sons was given religious instruction by Padre 
 Rodolfo Acquaviva, said to have been the Jesuit 
 who, by way of clinching a dispute with one of 
 the chief mullahs at the Emperor's Court, offered 
 to enter a fire, Bible in hand, if his adversary 
 would do the like, armed with the Koran. On 
 certain days " the Emperor came forth to the 
 audience-chamber with his brow marked in Hindu 
 fashion, and jewelled strings tied by Brahmans 
 on his wrist to represent the sacred thread." 
 His bowings before the sun, and his command 
 to the Court to rise, every evening, when the 
 lamps were lighted, have made some writers 
 pronounce him a fire - worshipper ; those who 
 remember the "grace for light" that used to 
 be said in cottage homes in certain glens of 
 Ireland when the candle was lighted, may deem 
 that the reverence was for the Giver of Light.
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 209 
 
 As the years went on he disregarded or set 
 aside observances practised by the most lax of 
 Muslims. The profession of faith, " There is no 
 God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet," 
 no longer appeared on the coins ; the scandalised 
 orthodox beheld instead the characters "Allahu 
 Akbar," which might read either " God is most 
 Great" or "Akbar is God." When men saluted 
 each other, they were bidden to say " Allahu 
 Akbar" instead of the "Peace be with you" 
 which their fathers had used. In the great 
 mosque of Fatehpur-Sikri, on a Friday in 1580, 
 the worshippers gathered to hear the Emperor 
 conduct the service. Islam, unlike most other 
 religions, has no separate priestly caste, but 
 mullahs and doctors of the Law wagged their 
 beards in pious horror as he ascended the 
 pulpit and began to read "the bidding prayer," 
 to which Faizi had added the lines : 
 
 " The Lord to me the Kingdom gave, 
 He made me wise, and strong, and brave, 
 He girded me in right and ruth, 
 Filling my mind with love of truth ; 
 No praise of man can sum His state. 
 Allahu Akbar I God is Great ! " 
 
 Their joy must have been uncontrollable when, 
 after the first three lines, Akbar's voice faltered 
 and broke. Whether it were emotion or stage 
 
 o
 
 210 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 fright, he could go no farther, and was obliged 
 to resign the pulpit to its rightful occupant, 
 the Court preacher. 
 
 As if this were not shock enough to all good 
 Muslims, Akbar's next proceeding was to employ 
 the father of Abu-1-Fazl and Faizi a Shia and 
 a free-thinker who had been expelled from Agra 
 for heresy to draw up a proclamation : " We 
 have decreed and do decree that the rank of a 
 Just Ruler is higher in the eyes of God than the 
 rank of a Chief of the Law," which from that 
 ominous beginning deduced that in all religious 
 disputes his Majesty's decision was binding upon 
 his people. "Further, we declare that, should 
 his Majesty, in his wisdom, issue an order (not 
 being in opposition to the Koran) for the benefit 
 of the people, it shall be binding and imperative 
 on every one ; opposition to it being punished with 
 damnation in the world to come, excommunication 
 and ruin in the present life." 
 
 Henry VIII., declaring himself Head of the 
 Church, had spoken in much the same tone fifty 
 years previously ; but the heathen Emperor, for 
 whose conversion, were he living at the present 
 time, good people would subscribe to send out 
 missionaries, was more merciful in practice than 
 the Christian king. When he tried to bring Raja 
 Man Sing to his way of thinking, and got for
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 211 
 
 answer : " I am a Hindu ; your Majesty does not 
 ask me to become a Muslim, and I know of no 
 third faith," the Kajput was not racked, hanged, 
 or burned, but suffered to go his own way in 
 peace. Though in Akbar's lifetime there were 
 conversions to the Monotheism which he strove 
 to teach, it died with him ; it was too vague, too 
 pure for the mass, who must needs have something 
 concrete whereon to stay their souls. 
 
 With his firm belief that he was the chosen 
 of God, His viceroy in spiritual as well as tem- 
 poral affairs, there was an overpowering sense of 
 the danger lest he should be unfaithful to his 
 trust. He would never administer justice to his 
 people sitting upon the throne ; he stood beneath 
 it as a sign to them that he was only the instru- 
 ment of God, Who had given the power into his 
 hand. As every one knows, there is a season in 
 the year when the male elephant becomes wild 
 and unmanageable, frequently killing his keeper 
 unless properly secured. One of Akbar's practices 
 was to mount an elephant when the frenzy came 
 upon it, and let it fight another elephant, goading 
 or checking it, heedless of the terrible risk to 
 himself. When a friend ventured to remonstrate, 
 lie answered that he did it, praying that, if he 
 had failed in his duty, God would suffer him to 
 be torn in pieces rather than continue in sin.
 
 212 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 In the latter part of his reign he had sore 
 need of what comfort he might draw from re- 
 ligion ; his luck had turned, and the closing years 
 of his life were marked by disaster, the loss of 
 friends, and the misconduct of those who should 
 have been his stay. 
 
 Dearest of all the little band whom he called 
 "the elect," was Raja Birbal, whose influence was 
 thought by the orthodox to be the reason of 
 Akbar's listening to Brahmans and yogis. The 
 two were almost inseparable, and Akbar opened 
 his heart to the minstrel as he would to no other 
 man. In 1586 an expedition was to be sent 
 against the Yusufzais, a wild Afghan tribe in- 
 habiting the valleys of the Hindu Kush. Abu-1- 
 Fazl and Birbal drew lots who should command 
 one of the divisions ; Birbal won, and rode away 
 from Akbar's camp on the east side of the Indus, 
 doubtless with a merry quip at Abu-1-Fazl, who 
 remained behind in great mortification. 
 
 The expedition was foredoomed to disaster : the 
 other commander of the imperial forces was Zein 
 Khan, one of the Emperor's foster-brothers (son 
 of that Shams-ad-din whom Adham had murdered 
 in the Emperor's audience-hall), and he and Birbal 
 detested each other. There were continual quar- 
 rels ; Birbal insisted upon attacking the Afghans, 
 contrary to Zein Khan's judgment, and was drawn
 
 THE PASSING OP A DREAM 1569-1605. 213 
 
 into a mountain pass where his forces were over- 
 whelmed by showers of stones and flights of 
 arrows. His division was cut to pieces, and Zein 
 Khan's, which had remained in the plain, fared 
 little better. The Khan escaped on foot to 
 Attock, where Akbar refused to see him. 
 
 Birbal's body was never found, and the story 
 rose that he still lived, a prisoner, among the 
 Yusufzais. Long after the disaster, an impostor 
 appeared, calling himself Birbal, and Akbar sent 
 command for him to come to Agra. It would 
 have been impossible for him to play the part 
 successfully before Birbal's dearest friend, and he 
 was lucky in dying on the way to Court, honoured 
 beyond his deserts, in that the Emperor put on 
 mourning for him. 
 
 It is said that the Emperor and the minstrel 
 had made a compact together that if there were 
 a life after death, whichever of the two died 
 first should come back to the survivor. Perhaps 
 it was after vainly sitting, night after night, in 
 the " House of Dreams," where he and Birbal had 
 often " tired the sun with talking and sent him 
 down the sky," vainly listening and looking for 
 the curtain, "always rustling but never rising," 
 to be drawn aside, that Akbar determined to leave 
 his City of Victory. 
 
 The official reason was that there was no water
 
 214 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 supply a drawback that might have been ascer- 
 tained before the city was built. A modern writer 
 has imagined the cause to be Akbar's heartbreak 
 over the son whose birth had been the cause of 
 its foundation. 
 
 For, up to the fourteenth year of his reign, 
 none of the sons born to the Emperor had lived, 
 until, returning from one of his campaigns, he 
 halted at the foot of the hill of Sikri, and there 
 found a very holy man, the Shaikh Salim Chishti, 
 living in a cave. The shaikh had a little son, 
 only six months old, who noticed that after the 
 Emperor's visit his father seemed heavy and de- 
 jected. "Why do you grieve, my father?" 
 asked the child, who we are rather unnecessarily 
 told had never spoken before. " my son," 
 answered the shaikh, " it is written that the 
 Emperor will never have an heir unless some 
 other man will sacrifice to him the life of his 
 son, and surely none is capable of such an act." 
 
 "Nay, father," cried the child, "if you forbid 
 me not, I will die in order that his Majesty may 
 be consoled." And forthwith he lay down and 
 died. In proof of the truth of this story, his 
 grave may be seen in an enclosure near the 
 quadrangle, where stand the mosque built by 
 Salim Chishti and the domed tomb where the 
 saint lies beneath a sarcophagus inlaid with
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 215 
 
 mother-of-pearl, and surrounded by pendent 
 ostrich eggs. 
 
 Akbar left his wife, the Amber princess, at 
 Sikri for some months ; after the birth of a son, 
 named Salim, after the holy man, he began to 
 build the city on the hill. 
 
 Other sons were afterwards born to the Emperor, 
 only to bring grief and shame upon him. Not one 
 had any thought of carrying out his father's work, 
 or helping him in any way; all three were 
 incorrigible drunkards, the curse of their house 
 having fallen on them. Akbar himself, worn 
 and harassed beyond endurance, had yielded to 
 it so far as to take opium. 
 
 Whether it were grief over lost friend or living 
 sons that moved him, the Emperor abandoned 
 Fat ehpur- Sikri after Birbal's death, and for the 
 next fourteen years of his life made his capital 
 at Lahore. 
 
 The two brothers, Faizi and Abu-1-Fazl, were 
 spared to him for some time longer. Faizi, the 
 first Muslim to study Hindu literature and science, 
 had been set by the Emperor to translate por- 
 tions of the Mahabharata, Eamayana, and other 
 Hindu works. Most of us have to be content 
 to take it on trust that he was also " one of the 
 most exquisite poets India has ever produced." 
 Abu-1-Fazl compiled the " Ain-i-Akbari," the
 
 216 THE PASSING OF A DKEAM 1569-1605. 
 
 "Acts of Akbar," which is partly a history of 
 the Emperor, partly a most minute account of 
 the revenue, household, treasury, military regu- 
 lations, and other matters, with a gazetteer of 
 India, and a collection of his Majesty's sayings 
 and teachings. No other work gives such a 
 picture of contemporary India, its learning, tradi- 
 tions, and customs, and under the pompous style 
 of a " Court Journal " the most vivid glimpses of 
 Akbar the man are disclosed, amid details of eti- 
 quette, cookery recipes, or treatises upon religion. 
 It was some nine years after the disastrous 
 expedition against the Yusufzais, that word was 
 brought to Akbar at midnight that Faizi was 
 desperately ill. Hurrying to his friend's room, 
 he bent over him, raised his head, and called 
 him by the familiar name that had long been 
 used between them. " Shaikh -ji ! I have 
 brought Ali, the doctor." The dying man, 
 nearly insensible, could make no answer. " Why 
 do you not speak ? " implored the Emperor ; 
 then, recognising that Faizi was slipping away 
 beyond his reach, he flung his turban upon the 
 ground and gave himself up to passionate grief. 
 Abu-1-Fazl, unable to see his brother die, had 
 gone to his own room, and there the Emperor 
 went and remained for a long time, trying to 
 comfort him, before going back to the palace.
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 217 
 
 Akbar was called from his private griefs to 
 make a decision that was to bear ill -consequences 
 for those who came after him. Beyond the 
 Vindhya mountains which form the southern 
 boundary of Hindustan, lies the table-land sup- 
 ported on all sides by hill ranges which is 
 known as the Deccan. Conquered and despoiled 
 by Ala-ad-din of Delhi early in the fourteenth 
 century, it shook off the yoke in later years, 
 and from the reign of Muhammad Taghlak no 
 king of Delhi had been acknowledged south of 
 the Vindhya mountains. The Bahmanid sultans 
 ruled it for a hundred and eighty years, a fierce 
 and cruel race, one of whom used to hold great 
 feasts whenever he had succeeded in massacring 
 over 20,000 Hindus at a time. When their 
 dynasty came to an end, just at the time when 
 Babar was making his way to Delhi, their do- 
 minions were split into the five states of Bijapur, 
 Ahmadnagar, Grolkonda, Berar, and Bidar, all 
 ruled by Muslim princes. 
 
 A glance at the map will show that the Deccan 
 is divided from Hindustan by natural barriers, and 
 very little acquaintance with history will prove 
 the truth of the saying that "Nature never 
 intended the same ruler to govern both sides of 
 the Vindhya mountains ; people, character, and 
 geographical conditions are dissimilar. Never-
 
 218 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 theless, to conquer the Deccan has been the 
 ambition of every great king of Delhi, and the 
 attempt has always brought disaster." 1 
 
 Unluckily for all parties, Akbar had a good 
 pretext for interference in the condition of the 
 Deccan. In 1595 there were no less than four 
 separate claimants to the throne of Ahmadnagar ; 
 one of them called upon the Moghuls to aid him, 
 and, nothing loath, Akbar sent out an army under 
 his second son, Murad. 
 
 When the Prince and his host arrived beneath 
 the walls of Ahmadnagar, they found the con- 
 ditions not what they had expected. One of 
 the four rival claimants, a mere child, had been 
 put under the guardianship of the widow of 
 Sultan Ibrahim, his uncle. Chand Bibi " the 
 resplendent lady " was one of the noblest women 
 who have ever appeared in Indian history. No 
 longer young, and childless, her day might have 
 seemed over, when she was called to fight for 
 her husband's heir, and bravely grappled what 
 had seemed a hopeless task. The pretender who 
 had appealed to Delhi was expelled from Ahmad- 
 nagar ; and Chand Bibi made a solemn appeal 
 to her kinsman, the King of Bijapur, who was 
 backing another claimant, to cease this inter- 
 necine strife, and to join against the foe who 
 
 1 S. Lane Poole.
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 219 
 
 would eat them up, one by one, unless he were 
 expelled at the outset. 
 
 The appeal from a woman to a man's better 
 self succeeded for the time being ; the King of 
 Bijapur combined with two of the rival armies 
 and marched against the Moghuls, while the 
 leader of the third, Nehang, an Abyssinian, cut 
 his way through the lines of the besiegers, and 
 came to reinforce the garrison in Ahmadnagar. 
 
 Chand Bibi was the soul of the defence, ex- 
 posing herself freely on the walls or down below 
 in the darkness, where besieger and besieged 
 mined and countermined. One mine was fired 
 before the garrison were ready to meet the 
 danger; a yawning breach opened in the walls, 
 and the besieged fled in terror from their posts, 
 leaving the way open to the storming party. 
 Then down among her panic-stricken men came 
 a slight figure, sword in hand, recognised at once 
 by the richly decorated suit of armour and the 
 silver veil that floated over her helmet. She 
 rallied them, she led them back to the wall ; all 
 day till evening they stood in the breach, keeping 
 off the assailants, and when night brought a truce 
 she toiled with the men, who brought wood, stones, 
 earth, even dead carcases, and built up the wall 
 again until it was too strong to be forced without 
 another mine.
 
 220 THE PASSING OF A DEEAM 1569-1605. 
 
 In after generations, when Ahmadnagar was 
 no longer a kingdom, men told how the Queen 
 defended her city, making balls of copper when 
 all the shot was expended, then silver, then gold, 
 and at last firing away her jewels when nothing 
 else was left. 
 
 The Moghuls were obliged to make terms, for 
 the King of Bijapur and his allies were ap- 
 proaching, and they feared to be taken in the 
 rear. So peace was arranged ; the Emperor's 
 forces drew off, and Chand Bibi was left to rule 
 for her nephew. 
 
 Freed from the common danger, men returned 
 to plot and intrigue, and the Queen's wisdom and 
 valour availed her nothing. Chand's own prime 
 minister turned traitor, and sought the help of 
 Prince Murad, and before the year was out the 
 Deccan was once more invaded. The imperial 
 forces gained a victory, and made no attempt to 
 follow it up. Then Akbar himself came to take 
 command, sending on a force under his third 
 son, Daniyal, to Ahmadnagar, where Chand held 
 out, dauntless, but at the end of her resources. 
 The city was a mass of disaffection and rebellion, 
 and Nehang had broken out into revolt, and had 
 been besieging her until the Moghul forces ar- 
 rived. Nothing remained but to make conditions 
 of surrender. While she was striving to gain the
 
 THE PASSING OP A DREAM 1569-1605. 221 
 
 utmost that she could for her ward and her 
 people, some of the rebels stirred up the soldiery 
 to mutiny : " the Queen had betrayed them to 
 the Moghuls." They broke into the women's 
 side of the palace, calling for Chand Bibi ; the 
 old woman faced them, a queen to the end, and 
 fell beneath their swords. 
 
 There is some comfort in remembering that, 
 a few days later, the imperial troops stormed 
 Ahmadnagar and slaughtered every man of the 
 garrison. The poor little king was sent to 
 Gwalior, where innumerable state prisioners have 
 ended their days in the fortress on the hill. 1 
 
 In the Deccan campaign, Abu-1-Fazl at length 
 obtained his heart's desire, and went on military 
 service for the first time, proving himself as 
 brave and capable as he was loyal. A quarrel 
 had arisen between Akbar and his vassal, the 
 King of Khandesh, whose brother-in-law Abu- 
 1-Fazl happened to be. To the king it seemed 
 perfectly natural to send costly gifts to his 
 brother-in-law in order to gain Akbar's favour ; 
 Abu-1-Fazl sent them all back. "The Emperor's 
 bounty has extinguished in my mind all feel- 
 ings of avarice." He succeeded in capturing the 
 fort of Asirgarh, on an isolated hill of the Satpura 
 
 1 See Meadows Taylor's 'A Noble Queen' for the whole story 
 of Chand Bibi.
 
 222 THE PASSING OP A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 range, one of the most famous strongholds in 
 India, Khandesh was annexed, and when Akbar 
 returned to Agra he left his friend to command 
 in the Deccan. 
 
 It was no pleasant errand that took the 
 Emperor back to Agra before his conquests in 
 the south were completed. Prince Salim, his 
 heir-apparent, had been left to conduct the war 
 with Udaipur in his father's stead, with Man Sing 
 to help him. A revolt in Bengal sent the Eaja 
 hurrying to put it down, and Salim thereupon 
 seized upon Allahabad and proclaimed himself 
 king. 
 
 Akbar had already lost one son, Prince Murad 
 having drunk himself into his grave during the 
 war in the Deccan, and he could not treat the 
 graceless prince as he deserved. A touching 
 letter, warning Salim of the consequences if he 
 persisted in rebellion, and assuring him of the 
 undiminished love and free pardon that waited 
 for him if he repented, brought a half-submission. 
 Salim retired to Allahabad, and Akbar, catching 
 at any sign of grace, made him a grant of 
 Bengal and Orissa, in hope that independence 
 might bring a sense of responsibility. 
 
 In August 1602, Abu-1-Fazl, relieved from 
 his command in the Deccan, was making his way 
 across the plains to his Emperor at Agra. He
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 223 
 
 rode with only a small escort, for the land was 
 at peace, and who would dare to touch one of 
 the royal household ? He had nearly reached 
 Gwalior when he was surrounded by a body of 
 freebooters under Narsing Deo, the Hindu Raja 
 of the petty state of Orcha. He and his men 
 sold their lives dearly, but they were over- 
 whelmed by numbers. 
 
 When Akbar heard that the last of his three 
 friends had perished, he refused to eat or sleep 
 for two days and nights. Then he came forth, 
 terrible in his anger, and sent a force to Orcha ; 
 the raja and all his family were to be seized, 
 the country was to be ravaged, the whole state 
 should mourn Abu-1-Fazl's death. For a short 
 space the relentless, indiscriminating cruelty of 
 his barbarian forefathers woke within him. 
 
 He did not know it is to be hoped he never 
 knew that Narsing Deo had been only the tool 
 of Salim, who, madly jealous of Abu-1-Fazl, had 
 seized this opportunity of removing him. There 
 was bitterness enough in the thought that at 
 one time the prince had succeeded in poisoning 
 his mind against his friend, so that when Abu-1- 
 Fazl had first gone to the Deccan, it had been 
 intended as an honourable banishment. 
 
 In Allahabad Prince Salim gave himself over 
 to every kind of debauchery, drinking at least
 
 224 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 ten pints of wine a -day, and subject to such 
 terrible fits of rage that his attendants durst not 
 come near him. Akbar was told that his son 
 had ordered an offender to be flayed alive, and 
 could not suppress his indignation. "How can 
 the son treat a human being like this, when the 
 father cannot endure to see a dead sheep skinned 
 without pain?" he asked in the bitterness of his 
 soul. 
 
 There was a last hope that a meeting between 
 father and son might reclaim the prince from his 
 evil ways. Akbar set out to Allahabad to wake 
 his boy's better self if he might, at least, to 
 snatch him from his companions in sin. He had 
 only gone a little way from Agra when a messenger 
 overtook him to say that the Queen-Mother was 
 at the point of death. It gives something of a 
 shock to find Hamida Begam, after all the breath- 
 less flights, the privations, the long-drawn wander- 
 ings, and the heart -sickening anxieties of her 
 early youth, living on almost to the end of 
 her son's reign. The Emperor hurried back to 
 Agra, in time to be with her at the last. Mother 
 and son were united by a very close affection, and 
 to the end of her life, we are told, the first dishes 
 of food that Akbar tasted after the yearly fast, 
 were sent to him from his mother's house. He 
 already knew the loneliness of mind which is the
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 225 
 
 penalty of all who are in advance of their fellow- 
 men ; he was now to know loneliness of heart. 
 Save his mother, no woman had ever counted for 
 much in his life : there were five thousand in his 
 harem, each dwelling in her own apartment. As 
 Abu-1-Fazl observed, " the large number of them 
 a vexatious question even for great statesmen 
 furnished his Majesty with an opportunity to 
 display his wisdom," but not one of these was 
 ever to him what the Moon Lady had been to 
 Babar, or even Hamida to Humayun. 
 
 In a transient spasm of better feeling Salim 
 now came to Agra, and being placed under a 
 doctor's care, regained his health, thanks to the 
 iron constitution of Babar's descendants. His 
 temper, however, was no better than could be 
 expected of a suddenly reformed drunkard ; he 
 was on the worst possible terms with his eldest 
 son, Khusru, whose mother (Raja Man Sing's 
 sister) had poisoned herself in desperation at the 
 dispute between her husband and his heir. Khusru 
 was doing his utmost to excite his grandfather's 
 anger against his father, and, if possible, to gain 
 the throne for himself, backed up by Man Sing, 
 who certainly had no reason for loving Salim. 
 The whole Court was seething with jealousies and 
 plots, and the Emperor's heart was broken. Vainly 
 did he warn those about him that they must lay 
 
 p
 
 226 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 aside their disputes and work together for the 
 common good, if they would not see the empire go 
 to pieces ; he was not the man that he had been, 
 he could no longer control bursts of temper, 
 the result of overstrung nerves and overwrought 
 strength, and all men knew that his time would 
 soon be over. His dream had faded, not into -the 
 light of common day, but into the clouds of the 
 gathering storm. 
 
 In 1604 died his youngest son, Daniyal ; he had 
 been put under supervision, like his brother, to 
 keep him from drink, and, unable to bear enforced 
 sobriety, he had intoxicating liquor smuggled into 
 his palace in the barrel of a fowling-piece, until it 
 killed him. It was the last blow, and Akbar 
 could bear no more. He took to his bed in the 
 September of the following year, after having been 
 ill for some time. Salim at first refused to come 
 to his father, having intelligence that Man Sing 
 intended to proclaim Prince Khusru as Akbar's 
 successor, and fearing to be seized by the Eajput 
 if he set foot in the palace. But when the Em- 
 peror had repeatedly declared his will that Salim 
 should reign in his stead, even Man Sing dared 
 not attempt anything, and reluctantly promised to 
 be true man to his brother-in-law. 
 
 It was the 4th of October 1605, in England 
 certain foolish and misguided men were unwill-
 
 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 227 
 
 ingly deferring the execution of their design to 
 blow up Westminster Hall, because Parliament 
 had been prorogued unexpectedly. In the great 
 red fort at Agra which he had built, Akbar lay on 
 his deathbed, and the son for whom he had asked 
 continually, stood at his side. Eound him were 
 the omrahs and the ministers whom the Emperor 
 had bidden Salim call into the room. " I cannot 
 bear that any misunderstanding should subsist 
 between you and those who have for so many 
 years shared in my toils and been the companions 
 of my glory." Looking on them for the last time, 
 he asked their forgiveness if he had injured or 
 offended them in any way. Repentant too late, 
 Salim flung himself down in a passion of tears ; 
 the Emperor could not speak, but pointed to his 
 sword and signed to the Prince to gird it on. In 
 a momentary revival of strength he threw his 
 arms round his son's neck, and bade him care 
 for the women of the family who would be left 
 desolate. The last commendation came brokenly : 
 "My servants and dependants when I am gone 
 do not forget the afflicted in the hour of need. 
 Ponder, word for word, on all I have said : again, 
 forget me not." In the night the weary soul 
 found freedom. 
 
 At the northern end of the ridge on which 
 Fatehpur-Sikri is built, stands one of the finest
 
 228 THE PASSING OF A DREAM 1569-1605. 
 
 portals in the world, the Baland Darwaza, on 
 which may yet be read the inscription that Akbar 
 placed there in 1602. The latter part, which 
 follows the record of his titles and his conquest 
 of the Deccan, perhaps embodies some of the 
 wisdom that he learned during those last years 
 of loneliness and disappointment. " Said Jesus 
 (on Whom be peace !), ' The world is a bridge, pass 
 over it, but build no house there. He who hopes 
 for an hour hopes for an eternity. The world is 
 but an hour; spend it in devotion, the rest is 
 
 unseen.'
 
 XL 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618 
 
 " Neither will this overgrown Elephant descend to Article or bind himself 
 reciprocally to any Prince upon terms of equality, but only by way of favour 
 admit our stay so long as it either likes him or those that govern him." 
 
 Sir THOMAS ROB (August 21, 1617).
 
 XL 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 IT was on an August day of 1608 that Captain 
 William Hawkins, trading for the East India 
 Company, brought his ship the Hector into the 
 Swally Roads, the harbour for Surat, and prepared 
 to deliver the letters and presents with which 
 King James I. of England had intrusted him "to 
 the princes and governors of Cambay." He soon 
 found that he had set his foot in a hornet's nest. 
 The Portuguese, who had once commanded the 
 European trade with the East, from the Cape of 
 Good Hope to China, now had to endure the 
 competition of the Dutch, and were not disposed 
 to admit another rival company. Hawkins was 
 told by the Portuguese officials in Surat that his 
 king was "King of Fishermen and of an Island 
 of no import," and that the seas belonged to his 
 Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain and Portugal, 
 without whose licence no one must presume to 
 come hither.
 
 232 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 Now William Hawkins was the nephew of that 
 Sir John Hawkins who started the trade in 
 African slaves, took part in repelling the Armada, 
 and died on Drake's last voyage to the West 
 Indies, and by his own showing he had in- 
 herited much of the family temper. "The King 
 of England's licence is as good as the King of 
 Spain's," was his reply ; " and so tell your great 
 Captaine that in abusing the King of Englande, 
 he is a base villaine, and a traytor to his King, 
 and that I will maintaine it with my sword if 
 he dare come on shore." 
 
 Some of the Emperor's officials interfered to 
 prevent the duel ; but the Portuguese, for the 
 time, had the upper hand. The Hector, sent by 
 Hawkins to trade at Bantam, was captured by 
 their ships as soon as she left Surat, and men 
 and goods taken to Goa, the chief Portuguese 
 settlement. Hawkins, who, with many an English- 
 man of all times up to our own, cherished the 
 faith that a Jesuit was capable de tout, accuses 
 the padres of Surat of suborning men to stab 
 and poison him while he waited for an opportun- 
 ity of presenting his credentials to the Emperor. 
 At last he succeeded in getting an escort, with 
 which he reached Agra in April 1609. 
 
 Immediately on his arrival, the Emperor sent 
 for him with such urgency that Hawkins had no
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 233 
 
 time to unpack suitable offerings for his Majesty 
 for it was a strict rule of Court etiquette that 
 no one might enter the presence without bringing 
 a gift. He was well received, and the Emperor 
 commanded "an old Jesuit" to translate King 
 James's letter. Anxious to lose no opportunity 
 of hindering a rival in trade, the padre began 
 "discommending the stile, saying it was basely 
 penned." " My answer was unto the King," says 
 the undaunted Hawkins, " ' And if it shall please 
 your Majesty, these people are our enemies ; how 
 can this letter be ill -written when my King 
 demandeth a favour of your Majesty?" This 
 appeal to common-sense was at once admitted, and 
 the Emperor took the Captain into the private 
 audience-chamber, where they talked together for 
 a long time. The Court language was Persian, 
 but Hawkins, in the course of his voyages, had 
 picked up Turkish, which, properly speaking, was 
 the native tongue of Babar's descendants, and 
 they could converse without an interpreter. 
 
 "Both night and day his delight was very 
 much to talk with me," says Hawkins, who 
 was soon to find this favour rather burdensome. 
 The Emperor took a violent liking to the English- 
 man whose honest bluntness made him as amusing 
 a companion as his capacity for drinking. When 
 the envoy asked leave, in the name of the East
 
 234 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 India Company, to establish an English factory 
 at Surat, the Emperor swore "by his father's 
 soul" to allow this upon the most favourable 
 terms, on one condition Hawkins must take 
 service with him. 
 
 After thinking the matter over, the captain 
 decided not to refuse, considering, as he told the 
 Company, that in a few years they would be able 
 to send someone to replace him, and meantime 
 " I should feather my nest, and do you service." 
 So Captain Hawkins became " Inglis Khan," one 
 of the nobles of the Court, to the furious jealousy 
 of " the Portugalls," who became " like mad dogs," 
 and the righteous indignation of devout Muslims. 
 
 He had to pay for his favour ; for twelve hours 
 out of every twenty-four, day or night, he must 
 serve his new master. Then he and all his 
 company suddenly became ill a catastrophe not 
 unlikely to happen to Europeans in Agra at any 
 time, particularly in the summer months. The 
 Emperor, however, had his suspicions, "and 
 presently called the Jesuites, and told them if 
 I died by any extraordinary casualtie, that they 
 should all rue for it." As a further precaution, 
 Hawkins was made to marry an Armenian girl, 
 who could cook his food and so prevent poison 
 from getting into it. Mrs Hawkins must have 
 proved a singularly good cook, for though the
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 235 
 
 bridegroom was at first unwilling to be tied to 
 her, on discovering in after years that their 
 marriage had not been legal, he was married to 
 her again with all due formalities. 
 
 Hawkins was not the first Englishman to visit 
 the Court of the potentate whom the English, with 
 their usual inaccuracy in regard to foreign titles, 
 styled "the Great Moghul." In the reign of 
 Akbar, three Englishmen had appeared at Fateh- 
 pur-Sikri, bearing a letter from Queen Elizabeth : 
 one vanished from history, one entered the 
 Emperor's service, and one, Ealph Fitch, a London 
 merchant, returned home to found " the Company 
 of Merchants of London trading to the East 
 Indies," incorporated by Royal Charter in 1600, 
 whose representative was Captain Hawkins. A 
 hundred years later it was amalgamated with 
 its most powerful rival, "the General Society 
 trading to the East Indies," and the joint firm 
 became the " John Company " that ruled par- 
 amount in India till 1858. 
 
 Salim, who had taken the name of "Jahangir" 
 ("World Grasper") on his accession, by this time 
 had sat on his father's throne for nearly four 
 years, and had not proved himself as wholly 
 unworthy a son of that father as had seemed 
 likely to those who noted the debauchery and 
 folly of his youth. He had gratified the mullahs
 
 236 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 by his professions of orthodoxy, and by restoring 
 the Muslim declaration of faith to the coins, and 
 had lessened the uneasiness of those who were 
 interested in public morality by forbidding his 
 subjects to drink wine or smoke tobacco, and 
 by restricting the use of opium. 
 
 Unfortunately it became apparent all too soon 
 that his subjects were to have no encouragement 
 in the paths of virtue from their Emperor's 
 example. Jahangir might tell his beads at break 
 of day, "eight chains of beads, four hundred 
 each," rubies, diamonds, pearls, and precious 
 stones, but the pictures of Our Lord and the 
 Virgin were engraved at the head of the " goodly 
 set stone" on which he prostrated himself, with 
 a lambskin for a praying mat. His subjects were 
 commanded to be sober, but Jahangir, between 
 wine and opium, was not able to feed himself 
 by supper-time, and must have the food put into 
 his mouth bit by bit. Akbar's large - minded 
 tolerance had in him become a determination to 
 do exactly as the moment's fancy seized him, 
 in religious matters or in anything else. 
 
 Once it is Manucci, the Venetian physician, 
 who tells the tale the Emperor invited himself 
 to dine with certain Jesuit fathers at Agra, and 
 drank wine and ate pork to his great content- 
 ment. On his return to the palace he called
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 237 
 
 together the doctors of the Law, and asked them 
 what religion allowed men to enjoy wine and 
 pork, to which the learned men made stern 
 reply that such shameful indulgence was allowed 
 only to Christians. His Majesty at once declared 
 that if such were the case he would be a Christian, 
 and live and dress as the Christians did, and 
 forthwith commanded that tailors should be 
 brought to the palace to cut out garments for 
 himself and the Court, " and that search should 
 be made for hats." 
 
 Whereupon the doctors suddenly discovered 
 that the Law, while binding upon meaner men, 
 said nothing about an emperor's diet, and 
 Jahangir talked no more of becoming a Christian, 
 although he allowed the baptism of two of his 
 nephews who afterwards recanted when they 
 were not able to obtain Portuguese wives. One 
 of his delights was to hold drinking bouts during 
 Kamazan, that great yearly feast when a Muslim 
 will not suffer even cold water to pass his lips 
 from sunrise to sunset. If it chanced that among 
 his guests were any who prayed to be excused, 
 Jahangir gave them their choice between feasting 
 as he bade them, or being thrown to the two 
 lions that were kept chained beneath the windows 
 of his palace " Eat or be eaten." 
 
 Not content with carousing in the palace, he
 
 238 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 would go out "to obscure punch-houses" in the 
 city, and hob-nob with men of the lowest class 
 from which it may be gathered that his edict 
 against drinking had been as successful as most 
 attempts at making men sober by legislation. 
 
 The ferocity of the Tatar, latent through many 
 generations of Timur's descendants, blazed out in 
 him. Impalement was his favourite punishment 
 for rebels. He delighted "to see men executed 
 and torn in pieces with elephants." He had 
 elephant fights five times a-week for his amuse- 
 ment, and whenever, as was inevitable, one of 
 the keepers was badly hurt, he was thrown into 
 the river. " Despatch him ! for as long as he 
 liveth he will do nothing else but curse me, and 
 therefore it is better that he die presently." At 
 one time he set men to " buffet with lions," and 
 many lost their lives in this way, he continuing 
 "three months in this vein when he was in his 
 humours/' until the keepers of his menagerie 
 succeeded in training fifteen little lion cubs to 
 box with them, "frisking between men's legs." 
 
 Yet there were glimmerings of better things 
 about this ruffianly drunkard. Daily he held a 
 public levee, as his father had done, and any one 
 with a grievance might call for justice by pull- 
 ing at " a rope hanged full of bells, plated with
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 239 
 
 gold," which was fastened to two pillars near the 
 Emperor's seat. If his subjects dared there was 
 frequent cause for laying hand on the rope ; " the 
 country is so full of outlaws and thieves," grumbled 
 Hawkins, " that almost a man cannot stir out of 
 doors throughout all his dominions without great 
 forces." 
 
 In one way at least he was careful to maintain 
 his father's custom ; never a newly-made widow 
 in Agra but was summoned before him and asked 
 whether she purposed of her own free will to burn 
 with her husband's corpse. He would use every 
 argument and inducement to keep them from 
 the sacrifice, but not one was ever turned aside 
 from her purpose. In our own days, when 
 English law has long withheld a woman, even 
 in the native states of India, from thus winning 
 salvation for herself and her husband, many a 
 widow, doomed to wear only a single garment, 
 to lay aside all her jewels, to eat but once in the 
 day, her presence an ill omen wherever she goes, 
 has longed for the fire. "They were much better 
 off when they were burned," said a Rajput a few 
 months ago, describing former times. "She rode 
 on a horse, and men walked on each side carrying 
 trays of jewels and gold, and she scattered them 
 among the crowd ; and then she mounted the
 
 240 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 pyre and took her husband's head on her knees, 
 and they gave her plenty of opium, and she 
 had had that one good day." 
 
 So Jahangir found the Hindu women of Agra 
 insistent in demanding their "one good day"; 
 and though for himself he cared nothing for 
 public opinion, he durst not keep them back 
 from getting to Heaven as they chose. 
 
 He professed great reverence for his father's 
 memory, ordaining that Sunday should be kept 
 as a holy day because it had been observed by 
 Akbar, and walking on foot from Agra to super- 
 intend the building of the tomb at Sikandra. " If 
 I could I would travel this distance upon my head 
 or my eyelashes." He vowed that his father's 
 tomb should be like none other, and he fulfilled 
 his vow : that many-storied building of red sand- 
 stone and white marble, standing in the garden 
 where the scarlet pomegranates and white jasmine 
 swing with the breezes, is unique in Indian archi- 
 tecture. Remorse for the conduct that had 
 hastened his father's end seems never to have 
 touched him. Narsing Deo, Abu-1-Fazl's mur- 
 derer, who had escaped from Akbar's justice 
 " with blistered feet," was received by him at 
 Court and promoted to high station. In his 
 Memoirs he frankly avows that he instigated 
 Narsing Deo, and that " God having rendered
 
 '*i$K 
 
 .^^+'*^f 
 
 Jahansir.
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 241 
 
 his aid to the success of the enterprise," the 
 slain man's head was sent to him. "Although 
 my father was exasperated at this catastrophe," 
 he concludes, " yet in the end I was able to visit 
 him without any anxiety or apprehension." 
 
 His Memoirs often recall Babar in their keen 
 interest in flowers, animals, and other natural 
 objects. An unknown bird, sent to him from 
 Goa, was so marvellous that the Court painter 
 was summoned to take its portrait : Jahangir's 
 long description shows it to have been a turkey- 
 cock. Like his father, he loved to experiment : 
 having heard that saffron in sufficient quantities 
 would bring on death amid convulsions of laughter, 
 he fed a condemned criminal upon saffron one day, 
 with no result ; next day he doubled the dose, 
 but still " it did not cause him even to smile, much 
 less to laugh," to the great disappointment of 
 the Emperor. 
 
 To an Englishman of the day, and a sailor to 
 boot, Jahangir's fondness for strong drink seemed 
 venial, if not praiseworthy, as setting one whom 
 the honest captain in his heart must have termed 
 " a black heathen " more on a level with ordinary 
 Christian folk. But the Emperor's frequent 
 changes of mind were beyond endurance ; the 
 permission to build the factory was alternately 
 given and revoked, according to the influence that 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 happened to be in the ascendant, for over two 
 years, until Hawkins, beyond all patience, took 
 leave of the Court, and started for England with 
 his Armenian wife. He died on the voyage home, 
 and never lived to tell his tale to the Company 
 by word of mouth, but his written narrative of 
 his mission happily remains to us. 
 
 Some few years later an Englishman of a very 
 different type came to Jahangir's Court. The 
 affairs of the Company had declined sensibly since 
 the days of Hawkins's nightly carouses with the 
 Emperor. "Master Edwards," their representative 
 at Surat, honest and conscientious, was of a gentle 
 disposition, and could not hold his own against 
 the tyranny of the government officers and the 
 insolence of the Portuguese and Dutch. He had 
 " suffered blows of the Porters, base Peons, and 
 been thrust out by them with much scorn by head 
 and shoulders without seeking satisfaction." Surat 
 was nominally under the rule of Prince Khurram 
 (better known as Shah Jahan), who favoured the 
 Portuguese, and the Portuguese had drawn up a 
 treaty not yet confirmed by which all English 
 traders were to be expelled from the Emperor's 
 dominions. Altogether, matters looked ill for our 
 interests, when four English ships cast anchor in 
 Swally Roads in September 1615, bringing Sir
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 243 
 
 Thomas Roe with letters and presents from James 
 I. to the Emperor. 
 
 At his arrival he was met by a demand from 
 the governor the prince's deputy that he and 
 all his companions, as well as their luggage, 
 should be searched. He had already claimed an 
 Ambassador's privileges, but "at this name of an 
 Ambassador they laughed one upon another ; it 
 being become ridiculous, so many having assumed 
 that title, and not performed the offices." It was 
 the custom of the Emperor's officials "to search 
 everything that came ashore, even to the pockets 
 of men's clothes on their backs," and they intended 
 to abide by it. 
 
 A stately figure was Sir Thomas Roe as he 
 landed amid a salute from the English ships, with 
 a face inclining to fleshy, curling locks rubbed 
 very thin on the forehead, firm mouth, and the 
 keen gaze that still looks round - eyed from his 
 portrait. The chief officers of Surat, " sitting 
 under an open Tent upon good carpets in grave 
 order," did not rise, as he came, whereupon he 
 sent word that he would come no farther if they 
 sat still. Perforce, they rose ; he entered the tent, 
 and taking his place "in the middle of them," 
 explained his embassy. Then the right of search 
 was hotly debated ; Roe would pledge his honour
 
 244 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 that none of his followers "had the worth of a 
 Pice of trade or Marchandice," but he would 
 never dishonour his master by submitting to such 
 slavery. 
 
 The officers, who in the previous year had 
 " very familiarly " searched poor Mr Edwards and 
 his company " to the bottom of their pockets, and 
 nearer too, modestly to speak it," when Koe had 
 turned as if to go back to the ship, suggested a 
 compromise. He, and five whom he chose, should 
 go free ; and the rest of the party they would 
 embrace, for form's sake, in order to be able to 
 certify that they had laid their hands on them. 
 
 On the way to the town a treacherous attempt 
 to search some of the Englishmen in defiance of 
 this agreement was defeated by the Ambassador, 
 who called for a case of pistols, and hung them at 
 his saddle. The officers then tried fair words, but 
 to no effect, and he came to the house assigned 
 to him in great dignity, " the sackbuts of the 
 town going before, and many following me." 
 
 Thereafter ensued a prolonged duel between 
 Roe and the governor, in which the Englishman's 
 inflexible honesty at last got the better of the 
 Oriental's cunning. He would not abate one 
 tittle of the ceremony due on either side ; he 
 would not give bribes or valuable presents, 
 " thinking it begat an ill custom " : he would
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 245 
 
 not be frightened or diverted from his purpose. 
 When, after more than a month spent in this 
 way, there came an order from the Emperor, 
 bidding all governors of provinces or towns to 
 attend the Ambassador with sufficient guard, and 
 not to meddle with anything that was his, the 
 governor " was very blank, desiring my friend- 
 ship, and offered me anything I would demand. I 
 answered it was now too late. . . . He demanded 
 if I were friends. I said until I heard new com- 
 plaints, which I expected hourly." And so the 
 Ambassador departed, clean of hand and fearless 
 of spirit as he came, and after a long and tedious 
 journey reached Ajmir, where Jahangir had been 
 staying for the last two years, carrying on a 
 campaign against the Rana of Udaipur. 
 
 On the way he had been taken with such a 
 violent attack of fever which, unlike Captain 
 Hawkins, he did not attribute to the Jesuits 
 that he nearly died, and though the Emperor 
 sent messages commanding his attendance, he 
 was not able to appear at the Durbar for more 
 than a fortnight. 
 
 It was unfortunate for him that King James 
 and the Company had exercised the parsimony 
 with regard to presents which has often, in later 
 days, caused our representatives in the East to 
 blush for shame. A pair of " virginalls," in
 
 246 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 charge of an English player, an English coach 
 with an English coachman, and some scarlet 
 cloth, were not fitting to either giver or 
 recipient, and Roe was obliged to substitute a 
 sword and scarf of his own for the cloth. At 
 first Jahangir seemed amused. " At night, having 
 stayed the coachman and musician, he came 
 down into a Court, got into the Coach, into 
 every corner, and caused it to be drawn about 
 by them. Then he sent to me, tho' ten o'clock 
 at night, for a servant to tie on his scarf and 
 sword, the English fashion, in which he took 
 so great pride that he marched up and down, 
 drawing it and flourishing it. So that in con- 
 clusion he accepted your presents well ; but after 
 the English were come away, he asked the 
 Jesuit 1 whether the King of England were a 
 great king that sent presents of so small value, 
 and that he looked for some jewels." 
 
 To this blunder, Roe added another of his own, 
 by neglecting to propitiate the Emperor's chief 
 wife, Nur-Jahan Begam. He was determined, as 
 he told the Company, " as well out of necessity 
 as judgment to break this custom of daily brib- 
 ing." Unluckily, Nur-Jahan's influence was par- 
 amount with the Emperor, and her brother, 
 Asaf Khan, the most powerful man at Court, had 
 
 1 Padre Corsi, the Portuguese representative at Jahangir's Court.
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 247 
 
 an inexhaustible appetite for bribes. Roe was 
 thwarted at every turn in his endeavours to place 
 the position of English merchants on a firm basis, 
 by obtaining a concession for them to trade in 
 all ports belonging to the Emperor. Such a con- 
 cession, duly sealed, could not be over-ridden by 
 any local authorities, and Roe toiled hard to 
 wring it from the Emperor, often seeing it within 
 his grasp, never succeeding in obtaining it. 
 
 Jahangir himself was friendly, and treated the 
 Ambassador with marked favour. Having had 
 it repeatedly dinned into his ears by the Portu- 
 guese that the English were nothing but low- 
 born huckstering traders "a nation of shop- 
 keepers," in fact, for which class the Moghuls 
 had the greatest contempt, and having formed 
 his own ideas of the English from jovial Captain 
 Hawkins and meek Master Edwards, it took him 
 some time to discover that the representative 
 of English traders could be a soldier and a gentle- 
 man. Roe, who had been Esquire of the Body 
 to Queen Elizabeth, and the close friend of 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, and whom the Prince's 
 sister, the "Queen of Hearts," called her "Honest 
 Tom " in familiar correspondence, insisted upon 
 being treated with the courtesy that was his due, 
 and would not enter the presence by the way set 
 apart " for mean men."
 
 248 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 A great obstacle to good understanding was the 
 want of a language in common. Roe knew neither 
 Persian nor Turkish nor " Portugall," and all com- 
 munications had to be made through the medium 
 of an interpreter, who was not always reliable. 
 One of the most amusing passages in Roe's diary 
 tells of an evening when he came to speak his 
 mind plainly to the Emperor, " being in all other 
 ways delayed and refused," and Asaf Khan having 
 at first shut out the interpreter, " an Italian 
 jeweller, a Protestant, that useth much liberty 
 with his tongue," when forced by the Emperor's 
 command to let him enter, strove " to awe him 
 by winking and jogging." As the interview pro 
 ceeded, and Roe's plain - speaking grew more 
 objectionable, the Khan made an attempt to 
 stop the interpreter by force, " but I held him, 
 suffering him only to wink and make unprofitable 
 signs." " We were very warm," confesses Roe, 
 who gained an admission from the Emperor that 
 his " demands were just, resolution noble," 
 and nothing more, except leave to stand where 
 he pleased at Court ceremonies. 
 
 The Court did not greatly impress him. " I 
 never imagined a Prince so famed would live 
 so meanly." He admits that the Audience- 
 Chamber " was rich, but of so divers pieces 
 and so unsuitable that it was rather patched
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 249 
 
 than glorious, as if it seemed to strive to show 
 all, like a lady that with her plate set on a 
 cupboard her embroidered slippers," one of the 
 shrewdest criticisms ever made of Indian magnifi- 
 cence. " Religions, infinite ; laws, none. In this 
 confusion, what can be expected ? " he writes, in 
 despair. The Nautch-girls who performed for his 
 diversion he dismisses with a scriptural epithet 
 which cannot be transcribed by a modern writer. 
 The Emperor's drinking-parties were a continual 
 disgust to him, though it was a mark of favour 
 to be bidden to them. On several occasions he 
 had to grope his way out of the room in the 
 dark, because the Emperor had fallen asleep, 
 after "drinking of our Alicant," and "the Candles 
 were popped out." At another time, on the 
 Emperor's birthday, the Ambassador was obliged 
 to drink his health in a cup of mingled wine 
 " more strong than ever I tasted, so that it made 
 me sneeze " ; however, he was told to keep the 
 cup, which being of gold set with jewels, with 
 a jewelled cover and stand, may have been some 
 consolation for his sufferings. 
 
 This was the most handsome present that Eoe 
 ever obtained from the Emperor, whose chariness 
 in giving was a matter for deep regret to the 
 Rev. Edward Terry, who acted for some time as 
 chaplain to the Embassy. According to custom,
 
 250 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 an ambassador was the guest of the monarch to 
 whom he was accredited ; in spite of this, Roe 
 was obliged to defray his own charges, and was 
 always in straits for money. During the first 
 months of his stay at Court, Jahangir sent him, at; 
 different times, some game, a man who had been 
 condemned for theft, and a woman who was turned 
 out of the royal harem for misconduct. In some 
 degree this was his own fault ; he would not 
 scramble with the grandees for hollow almonds of 
 gold and silver when the Emperor flung them 
 about on his birthdays. When Jahangir some- 
 times asked him " Why he did not desire some 
 good and great gifts at his hands, he being a great 
 King and able to give it," Roe would reply that he 
 came not to beg anything for himself; all that he 
 desired was " a free, safe, and peaceable trade for 
 the English," and when assured that this would be 
 granted, and again pressed to ask something for 
 himself, his rejoinder was, " If the Emperor knew 
 not better to give than he to ask, he must have 
 nothing from him." Finally, when he was seeking 
 justice for some injury to the English traders, and 
 a Court official would have soothed him with 
 promises of a robe of honour and a grant for his 
 travelling expenses, he returned answer, " That he 
 had no need of a Babylonish garment, nor needed 
 money."
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 251 
 
 Jahangir's own greed would have been laughable 
 if it had not caused intolerable inconvenience. 
 There were continual delays in sending up the 
 presents brought in 1616 by the English fleet, and 
 it was not until the beginning of 1617 that they 
 were despatched from Surat, under the charge of 
 Mr Terry, who had lately been appointed chaplain 
 to the Ambassador. The Emperor had left Ajmir 
 on a hunting expedition, and was now encamped 
 near Ujjain, the chief city of Malwa. 
 
 Great was Roe's indignation to hear that on 
 their way Mr Terry and his party had encountered 
 Prince Shah Jahan, who demanded to be shown 
 the presents for his father, " to fulfil his base and 
 greedy desire," and being met with a firm refusal, 
 had laid hands on bag and. baggage, and carried 
 everything off with him. The Emperor had left 
 camp on an elephant " to speak with a saint living 
 on a hill, who is reported to be 300 years old." 
 Roe had "thought this miracle not worthy my 
 examination," and remained behind ; he now rode 
 out to intercept his Majesty on return. "He turned 
 his monster to me and prevented me : ' My son 
 hath taken your goods and my presents ; be not 
 sad, he shall not touch nor open a seal nor lock ; at 
 night I will send him a command to free them.' ' : 
 
 Roe could say no more at the time ; but when 
 he went to attend the Emperor in the evening, he
 
 252 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 reverted to this and other grievances, while his 
 Majesty did his best to appease the storm by fair 
 words, and divert the discussion to safe general 
 subjects, such as "the laws of Moses, Jesus, and 
 Mahomet ; and in drink was so kind as to declare 
 that he meddled not with the faith of Christians, 
 Moors, or Jews who lived under his safety, and 
 none should oppress them." "And this often 
 repeated ; but in extreme drunkenness he fell to 
 weeping and to divers passions, and so kept us 
 till midnight." 
 
 It is to be feared that even the Rev. Edward 
 Terry's presence was inadequate restraint to the 
 Ambassador's emotion at the next news of his 
 "presents and goods" namely, that they had 
 been surrendered by Shah Jahan, and that the 
 Emperor, on their arrival, had forced them open, 
 and helped himself to anything that he fancied, 
 including Sir Thomas's own wearing apparel. 
 
 The furious Ambassador made his way at once 
 to the Presence : " trouble was in my face," he 
 grimly observes, and Jahangir began to pour 
 out excuses. It mattered nothing that some of 
 the presents had been intended for the Empress 
 and the Prince, since he, his wife, and his son 
 " were all one." He had taken only a few trifles 
 that pleased him two mastiffs, two embroidered 
 cushions, and a barber's case ; surely he need not
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 253 
 
 return them ? And there were " two glass chests, 
 very mean and ordinary " ; as one had been in- 
 tended for him and one for the Empress, surely 
 if he were " contented with one," that was very 
 reasonable. And then there were some hats ; his 
 Majesty confessed, with masculine readiness to 
 own where blame was due, that " his women 
 liked them." " One of them was mine to wear," 
 observed Sir Thomas. The Emperor was equal to 
 the occasion. " Then," he said, " you will not 
 take them from me, for I like them, and yours I 
 will return if you need it, and will not bestow 
 that upon me" "which I could not refuse," sighs 
 the Ambassador. After similar discussions over 
 pictures, a saddle, some carved figures, and " some 
 other small toys," the Emperor concluded the inter- 
 view by asking if Roe had "any Grape Wine?" " I 
 could not deny it. He desired a taste next night, 
 and if he liked it he would be bold " (to take it 
 all); "if not, he desired me to make merry with it." 
 There is small wonder that Sir Thomas was 
 reluctant to yield to the Emperor's request that 
 he should remain another year at the Emperor's 
 Court. The prospects for English trade just 
 then were more hopeful, the Empress for her own 
 ends having gone over to their side, followed, of 
 course, by Asaf Khan. In the end, however, he 
 could not gain the fulfilment of any of their fair
 
 254 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 
 
 promises. "You can never expect to trade here 
 upon conditions that shall be permanent," he 
 sadly warns the Company in February 1618. 
 " All the government depends upon the present 
 will, where appetite only governs the lords of the 
 kingdom." The most dangerous rivals were now 
 the Dutch, who, with characteristic insolence, used 
 every means of robbing and injuring the nation 
 that had befriended them in their worst extremity. 
 " They traduce (King James's) name and royal 
 authority, rob in English colours to scandal his 
 subjects, and use us worse than any brave enemy 
 would, or any other but unthankful drunkards that 
 we have relieved from Cheese and Cabbage, or 
 rather from a chain with bread and water. You 
 must speedily look to this maggot ; else we talk 
 of the Portugal, but these will eat a worm in your 
 sides." 
 
 In the following year Roe took his departure, 
 succeeding at the last in obtaining not the unre- 
 stricted liberty for English merchants to trade in 
 all ports, which had been his aim, but concessions 
 which " he thought as much in general as he could 
 expect or desire," and this he had gained by the 
 force of his own personality. He had shown an 
 Oriental Court what was the best type of an English 
 gentleman, and while they cursed him fervently, 
 they had the wit to respect him for being entirely
 
 THE WEST IN THE EAST 1608-1618. 255 
 
 unlike themselves. " For his sake all his nation 
 there seemed to fare the better," avows Mr Terry. 
 
 So he vanished from Indian history, this Ambas- 
 sador, whose boast it was, " I never gave a knife for 
 mine own ends, nor used the least baseness of 
 begging ; my riches are accordingly." Many 
 Englishmen since his day have passed the Exile's 
 Gate to represent their country's interests in one 
 capacity or another, and it is matter for thankful- 
 ness that the greater number of them could echo 
 his words in full truth. 
 
 His later life was spent in diplomatic service at 
 Constantinople, in Sweden, and in Germany. In 
 1643, when member for Oxford, he retired to Bath 
 for the benefit of his health. "At length," says 
 Anthony a Wood, "this worthy person, Sir 
 Thomas Eoe, did after all his voyages and ram- 
 blings take a little breath ; but soon after, seeing 
 how untowardly things went between the King 
 and his Parliament, did willingly surrender it to 
 Him that first gave it, on the 6th day of 
 November 1644." 
 
 His best epitaph would have been the verdict 
 delivered upon him by the Emperor Leopold, a 
 few years before : "I have met with many gallant 
 persons of many nations, but I scarce ever met 
 with an Ambassador till now."
 
 XII. 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628 
 
 "To have one rose, we suffer from a thousand thorns." Jami.
 
 XII. 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 LITTLE as good Sir Thomas Roe would have 
 suspected it, Jahangir had become a reformed 
 character since the days when Captain Hawkins 
 had first taken part in his carouses, and it was 
 a woman who had worked the reformation. 
 
 In the days of Akbar, Mirza Ghaias-ad-din, a 
 noble Persian of Teheran, having fallen upon 
 evil days, was journeying to India to seek his 
 fortune with his wife and three children. They 
 had reached Kandahar, when the wife gave birth 
 to another child ; they were penniless and friend- 
 less in a strange land ; the baby was only a girl, 
 and therefore of no value. So they laid her down 
 by the roadside, and left her there. 
 
 Now it happened that a rich merchant who was 
 travelling by the same caravan as the Mirza, as 
 they passed along the road next morning, saw 
 the forsaken baby, and picked her up, resolving
 
 260 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 to adopt her. When he asked whether any one 
 in the caravan could act as nurse, the child's 
 mother came forward, and in a little while 
 the whole truth was confessed. The merchant 
 employed Ghaias and his eldest son for a while, 
 and then recommended them to Akbar, who 
 gave them official posts. 
 
 Thus it happened that Muhr - i - Nisa, " Seal of 
 Womankind," as the baby was called, was about 
 the Court in her childhood, and came to the 
 monthly fairs instituted by Akbar, where the 
 ladies of the royal harem sold their own work 
 at the high prices which usually reward royal 
 industry or chaffered with the merchants' wives 
 who brought goods from every part of the king- 
 dom. Once she had strayed from the gabble 
 and the bustle around her to a quiet corner of 
 the garden, where Prince Salim, then no more 
 than a boy, passing by, saw her, and bade her 
 take care of his two tame doves while he went 
 off somewhere else. 
 
 On his return only one dove was there, and 
 in answer to his peremptory demand the child 
 confessed that she had "let it go." 
 
 "Stupid! how did you do it?" stormed the 
 angry boy. 
 
 " So, my lord," answered Muhr-i-Nisa, throwing
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 261 
 
 her arms apart, and letting the second dove fly 
 to rejoin its mate. 
 
 From that hour Salim fell in love with 
 the Seal of Womankind, who showed such an 
 " oncoming disposition " that the elders on both 
 sides took alarm ; the prince was lectured by 
 his father; the loveliest woman in India was 
 married forthwith to Sher Afkan, a young 
 Persian in the Emperor's service, and went with 
 her husband to his governorship of Bard wan, 
 in Bengal. 
 
 It is commonly believed that Jahangir, some 
 little time after his accession to the throne, had 
 Sher Afkan assassinated. If so, he did no worse 
 than King David, and with far more excuse ; but 
 the truth appears to be that, hearing complaints 
 of Sher Afkan's rule, the Emperor sent a new 
 governor to take over charge of Bardwan, while 
 the Persian came to Court to answer the charges 
 against him ; that Sher Afkan refused to obey, ran 
 one of the new governor's suite through the body, 
 and was thereupon cut down by the others, 
 His family were sent to Court, and his widow 
 was given into the austere charge of the Empress- 
 Dowager, Akbar's first cousin, 1 who had been 
 married to him in his childhood. Here she 
 
 1 She was the daughter of Prince Hindal.
 
 262 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 remained for four years, supporting herself by 
 painting and needlework. If any at Court re- 
 membered her, it was probably only to pity one 
 whose day was over. 
 
 One day as she sat at work among her slaves, 
 the Emperor entered. As she rose and saluted 
 him with downcast eyes, and arms folded on her 
 breast, he looked from the figure in the plain 
 white robe to the richly dressed slave - girls, and 
 a question broke forth, abruptly as at their first 
 meeting in the garden, long years since 
 
 " Why this difference between the Sun of 
 Womankind and her slaves?" 
 
 "Those born to servitude must dress as it shall 
 please those whom they serve," she answered. 
 " These are my servants, and I lighten the burden 
 of bondage by every indulgence in my power, but 
 I, who am your slave, Emperor of the world, 
 must dress according to your pleasure, and not 
 my own." 
 
 The old love that had leapt to birth at a word 
 from her lips woke again ; in a little while Jahan- 
 gir had married Muhr-i-Nisa, and changed her 
 name, first to "Nur - Mahal," "Light of the 
 Palace," and then to "Nur-Jahan," "Light of 
 the World." 
 
 Her first step was to remove, "either by
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 263 
 
 marriage or in other handsome ways," all women 
 of the harem who might be troublesome no 
 small number, probably, since Hawkins estimates 
 the expenses of " the King's women " at thirty 
 thousand rupees "by the day." In a little while 
 she was supreme : she sat aloft on the royal 
 balcony, where the officers came to receive her 
 orders ; her name was placed on the imperial seals, 
 and on the coinage, with that of the Emperor, 
 "a conjunction unparalleled in the history of 
 Mahommedan money." She cut down the expenses 
 of the Court while increasing its magnificence ; she 
 invented a becoming Court dress ; and, greatest 
 feat of all, she reduced the Emperor's potations. 
 
 A scandalous story, current in the time of 
 Jahangir's successor, told how Nur-Jahan, having 
 made her husband promise to drink no more than 
 a certain number of cups of wine at supper, 
 brought in musicians to divert him, and he, im- 
 perfectly satisfied, demanded more drink, and, on 
 its being denied, began to cuff his Empress and 
 how she retaliated by slapping and scratching, 
 until both went to bed in the worst possible of 
 humours. 
 
 Next day Jahangir was penitent, and ready 
 to own that all had been intended for his good. 
 Nur-Jahan, however, was irreconcilable, and shut
 
 264 THE LOVE OP AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 herself up in her rooms, declaring that she would 
 have nothing more to do with the Emperor until 
 he had bowed to her feet to ask her forgiveness. 
 
 It would have been impossible for the Padishah 
 to bow himself before a mere woman, even though 
 the woman were Nur-Jahan, and for some days 
 the situation was at a deadlock : the Empress 
 sulked and the Emperor moped. Then an old 
 woman came forward with words of wisdom : if 
 the Emperor stood in his balcony while Nur- 
 Jahan walked in the garden below, he might bow 
 to her, so that his shadow should kiss her feet, 
 and yet abate nothing of his dignity. 
 
 Nur-Jahan was growing tired of seclusion 
 perhaps a little afraid of the consequences to 
 herself should she continue it any longer. So 
 she accepted the compromise, and made prepar- 
 ations for a great festival to celebrate their 
 conciliation. 
 
 Next morning going down into the garden, 
 she was angered to find an oily substance floating 
 in the tanks which had been filled with rose- 
 water at her command. At first she thought that 
 someone had disobeyed her, and bathed there ; 
 then, after trying with a finger-tip, she realised 
 that she had made a great discovery. The rose- 
 water, heated by the sun, had given off the 
 precious essence known as " ata," whereof a few
 
 
 
 Nur Jahan Dressing Herself.
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 265 
 
 drops in dull glass bottles may sometimes be 
 found in old dressing-cases, relic of the clays 
 when it was a gift between princes, worth its 
 weight in gold. 
 
 This cannot have been the only time when 
 the cords by which she held the Emperor in 
 leash had nearly snapped asunder. A man of 
 over forty, soaked in drink, accustomed to ab- 
 solute power, was not an easy subject for refor- 
 mation. Her task was aided, in part, by the 
 fact that Jahangir's health had begun to break, 
 and that the physicians, with her to back them, 
 spoke plainly of the consequences to follow if 
 the Emperor persisted in drinking several quarts 
 of "double distilled liquor" in the day. Even 
 when most alarmed about his health, however, 
 the royal patient was anything but tractable. 
 When a violent illness had reduced him to living 
 upon gruel, his complaints were incessant. ''From 
 the time I arrived at years of discretion, I had 
 never, so far as I recollect, drunk such broth," 
 he grumbles in his Memoirs, " and I hope I may 
 never be obliged to drink it again." 
 
 As he drank less he took larger quantities of 
 opium, thereby, no doubt, weakening his will, 
 and bringing him to the state of good-humoured 
 indifference in which he used to say to his minis- 
 sters that Nur-Jahan Begam had been selected
 
 266 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 and was wise enough to conduct matters of state, 
 and that he only needed a bottle of wine and a 
 piece of meat to keep himself merry. For all 
 this, there must have been terrible moments 
 when she trembled inwardly lest the lion that 
 she had tamed would rend her in one of his 
 outbursts of fury. But through all danger she 
 held him fast, to die as he had lived, her lover. 
 One little touch in his Memoirs shows the terms 
 on which they were. In his fiftieth year the 
 Emperor was seized with a transient fit of re- 
 ligious emotion, and vowed never again to take 
 the life of any animal with his own hand. Shortly 
 afterwards, he was told that a fierce tiger was 
 infesting the neighbourhood, and set out at once 
 to put an end to its ravages. At the critical 
 moment, when the beast was about to spring, 
 he remembered his vow, and bade the Empress 
 shoot in his stead. He triumphantly records that 
 "Nur-Jahan killed at the first shot." 
 
 Of public events in Jahangir's reign there are 
 scarcely any to note. The Rana of Udaipur had 
 at last been brought to make submission, thereby 
 giving peace to Rajputana, for the time. There 
 were the usual revolts in Bengal, the usual cam- 
 paigns in the Deccan. Within the bounds of 
 Hindustan was as much peace as could be ex-
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 267 
 
 pected in a land where the ruler had four sons, 
 and there was no law of succession. 
 
 Prince Khusru, the eldest, who had intrigued 
 with Man Sing while Akbar lay on his deathbed, 
 had broken into open revolt, some four months 
 after Jahangir's succession, and seized upon La- 
 hore. Totally defeated in an engagement with 
 the Emperor's troops, he fled for his life, was cap- 
 tured, and brought in chains before his father. 
 His chief advisers, and many of the rank and 
 file in his army, were also prisoners. Jahangir 
 had no mind to have his ease disturbed by in- 
 cessant rebellions, and he determined to teach his 
 subjects what they might expect if they helped 
 his sons against himself. On a given day the 
 gates of Lahore were opened, and a royal proces- 
 sion passed out Prince Khusru on an elephant 
 preceded by a mace-bearer, and surrounded by 
 attendants. With its slow swaying movement 
 the elephant passed down a long lane stretching 
 from the gate. There, impaled on stakes, writhing 
 in an a.gony that might last for three days and 
 three nights, were seven hundred of the prisoners, 
 and as they moaned or cried aloud through black- 
 ening lips, the mace -bearer bade the wretched 
 prince receive the salutations of his servants. 
 
 Khusru, overcome with terror, would neither eat
 
 268 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 nor drink for three nights and days, " which he 
 consumed," observes his father, "in tears and 
 groans, hunger and thirst, and all those tokens 
 of deep repentance peculiar only to those on 
 earth who have sustained the character of prophets 
 and saints, but who have, nevertheless, found that 
 a slight daily repast was still necessary to the 
 support of life." 
 
 In spite of this terrible lesson the people were 
 still ready to risk everything if they might set 
 Khusru on the throne : the Emperor himself is 
 said to have loved his eldest son, though he was 
 forced to keep him prisoner. When Shah Jahan, 
 the second son, went to the Deccan, in the latter 
 part of Jahangir's reign, Khusru was sent with 
 him, because Shah Jahan, unpopular himself, durst 
 not leave one whom all men loved behind him 
 at Court. Khusru never returned : it may be 
 true that, as was officially declared, the Deccan 
 fever killed him. 
 
 Upon the whole, Nur - Jahan's influence over 
 Emperor and empire had been for good : it was 
 not in woman's nature, however, that her own 
 kin should fail to profit by her good fortune, 
 and father and brothers were soon advanced 
 to high office. Ghaias-ad-din, scholar, poet, and 
 shrewd man of business, was renowned for his 
 benevolence to the poor which he could well
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 269 
 
 afford, seeing that his audacity in taking bribes 
 excited the wonder and the wistful admiration 
 of every annalist who mentions his name. He 
 died before the end of the reign, and is buried 
 beyond the Jumna at Agra, in the white marble 
 tomb with lace - like screens and mosaics of 
 coloured flowers which still remains one of the 
 glories of the city, although the Taj -Mahal and 
 the Pearl Mosque have arisen since the day 
 when Nur-Jahan mourned her father. 
 
 A more important person was Asaf Khan, his 
 son, who became to all intents and purposes 
 the ruler of the empire. 
 
 In the latter years of Jahangir's reign he 
 became subject to violent attacks of asthma, 
 and his sons began the usual intrigues for the 
 succession. Shah Jahan, so far as abilities went, 
 was marked out for the future Emperor ; he 
 had proved himself a general and an adminis- 
 trator. But his impassible, unsmiling counten- 
 ance and the cold reserve of his manners were 
 a tacit reproach to his father, who had vainly 
 endeavoured to make him drink wine, and ren- 
 dered him generally unpopular. By way of 
 strengthening his position, he had married Asaf 
 Khan's daughter, an alliance which apparently 
 became something more than the ordinary 
 mariage de convenance for reasons of state,
 
 270 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 since it was over her grave in years to come 
 that he erected the Taj -Mahal as a monument 
 of his undying love and remembrance. 
 
 So far as the Emperor had any feeling, he 
 was thought to prefer his third son, Parviz, 
 "who could drink level with himself"; but Nur- 
 Jahan could twist him round her finger, and 
 his inclinations counted for very little. It is 
 said that, knowing her husband's life could not 
 be long, and that she would have no chance of 
 influencing the cool, level-headed Shah Jahan, 
 she married her daughter to Shahriyar, Jahangir's 
 youngest son, handsome as a god, and an absolute 
 fool, henceforth exerting all her wits to make 
 him his father's heir. 
 
 Shah Jahan, recognising the position, followed 
 the time-honoured precedent, and rebelled. After 
 various excursions and alarums he was obliged 
 to submit, and send two of his sons as hostages 
 to Court, having been defeated and chased from 
 place to place by his brother Parviz and Mahabat 
 Khan, the Emperor's Pathan general. 
 
 Mahabat Khan was one of the few at Court 
 whom the Empress had failed to bend or cajole 
 to her will ; and there was ill-feeling between 
 himself and Asaf Khan. Whether he guessed 
 what she was plotting and prepared to oppose 
 it, or whether she intended to goad him into
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 271 
 
 rebellion, knowing that he must be moved from 
 her path at all costs, this much is certain that 
 he was summoned to Court to answer charges 
 of oppression and embezzlement. 
 
 It was usual for persons of high rank to ask 
 leave of the Emperor before marrying any of 
 their children : perhaps Mahabat feared that 
 he should not return from the presence, and 
 meant to ensure his daughter's safety. At any 
 rate, before setting out he betrothed his daughter 
 to a young noble without asking leave of any 
 man. It was foolish, for it gave Jahangir a pre- 
 text for making a quarrel ; and it proved to be 
 most unfortunate for the bridegroom, who sud- 
 denly found himself bidden to Court, and there 
 stripped naked in the Emperor's presence, cruelly 
 beaten with thorns, and all his property taken 
 from him, including his wife's dowry. 
 
 Jahangir, on his way to put down an insur- 
 rection at Kabul, had reached the bridge of boats 
 across the river Behat. 1 He sent the main body 
 of his army across, meaning to follow with Nur- 
 Jahan and their attendants when the press 
 and crowding was over. Mahabat, arriving with 
 five thousand Rajputs, was told that the Emperor 
 would not see him. 
 
 It was the hour before daybreak on a March 
 
 1 Better known as the Hydaspes.
 
 272 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 morning. Nur-Jahan was in her tent among her 
 women ; Jahangir lay on his couch sleeping off 
 the effects of the last night's carouse, when the 
 tread of feet and the clank of arms resounded in 
 his ears, and he started up to find the tent full 
 of Rajput warriors, and recognised the general's 
 face. "Ah, Mahabat Khan ! Traitor ! what is 
 this?" 
 
 As he prostrated himself to the earth, Mahabat 
 bewailed the unprincipled conduct of his enemies 
 which obliged him thus to force his way into the 
 presence of the Emperor of the world. 
 
 The scene that followed was like a fencing-bout 
 between two well-matched adversaries. First of 
 all, Mahabat implored the Emperor to show him- 
 self in public " to remove alarm, and check the 
 misrepresentations of the ill-disposed." Jahangir 
 cheerfully agreed, and would go at once into the 
 other tent to dress himself. This meant com- 
 munication with Nur-Jahan, so it was respectfully 
 represented to him that he had better change his 
 garments where he was. Jahangir again agreed, 
 and after dressing, mounted his favourite horse, 
 when again the Khan interposed ; an elephant 
 was the better conveyance, for safety and for 
 conspicuousness. Resistance was useless ; two 
 thousand Rajputs held the bridge, and Rajputs 
 surrounded the royal tents. Jahangir's mahout
 
 THE LOVE OP AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 273 
 
 was cut down at Mahabat's command, as he tried 
 to make his way through the throng to his master ; 
 but the cup-bearer, managing to scramble up on 
 the elephant, with bottle in one hand and glass 
 in the other, Jahangir found consolation, even 
 though he was at once taken off to Mahabat's 
 quarters. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the midst of panic and dismay, 
 Nur-Jahan had not lost presence of mind. As 
 soon as she realised what had befallen the 
 Emperor, she disguised herself, entered a common 
 palanquin, and crossed the bridge unhindered by 
 the Kajputs. Once upon the other side of the 
 river, she sent for the Emperor's generals. " This 
 has all happened through your neglect and stupid 
 arrangements ! " she cried, and scourged them with 
 her tongue until they vowed to save their master 
 from captivity. 
 
 While they debated the means, a messenger 
 arrived, bearing Jahangir's signet, and his com- 
 mands that they would not attack. Whether 
 this were done at Mahabat's compelling, or 
 whether the Emperor were really afraid of what 
 might happen to himself in the melee, Nur-Jahan 
 treated it with indifference. She would attack 
 when she pleased, but that should not be until 
 she knew in what part of the camp the Emperor 
 was imprisoned. 
 
 s
 
 274 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 In the night one of the Khans tried to rescue 
 the Emperor by swimming the river, but barely 
 escaped with life, many of the small body of horse 
 that followed him being shot down by the Rajputs 
 or drowned. Next morning it was Nur-Jahan 
 herself who led down the troops to battle on a 
 tall elephant, her bow in her hand, and her baby 
 grandchild, Prince Shahriyar's daughter, with its 
 nurse, seated in the howdah beside her. 
 
 The Kajputs had burned the bridge, and the 
 imperial troops had to splash through a dangerous 
 ford to reach their enemies. Some were swept 
 down-stream, some slain as they gained the beach ; 
 all were drenched and had their powder wetted. 
 The engagement ended in a rout, many of the 
 imperial troops being trampled underfoot or 
 drowned. The driver of Nur-Jahan's elephant 
 was killed, the elephant, wounded by a sword- 
 cut, plunged into the river, and sank in deep 
 water. An arrow went through the howdah and 
 entered the nurse's shoulder. 1 When at last the 
 elephant had struggled to shore, the women who 
 gathered round it found the Empress seated within 
 her blood-stained howdah binding up the wound, 
 after having taken out the arrow, calm as in her 
 rose-gardens at Agra, though all around her was 
 lamentation and outcry. 
 
 1 Another version of the story makes the baby the victim.
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 275 
 
 The strong arm, the power of man, had failed ; 
 it remained for the woman to try her weapons. 
 Nur-Jahan left the army and set off to Mahabat's 
 camp, where she entreated to be allowed to share 
 her husband's captivity. 
 
 Her star was at its lowest point by this time ; 
 Asaf Khan, her brother, had fallen into the hands 
 of the rebels, and she was told by Mahabat that 
 the Emperor, weary of her intrigues, had signed 
 an order for her execution. 
 
 Still Nur-Jahan was unmoved : she was ready 
 to die if it was her lord's pleasure ; all she asked 
 as a last favour was to be allowed to kiss the 
 hand that had showered benefits upon her. After 
 that audience, which Mahabat durst not refuse, 
 no more was heard of the death-warrant. She 
 remained with her husband, and though the Khan 
 might fear and suspect, he was never able to 
 detect her hand on the threads that were weaving 
 themselves about him night and day. 
 
 Jahangir seconded her nobly : he pretended to 
 rejoice at being rid of Asaf s domineering ; he took 
 Mahabat aside and warned him, sadly, that he 
 must not be deceived by the Empress, who, un- 
 happily, cherished a grudge against him and 
 would do him an ill turn if she had the chance. 
 Mahabat fell into the snare : believing that his 
 influence with the Emperor was established, he
 
 276 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 gave himself no trouble to propitiate others, and 
 his insolence disgusted every one. 
 
 The whole party Mahabat Khan, his army, 
 and his prisoners were advancing towards Kabul, 
 and for fear of the Afghans the Emperor's body- 
 guard must be increased. There was a violent 
 quarrel between the Kajputs and the Emperor's 
 troops, leading to an affray in which life was lost 
 on both sides. Meanwhile Nur-Jahan's agents 
 were recruiting men everywhere in the neigh- 
 bourhood, where sympathy with the Emperor 
 ran high, and sending some by twos and threes 
 to enlist in the camp, while the rest waited for 
 orders at certain stations. 
 
 Then she made Jahangir propose a review ; 
 Mahabat Khan demurred on the ground of risk. 
 The Emperor was willing to listen to reason, but 
 he had set his heart upon the amusement ; besides, 
 it was really necessary that he should see with 
 his own eyes what troops were at his disposal 
 for going against these rascally Afghans. It 
 would surely be quite safe if Mahabat did not 
 accompany him to the review, but remained in 
 the camp ready to appear at the least symptom 
 of disorder. In fact, it would be the wiser course, 
 since who knows ? he might be assassinated by 
 some scoundrelly fellow at Nur-Jahan's instigation. 
 
 So Mahabat remained in his tent, and Jahangir
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 277 
 
 went forth alone. No sooner had the Emperor 
 reached the centre of the line than Nur-Jahan's 
 levies closed round him, cutting off the Eajputs, 
 and he and she were borne away in triumph. 
 
 Mahabat Khan saw that the game was lost ; 
 luckily for him, the Empress durst not go to 
 extremities while her brother remained in his 
 hands, and terms of peace were arranged. Asaf 
 Khan was released, and Mahabat covenanted to 
 go down to the Deccan and keep in check Shah 
 Jahan, who, owing to the recent death of Prince 
 Parviz, had become formidable once more. This 
 scheme was not altogether successful, as in a 
 little while Mahabat, having again thrown off 
 his allegiance, joined the prince instead of fight- 
 ing him. 
 
 Jahangir, after restoring order at Kabul and 
 Lahore, had gone up to Kashmir, where Akbar's 
 successors generally spent the summer months. 
 Here he was seized with one of his violent 
 attacks of asthma, and as autumn was at hand 
 the Empress hurried him down to the plains, 
 meaning to winter in Lahore. On the way 
 down, though ill and feeble, he ordered an 
 antelope drive, and while he stood with his gun 
 waiting for the herd to pass, a beater fell over 
 the precipice and was dashed to pieces, almost 
 at his feet.
 
 278 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 From that moment the ghastly face of the 
 dead man was always before the Emperor's eyes ; 
 he rejected wine, and muttered that he had seen 
 a vision, that Azrael, the angel of death, had 
 taken the shape of the beater. He died in his 
 tent when he had only gone about one-third of 
 the way to Lahore, in October 1627. 
 
 Shahriyar, always a fool, happened to be out 
 of the way at that time. Shah Jahan was also 
 absent, which tended to equalise the circum- 
 stances. Nur-Jahan declared for her son-in-law. 
 Whether she would have ruled the son as suc- 
 cessfully as the father, can never be known, for 
 in making her calculations she had not reckoned 
 with a father's ambition. Asaf Khan might be 
 grateful to the sister who made him the first 
 man in the state, but after all she had had her 
 day, and it was only fair to give his daughter 
 her turn. So he sent an urgent summons to the 
 Deccan to invite Shah Jahan to take possession, 
 and then marched upon Lahore, where Shahriyar, 
 who had seized upon the treasury, came out to 
 meet him. The prince was defeated, and when 
 he took refuge in the fort his own followers be- 
 trayed him to Asaf Khan. He was put to death 
 by Shah Jahan's command. After all, perhaps 
 this was the truest kindness for a pretender to 
 the throne, as it undoubtedly was for the country.
 
 Jahangir Embracing Shah Jahan
 
 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 279 
 
 When he was little more than a baby Shahriyar 
 had taken blows from his father without a whimper, 
 because "princes must not cry"; it is to be hoped 
 that the same spirit sustained him when he had 
 to face the executioner. 
 
 Nur- Jahan, at first held under some sort of 
 restraint by her brother, put on the white robe 
 of widowhood, and never appeared in public again. 
 In the days of her prosperity " she was an asylum 
 for all sufferers," devoting herself especially to 
 endowing portionless girls in marriage : she now 
 gave herself up entirely to prayer and good works, 
 renouncing all worldly pleasure. Shah Jahan, to 
 his credit be it said, allowed her a pension of 
 250,000 a-year until her death in 1646. 
 
 Asaf Khan was suitably rewarded for his loyalty. 
 We have a glimpse of him, in the last year of his 
 life, from the ' Itinerary ' of Padre Manrique, an 
 Augustinian missionary who visited India in 1640, 
 and was present at a banquet given by the minister 
 in his palace at Lahore to the Emperor Shah Jahan. 
 The pictures on the palace-walls included scenes 
 from the life of St John the Baptist. The Emperor 
 came accompanied by " a great train of beautiful 
 and gallant ladies," who were unveiled, and after 
 four hours' feasting the company were entertained 
 by " twelve dancing women, who performed in a 
 manner unsuited to Christian society."
 
 280 THE LOVE OF AN EMPEROR 1606-1628. 
 
 In Akbar's fort at Agra you may see " Jahan- 
 gir's palace," with the great dragons carved upon 
 the stone cross-beams of the roof. 1 He lies far 
 away, in the Shahdara Garden at Lahore. The 
 Sikhs used his tomb as a quarry for the material 
 of their "Golden Temple" at Amritsar, and "the 
 illustrious resting-place of his Majesty, the Asylum 
 of Mercy." is shorn of its proportions. Here Nur- 
 Jahan prayed for nineteen years of widowhood ; 
 and close beside it she built the tomb where she 
 sleeps to this day. 
 
 1 Experts consider this palace to be one of much earlier date than 
 the time of Jahangir.
 
 XIII. 
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT- 
 
 1628-1658 
 
 "The monarch who erected the Mosque at Ajmir, the Pearl Mosque at 
 Agra, and the Taj-Mahal, left the world richer than he found it." 
 
 G. W. FORREST.
 
 XIII. 
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 
 1628-1658. 
 
 IF there is any city in the East where the 
 splendours of the Arabian Nights are still cred- 
 ible, where emeralds as big as turkeys' eggs, 
 palaces with golden roofs, female slaves with 
 voices of nightingales, afrits and enchanted prin- 
 cesses would seem only to be in their proper place, 
 it is within the red sandstone walls, a mile and 
 a half in circuit, of the fort that Akbar built at 
 Agra. 
 
 For when Shah Jahan the Magnificent came to 
 his own, it was here that he raised palaces and 
 halls such as no ruler in Hindustan has built 
 before or since his time. Above all rise the 
 marble domes and glittering spires of the Pearl 
 Mosque a revelation to those who only know 
 " white marble " as the dank, lifeless substance 
 seen in Western lands, and have never realised 
 the exquisite tints, from that of old lace or old
 
 284 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 ivory to an almost golden glow to which the 
 Eastern sun ripens it. There is the Audience 
 Hall, where the Emperor sat daily to give justice, 
 robed in cloth of. gold, a diamond aigrette in his 
 turban, ropes of enormous pearls round his neck ; 
 the private Audience Hall, with groups of natural 
 flowers that almost seem to grow upon the marble 
 slabs ; the Grape Garden, the soil of which was 
 brought from Kashmir ; the White Pavilion, where 
 Shah Jahan sat with his Queens, looking out upon 
 a red sandstone court, and fished in the tank 
 below. In the walls of the ladies' rooms are 
 recesses, too small for any but an Eastern woman's 
 hand, where they kept their jewels at night. To 
 the little " Gem Mosque," three tiny aisles, 
 crowned by three domes, they came to pray, by 
 a screened passage. In the vaults below there 
 was given proof that neither the splendours of 
 the Court nor the consolations of religion could 
 satisfy every woman : some of the caged birds 
 tried to slip out between the bars, and being 
 discovered, were led down to the cell where was 
 a pit, and over the pit a silken rope dangling 
 from a beam. 
 
 Once upon a time, they say, the flowers in the 
 Jasmine Tower (the Queens' pavilion) were inlaid 
 with emerald, rubies, and sapphires, but those were 
 picked out long ago, and sold to supply Shah
 
 Shah .Tahan.
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 285 
 
 Jahan's feeble successors with bread, though tor- 
 quoise, cornelian, and jasper are still left in the 
 place where Italian workmen laid them. Other- 
 wise these fairy buildings, that seem like the 
 work of enchantment, have suffered comparatively 
 little with years : the worst damage was done in 
 1875, when, to celebrate the Prince of Wales' visit, 
 the red sandstone pillars of the Audience Hall 
 were whitewashed and striped with gilt. 
 
 Looking across the river, you may see among 
 a knot of green trees, between the cobalt of the 
 sky and the yellow of the sand, like a gigantic 
 bubble, the dome of the Taj - Mahal. So Shah 
 Jahan, in the midst of his splendours, must have 
 looked over and over again, for the monument 
 he had raised to his wife Aliya Begam, Arjumand 
 Banu, or Mumtaz - i - Mahal (the last signifying 
 " Elect of the Palace "), as the annalists con- 
 fusingly name her. Nearly eighteen years did it 
 take in building, and when it was finished so 
 tradition says Shah Jahan put out the eyes of 
 the principal architect, that he might never build 
 its like. Down to the Jasmine Pavilion Shah 
 Jahan was borne, after seven years of captivity 
 in the Gem Mosque, that his dying gaze might 
 rest once more on the tomb of the wife he had 
 loved and lost, and never sought to replace. 
 
 From the time when he ascended the throne
 
 286 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 in 1628, Shah Jahan had laid aside the cold, 
 repellent manner which had made him disliked 
 in his youth ; his kindliness won the hearts of all 
 who were brought in contact with him, and his 
 passion for show and state delighted the multi- 
 tude. Hindu, Muslim, and Christian united to 
 praise his equity, his justice, his generosity, and 
 his toleration. His rule was compared to that 
 of a father over his children. Curiously enough 
 for one who was three parts Hindu, 1 he was a 
 more orthodox Sunni than his father or his grand- 
 father it is said owing to the influence of his 
 wife, who, like most good wives and mothers, 
 was orthodox. But the Hindus rose to civil and 
 military honours under him, as in the days of 
 Akbar, and Jesuit missionaries were welcome at 
 Agra, though their church, built by the favour 
 of Jahangir, was partially destroyed. Perhaps the 
 Emperor could not endure the clang of its bell, 
 which we are told could be heard all over the city. 
 Reading the descriptions of his state given by 
 Tavernier, Mandelslo, and other visitors from 
 Europe, the thought rises that someone must have 
 paid for all this magnificence, and the taxpayers 
 might have told another tale of the Emperor's 
 benevolence and generosity. But it is certain 
 
 1 His mother was a Rajput ; both his grandmothers had been 
 Rajputs also.
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 287 
 
 that the prosperity of the empire increased greatly 
 in his time, aided by the comparative peace and 
 quietness both internally and externally. At his 
 accession Shah Jahan had disposed of pretenders 
 to the throne ; there was always fighting in the 
 Deccan, to be sure, but that was far away. 
 
 So the Emperor was free to enjoy himself, to 
 spend the summers in the cool valleys of Kashmir 
 and the winters in Agra, or, as he grew older and 
 found the climate of Agra trying, in the new city 
 " Shahjahanabad," which he built at Delhi, within 
 a circuit of walls seven miles round. Bernier, the 
 French traveller, who saw it in its glory, has 
 left us a description of it in the days when the 
 private rooms of the palace alone covered more 
 than twice the space of any European palace, 
 when the Audience Hall was roofed with silver, 
 and the throne, standing on four feet of solid 
 gold set around with pearls, blazed with rubies, 
 emeralds, and diamonds, a peacock flashing a tail 
 of sapphires and other stones above it, and the 
 Koh-i-Nur sending a dull gleam from the front 
 of its pearl-fringed canopy. 
 
 The glory had departed long before the time of 
 the Indian Mutiny ; when Bishop Heber visited 
 the palace, early in the nineteenth century, "all 
 was dirty, desolate and forlorn." Shining roof and 
 glittering throne had been carried off by spoilers,
 
 288 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 and birds built their nests in the throne recess. 
 At least in these days it is kept clean, and what 
 is left of gold and inlay work gives a faint shadow 
 of the glory of the time when Shah Jahan set 
 up the inscription on the panels on the north 
 and south sides of the Audience Hall "If a 
 Paradise be on the face of the earth, it is this, it 
 is this, it is this." 
 
 An existence spent in building palaces and 
 moving from one to another of them was not 
 likely to strengthen moral fibre, and as Shah Jahan 
 advanced in years he became more and more given 
 over to ease and comfort, less and less inclined to 
 trouble himself about the heterogeneous parts of 
 the empire that he was supposed to govern, pro- 
 vided that all went smoothly in his immediate 
 neighbourhood. Even his better qualities contri- 
 buted to his downfall : for many years he had 
 been practically the husband of one wife, the lady 
 of the Taj, and when she died in giving birth to 
 her fourteenth child, although he had consolations 
 of a different sort, it was to her children, and not 
 to other wives, that he turned for companionship. 
 
 Innumerable fairy tales begin, "There was once 
 upon a time a king who had three sons " ; the 
 tragedy of Shah Jahan's life might begin, " There 
 was once upon a time a king, and he had four 
 sons." He had daughters as well, whom he loved
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 289 
 
 so much that, like Charlemagne, he would never 
 give them in marriage, with precisely the same 
 consequences. The elder, Jahanara Begam, has 
 two claims to remembrance, independently of her 
 own doings. It was in her honour that her father 
 built the great mosque at Delhi, which every 
 tourist knows ; and it was for her sake that her 
 father once sent a message to the English factory 
 at Surat, commanding that their doctor should 
 come to Court immediately. The princess had a 
 favourite dancing girl, whose skirt had caught 
 fire one day when she was with her mistress : in 
 trying to save the girl, Jahanara had been terribly 
 burned, and the Emperor was in misery at the 
 thought of injury to her extraordinary beauty. 
 There was an English doctor at the factory, Gabriel 
 Boughton, who came in haste, and succeeded in 
 curing the patient, in spite of the obstacles thrown 
 in the way of European practitioners by harem 
 etiquette. When the Emperor bade him name his 
 reward, he would take neither gold nor jewels, 
 neither a place at Court nor a grant of land ; all 
 he asked was that the East India Company should 
 have leave to trade in Bengal from that time 
 forth. He obtained what he wanted, and went 
 his way, one of the many Englishmen who at all 
 times have been content to spend themselves 
 without reward for the sake of England,
 
 290 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 Jahanara, to whom her father gave the title of 
 " Padshah Begam," was allowed to accompany him 
 everywhere, and to live in her own palace, instead 
 of being shut up in the harem with the rest of 
 the women. A younger daughter, Roshanara, less 
 clever, less beautiful, though more given to mirth 
 and light-heartedness than her stately sister, had 
 less influence and was less privileged. "She was 
 generous," we are told, " and drank wine when she 
 could get it " ; otherwise there is not much good 
 to be said of this princess, who was as intriguing 
 as she was hard-hearted. 
 
 Of the four sons, Dara Shukoh, the eldest, his 
 father's favourite and Jahanara's idol, contrived 
 to alienate more by his arrogance and overbearing 
 temper than he conciliated by his frankness and 
 generosity. He would not take advice, even from 
 those who were devoted to his interests ; where 
 he despised or disliked, he would not dissemble. 
 Shuja, though clever, was a drunkard, and if 
 Murad had ever possessed any wits he had 
 addled them by gluttony and self-indulgence. 
 
 Aurangzib, the third son, is one of the most 
 extraordinary riddles in history. In his religious 
 zeal, his narrow - minded conscientiousness, his 
 attention to petty detail, he recalls Philip II. of 
 Spain ; but even when accepting the worst that 
 partisan writers have laid to Philip's charge as
 
 Shah Jahan and his Sons Visiting a Holy Man.
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 291 
 
 a private individual, such as the strangling of his 
 son and the poisoning of his half-brother, there 
 is nothing to approach what can be proved against 
 Aurangzib. None of his own family loved him 
 except the Princess Roshanara, who was his 
 spy and his confidant, though only to a certain 
 extent, for he suspected all men, and never trusted 
 any one entirely. His father and grandfather dis- 
 liked him, even as a boy, and had nicknamed 
 him the "White Snake," in allusion to his fair 
 complexion. A legend was current in the palace 
 that before one of her numerous confinements, 
 the lady of the Taj had an irresistible longing for 
 apples, which were not to be found. Shah Jahan, 
 going himself in search of them, met a holy faquir, 
 who gave him an apple, with two solemn warn- 
 ings to expect death when his hands should not 
 smell of apples during an illness, and to beware 
 of the White Snake, who would be the destruc- 
 tion of his race. 
 
 When only twenty-four, Aurangzib had declared 
 his intention of renouncing the world much to 
 the relief of his brothers, who had nothing in 
 common with the cold reserved youth. He put 
 on a faquir's dress, retired to the Western Ghats, 
 and practised asceticism in various forms. It 
 may have been a genuine though short-lived 
 longing after holiness, or it may have been a
 
 292 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 ruse to throw dust in the eyes of his brothers, 
 and make them believe him devoid of ambition : 
 his later life shows either motive to have been 
 equally probable. Whatever was his real purpose, 
 he came back to the world after an interval of 
 retirement. 
 
 Then Shah Jahan committed a fatal error : 
 disliking to be troubled as he advanced in years, 
 he divided the empire into four parts, giving one 
 to each of his sons to rule as his viceroy. Shuja 
 had Bengal, and Murad revelled in Gujarat. 
 Dara, nominally lord of Multan and Kabul, re- 
 mained at Delhi with the father who could not 
 bear to lose his company, and had his chair of 
 gold set close to the throne, though out of respect 
 to the Emperor he would never sit upon it. 
 
 Aurangzib, originally sent to Multan, soon 
 wearied of a post where he had no chance of 
 distinguishing himself, and turned longing eyes 
 to the south, where the five kingdoms were fall- 
 ing to decay. He wrote to Dara, with whom 
 he had quarrelled, pleading that his health was 
 suffering from the climate of Multan ; would not 
 his brother use his influence with their father 
 to have him sent to command in the Deccan ? 
 Dara bore no malice ; Shah Jahan yielded to his 
 entreaties, with the unheeded warning, "You act
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 293 
 
 on behalf of a venomous snake, and you will have 
 to suffer from its poison." 
 
 Aurangzib had already commanded in three 
 campaigns in the North- West, one beyond the 
 Hindu Rush, and two undertaken in the hope of 
 regaining Kandahar, which had been seized by 
 the Persians. Each time he was unsuccessful, but 
 he gained experience, and the army had learned 
 confidence in him. As soon as he had arrived 
 in the Deccan, he began a vigorous harrying 
 of the Kings of Golkonda and Bijapur. who. as 
 Shia heretics, were even more deserving of chas- 
 tisement than the infidel over whom they ruled. 
 
 He was everywhere successful : the Muslim 
 kingdoms of the Deccan, like the Moghul empire, 
 were rotten at the heart, and their rulers could 
 no longer hold what they had held. Without 
 declaration of war, on pretence of marrying his 
 son, Aurangzib marched towards Hyderabad, the 
 capital of Golkonda, and took it by surprise, 
 while the King was actually preparing to enter- 
 tain him as a guest. Among the spoils was the 
 " great diamond " once surrendered by Humayun 
 to Shah Tahmasp, which had found its way south- 
 ward, and, as usual, brought ruin wherever it 
 went. Aurangzib sent it to his father as a sign 
 of victory.
 
 294 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 It was now the turn of the King of Bijapur, 
 who was endeavouring to obtain peace which' 
 Aurangzib refused to grant, when news came 
 from the north that turned the Prince's energies 
 into another direction : the Emperor was des- 
 perately ill, symptoms had appeared that usually 
 portend death within twenty-four hours. 
 
 "This produced much derangement in the 
 government of the country and the peace of the 
 people," says a Muslim historian pathetically. 
 Dara took the affairs of the state into his own 
 hands, and closed the roads of Bengal, Ahmadabad, 
 and the Deccan against messengers, too late, 
 however, to prevent the news reaching his 
 brothers. Shuja and Murad, "each of them 
 vying with the other," had coins struck, and 
 prayers read in the mosques in his own name. 
 Shuja set out to march against Agra ; Murad, 
 with great presence of mind, sent an expedition 
 against Surat, to demand contributions from the 
 merchants of that town ; he demanded fifteen 
 lacs of rupees, but after much parley condescended 
 to accept six. 
 
 Aurangzib bided his time, and made no move- 
 ment. 
 
 Shuja was sleeping off his wine in his camp 
 near Benares, when a division of the imperial 
 army, sent by Dara, came down upon him, and
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 295 
 
 routed his forces completely. He fled, while all 
 his camp, treasure, and artillery fell into the hands 
 of Dara. 
 
 Then Aurangzib suddenly declared himself the 
 devoted ally of his dear brother Prince Murad. 
 " I have not the slightest wish to take any part 
 in the government of this deceitful, unstable 
 world," he wrote ; " my only desire is that I 
 may make the pilgrimage to the temple of God." 
 But it behoved dutiful sons to rescue their father 
 from " the presumption and conceit of that apos- 
 tate," for whose forgiveness they would beseech 
 the Emperor when once order was restored. 
 
 The united forces of Aurangzib and Murad 
 marched together, until they met the Emperor's 
 army under the Maharaja Jaswant Singh, the 
 Rajput, on the banks of the Narbada. Murad 
 charged across the ford, regardless of the hail of 
 arrows and javelins, and " every minute the dark 
 ranks of the infidel Rajputs were dispersed by the 
 prowess of the followers of Islam." The Muslims 
 in the imperial army broke and fled ; the Rajputs, 
 all but six hundred, died on the field. When the 
 Maharaja Jaswant went back to his castle in 
 Marwar with the survivors, his wife would not 
 open the gates to him. She was no wife to a 
 coward ; if he knew not how to conquer, he should 
 have known how to die.
 
 296 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 In wrath and amazement Prince Dara gathered 
 the imperial forces together, and set forth from 
 Agra contrary, it is said, to the wish of the 
 Emperor, who by this time had recovered, and 
 talked of going himself to expostulate with his 
 younger sons. He would not even wait for the 
 return of his victorious division from Benares, but 
 sent an advance-guard to secure the fords of the 
 Chambal, and followed with the main body of 
 the army. He had marched one stage from Agra 
 when he found that his brothers were close at 
 hand, having crossed the river before him. 
 
 It was the beginning of June 1658. For a 
 whole day the armies confronted each other at 
 Samugarh, Dara's presenting a front nearly four 
 miles in width, while neither attacked. " The day 
 was so hot that many strong men died from the 
 heat of their armour and want of water." Next 
 day the battle began " with discharges of rockets 
 and guns, and thousands of arrows flew from both 
 sides." 
 
 Dara had the advantage in numbers and equip- 
 ment, but the pick of his army had not yet 
 returned from Benares, and many of the leaders 
 were half-hearted in his cause. 
 
 Over and over again he led his centre against 
 Aurangzib, who had chained his guns one to 
 another in the fashion that his forefathers learned
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 297 
 
 in Central Asia. The battle raged on all sides. 
 Prince Murad's elephant was about to turn away, 
 covered with wounds from arrows, spears, and 
 battle-axes, but the rider ordered its legs to be 
 chained together, so that escape should be impos- 
 sible. Aurangzib, his cavalry hurled back by 
 Dara's men, was giving like orders to his elephant- 
 driver as he stood among the few squadrons left 
 to him. " Take heart, my friends ! There is 
 a God ! What hope have we in flight ? " 
 
 Then one of the bravest of Dara's Rajputs wound 
 a string of pearls round his head, and clad in 
 yellow rode forth as a bridegroom, after the 
 custom of his race, to seek death for a bride. 
 Hurling his javelin against Murad's elephant, 
 " What, dost thou dispute the throne with Dara 
 Shukoh ? " he cried, and shouted to the mahout 
 to make the beast kneel down. An arrow from 
 the Prince pierced him through the forehead, 
 and he dropped dead. Another Kajput, " having 
 washed his hands of life," hewed his way through 
 the ranks of his enemies, sword in hand, cast 
 himself beneath the elephant, and began to cut 
 the girths which secured the howdah. He was 
 cut to pieces, though Murad, in admiration for 
 his daring, shouted that he was to be taken alive. 
 The ground all about the feet of the Prince's 
 elephant grew yellow as a field of saffron where
 
 298 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 the Rajputs fell, and his howdah " was stuck as 
 thick with arrows as a porcupine with quills." 
 
 Beside Dara was a traitor, who was in secret 
 Aurangzib's ally, and only waited for an oppor- 
 tunity of wrecking the elder prince's cause before 
 he deserted it. In the supreme moment, when 
 fortune was still wavering from side to side, this 
 man whispered to Dara, " Now is your time ! 
 Dismount from your elephant, put yourself at the 
 head of that squadron of cavalry, and ride down 
 swiftly upon your brother Aurangzib. He has 
 scarcely a man at his back, and you may take him 
 easily." 
 
 Ever reckless, Dara sprang down, " without even 
 waiting to put on his slippers." At that instant 
 a rocket struck the howdah. The troops, who 
 through that day had looked to the figure on 
 the back of the tall Ceylon elephant as their 
 standard, saw the howdah empty and broken, and 
 believed him slain. They dispersed and fled in all 
 directions. 
 
 Aurangzib flung himself upon the reeking 
 ground, and returned thanks to the Giver of 
 Victory. He then, after taking possession of 
 Dara's tent, visited Prince Murad, who was 
 covered with arrow wounds, and " wiped away 
 the tears and blood from his brother's cheek with 
 the sleeve of condolence."
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 299 
 
 The greater part of the imperial forces now 
 turned to the rising sun. Dara, who had reached 
 Agra with a handful of men, was too much bowed 
 down with shame and remorse to see his father, 
 although the Emperor sent for him. Taking his 
 wife, son, and daughter, and as much as he could 
 lay hands upon, in the shape of money and equip- 
 ment, he stole out of the city that same night. 
 
 Aurangzib now marched upon Agra, and en- 
 camped outside the city. It was in vain that 
 the Emperor sent letters, and when they were 
 disregarded, sent Jahanara, with " words of kind- 
 ness and reproach." "The answer she received 
 was contrary to what she had wished, and she 
 returned." Another letter from the Emperor 
 followed, with the present of a sword bearing 
 the auspicious name "Alamgir" (" World-Corn - 
 peller "). Aurangzib accepted this as a good omen, 
 and sent his son Prince Mohammad into Agra 
 " to restore order in the city and to give peace 
 to the people." This was done by attacking 
 the palace. The dogged Moghul valour was a 
 thing of the past, and Shah Jahan's musketeers 
 were poor creatures who quaked with terror when 
 their guns went off. There was a confused re- 
 sistance, and a massacre, and the Emperor was 
 a prisoner. 
 
 On the following day Aurangzib took possession
 
 300 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 of Dara's house with all it contained, and shortly 
 afterwards went in pursuit of the rightful owner, 
 who was making his way towards the Punjab, 
 gathering a new army about him on the road. 
 With Aurangzib went Murad, who believed that 
 his brother, caring nothing for the things of this 
 world, had gone through all this trouble in order 
 to proclaim him king at Delhi. 
 
 " This simple - minded prince had some good 
 qualities," we are told, "but in the honesty of 
 his heart and the trustfulness of his disposition 
 he had never given heed to the saying that two 
 kings cannot be contained in one kingdom. He 
 was deluded by flattering promises, and by the 
 presents of money which had been sent to him " 
 (by Aurangzib), "but they were deposits or loans 
 rather than gifts." 
 
 On the road to Delhi, Aurangzib told his brother 
 that the auspicious day was approaching when the 
 astrologers decreed that he should be proclaimed 
 Emperor. A great feast should be made that all 
 the army might rejoice ; would Murad honour him 
 by coming to a banquet in his tent, to pass away 
 the hours until the planets should have reached 
 the desired conjunction ? 
 
 In his folly Murad rode to his brother's tent 
 that night, accompanied by a faithful eunuch. 
 Ere he entered one of his brother's officers passed
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 301 
 
 and warned him of danger ; the eunuch implored 
 him to turn back to his own quarters. " None 
 is braver than I," laughed Murad, as he ruffled 
 in. At the entrance a kazi met him. " With 
 your feet you have come here," he muttered, 
 implying that some other agent than his own 
 feet would take the prince thence. But Murad 
 was "fey" that night, and mocked at warnings; 
 and there was Aurangzib bowing down to the 
 ground, all humility and devotion, keeping the 
 flies from his face with a handkerchief, com- 
 manding dancing-girls and musicians to perform 
 before him who was to be lord of Hindustan 
 ere the morning broke. 
 
 To the entertainment succeeded a banquet ; 
 Murad, his cup filled at every moment by his 
 brother, was soon overcome with wine. Then 
 Aurangzib commanded that all should withdraw 
 and leave the Emperor-elect to rest until the 
 auspicious moment came. Only the eunuch re- 
 mained, and he gently kneaded the feet of 
 Murad, who lay in a drunken sleep on a couch. 
 
 As he kept watch, Aurangzib once more looked 
 within the tent, and signed to him to come 
 outside ; scarcely had he stepped without the 
 flap than he was seized by several men, and 
 strangled before he could utter a sound. 
 
 The " White Snake " glided back and looked
 
 302 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 
 
 through a loophole at the sleeper ; Murad was 
 alone, but he was armed with sword and dagger, 
 and the brother had seen how well he could 
 wield them. Aurangzib called his little boy, 
 Muhammad Azam, a child of four years old. 
 " If you can go into the tent and bring your 
 uncle's sword away without waking him, see what 
 a fine jewel for your turban I will give you ! " 
 
 Delighted with this game, the child crept into 
 the tent and came back with the sword. 
 
 "Now fetch me his dagger, and you shall have 
 this other jewel too." 
 
 Again the child stole to the couch, and the 
 dagger was borne away. 
 
 Lying in heavy sleep, Murad felt himself shaken 
 by rough hands. This was not the way in which 
 an emperor should be roused. He stared stupidly 
 about him ; the eunuch was gone, and six men 
 stood over him, bearing fetters. Then he under- 
 stood what had come to pass, and made no re- 
 sistance, only groaning, " This is the word and 
 oath sworn to me on the Koran." 
 
 Aurangzib had been overcome with horror at 
 his brother's disobedience to the Prophet's edict 
 against wine ; never, he vowed, could he be guilty 
 of the sin of putting such an unworthy son 
 of Islam to rule over true believers. So Murad, 
 stripped of all honour, was sent on an elephant
 
 SHAH JAHAN THE MAGNIFICENT 1628-1658. 303 
 
 to the citadel of Delhi, while Aurangzib, after 
 laying hands on all his effects, was proclaimed 
 Emperor. The "White Snake" had glided on, 
 by twists and darts, until he lay upon the cushions 
 of the Peacock Throne.
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN- 
 
 1658-1682 
 
 " Twelve dervishes may sleep together under one blanket, but two kings 
 cannot dwell together in one kingdom." Eastern Proverb.
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE CHILDEEN OF SHAH JAHAN 
 1658-1682. 
 
 IT was characteristic of the new Emperor that 
 he began his reign by throwing unnecessary 
 difficulties in the way of historians. Proclaimed 
 in the garden of Shalimar, outside Delhi, im- 
 mediately after making a prisoner of Prince 
 Murad, in 1658, he chose not to put his name 
 upon the coins or to ascend the throne with the 
 usual ceremonies, until ten months later. Hence 
 there is generally some uncertainty about the 
 correct date of events in his reign. Another 
 source of confusion, for which he apparently was 
 not responsible, is that while he chose to call 
 himself "Alamgir" (" World - Compeller "), from 
 the Persian inscription on his father's sword, 
 European writers have continued to call him 
 " Aurangzib," as in the days when he was merely 
 the third and least beloved of the Emperor's sons. 
 Whatever title he might usurp, there was much
 
 308 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 to be done before he could sit at ease in his 
 father's palace. Shah Jahan was safe under guard 
 in the red fortress at Agra, and Princess Jahanara 
 had demanded to share his captivity. Princess 
 Roshanara was enjoying all the consideration due 
 to her brother's ally and confidant. Murad had 
 been removed from Delhi to the state prison at 
 Gwalior. But Dara Shukoh was still at large. 
 Almost the last act of Shah Jahan before he 
 ceased to rule, had been to send five thousand 
 horse and "some nobles and equipments" to join 
 his favourite son, and Dara's son, Sulaiman 
 Shukoh, was on his way to join the prince at 
 Lahore. Shuja, with a strong army and a 
 force of artillery, was advancing from Dacca, 
 having been won over to Dara's side by the sight 
 of the imminent danger in which all Aurangzib's 
 brothers were placed. 
 
 The prospects looked black for the usurper ; 
 Dara had plundered the treasury at Lahore and 
 was raising an army ; if he succeeded, Mahabat 
 Khan (son of Jahangir's rebellious general), who 
 was viceroy at Kabul, was likely to join with 
 him, and Kabul would be at his service either as 
 a source from which to draw new levies, or as 
 a safe retreat, whence at need it was easy to 
 reach Persia. 
 
 Aurangzib faced the danger with the calm
 
 THE CHILDREN OP SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 309 
 
 with which he had withstood the frantic charge 
 of the Eajputs on his chained elephant at 
 Samugarh. A division was sent against Prince 
 Sulaiman, who, losing heart, turned aside into 
 the mountains round Srinagar. Here his followers 
 deserted him, until, after wandering up and down 
 for some time, only a few attendants remained. 
 The Kaja of Srinagar, coveting the gold and 
 jewels that were still in his possession, prevailed 
 upon him to enter a fort, where he was kept, 
 nominally as a guest, but to all intents and 
 purposes as a prisoner. 
 
 Aurangzib himself meanwhile had started in 
 pursuit of Dara, whose newly raised army was 
 already falling away from him. Dara, like all 
 the sons of Timur, was no coward, but the 
 " White Snake " seems to have exercised the 
 paralysing influence of the serpent over him. 
 On hearing that Aurangzib was approaching 
 Lahore, he fled once more from this terrible 
 brother who could neither be bribed nor cajoled, 
 who was leading his army by forced marches, 
 sleeping on the ground and faring like a common 
 soldier, in order to work his ruin. Like Humayun 
 in former days, he turned towards the deserts of 
 the west, fearing their dangers less than his 
 enemies. 
 
 There he was left to wander undisturbed
 
 310 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 for a while ; Aurangzib had first to check 
 the advance of Shuja, and was content that 
 thirst and sun and sand should do part of 
 his work for him. The story is almost a repeti- 
 tion of Humayun's adventures, told with less 
 detail. Dara, like Humayun, had taken his wife 
 with him the daughter of his uncle, that Parviz 
 who had drunk himself to death in the Deccan. 
 His followers deserted him ; no carriers could be 
 found for his baggage and treasure, part of which 
 he was forced to abandon by the way. Vainly 
 did he struggle through the great salt desert 
 where the Indus drains by many mouths into 
 the sea, toiling through dense thorn-brakes and 
 sandy wastes, losing all his baggage, daily seeing 
 his men fall away or die from thirst and disease, 
 while ever at his heels, nearer and nearer, came 
 the horsemen of his brother. 
 
 Only a thousand followers were left to him 
 when at length he reached Ahmadabad. A little 
 flicker of hope came to cheer them for an instant ; 
 overtures of friendship were made by Maharaja 
 Jaswant Sing of Mar war the same Rajput prince 
 who had had the gates of his castle slammed 
 in his face by his wife. Having submitted to 
 Aurangzib, the Rajput prince had fallen out with 
 him on some question of precedence, and was 
 ready to join Dara.
 
 THE CHILDREN OP SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 311 
 
 But Aurangzib, having just defeated Shuja in 
 an action, the account of which reads like an 
 echo of the battle at Samugarh, was free to give 
 all his mind to his other brother. With his 
 usual skill in diplomacy, he wrote with his own 
 hand to the Maharaja, bestowing on him the 
 rank and titles the refusal of which had been 
 the reason for Jaswant's sudden revival of affec- 
 tion towards Dara. Jaswant who, it must be 
 said, was an unprincipled scoundrel such as has 
 seldom disgraced Kajput history at once broke 
 off his alliance with the elder prince, and turned 
 back to his own country. 
 
 Betrayed and deserted, Dara retired to a forti- 
 fied position on the hills near Ajmir. For three 
 long days he endured the cannonade of Aur- 
 angzib 's artillery. On the fourth the Emperor's 
 infantry worked round from the rear, and Dara, 
 looking across his broken lines, saw his brother's 
 standard waving from the summit of the hill. 
 
 In a frenzy of terror he fled, leaving his men 
 to go on fighting, in ignorance that he had 
 abandoned them. His son and daughter and 
 some of the women of his harem went with 
 him, out into the world. 
 
 The heat was terrible, the dust stifling, in the 
 eight long spring days during which they rode 
 to Ahmadabad. They were robbed by the Kolis
 
 312 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 of the hills, who, seeing a disorderly band in 
 headlong flight, hung on their flanks, to plunder 
 and cut off stragglers. They were robbed by 
 the troop of horse who had accompanied them 
 at first as a guard, and finding Dara's cause 
 hopeless, dropped off, by twos and threes, some 
 of the more unscrupulous laying hands on the 
 treasure that the prince had brought with him. 
 They were robbed by their own household, who, 
 having been ordered to follow as quickly as 
 possible with the women-servants and the bag- 
 gage, seized what they could lay hands upon, 
 stripped the women of their jewels, and made 
 off for the desert. 
 
 Then Dara's wife, who had been wounded, 
 seemed about to die ; the Moghul women, like 
 the men, had deteriorated from the hardy north- 
 ern stock, and Nadira Begam could not endure 
 the half of what her ancestress, Hamida, had 
 survived. As they hurried on, by day and by 
 night, scarcely daring to draw breath, they met 
 a European, Maitre Fran9ois Bernier, physician 
 and traveller, who was journeying on his own 
 affairs to Delhi. He knew nothing of the disasters 
 which had overtaken the prince, and was dis- 
 mayed to find himself carried off with the 
 fugitives, by order of Dara, who had no doctor 
 in his party.
 
 
 
 Dara Shukoh.
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 313 
 
 At last they were within a march of Ahmada- 
 bad ; they spent the night within a caravanserai 
 a poor place enough for royal travellers, but a 
 welcome refuge, since its walls kept out the 
 marauding Kolis. In the early morning, Bernier 
 heard the wailing of women through the canvas 
 screen on the other side of which the princesses 
 were lodged. All night Nadira Begam and her 
 daughter had been keeping up their hearts with 
 the thought that a few hours would see them safe 
 among friends within the walls of Ahmadabad : 
 now a messenger had come from the city to say 
 that the governor had declared for Aurangzib, and 
 that Dara must fly at once if he cared for his life. 
 
 Stunned and like one half-dead, the prince came 
 out among his followers, and strove to bind them 
 to himself by entreaties and promises. Even 
 Bernier wept as he saw the fugitives depart ; four 
 or five horsemen and two elephants were all that 
 were left to the favourite son of Shah Jahan. 
 
 Back to Kachh they wandered, where Dara 
 hoped for assistance from a zamindar, 1 whose 
 daughter, in happier days, had been betrothed to 
 the prince's son. But the zamindar had not even 
 ordinary courtesy for the man upon whom he had 
 fawned a few short months before, thinking to 
 make his fortune with the prince's help. For two 
 
 1 Landowner.
 
 314 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 days Dara endeavoured to soften his heart ; on 
 the third, " with tearful eyes and burning heart," 
 he resolved to proceed to Bhakkar. In Kachh he 
 was joined by a small force, collected by a faithful 
 adherent, Gul Muhammad; but as soon as they 
 reached the Sind frontier, one of the two nobles 
 who had accompanied him from Ajmir, "seeing 
 how his evil fate still clung to him," went off to 
 Delhi. 
 
 Dara, bewildered and irresolute, wandered from 
 place to place. A friendly chieftain offered to 
 escort him as far as Kandahar, on the way to 
 Persia, but the fugitive would not resign all hope 
 of regaining his crown. 
 
 In Kachh was a certain Afghan zamindar, Malik 
 Jiwan, who had been condemned by Shah Jahan 
 to be trampled to death under the feet of an 
 elephant, and pardoned at Dara's intercession. He 
 now sent to assure the prince of his fidelity, and 
 came to the border of his territory to meet the 
 exiles. Impetuous as ever, Dara consented to 
 trust his life and the lives of all who were with 
 him to this man's honour. 
 
 In a few hours, it was apparent to all that they 
 were prisoners, not guests. Over Nadira Begam's 
 mind brooded the horror of becoming the slave of 
 Aurangzib, and she resolved rather to die. In 
 vain did the servant in whom she confided dis-
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 315 
 
 suade her ; in vain did he attempt to solve their 
 difficulty by assassinating Malik Jiwan. His pur- 
 pose was thwarted, and the Begam slew her- 
 self, with a last entreaty that her body might be 
 taken to rest in the land that she would never 
 see again. Then Dara broke down completely. 
 Regardless of his own safety, he appointed Gul 
 Muhammad, the one friend who had stood at his 
 side through good and ill, to bear the corpse to 
 Lahore with an escort of the few soldiers re- 
 maining to him. He himself, with only " a few 
 domestic servants and useless eunuchs," would 
 take the road to Persia, escorted by Malik Jiwan, 
 after performing the ceremonies of mourning. 
 Remonstrance was useless; he cared no longer 
 what became of him. 
 
 Broken-hearted, worn out in body and in mind, 
 alternately reckless and stupefied, he was an easy 
 prey. "He might have been King of Hindustan 
 if he had known how to control himself," one who 
 knew and loved him wrote, when telling of his 
 prosperity ; adversity had come too suddenly for 
 him to have learned better. Malik Jiwan sent 
 word to Aurangzib that the prey was in the toils, 
 and the Emperor despatched officers to bring Dara 
 to his presence. 
 
 At Delhi, Aurangzib had taken his seat on the 
 Peacock Throne with great ceremonial. The
 
 316 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 festivities were scarcely over when through the 
 crowded streets was paraded a miserable elephant, 
 without housings or trappings, covered with filth, 
 on which sat a wretched figure dressed in the 
 meanest clothes and loaded with chains. When 
 the people recognised the prince, whom many of 
 them had seen last standing at his father's right 
 hand, there was universal lamentation, " men, 
 women, and children wailing as if some mighty 
 calamity had happened to themselves." As he 
 sat, with fettered ankles, exposed to the glare of 
 the sun, a faquir in the crowd cried, " Dara, 
 when you were master you always gave me alms ; 
 to-day I know well you have naught to give me." 
 Dara took off the " dark dingy-coloured shawl " 
 which had been put upon him, and threw it down. 
 One of his guards took it away from the faquir, 
 saying that a prisoner had no right to give alms. 
 Bitter were the curses flung after him by the 
 faquir, and echoed by the crowd, as the elephant 
 was driven to the prison in Old Delhi appointed 
 for the Emperor's brother. If one had been there 
 to lead them, the crowds in the streets of Delhi 
 that July day would have done something more 
 than shriek and curse, and sway to and fro ; as it 
 was, though all wept, there was none to rescue the 
 fallen prince. 
 
 Two days later Malik Jiwan was swaggering
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 317 
 
 through those same streets of Delhi, on his way to 
 Court to receive the robe of honour and the titles 
 that were to be the price of blood. He was recog- 
 nised by some one in the crowd ; word buzzed 
 round that here was the man who had betrayed 
 their prince. Forthwith the mob gathered round 
 him, yelling the curses that only an Eastern 
 tongue can speak ; clods and stones flew through 
 the air, wounding and killing his men ; from 
 the house-tops the women poured down ashes 
 and indescribable abominations. Not one of the 
 Afghans would have escaped alive, had not the 
 kotwal with his guard come to the rescue, and 
 protected Malik Jiwan by holding their shields 
 over his head, so that bruised, battered, and 
 covered with filth, he reached the palace gates. 
 
 It was evident that there would be no safety 
 for Aurangzib so long as his elder brother lived. 
 There was no difficulty in finding an accusation 
 of heresy, concerning which the Emperor was as 
 sensitive as any mediaeval schoolman. Dara, like 
 Akbar, had listened to Christian teachers, and 
 loved to consort with Brahmans ; he read the sacred 
 books of Hindus, and had a Hindu sacred name 
 engraved upon his rings. What more could be 
 required? Mullahs and councillors pronounced 
 him worthy of death, and the Princess Roshanara 
 urged that he should be poisoned forthwith.
 
 318 THE CHILDREN OP SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 Whether in a momentary fit of compunction 
 or in a hope of gaining further pretext for what 
 he was about to do, Aurangzib sent a message to 
 his captive. " If I were in thy place, and thou 
 in mine, what wouldst thou do with me?" 
 
 " Let the gates of the city answer thee ! " was 
 Dara's reply, " for each one should have seen a 
 piece of thy carcase nailed there for the vultures 
 and the kites." 
 
 After sending such an answer, Dara well knew 
 that no hope was left for him. In his wanderings 
 in Sind he had met a Carmelite monk, to whom 
 he owned, " If there is any true faith in the world, 
 I believe it to be that of the Catholics." He now 
 entreated for a confessor, but none was allowed 
 to come to him. As he walked up and down 
 his prison one evening, repeating " Muhammad 
 causes my death, but the Son of Mary is my 
 salvation," his brother's messengers entered. He 
 had no weapon but the knife with which he had 
 been cutting lentils for his supper, and with 
 this he defended himself until borne down to 
 the ground. 
 
 Some men say that Aurangzib wept when his 
 brother's head was set before him : some say that 
 he struck at it with his sword, and mocked the 
 fool who thought to have been master of Hin- 
 dustan. An Englishman was there, who vowed
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 319 
 
 that the Emperor cast the head to the ground 
 and trampled upon it, and that " the head laughed 
 a long ha ! ha ! ha ! in the hearing of all." 
 
 The body, placed on an elephant, was once 
 more carried about the streets of Delhi. " So, 
 once alive and once dead, he was exposed to the 
 eyes of all men, and many wept over his fate." 
 
 Shah Jahan sat at meat within the fort of 
 Agra, Jahanara waiting upon him, when a mes- 
 senger brought in a box, saying, " Your son, King 
 Aurangzib, sends this to show he had not for- 
 gotten your Majesty." " Blessed be God that 
 my son still remembers me ! " cried the old man, 
 and he bade them undo the wrappings. A head 
 rolled out upon the table ; Dara's father and 
 sister once more beheld the face that they had 
 loved. 
 
 Perhaps a little comfort came to them when 
 Dara's daughter was brought to share their im- 
 prisonment. Sipihr Shukoh, Dara's young son, 
 who had been taken prisoner with his father, was 
 kept in the fort at Gwalior. 
 
 Now that Dara was removed, Aurangzib was 
 free to take possession of the two most beautiful 
 women of his harem. One, Udaipuri by name, 
 was a Christian and a Georgian ; coming of a 
 stock that was accustomed to supply the Muslim 
 with slaves, she submitted to her new master
 
 320 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 with such good grace that she is noted as the 
 only woman for whom he ever showed anything 
 approaching love. 
 
 The other was a public dancing-girl, whom Dara 
 had loved and married, in spite of all obstacles. 
 When Aurangzib claimed her, she made answer 
 that she had belonged to Dara Shukoh ; why 
 should the Emperor desire her? 
 
 To which the Emperor returned answer that 
 her long tresses had bound him as in a net. 
 That night an officer brought him a packet where- 
 in lay coil upon coil of perfumed hair. 
 
 Again the Emperor sent back word that it was 
 the moon-like beauty of her face that had en- 
 thralled him. 
 
 Then the girl took a knife and gashed her 
 face until it was a thing of horror. She wiped 
 the blood from it with a cloth, and sent the cloth 
 to the Emperor, in token that there was nothing 
 left of that which he had desired. He troubled her 
 no more, and in a little while she died of grief 
 for her husband. 
 
 Dara was the only one of his family who was 
 a serious danger to Aurangzib. A momentary 
 anxiety was caused by the Emperor's eldest son, 
 Muhammad Sultan, going over to Shuja in the 
 course of a campaign against him in Bengal, but 
 the foolish young man soon grew disgusted with
 
 Gul Saffa, the Mistress of Dara Shukoh.
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 321 
 
 his uncle's cause, and came back to the imperial 
 camp. Thence Aurangzib sent him to prison, 
 where he spent the rest of his life. Shuja, find- 
 ing that he could not hold Bengal against his 
 brother, fled to Arakan, a district at that time 
 inhabited by pirates, the offscourings of the 
 Portuguese and other settlements, allied with 
 half-castes, Malays, and refugees whose crimes 
 had driven them from every other place. With 
 " his personal effects, vessels of gold and silver, 
 jewels, treasures, and other appendages of royalty," 
 and some of his Khans and servants, he embarked 
 on a boat and vanishes into the night. The clouds 
 part afterwards for a moment to show him, pen- 
 niless and wounded, fleeing over the mountains, 
 with one woman and three followers ; no one 
 knew his end. 
 
 In the same year in which Prince Shuja dis- 
 appeared for ever from Indian history, another 
 figure comes forward once more. The Eaja of 
 Srinagar at length yielded to the pressure put 
 upon him by Aurangzib, and surrendered Sulaiman 
 Shukoh to the imperial envoys. Brought before 
 his father's murderer in gilded chains, the son of 
 Dara had one request to make. He was ready 
 for death ; let it strike him swiftly, with all his 
 senses alive within him ; let him not drink the 
 poison that slew the mind and soul before the body. 
 
 x
 
 322 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 For there is a deadly poison, compounded with 
 the datura and the poppy, that, given daily in 
 small quantities, will turn the victim into an evil 
 thing, now mopping and chattering like an ape, 
 now lethargic, playing with straws and dust, the 
 body yet strong while the mind has gone. Even 
 in our day there are criminals in India who make 
 a practice of robbing travellers after mixing datura 
 with their food or drink and thereby taking away 
 their wits for a time. In the days of the Moghuls 
 it was given to prisoners of state who, for one 
 reason or another, it was not wise to kill outright. 
 
 Aurangzib's voice took its gentlest tones as he 
 assured his brother's son of safety and kind treat- 
 ment. Sulaiman was taken to Gwalior, where his 
 younger brother had been confined ever since 
 their father's death. The climate there is known 
 to be unhealthy ; perhaps there was something in 
 the heavy blue mists that cling about the rock at 
 dawn and sunset, which brought freedom to heart- 
 weary captives. In a short time both the sons of 
 Dara were dead, as well as the little son of Murad, 
 who had been imprisoned with his father. 
 
 The climate of Gwalior, however, could not be 
 held responsible for the death of Murad himself. 
 A faithful servant, who had lived at the foot of 
 the rock, watching for an opportunity of rescuing 
 his master, contrived a plan for fastening a rope-
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 323 
 
 ladder to the ramparts at a given hour of the 
 night. Murad, a fool to the last, must needs take 
 farewell of a woman who had shared his captivity, 
 before escaping ; she, a greater fool than her lord, 
 or perhaps a traitor, lamented so loudly that the 
 guard took alarm, and after flashing their torches 
 up and down, discovered the ladder. Upon which 
 Prince Murad was executed after a mock trial. 
 
 Meanwhile the poor old man in the fortress at 
 Agra was dragging out the remnant of his days. 
 He continually demanded to see the Emperor, but 
 Aurangzib always refused, because " under the 
 influence of destiny his father lost all self-control." 
 There had been an angry controversy over the 
 jewels and pearls left behind in the palace of Dara ; 
 Shah Jahan at first refused to yield his son's 
 treasures, and it was only "after much contention, 
 perquisition, and demanding" that he surrendered 
 them to Aurangzib with a letter of forgiveness 
 written under compulsion. 
 
 Except for giving his father liberty, Aurangzib 
 treated him with every consideration. Presents 
 of all kinds were sent to him ; his cooks were the 
 best that could be found. If he needed to be 
 amused, dancing-girls and musicians were at his 
 service. If he were seized with a fit of senile 
 piety, holy men were there who could read and 
 expound the Koran.
 
 324 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 
 
 Towards the end of his life Shah Jahan was 
 seized with a desire to see once more the buildings 
 that he had raised, and made entreaty to be 
 allowed to leave the fort for this purpose. Told 
 that his request was granted, he burst into the 
 unavailing fury of helpless old age when he found 
 that he was expected to embark upon a war vessel 
 and view his work from the river. Rather than 
 that, he would never set foot outside his prison. 
 So in January 1666, while the good people of 
 London were returning to homes swept free of 
 the plague, he was borne down to the little white 
 pavilion overlooking the river, and there, his 
 dying eyes fixed on the shadowy dome of the Taj, 
 he passed away from a world that had grown very 
 drear and empty since the time when he and the 
 wife of his youth had faced it together. Before 
 the end so says one story he sent his forgive- 
 ness to his son, at the instance of the two holy 
 men who had ministered to him. 
 
 After her father's death Princess Jahanara 
 demanded to be released. When she left Agra 
 men did not look for her to live long ; Aurangzib 
 and Roshanara would be certain to poison her. 
 
 But she disappointed expectations by surviving 
 Roshanara for many years. Aurangzib granted 
 her a house and the title of Shah Begam (Crown 
 Princess). Visitors to the mausoleum of the saint
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHAH JAHAN 1658-1682. 325 
 
 Nizam-ad-din-Aulia, near Delhi, may see her tomb 
 in the courtyard that surrounds the shrine " a 
 casket-shaped monument, hollow at the top and 
 open to the sky." In the hollow a few blades of 
 grass struggle through the earth ; on a narrow 
 slab of marble at one end is the inscription 
 written by herself: "Let nothing but the green 
 conceal my grave ! The grass is the best covering 
 for the tombs of the poor in spirit. The humble, 
 the transitory Jahanara, disciple of the holy 
 men of Chist, the daughter of the Emperor Shah 
 Jahan."
 
 XV. 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680 
 
 "For craft and trickery Sivaji was reckoned a sharp son of the devil, 
 the father of fraud." KHAFI KHAN.
 
 XV. 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 THEJRE is probably no country in the world better 
 fitted to resist invasion than the Konkan, a district 
 lying between the Deccan and the Arabian Sea. 
 On the east rise the Ghauts, with black basaltic 
 rocks where scarcely a shrub can find root, their 
 sides clothed with trees and brushwood. For six 
 months of the year almost perpetual rain falls 
 on the forests and on the deep valleys choked 
 with vegetation that lead westwards to the strip 
 of fertile land along the coast, where the mountain 
 torrents wander through mangrove swamps to the 
 sea. Wild beasts lurk in the forests and ravines : 
 and, in the days of Aurangzib, wild men, more 
 dangerous than the beasts, made their homes 
 among the rocks. 
 
 The Marathas, a sturdy, dark-skinned race, 
 had lived for many generations in their villages, 
 tilling the land, their existence almost forgot-
 
 330 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 ten by the rest of India, remembered by the 
 Mahommedan rulers of the Deccan kingdoms 
 when it was a question of collecting tribute or 
 of gathering an army. As light cavalry they 
 had few equals ; the little sturdy horses and the 
 little wiry men could climb or scramble any- 
 where, and find food where others would starve ; 
 moreover, they had no objection to fighting 
 against each other if their superiors happened 
 to be at war. 
 
 It happened that in the year 1599, a certain 
 Rao or chieftain who was esteemed to be of 
 greatest rank and importance among them had 
 invited friends and neighbours to his house to 
 celebrate the Holi festival. Among the guests was 
 Maloji Bhosla, who came of a family with no 
 pretensions to high rank, and owed his advance- 
 ment in life to the patronage of the chieftain. 
 With him had come his little boy, Shahji, a child 
 of about five years old, who played with the host's 
 little daughter. 
 
 "Wilt thou take this boy as thy husband, 
 child ? " laughed the Rao, as the children pelted 
 one another with red, imitating their elders. 1 
 "They are a fine pair," he added, looking round 
 him. 
 
 All laughed obsequiously at the jest, except 
 
 1 This is one of the amusements of the Holi festival.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 331 
 
 Maloji, who sprang quickly to his feet. " Bear 
 witness all ! " he cried, " the Eao has this day 
 made a contract of marriage with me." 
 
 Some of the company laughed assent, but the 
 host glowered wrathfully ; the jest was going 
 too far. His vexation was greater still next day, 
 when Maloji refused an invitation to dine with 
 him unless he acknowledged Shahji as his future 
 son-in-law, and his wife's fury knew no bounds. 
 A pretty joke, indeed, to match his daughter, even 
 in sport, with the son of a mere nobody, for what 
 were the Bhoslas but nobodies, though they might 
 pretend like many of their betters to a Rajput 
 descent? So Maloji went home, discomfited for 
 the moment ; but he never lost sight of his 
 object. 
 
 In a moribund kingdom, where wealth was the 
 only thing regarded, men might laugh and whisper 
 to each other when, after an interval of retirement, 
 Maloji reappeared with great wealth, and told an 
 edifying story of an apparition of Bhavani the 
 goddess most revered by Marathas and a hidden 
 treasure ; but it cleared the way to office and 
 title, and the son of a petty Raja and commander 
 of five thousand horse was no longer unworthy of 
 the Rao's daughter. 
 
 The child of their marriage was Sivaji, the hero 
 of Maratha ballad and story, who was born in
 
 332 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 1627. His childhood was spent at Poona, under 
 the care of his mother, who troubled herself very 
 little about Shahji after he had taken another 
 wife. Beautiful, clever, and a religious enthusiast, 
 it was she who formed the boy's mind long before 
 he had learned to bend a bow, to hurl a spear, or 
 wield sword and dagger the only lore imparted 
 to a Maratha, who regarded books and pens as 
 beneath the notice of a chieftain's son. To the 
 end of his life, Sivaji could not write his own 
 name ; but his memory was stored with the 
 legends of the Mahabharata and Eamayana, and 
 his mother taught him to dream of a time when 
 the Marathas should drive the cow-slaying Toorks 
 before them, as Rana had driven the ogres. She 
 herself was the favoured of the gods, visited in 
 dream and trance by the " Great Mother " 
 Bhavani who foretold the coming of a champion 
 to avenge desecrated shrines and slaughtered 
 cattle ; that champion should be her son. 
 
 Roaming about hill and glen at his will, hunting, 
 or so it was said taking part with gangs of 
 robbers, Sivaji knew the Konkan and its in- 
 habitants as well as his father's house before his 
 beard was grown. At the age of twenty, by some 
 unknown means, he was master of a hill- fort ; a 
 little later we find him taking possession of his 
 father's fief of Poona, and declining to send any
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 more of the revenue to its rightful owner, because 
 " the expenses of that poor country had increased." 
 
 About this time, the commandant of another 
 hill-fort died, and his three sons quarrelled as to 
 who should succeed him in his fief. Neither had 
 any right to it without the sanction of the King 
 of Bijapur, of whom Shahji and Sivaji were also 
 the nominal vassals ; but the king, who was rais- 
 ing those palaces and tombs which are still the 
 wonder of the few who turn aside from the beaten 
 track to visit his deserted capital, never troubled 
 himself about so remote and valueless a part of 
 his dominions as the western hills. Sivaji, called 
 upon to arbitrate between the brothers, secretly 
 urged the two younger to enforce their claim with 
 the strong hand, and offered them the help of his 
 band of marauders. By next morning he and his 
 men held the fort, the eldest brother was a 
 prisoner, and the other two, with the garrison, 
 helpless to resist. As they chafed in rage and 
 shame, he called upon them to forget their injuries, 
 and to stand with him ; Bhavani had chosen him 
 to break the yoke of the "Toork"; he had seized 
 the fort, not for his own aggrandisement, but as 
 a move in the game. All three, carried away by 
 his words, vowed to be his men from henceforth, 
 and kept their vow. 
 
 Thus, by stratagem, bribery, or assault, Sivaji
 
 334 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 won fortress after fortress. Once, like Thomas 
 Bin nock at Linlithgow, he and his men came to 
 the gates of a fort with bundles of grass, disguised 
 as peaceful villagers, and were admitted. The 
 garrisons were miserably weak, the commandants 
 treacherous or incapable, and he found it little 
 trouble to win them. Quietly, almost unnoticed, 
 he gathered strength thus for two years ; then, in 
 1648, hearing that a convoy of royal treasure was 
 on the way to Bijapur, he swooped down with 
 three hundred horse, dispersed the escort, and 
 carried the booty to his main stronghold at 
 Rajgarh. Almost simultaneously with this came 
 the news that his forces had occupied the whole 
 of the northern Konkan. 
 
 This was too much even for the faineant King 
 of Bijapur ; Shahji was arrested, and in spite of 
 his protests that he had no control over his son, 
 and would be thankful to see his Majesty's 
 troops teaching him a lesson, he was flung into 
 a dungeon ; the door was built up, leaving an 
 opening so small that a single stone could fill 
 it. " Unless your son submits," swore the king, 
 " that stone shall be rolled into its place, and 
 never moved again." 
 
 If Muhammad Adil Shah hoped by threaten- 
 ing the father's life to bring the son to his feet, 
 he was mistaken. Sivaji turned to Shah Jahan
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 335 
 
 with whose territories and subjects he had os- 
 tentatiously forborne to meddle and offered to 
 become the Emperor's man, if assured of protec- 
 tion for himself and his father. The bait was 
 taken ; the outlaw became a commander of five 
 thousand, and a little pressure upon the King 
 of Bijapur brought Shahji from the dungeon, 
 although for the next four years he was retained 
 as hostage for his son's behavour. In this in- 
 terval Sivaji dutifully forbore to harry Bijapur 
 territory more than was reasonable, and staved 
 off any demands upon his services from Delhi 
 by trumping up various claims which must be 
 settled before he could act. 
 
 At the end of four years Shahji was released, 
 and the first use he made of his liberty was to 
 write to Sivaji : "If you are my son, punish 
 Baji Rao," a Maratha who had gained possession 
 of some of Shahji's lands during his imprison- 
 ment. His son obeyed this injunction, at a 
 convenient season, by slaughtering the offender 
 with most of his kin and followers, and setting 
 his village in flames. For the present he had 
 business of his own which required all his at- 
 tention : a Hindu raja who refused to join him 
 in rebellion against Bijapur must be assassin- 
 ated, and his territories annexed in the confusion 
 which followed ; there were forts to be surprised,
 
 336 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 and forts to be built. In the middle of all this 
 activity, he heard that Prince Aurangzib had 
 come to the Deccan as Viceroy for Shah Jahan, 
 and was about to make war upon Bijapur. 
 
 Here was a golden opportunity of obtaining 
 indemnity for the past; in a little while Sivaji 
 had not only obtained Aurangzib's permission 
 to keep all he had taken from Bijapur, but was 
 encouraged to continue his ravages upon that 
 kingdom. 
 
 Unluckily, the greed for plunder which had 
 grown in late years with what it fed upon 
 could not be repressed, even for the sake of 
 more solid advantages in the future ; it was 
 not in Sivaji or his men to refrain when 
 there came an exceptional opportunity of carry- 
 ing off silver, horses, elephants, and rich clothes 
 from the Moghuls at Juner and Ahmadnagar. 
 Aurangzib's successes against Bijapur, however, 
 soon reduced Sivaji to a condition of penitence 
 that no doubt, for the time, was genuine. Called 
 from the Deccan by Shah Jahan's illness, the 
 Moghul prince found it convenient to forgive 
 until there should be a chance of punishing. For 
 the next few years he was too busy settling 
 himself upon his father's throne to give much 
 time to the Deccan, and Sivaji could continue 
 his industries, undisturbed by the Moghul army.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 337 
 
 " Whenever he heard of a prosperous town or 
 district, he plundered it, and took possession of 
 it." 
 
 In the meanwhile the old King of Bijapur 
 was dead, and the advisers of his young son 
 decided that it was absolutely necessary to crush 
 the Marathas, who had become an intolerable 
 nuisance. An expedition was sent out, under 
 command of Afzul Khan, a Muslim nobleman, 
 who vowed to bring the rebel leader in chains 
 to crawl before the throne. 
 
 As the army drew nearer, Sivaji, who had 
 retreated to the hill-fort of Pertabgarh, seemed 
 overcome with terror. From his eyrie he sent 
 piteous messages to Afzul, imploring the envoy 
 to protect him from the king's anger, offering 
 to surrender every inch of ground that he had 
 taken. Who was he, a worm and a slave, that 
 he should venture to oppose the Khan who was 
 chief of the warriors of the king? Let him 
 only be assured of forgiveness, and he would 
 submit. 
 
 A Brahman in Afzul's suite was sent to the 
 village below Pertabgarh to confer with Sivaji, 
 who came down to meet him. The Maratha's 
 tone was humble, but less abject than before ; 
 if he might hold his conquests as a fief from 
 Bijapur, he would see to it that no other rebel 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 should trouble his lord, so long as he could 
 mount horse. 
 
 As the Brahman sat that night in the quarters 
 assigned to him, a man stole into the room. It 
 was Sivaji, who came to declare himself the 
 avenger appointed by "the Mother " to drive out 
 the cow-slaying infidel; would one of the "twice- 
 born" hearken to her call? Riches and honour, 
 and a village for him and his descendants, should 
 be his reward. 
 
 The Brahman hearkened, either to the call of 
 religion or of avarice. Before the two parted the 
 snare was devised. 
 
 It was on an October morning of 1659 that 
 Afzul Khan was borne in his palanquin to the 
 appointed spot a level clearing below the fort 
 of Pertabgarh where he was to meet Sivaji. 
 Fifteen hundred of his troops came with him, but 
 were ordered to halt at "the distance of a long 
 arrow-shot." The envoy, " whom the angel of 
 doom had led by the collar to the place," had 
 waited impatiently for some little time before 
 Sivaji was seen descending from the fort. Low 
 of stature, mean in appearance, huddled in a 
 quilted silk cloak lined with red, a padded 
 silk cap half concealing his features, he crept 
 forward, hesitating at every step, pouring
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 339 
 
 out deprecations and entreaties, " with limbs 
 trembling and crouching." 
 
 Afzul Khan, who at his prayer had signed to 
 the armed men and bearers standing round his 
 palanquin to move farther off, stood awaiting his 
 approach, a stately figure, clad in muslin, and 
 armed only with his sword as had been agreed 
 between them. Weeping violently, the Maratha 
 flung himself at the feet of the envoy, who raised 
 him, in order to " place the hand of kindness on 
 his back and embrace him." 
 
 At that moment the attendants saw the 
 Maratha's long arms flung about their master, 
 and saw the Khan stagger helplessly to and fro. 
 " Treachery ! murder ! " he cried, clapping his 
 hand to his sword, till a thrust from Sivaji's 
 dagger brought him down. The blast of a horn 
 sounded close beside them ; from rock and brush- 
 wood, thicket and tree, sprang armed men. The 
 bearers, faithful to the end, lifted the dying Khan 
 into the palanquin, while his guards made in- 
 effectual resistance ; Sivaji drew the sword which, 
 as the Marathas believed, Bhavani herself had , 
 charmed, and smote off his victim's head. 
 
 While this was passing, the main body of 
 Sivaji's troops had fallen upon the Bijapur troops 
 from all sides. Many were slain ere they could
 
 340 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 draw weapon ; all were plundered ; those who 
 submitted to Sivaji's orders were spared, and 
 some of these took service with him. The ladies 
 of Afzul Khan's family, and his son, bribed one 
 of Sivaji's officers to take them across the hills 
 into a place of safety ; when this came to Sivaji's 
 ears, the officer was executed at once. 
 
 The Brahman received his promised reward ; well 
 had he and Sivaji arranged their plot. In the eyes 
 of a Maratha, who believed himself Bhavani's 
 chosen warrior, such treachery was meritorious, 
 and the slaughter of the envoy was an act of devo- 
 tion. Sivaji, before descending to the tryst, his 
 purpose fixed for murder under trust, had laid his 
 head at his mother's feet and asked her blessing ; 
 the sword a beautiful Genoese blade was wor- 
 shipped at Satara " because the spirit of Bhavani 
 resided in it." With it are still preserved " the 
 tiger's claws" three crooked steel blades fitted 
 to the fingers by two rings, and concealed in the 
 closed hand which he thrust into Afzul Khan's 
 body when embracing him. 
 
 After this success, the Marathas overran the 
 country, levying contributions from the towns, 
 and plundering up to the gates of Bijapur, until 
 checked by the advance of another and stronger 
 army. In the intervals of his work upon land, 
 he fitted out a fleet whose exploits surpassed
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 341 
 
 even those of the Portuguese, hitherto notorious 
 for piracy. When at length a truce was patched 
 up with Bijapur, through the mediation of Shahji 
 playing, for once, the part of an advocate of law 
 and order the rebel was master of the whole of 
 the Konkan, and had an army of fifty thousand 
 foot and seven thousand horse to keep it. 
 
 While Sivaji was settling his differences with 
 Bijapur, the Moghul forces, under Shayista Khan, 
 the brother of Aurangzib's mother, had entered, 
 within the bounds of what he considered his 
 territory. An attempt to drive them out ended 
 in the discomfiture of the Marathas. Shayista 
 Khan, after taking several forts and strong places, 
 marched in triumph into Poona, and lodged in a 
 house belonging to Sivaji. Knowing the talent 
 of that "hell-dog" for surprises, he ordered that 
 no one, armed or unarmed, should be allowed to 
 enter the city or the lines of the army without 
 a pass, and that no Maratha horseman should be 
 enlisted in his army. 
 
 On one particular day there was an unsual 
 number of strangers in the streets of Poona. In 
 the morning a procession of country folk all 
 displaying passes from the kotwal marched along, 
 with song and jest, and discordant music of drum 
 and pipe, bringing a veiled bride to the house of 
 her bridegroom. Later on came a dismal array
 
 342 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 a number of armed men in charge of some Maratha 
 prisoners who, said they, had been captured at 
 one of the outposts. Bareheaded and pinioned, 
 the captives were dragged along by ropes, to the 
 accompaniment of abuse and reviling from their 
 guards. 
 
 If any of the good people who stared and 
 laughed or cursed, in accordance with their sym- 
 pathies, had chanced to follow either procession, 
 they would have seen the wedding party and the 
 prisoners meet in a secluded place within the city 
 walls and arm themselves, the bride strip off her 
 veil, and be revealed as a sturdy Maratha lad, 
 and one of her attendants displaying the sword 
 charmed by the " Great Mother." 
 
 At midnight they came to the house where 
 Shayista Khan slept, assured of safety after all 
 the precautions he had taken. Sivaji, having 
 lived there as a boy, knew that in the cook- 
 house there was a window filled with mud and 
 bricks which had opened upon the women's 
 quarters. It was Ramazan, the month of fast, 
 and some of the cooks were at work preparing 
 the food which might be eaten only during the 
 hours of darkness, while the others slept. The 
 sleepers never woke again ; the others, for the 
 most part, were cut down ere they realised that 
 any one was in the room, although there were
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 343 
 
 one or two cries, and a slight scuffling which 
 aroused a servant who slept in a room close by. 
 
 " Some one is trying to break into the house," 
 he reported to his master. 
 
 " Son of an owl ! " said Shayista Khan, whose 
 temper, like that of all good Muslims, was not 
 amiable during Ramazan, " the cooks are early at 
 their work." 
 
 At this point the shrieks of some of the maid- 
 servants informed him that "some one was making 
 a big hole in the wall." 
 
 As the Khan sprang up and seized his weapons, 
 the place seemed to be filled with Marathas ; two 
 fell by the Khan's hand, two more plunged by 
 accident into a reservoir of water, and gave him 
 a moment's space to let himself from a window 
 and escape, with the loss of one of his thumbs. 
 Marathas were in the guard-house, killing every 
 one whom they found there, asleep or waking, 
 with the comment, "This is how they keep 
 watch " ; Marathas were at the door, where Shay- 
 ista's son was slain, resisting bravely. Two of 
 the Khan's women were killed in the fray, " and 
 one of them was so cut about that her remains 
 were collected in a basket," says the Muslim 
 historian, with his usual love of gruesome detail. 
 Then, without waiting to plunder, Sivaji and his 
 men retreated to the hill-fort whence they came,
 
 344 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 " amidst a blaze of torches which made his 
 triumph visible from every part of the Moghul 
 camp." l 
 
 His next move was to surprise the town of 
 Surat, where he thought to plunder the mer- 
 chants, native and foreign, unmolested. He had 
 not reckoned, however, with Sir George Oxinden, 
 the head of the English factory, who prepared 
 for defence, and in reply to requisitions and 
 menaces, " still bid him keep his people out of 
 the reach of our guns, else we would shoot them," 
 and was as good as his word. A threat to raze 
 the factory to the ground and cut off the head 
 of a luckless Mr Anthony Smith, taken prisoner 
 by the way, merely brought a request that " the 
 grand rebel of the Deccan " would " save the 
 labour of his servants running to and fro on 
 messages, and come himself with all his army." 
 
 So the English factory was unhurt, when the 
 approach of the Moghul army forced Sivaji to 
 retreat with a booty worth many hundred thou- 
 sand pounds, having burned and destroyed to an 
 equal amount. It was a proud moment for Oxin- 
 den; the townspeople, many of whom had taken 
 refuge in the factory, "cried out in thousands" 
 for the Emperor to reward the English "that 
 had by their courage preserved them when those 
 
 1 Grant Duff.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 345 
 
 to whom they were entrusted, as the governor, 
 &c., dared not show his head." When Oxinden 
 laid down his pistol before the commander of the 
 relieving army, saying that he now left the care 
 and protection of the city to the Emperor's forces 
 " which was exceedingly well taken," he was 
 offered a robe of honour, a horse and a sword. 
 There was a touch perhaps of sarcasm in Sir 
 George's answer that these were things becoming 
 a soldier, "but we were merchants, and expected 
 favour in our trade." He had what he asked for, 
 the English were exempted for ever from part 
 of the customs duties exacted from other nations. 
 A monument forty feet high, with two domes, 
 supported on massive pillars still towers over 
 the English cemetery at Surat, erected to himself 
 and Christopher Oxinden, "most brotherly of 
 brothers." 
 
 There were more forays by sea and land, before 
 Aurangzib sent an army with instructions to bring 
 the Marathas to order. The Emperor's policy was 
 to weaken the Deccan kingdoms, one by one, until 
 they fell into his hands, and Sivaji was too useful 
 in playing his game to be utterly wiped out ; at 
 the same time Sivaji had taken of late to stop- 
 ping the ships full of pilgrims bound from Mecca 
 from the western coast, and this was more than 
 Aurangzib's piety could endure.
 
 346 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 All seemed to go well, in spite of the Marathas' 
 " seizure of the roads and difficult passes, and 
 firing of the jungles full of trees," which severely 
 tried the nerve of the Moghuls. Sivaji, blockaded 
 in Kajgarh, surrendered upon terms, promising 
 to deliver twenty-three out of the thirty-five forts 
 he possessed, and when called upon, to serve in 
 the imperial army. Shortly afterwards, " that evil 
 malicious fellow," as the contemporary Muslim 
 historian calls him, was summoned to Court. 
 The Raja at whose name the Deccan quaked, 
 found himself a nobody. Aurangzib would take 
 no pains to conciliate the low-born upstart whom 
 he contemptuously called "the mountain rat"; 
 when he arrived two nobles of inferor rank were 
 sent to meet him ; when he came to the Audience 
 Hall to present his offering, he was made to 
 stand among the "commanders of 5000," far 
 from the throne ; and when his rage and morti- 
 fication found vent in words none too respectful 
 to the presence in which he stood, he was told 
 that the Emperor in future would not receive him. 
 
 When Sivaji demanded to be allowed to re- 
 turn home, he could get no definite answer 
 except such as might be inferred from the kotwal 
 placing a guard round his house who followed 
 him wherever he went. Taking another tone, he
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 347 
 
 bewailed that the innocent followers who had 
 accompanied him should be condemned to languish 
 in the evil climate of Delhi and Agra because 
 he had offended the Emperor, and forthwith pass- 
 ports were sent for every one except himself and 
 his son Sambaji. 
 
 The Maratha raja now seemed in desperate 
 case, and he took to his bed, with groans and 
 sighs, complaining of internal pains. No one 
 believed in the reality of his illness, but, con- 
 fident that the rat was in the trap, they paid 
 little attention when, professing to be cured, he 
 sent presents to attendants, physicians, Brahmans, 
 and the poor. In the East sweetmeats form an 
 invariable part of such offerings, and his guards 
 never troubled to examine the huge paper-covered 
 baskets of confectionery daily sent to the holy 
 men of the neighbourhood. To them it seemed 
 natural enough that one in imminent peril of 
 losing his head should do his utmost to conciliate 
 
 o 
 
 the spiritual powers. 
 
 One day a spy came into Agra with the 
 intelligence that Sivaji was once more at large. 
 The kotwal posted off to make inquiries, and 
 found his guards still round the house ; they 
 went within, and reported that the Raja was 
 lying asleep on a couch ; his face was covered
 
 348 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 with a muslin scarf, but they could swear to 
 the gold ring on his hand. 
 
 Back went the Jcotwal, and had scarcely re- 
 assured his official superiors, when another spy 
 came in who swore that Sivaji had escaped, 
 and was by now a hundred miles away. It 
 was true enough, as the kotwal discovered when 
 he returned, crestfallen, to the Raja's house. 
 The sleeping man was one of Sivaji's attendants, 
 and Sivaji and his son had been carried out in 
 two baskets, which the guards had thought to 
 be sweetmeats for the Brahmans of Mathura. 
 At a place outside Agra swift horses were waiting; 
 Sivaji took the boy in front of him, and rode 
 at topmost speed to Mathura. 
 
 There he and forty or fifty of his Marathas 
 shaved off beard and whiskers, smeared their 
 faces with ashes, and otherwise disguised them- 
 selves as Hindu faquirs. They hid their jewels 
 and gold mohurs in hollow walking-sticks, or 
 in their mouths, or sewed them in old slippers, 
 and started for Benares, by way of Allahabad. 
 
 After some time they reached a certain place 1 
 where the alarm already had been given that 
 Sivaji had escaped from Agra. Seeing this large 
 
 1 The name of it is not given by Khafi Khan, who tells the 
 story.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 349 
 
 party of Hindus enter the town, the governor 
 ordered all to be put in prison until he had 
 ascertained who they were. For a night and a 
 day they were kept in ward ; on the second 
 night one of them demanded to speak with the 
 governor in private. "I am Sivaji," he whispered, 
 when the two were alone; "my life is in your 
 hands. With me I have two gems, a diamond 
 and a ruby, of great value, and more than a 
 lakh of rupees. Send me and my head to Agra 
 you must send jewels and money also ; here 
 am I, and here is my head ; keep your hand from 
 me in this strait, and the Emperor will know 
 nothing of the jewels." 
 
 Next morning, after a few inquiries for form's 
 sake, the governor released all the prisoners, and 
 Sivaji went on his way to Allahabad, the poorer 
 by a diamond and a ruby. 
 
 " Har, har, Mahadeo ! the fire is on the hills ! " 
 The Maratha war-cry pealed from rock, and 
 thicket, and ravine, when the word flew through 
 the Deccan that Sivaji had returned to his 
 fortress of Rajgarh after nine months' absence. 
 Once more his hordes swarmed through the 
 country; and once more Aurangzib was obliged 
 to purchase peace by concessions. 
 
 In the interval of quiet which followed broken,
 
 350 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 of course, by raids upon Bijapur and Golkonda 
 Sivaji organised his army and his government, 
 so as to be ready for the next opportunity. 
 
 This was not long in coming; in 1671 he 
 was again at the gates of Surat, and being 
 unopposed, except by the English, who defended 
 their factory as before, was able to spend three 
 days very pleasantly in sacking the city with- 
 out hurrying. The province of Khandesh was 
 plundered, and the trembling headmen of the 
 villages were forced to sign an agreement to pay 
 to Sivaji for the future one-fourth of the revenue 
 due to government, the beginning of the tribute 
 which the Marathas for many years were wont 
 to levy from Moghul territory. 
 
 Bijapur, Golkonda, and Delhi looked on help- 
 lessly at the outlaw, who was solemnly enthroned 
 at Rajgarh, as "His Majesty the Raja Siva, Lord 
 of the Royal Umbrella," and sanctified his depre- 
 dations by being weighed against sacks of gold, 1 
 which were distributed among the Brahmans. 
 Whatever move his adversaries might make of 
 repression or conciliation, it invariably turned 
 to their discomfiture and the advantage of the 
 Marathas. For fourteen years after his escape 
 
 1 Dr Fryer, an English witness, says he only weighed, about ten 
 etone, which bears out the tradition of his small size.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN EAT 1627-1680. 351 
 
 from Agra he continued to lead the same sort 
 of existence, never risking a pitched battle if 
 he could help it, unwearied in skirmish or raid. 
 His light-armed bands had spread as far south 
 as Madras and Tanjore, levying blackmail at 
 every step of the way, before a swelling in the 
 knee-joint brought on fever which put an end to 
 his forays in 1680. In less than fifty-three years 
 of life he had contrived to do such lasting 
 damage as few are privileged to achieve. 
 
 An attempt has been made to cast a glamour 
 about him and his hordes, as patriots, deliverers 
 of their country from foreign rule, devoted heroes 
 who faced desperate odds. After a dispassionate 
 survey no glamour remains. Sivaji was a typical 
 Maratha of the best kind that is to say, he was 
 as unlike the Eajputs from whom he claimed 
 descent as the South African Boer from the good 
 Lord James of Douglas. Never, unless they 
 were driven to it, did the Marathas fight a 
 pitched battle in open field ; the joy of fighting, 
 which made the Rajput deck himself with the 
 bridal coronet, the desperate valour which heaped 
 the plain of Samugarh with yellow robes till it 
 looked like a meadow of saffron, was incompre- 
 hensible to the wolves of the Deccan. They 
 fought, not for a point of honour, or because
 
 352 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 
 
 they enjoyed fighting, but in a commercial spirit, 
 for the sake of what they could get; their word 
 for "to conquer in battle" means simply "to 
 spoil an enemy." The Rajput was indolent, 
 when not roused by pride or the thirst for 
 battle ; the Maratha was untiringly energetic as 
 long as he had anything to gain, but would 
 sacrifice nothing for pride or scruple. 
 
 This must be said for Sivaji, that while he 
 lived his followers were forbidden to plunder 
 mosques or women ; after his death his son 
 pursued a different policy. Moreover, he was 
 seldom deliberately cruel, unless he suspected 
 his prisoners of concealing their wealth. Mr 
 Anthony Smith witnessed how at Surat " the 
 rogue" in one day "cut off more than twenty-six 
 hands and as many heads ; whoever was taken 
 and brought before him that could not redeem 
 himself, lost either his hand or his head." But 
 this was unusual severity, and may have been 
 intended to impress Mr Smith ; or Mr Smith 
 may have exaggerated his dangers in order to 
 impress his brother merchants, who had declined 
 to yield the English factory in order to save 
 him from the Eaja's vengeance. He was no 
 heroic figure, this slayer of an unarmed man who 
 had sworn to intercede for him ; at the same
 
 THE MOUNTAIN RAT 1627-1680. 353 
 
 time Hindustan and the Deccan had reason to 
 mourn when, in the words of the Moghul 
 historian, " the infidel went to hell," and the 
 control of his swarms of freebooters passed into 
 hands less merciful and less capable than his. 1 
 
 1 See Meadows Taylor's romance 'Tara' for the story of Sivaji'* 
 murder of Afzul Khan, told by a sympathiser with the Marathas.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA- 
 
 1658-1707 
 
 "Be it known to the readers of this work that this humble slave of the 
 Almighty is going to describe in a correct manner the excellent character, 
 the worthy habits, and the refined morals of this most virtuous monarch, 
 Aurangzib Alamgir. 
 
 " Under the management and care of this virtuous monarch, the country 
 of Hindustan teems with population and culture. " 
 
 Mir-at-i-Alam of Bakhtawar Khan.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 
 1658-1707. 
 
 SIVAJI was not the only thorn in the side of the 
 Emperor of Hindustan. 
 
 To this day the Hindu regards Aurangzib as 
 the middle-class English Protestant regards Philip 
 II. of Spain as a monster of cruelty and duplic- 
 ity, who concealed some sinister purpose behind 
 the simplest action. The Muslim considers him 
 a saint who displayed upon a throne the austere 
 virtues of primitive Islam. 
 
 The impartial observer, struggling to read be- 
 tween the lines, sees one who, having committed 
 nearly every crime under the sun to obtain a 
 throne, imperilled himself and it by too rigid an 
 adherence to the paths of virtue. He would 
 murder brothers and nephews without an atom 
 of compunction ; he could not endure that harm- 
 less and law-abiding subjects should bow down
 
 358 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 to idols in the temples where their forefathers 
 worshipped. He would keep his own sons in 
 captivity upon suspicion ; his tenderness to other 
 evil-doers was such that corruption and oppression 
 flourished unchecked throughout his dominions. 
 His blunders, committed from religious motives, 
 had far worse consequences for himself and his 
 successors than his crimes. 
 
 No doubt he could have justified every step 
 that led him to the Peacock Throne. The sensu- 
 ality of his father, the heresy and profligacy of 
 his brothers, were ample reason for setting them 
 aside. He saw how luxury and ease had corrupted 
 the old Muslim spirit ; how the descendants of 
 the men who had fought for Islam were leaning 
 to Shia heresy or Hindu idolatry, or to a careless 
 indifference to all religions ; and he resolved to 
 bring them back to the simplicity and earnestness 
 of the old time. 
 
 It was in vain as every attempt to set back 
 the clock must be, even when made with cleaner 
 hands than those of Shah Jahan's son. If he 
 could have put a new heart into his idle, self- 
 indulgent courtiers, his effeminate warriors, he 
 could not have undone the work of the Indian 
 climate upon a Northern race. It was in vain 
 that he renounced all worldly pleasure, and led 
 the life of an ascetic, eating no meat, drinking
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 359 
 
 nothing but water, reading the Friday prayers 
 in the mosque, keeping fasts and vigils, learning 
 the whole of the Koran by heart, and making 
 copies of it with his own hand for the cities 
 of Mecca and Medina. It was in vain that, in 
 accordance with the Prophet's injunction that 
 every Muslim should work for his bread, he 
 spent his leisure time in making skull-caps, which 
 he sold to the Court. It was in vain that he 
 "gave a liberal education to his fortunate and 
 noble children," and made the ladies of his 
 household learn "the fundamental and necessary 
 tenets of religion, and devote their time to the 
 adoration and worship of the Deity, to reading 
 the sacred Koran, and performing virtuous and 
 pious acts." 
 
 "Every plan that he formed came to little 
 good," we are told; "every enterprise failed." 
 One of his first acts was to employ the treasure 
 of Dara Shukoh in building a great mosque at 
 Lahore still standing, although sorely damaged 
 by Sikhs and earthquakes ; for many years no 
 Muslim would set foot in the accursed place, 
 and even now it is little frequented. 
 
 In order to begin his reign with an act of 
 clemency, he remitted many of the most oppres- 
 sive taxes by which Shah Jahan's magnificence 
 had been maintained, such as the toll collected
 
 360 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 on every highway, frontier, and ferry, the house- 
 tax paid by every tradesman, and the tithe of 
 corn. But as the historian laments, " the avari- 
 cious propensities of men prevailed " ; all over the 
 kingdom, and especially in the outlying districts, 
 the revenue officers continued to collect most of 
 these taxes, and even to increase them, putting 
 the sums thus obtained into their own pockets, 
 until goods and merchandise, between the times 
 of leaving factory or port and reaching their 
 destination, had paid double their cost price in 
 tolls. The treasury was nearly empty, and 
 Aurangzib, in the latter years of his reign, had 
 not wherewithal to pay his soldiers their arrears, 
 while the wretched peasantry, artisans, and mer- 
 chants were ground down by exactions on all 
 sides ; and even when they had succeeded in 
 gaining something more than a bare subsistence, 
 durst not let any sign of it appear in their way 
 of living. 
 
 The arts which had developed under his pre- 
 decessors found no encouragement from Aurang- 
 zib, who disfigured some of the most beautiful 
 carvings at Fatehpur-Sikri, because they repre- 
 sented human figures, which was contrary to 
 the Law of the Prophet. The minstrels and 
 singers attached to the Court " were made 
 ashamed of their occupation," and stern edicts
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 361 
 
 issued against singing and dancing. All poetry 
 was discountenanced, except such as contained 
 a moral. Astrologers were forbidden to continue 
 their trade. Former emperors had carefully 
 supervised the writing of their annals by com- 
 petent persons; but "after the expiration of 
 ten years, authors were forbidden to write the 
 events of this just and righteous Emperor's 
 reign." 
 
 All his predecessors of the house of Timur 
 had been accustomed daily to show themselves 
 to the people from a window in the palace at 
 Agra or Delhi looking towards the Jumna. Not 
 only the courtiers, but thousands of men and 
 women of all classes gathered there daily, and 
 many of them tasted no food till they had seen 
 the Emperor. As Aurangzib stood one day at 
 this window, he saw beneath him a number of 
 singers and minstrels who bore a bier, while 
 public wailers uttered their shrill cries. "What 
 does this mean ? " he asked. " What corpse have 
 you there ? " 
 
 "The corpse of Music, sire," answered the 
 minstrels; "he is slain, and we carry him to his 
 burial." 
 
 "Tis well," answered the Emperor, turning 
 away ; " look to it that you bury him deeply, 
 so that never a sound from him comes to my ears."
 
 362 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 When the crowds gathered beneath the window 
 next day, they were dispersed by the royal 
 guards ; the Emperor had made up his mind that 
 this daily showing of himself to the people was 
 "among the forbidden and unlawful practices," 
 and the window was to be walled up. 
 
 Even Jahangir, in his worst bouts of drunken- 
 ness, had not dared to remit the practice for 
 more than a day at a time. Under a despotic 
 government this was an easy way of keeping the 
 people contented. So long as they had a distant 
 glimpse of gold and diamonds, all classes were 
 assured that they had an Emperor who was ready 
 to hear them if they cried to him ; henceforth 
 they were cut off from the fountainhead of justice, 
 and felt that their Emperor was nothing to them 
 as they were to him. 
 
 If the throne could have been filled by a man of 
 sufficient capacity to check the official depredations 
 which were ruining commerce and agriculture, and 
 sufficient common-sense to leave alone most other 
 things and people especially the Deccan the 
 Empire might have continued to prosper for many 
 years. Unfortunately, to leave alone was a virtue 
 of which Aurangzib was incapable ; his thirst for 
 power led him to waste treasure and men in mak- 
 ing conquests which his successors could never 
 hope to retain, and his religious bigotry created
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 363 
 
 incessant strife within his own border. To all 
 appearance, at the time of his death, he was the 
 greatest and most powerful Emperor who had ever 
 ruled Hindustan ; but the very foundations of his 
 empire were rotting to pieces, while he stretched 
 its limits farther and farther. 
 
 One of his first actions was to destroy temples 
 at Mathura and Benares, and bury the images 
 beneath the steps of the mosque at Agra, in the 
 style of Mahmud the Idol -breaker. Some who 
 have penetrated as far as outcasts may into the 
 holy place at Benares, standing among stench 
 and filth and unspeakable abominations, their 
 whole being struggling in revolt against the 
 presence of evil, have looked up to the towers 
 of the mosque that he built, with a grateful 
 remembrance of " the great Puritan of India." 
 
 An insurrection of devotees was soon put down, 
 and the poll-tax which Akbar had remitted was 
 levied once more upon all of his subjects who were 
 not Muslims. In vain did the Hindus throng 
 about the palace ; the window was closed, and 
 their cries and murmurings could not penetrate 
 the walls. Next Friday the Emperor's road to 
 the mosque was blocked by resentful crowds ; 
 finding that they would not stand aside at his 
 bidding, he ordered his guards to charge them,
 
 364 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 and many were trampled to death or injured by 
 the elephants. 
 
 The people were terrorised for the moment; a 
 few months later, in the midst of universal dis- 
 affection and discontent, Raja Jaswant Singh 
 who has already appeared several times in this 
 story, and never with any credit set spark to 
 powder by dying at Kabul, whither he had been 
 sent by Aurangzib. The Emperor thought this a 
 good opportunity for getting the little heir of 
 Marwar into his hands, and when the widowed 
 Rani and her son passed by Delhi on their way 
 homewards, their encampment was surrounded by 
 the Emperor's soldiers. 
 
 This was an opportunity for showing the mettle 
 of the Rajputs. The Rani was disguised as a 
 slave, the baby Raja hidden, like Sivaji, at the 
 bottom of a basket of sweetmeats, and hurried 
 away with the women and children of inferior 
 rank. The Emperor demanded that mother and 
 child should be surrendered forthwith, and the 
 Rajput chiefs made answer that they would rather 
 shed the last drop of their blood. The surviving 
 women of Jaswant's family were " sent to inhabit 
 heaven " as the enemy attacked the camp, and the 
 warriors, knowing that every moment gained saw 
 their Raja farther away from Delhi, mounted their
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 365 
 
 steeds, joyously crying, "Let us swim in the ocean 
 of fight!" 
 
 When the imperial troops at length made their 
 way into the camp, over the dead bodies of its 
 defenders, they found there a woman and a child 
 dressed in princely garments, whom they brought 
 to the Emperor. When the supposed Rani was 
 discovered to be a servant, and the child a boy 
 of the Raja's age. Aurangzib, instead of throwing 
 them into prison, treated the captives with every 
 respect, as if they had been what he hoped to find. 
 His shrewdness perceived that a pretender to 
 Marwar might be a useful tool, though the right- 
 ful heir had escaped him. 
 
 The result, of course, was war between Delhi 
 and all the Rajput states excepting Amber, for the 
 Rajputs refused to believe that the real heir was in 
 captivity at the Moghul Court, and were, more- 
 over, as obstinately convinced that the child's 
 father and elder brother had met their death 
 through the Emperor's contrivance. It was war to 
 the death ; the Moghul troops cut off all supplies 
 from the country, ravaged the lands, burned the 
 villages, hewed down the trees, and carried off the 
 women and children ; the Rajputs, in their lurking- 
 places amid the Aravali hills, might be starved, 
 but they could not be subdued. Prince Akbar,
 
 366 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 Aurangzib's third son, decoyed into one of the 
 mountain passes, owed his life to Rajput generosity, 
 and between admiration for their valour and horror 
 at his father's cold-blooded cruelty, was afterwards 
 won to their side. When the news came that he 
 was marching against his father with seventy 
 thousand men, Aurangzib, calm as in the days 
 when he confronted the allied forces of two 
 brothers, used diplomacy to such good effect that 
 the deserters returned to him by thousands, and 
 Akbar durst not risk an engagement. Under 
 escort of five hundred Rajputs, the Prince hurried 
 across country to the Deccan, whence he took ship 
 for Persia. Aurangzib for once lost self-control 
 hearing that his son had escaped ; " rage so far 
 got the better of his religion," as a Rajput his- 
 torian tells us, " that he threw the Koran at the 
 head of the Almighty." 
 
 Akbar's flight did not end the war, which con- 
 tinued with increased bitterness on either side, 
 the Rajputs, who had learned some lessons from 
 their persecutors, plundering mosques, burning 
 Korans, and insulting mullahs. Then news came 
 from the Deccan which made the Emperor anxious 
 for peace at any price, and a truce was arranged 
 with Udaipur, the chief Rajput state, on honour- 
 able terms. It was not kept for long ; Marwar 
 and other states remained in revolt, and it was not
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 367 
 
 in human nature for the Rana to hold aloof while 
 all his western neighbours were at war with the 
 " Toork." Henceforth there could be no friendship 
 between Rajput and Moghul. With his zeal for 
 religion, and his thirst for universal dominion, 
 Aurangzib had dealt a fatal blow to his empire ; 
 now that the Moghul stock had become degenerate, 
 the only soldiers capable of facing the Maratha 
 swarms were the Rajputs, who from henceforth 
 would never fight his battles, and, if not at open 
 war with him, would hold aloof while others 
 attacked. The situation has been summed up 
 in one sentence: "Aurangzib had to fight his 
 southern foes with the loss of his right arm." : 
 
 One arm, however, was enough for Bijapur and 
 Golkonda. Cringing where they should have been 
 bold, defiant when submission was the only safe 
 policy, " the foolish amirs of the Deccan " had to 
 pay the price of their folly. In 1685, Aurangzib 
 came to Bijapur to conduct the siege in person, 
 taking up his quarters in the great mausoleum of 
 Sultan Ibrahim II. In the following year the 
 city yielded, and the king and chief nobles were 
 brought before the Emperor, bound with silver 
 chains. 
 
 It was now the turn of Golkonda ; for many 
 years " it had secretly subsidised Bijapur to enable 
 1 By S. Lane Poole.
 
 368 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 it to defend itself against the Moghuls, and at the 
 same time bribed the imperial officers to attack 
 Bijapur rather than itself." Its king, Abu-1- 
 Hasan, hearing that the Emperor was going on 
 pilgrimage to a shrine at Grulbarga, guessed where 
 that pilgrimage would end, and vainly sent en- 
 treaty and submission. Then a flicker of courage 
 came to him and his nobles, and, finding that 
 nothing could save them, they prepared to end 
 the story better than they had begun it. 
 
 "Day by day, and week by week, the ap- 
 proaches were pushed forward ; the fighting was 
 desperate, and many were killed on both sides." 
 The besieged, well supplied with ammunition, 
 kept up an incessant hail of cannon-balls, bullets, 
 and rockets from their walls. Aurano;zib himself, 
 
 O J 
 
 "after observing the rite of purification," sewed 
 the seams of the first sandbag that the besiegers 
 flung into the moat. Sambaji, son of Sivaji, had 
 come to the help of Golkonda when it was too 
 late to save, and his light-armed troops harried 
 the Moghuls incessantly, laying waste the country 
 and carrying off supplies of grain. Plague broke out 
 in the besiegers' camp, and many died or deserted. 
 After three months' suffering, the Moghuls 
 attempted to scale the ramparts by night ; a few 
 reached the summit, and one of the Emperor's 
 servants rushed off to report success. Aurangzib
 
 Aurangzib.
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 369 
 
 commanded the drums of victory to be beaten, 
 and ordered out his royal equipage and state dress. 
 Unhappily, none of the storming-party returned 
 to share these rejoicings, for every one of them 
 had been slain by the garrison, whom a faithful 
 dog had roused. Next day the dog was decorated 
 with a gold collar, by Abu-1-Hasan's order. 
 
 So desperate was the plight of the Moghuls that 
 Abu-1-Hasan, after showing some of his prisoners 
 his stores of corn and treasure, offered the Emperor 
 a sum of money to depart, " so that any further 
 slaughter of Muslims might be prevented." In 
 any case he was ready to supply them with grain. 
 " Let Abu-1-Hasan come to me with clasped hands, 
 as a suppliant, or else let him be bound before 
 me," answered the Emperor ; " I will then consider 
 what mercy I can show him." And there and then 
 he ordered fifty thousand bags of cotton from 
 Berar to fill the moat. 
 
 Mines and countermines blew besiegers and 
 besieged into the air, while Aurangzib quietly 
 sapped at the foundations in his own way. One 
 by one all the nobles of Golkonda were bribed to 
 come over to him, and only Abd-ar-Razzak Lari 
 and Abdullah Khan remained faithful. At length 
 Abdullah yielded to persuasion, and agreed to 
 open one of the gates of the city to the Moghul 
 troops. 
 
 2 A
 
 370 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 No bribe could avail with Abd-ar-Razzak ; Shia 
 heretic though he was, Khafi Khan is wrought to 
 admire "the ungracious faithful fellow" who, "in 
 the most insolent manner, exhibited the Emperor's 
 letter to the men in his bastion and tore it to 
 pieces in their presence," sending a message by the 
 spy who had brought it " that he would fight to 
 the death, like the horsemen who fought with 
 Imam Husain at Kerbela." 
 
 In the last watch of a September night, a cry 
 rose at one of the city gates ; the enemy had 
 entered. Abd-ar-Razzak heard the shout of vic- 
 tory, and flung himself on a barebacked horse, 
 sword in one hand and shield in the other. Down 
 to the gate he thundered, with ten or twelve 
 followers at his heels ; they were soon dispersed, 
 and he fought on alone, "like a drop of water 
 falling into the sea, or an atom of dust struggling 
 in the rays of the sun," shouting that he would 
 fight to the death for Abu-1-Hasan. At every 
 step, one of the thousand swords bristling around 
 him thrust or gashed, so that " he was covered 
 with wounds from the crown of his head to the 
 nails of his feet. But his time was not yet come, 
 and he fought his way to the gate of the citadel 
 without being brought down." Unable any longer 
 to guide his horse like himself, a mass of wounds,
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 371 
 
 and reeling as it went he gave it the reins, and 
 it bore him to a garden near the citadel, and 
 halted under a cocoa-tree. With a last effort, 
 clutching at the tree, he dismounted, and lay as 
 one dead beneath its shade. 
 
 Roused by the shouts and cries in the city, the 
 king knew that all was over. He went into the 
 harem to bid farewell to the women, and ask their 
 pardon ; then he took his seat upon the throne 
 "and watched for the coming of his unbidden 
 guests." When the dinner-hour came he ordered 
 food to be served, as usual ; and when the Moghul 
 officers entered his audience chamber, he received 
 them with perfect self-control and dignity, salut- 
 ing each one, and speaking to them " with warmth 
 and elegance." 
 
 While he waited in the Moghul camp until he 
 should be sent to honourable imprisonment in 
 the fort at Daulatabad with the King of Bijapur, 
 it chanced that a musician was playing various 
 Hindu airs in his presence. One of them pleased 
 the king so much that he exclaimed, " If I but 
 had a lakh of rupees, I would give it all to that 
 man!" The speech was reported to Aurangzib, 
 who immediately sent the money, that the captive 
 might, enjoy the pleasure of giving. 
 
 The day after the city had been captured, a
 
 372 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 party of Moghul soldiers passed through the 
 garden near the citadel, and saw a wounded horse 
 standing beneath a cocoa-tree. Going up to it, 
 they found a senseless man upon the ground ; 
 twelve wounds were on his face, which was no 
 longer recognisable, and only by his dress and his 
 horse did they know that Abd-ar-Razzak lay there. 
 Touched with pity in spite of themselves, finding 
 that he still breathed, they carried him to a house, 
 and laid him upon a bedstead. There his ser- 
 vants came and dressed his wounds, and two of 
 Aurangzib's Khans disputed what should be done 
 with him : one would have cut off his head forth- 
 with, and hung it over the gate ; the other con- 
 sidered that such conduct " was far from being 
 humane." While they wrangled, two surgeons, 
 a European and a Hindu, came on the scene, sent 
 by the Emperor to attend Abd-ar-Razzak. After 
 counting seventy wounds they gave up counting 
 in despair ; " the cuts upon his body seemed as 
 numerous as the stars." 
 
 " If Abu-1-Hasan had possessed only one more 
 servant as true as this man, it would have taken 
 much longer to enter the fortress," said Aurangzib, 
 who had daily reports brought him of Abd-ar- 
 Razzak's condition. 
 
 At the end of sixteen days the patient opened 
 one eye, and, in defiance of the doctors, expressed
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 373 
 
 a hope of recovery. The Emperor sent a gracious 
 message, promising honours as well as pardon 
 for himself and his sons. " If it should please 
 the Almighty to grant me a second life, I am 
 not likely to be fit for service again," was the 
 answer, " and if I were, I feel that no one who 
 has eaten the salt of Abu-1-Hasan and thriven 
 on his bounty can ever take service with the 
 Emperor." 
 
 "On hearing these words a cloud was seen to 
 pass over the face of his Majesty, but he kindly 
 said, 'When he is better let me know." 1 
 
 Every device was tried to gain " this devoted 
 and peerless hero," as Khafi Khan cannot help 
 styling him, but in the end Aurangzib was forced 
 to recognise that there were men whom the gold 
 of Delhi could not buy. Abd-ar-Razzak's sons 
 came to Court, and were rewarded with commands 
 and fiefs; the old warrior himself journeyed to 
 Mecca, where he had vowed to spend in prayer 
 the "second life" that had been given to him. 
 
 The Mahommedan kingdoms of the Deccan had 
 come to an end; the stately palaces had fallen, 
 and nothing remained but to drive out the rats 
 who swarmed in the ruins. It seemed a trifling 
 matter when Aurangzib began it ; it was to last 
 him till the end of a long life. 
 
 For the Moghul army, brave and imposing in
 
 374 THE GREAT PUKITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 appearance, with its bejewelled warriors, its steeds 
 caparisoned with satin and velvet, its kettle- 
 drums and yak-tail standards, was nothing more 
 than a show. The nobles, completely demoralised 
 by luxury and the Indian climate, made their 
 campaigns in palanquins, their full petticoats 
 standing out round their bodies, scarcely able to 
 move beneath the burden of wadded coats and 
 chain -armour. They would not journey a single 
 stage without all the state and superfluities to 
 which they were accustomed in Delhi or Agra, 
 and the train of camp-followers amounted to ten 
 times the number of fighting men. It was useless 
 for Aurangzib to set them an example, controlling 
 every movement of the army, facing hardships, 
 at long past seventy years of age, as gallantly as 
 when he led his father's troops to the North- 
 West. Austere as he was, he must bring canopies 
 and silken tents, menageries and mosques, halls 
 of audience, and Persian carpets, since the Em- 
 peror of Hindustan could not make a campaign 
 in other wise, and his Court imitated his mag- 
 nificence. It was of no avail to issue an edict 
 that no officer was to bring wife, family, or 
 property into the field ; "in the marches and cam- 
 paigns such orders could not be enforced without 
 resorting to punishment," and Aurangzib would 
 never punish any more than he would trust.
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 375 
 
 As for the rank and file of the army, it was 
 even worse than the leaders. Many of the soldiers 
 were household slaves, thrust into the ranks by 
 the amirs in order to fill up the gaps in the muster- 
 roll, and their pay was always in arrears. Sullen, 
 unwilling, perpetually on the verge of mutiny, 
 the unwieldy army dragged itself from place 
 to place, everywhere meeting with disaster, till 
 the cry was wrung from the Emperor's heart, 
 " Of what use to go on fighting when every- 
 thing goes against us ? " 
 
 What, indeed, could such an army do against 
 men who lived upon dry bread and onions, slept 
 upon the bare ground, with their horse's bridles 
 twisted round their right arms, and carried all 
 their field equipment in two cotton bags hung 
 from their saddles ? Grooms and cooks could have 
 done nothing for them, and Sivaji had punished 
 with death any man who dared to bring a woman 
 into the field. 
 
 The fall of Bijapur and Golkonda had added 
 greatly to the numbers of the Maratha forces ; 
 every masterless man, every soldier who had 
 served the two kings, was welcome to join them 
 if he could by any means provide himself with a 
 horse and a spear. They hung upon the flanks 
 of the Moghuls as a pack of wolves upon a herd 
 of bulls, harassing them incessantly, cutting off
 
 376 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 stragglers, plundering and robbing. If the 
 Moghuls pulled themselves together to charge 
 the pack, it broke asunder and streamed away 
 again in all directions, taking cover among woods 
 and rocks. " In that country where," as the 
 Muslims bewailed, " all the hills rise to the 
 sky, and the jungles are full of trees and bushes," 
 the heavily-armed Moghuls floundered and toiled, 
 but could never overtake them. Then growing 
 bolder, on one or two occasions when they were 
 certain of having an overwhelming superiority in 
 numbers, the Marathas openly joined battle, and 
 put the men of Delhi to flight. 
 
 Sambaji, son of Sivaji, led them for a few years 
 after his father's death ; no man was safe from 
 his cruelty, no woman even of his race safe 
 from his lust, and he allowed his followers cor- 
 responding latitude. What they lost in discipline, 
 however, was more than atoned for by the increase 
 in the numbers that mustered at the cry, " Har ! 
 har ! Mahadeo ! " 
 
 Captured by Aurangzib's troops he had been 
 warned of his danger, but had refused to believe 
 it and cut out the tongues of those who warned 
 him, Sambaji was put to a cruel death, amid 
 the rejoicings of all classes, "from chaste matrons 
 to miserable men," who could not sleep for delight 
 when they heard that he was a prisoner. Ram
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 377 
 
 Raja, his brother, continued the strife ; when he 
 died men thought that the star of the Marathas 
 had sunk for ever; Ram had left only widows 
 and infants behind him, Sambaji's son Sahu was 
 a prisoner with the Moghuls. Then Ram's elder 
 wife, Tara Bai ("the Star Lady"), made her 
 three-year-old son successor to his father, took 
 the government into her own hands, and won 
 the hearts of all her officers. Her men ravaged 
 imperial territory, carried out an elaborate system 
 of blackmail, by which every province paid toll 
 to them, and spread their devastations to Ahmad - 
 abad and Malwa. They plundered caravans within 
 twenty miles of the imperial camp ; they kept 
 many of the Moghul district officers in their pay ; 
 they would boldly join their countrymen in the 
 Moghul army in riot and feast, and mock at the 
 Emperor and his faith. 
 
 Nominally lord of all India, from Kabul to 
 Trichinopoly, Aurangzib was unable to keep any 
 of it in peace. During the twenty years in which 
 he had been campaigning in the Deccan, Hindu- 
 stan had broken out of hand ; the Jats the 
 lawless tribes whom we first met harassing the 
 retreat of Mahmud of Ghazni rose in insurrec- 
 tion near Agra ; the Rajputs were never at rest. 
 His insistence upon keeping all the threads in 
 his own hands resulted in his never having the
 
 378 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 time to disentangle them, never having the 
 resolution to trust them to other fingers. The 
 finances of the Empire were in hopeless disorder. 
 When the troops murmured for their arrears of 
 pay, he told them that if they did not like his ser- 
 vice they were welcome to leave it. Mutinies were 
 always breaking out, and could scarcely be ap- 
 peased by wringing some advances from the 
 unhappy cultivators, who, bled by imperial tax- 
 collector and Maratha freebooter, left off agri- 
 culture and became freebooters in their turn, for 
 want of employment. Plague and famine came 
 to destroy what war and pillage had left, and 
 heavy floods put the last touches to the universal 
 misery. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the Moghuls were 
 aliens in the land they ruled almost as much 
 as are the English to-day. To maintain author- 
 ity, it was absolutely necessary that both army 
 and civil service should be strong and efficient. 
 Between mistaken scruples and mistaken kind- 
 ness, Aurangzib had allowed both to go to ruin, 
 unchecked. His revenue officers and administra- 
 tors did as they pleased, knowing well that even 
 if their crimes were found out, the Emperor 
 would not punish them ; the army was deficient 
 in numbers, since few amirs troubled themselves 
 to keep up their levies to the full standard, and
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OP INDIA 1658-1707. 3*79 
 
 entirely lacking in morale. It was impossible to 
 hold India in hand under such conditions. 
 
 In 1705 Aurangzib was so ill as to inspire 
 the worst misgivings among his retinue, who 
 feared that if he were to die " not a soul would 
 escape from that land of mountains and raging 
 infidels." He led what was left of his army 
 back to Ahmadnagar, still keeping the fixed 
 smile that men were used to see upon his face, and 
 at nearly ninety showing none of the infirmities 
 of age beyond a slight deafness, and reading 
 his correspondence without spectacles. There was 
 none to stand at his side ; ever suspicious, ever 
 playing off* one man against another, in all his 
 life he had trusted no human being fully ; and, 
 knowing themselves suspected and spied upon, 
 his amirs had never given him heart - whole 
 service. His eldest son was a captive, his third 
 an exile in a strange land. Another son he had 
 imprisoned for seven years, in some jealous mis- 
 giving ; another went in such terror that he never 
 received a letter from his father without turning 
 pale. Only the youngest, Kam-Baksh, seemed to 
 be regarded in these latter days with some sort 
 of tenderness by the lonely old man, who could 
 never forget how Shah Jahan had lost his 
 throne. 
 
 Fever attacked the Emperor, and it was evident
 
 380 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 
 
 that the end was near. He wrote farewell letters 
 to the sons whom he durst not have with him, 
 since they had already begun to show jealousy 
 of each other. " Old age is arrived ; weakness 
 subdues me, and strength has forsaken all my 
 members. The instant which has passed in 
 power hath left only sorrow behind it. I have 
 not been the guardian and protector of the em- 
 pire. My time has been passed vainly. ... I 
 have a dread for my salvation and with what 
 torments I may be punished. The Begam" (his 
 daughter) " appears afflicted, but God is the only 
 judge of hearts. The foolish thoughts of women 
 produce nothing but disappointment. Farewell ! 
 farewell ! farewell ! " 
 
 " I carry with me the fruits of my sins and 
 imperfections," he wrote to Kam-Baksh. . . . 
 "Wherever I look I see nothing but God. The 
 breath which rose is gone, and has left not even 
 hope behind it." ... At the close comes the 
 plea that many a parent has had to urge : "I 
 am going ; whatever good or evil I have done, 
 it was for you." 
 
 It was on Friday, March 4, 1707, after a reign 
 of nearly fifty years, that the Emperor Aurangzib 
 went to face the judgment that he dreaded, his 
 stiffening fingers clutching at his beads, his blood- 
 less lips gasping prayers to the last moment of
 
 THE GREAT PURITAN OF INDIA 1658-1707. 381 
 
 life. As the soul parted from the body a fear- 
 ful tempest arose ; the sky was darkened, as at 
 midnight, trees and tents were hurled in all direc- 
 tions by the wind. It might have seemed that 
 the Genius of the House of Timur fled away 
 upon the blast, never to return again.
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWOED 1469-1764 
 
 ' He is of the Khalsa 
 Who protects the poor, 
 Who combats evil, 
 Who remembers God, 
 
 Who is wholly unfettered, 
 
 Who mounts the war-horse, 
 
 Who is ever waging battle, 
 
 Who slays the Toorks, 
 
 Who extends the faith, 
 
 And who gives his head with what is upon it. 
 
 At the doorway of a Sikh shall wait elephants caparisoned, 
 And horsemen with spears, and there shall be music over 
 
 his gateway. 
 
 When myriads of matches burn together, 
 Then shall the Khalsa conquer East and West." 
 
 The Rules of Guru Govind.
 
 XVII. 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 AKBAB, had striven, and striven in vain, to re- 
 concile the different races and castes within his 
 empire in a worship of One God. In the evil days, 
 when his empire was falling to pieces, there in- 
 deed arose a brotherhood open to all castes and 
 all degrees but it was a brotherhood of the 
 sword. 
 
 In the latter half of the fifteenth century a 
 number of pilgrims, having accomplished the last 
 stage of their journey to Mecca, lay down to rest, 
 their heads turned towards the Kaaba, as befitted 
 all orthodox Muslims. One of the guardians of 
 the Holy Place, going up and down between the 
 rows of sleepers, saw among them a man in blue 
 clothing, who, shameful to tell, lay with his feet 
 where his head should have been. 
 
 In a spasm of pious horror, the guardian kicked 
 him soundly. 
 
 " Ho ! what infidel have we here that dishonours 
 2 B
 
 386 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 
 
 the House of the Lord? See how he turns his 
 feet towards it ! " 
 
 "Nay," answered the pilgrim, "is there a place 
 on earth to which I may turn my feet where the 
 Lord is not?" 
 
 The guardian was in no mood for argument. 
 Still snorting with fury, while the other pilgrims 
 sat up, rubbed their eyes, and made pious or 
 profane ejaculation, he seized the offender by the 
 leg, and dragged him forcibly into the con- 
 ventional position for a True Believer, when 
 sleeping. 
 
 Then lo ! in the sight of all men, the Holy 
 Place itself turned until once more it stood at 
 the strange pilgrim's feet ; for the man in blue 
 clothing was Baba Nanak, the Guru, on whose 
 name the Sikhs call unto this day. 
 
 Baba Nanak, the son of a grain merchant at 
 Lahore, after the pattern of Prince Siddhartha 
 and St Francis of Assisi, left his father's house, 
 and wandered into the world with " Lady Pov- 
 erty" for his companion. Over the length and 
 breadth of India did he travel, through Persia, 
 and to Mecca, everywhere seeking out holy men 
 and priests of every religion, that from them he 
 might learn " the way." He read the sacred 
 books of Brahman and Mullah, he meditated in 
 solitude, he worshipped at shrine after shrine ;
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD H69-1764. 387 
 
 but what he sought was not to be found in the 
 Vedas or the Koran. 
 
 At length illumination came upon him. God 
 is One, the Timeless, the Giver of Grace, the 
 Truth, Who was before the world began, the First 
 and the Last, without Whom none may find 
 salvation. Before Him race and caste are nothing, 
 and each man will be judged by his own actions. 
 "God has said, no man shall be saved, except he 
 has performed good works. The Almighty will 
 not ask him to what tribe or persuasion he 
 belongs. He will only ask him what has he 
 done." 
 
 " One God, One Way," was Nanak's cry from 
 henceforth ; and in a land where the most trivial 
 act is hedged about with restrictions, where for 
 centuries men have sought to win heaven by 
 accumulating penance upon penance, he taught 
 that to find salvation it was not necessary to 
 forsake the ordinary duties of mankind, or to 
 hold apart from other men. He set the example 
 by going back to his own home, and living with 
 the wife and children whom he had forsaken when 
 he went out to find "the way." He refused to 
 wear the sacred thread of the Hindus. " Make 
 mercy thy cotton, contentment its thread, con- 
 tinence its knot, and truth its twist," he said to 
 a Brahman disciple ; and to a Mahommedan his
 
 388 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 counsel was, " Make kindness thy mosque, sincer- 
 ity thy prayer - carpet, the will of God thy 
 rosary." 
 
 Out of respect to the prejudices of others, he 
 would not insist upon his followers eating either 
 the ox or the swine, and he praised those who 
 should abstain altogether from animal food. But 
 to all he gave the warning, "Eat and clothe 
 thyself, and thou may'st be happy ; but without 
 fear and faith there is no salvation." He con- 
 demned suttee and the murder of female children, 
 and forbade the image-worship of the Hindus as 
 sternly as the devotion to saints practised by both 
 Hindus and Muslims. " Worship not another than 
 God ; bow not to the dead." 
 
 Legend has gathered about him so closely that 
 it is scarcely possible to disentangle the true from 
 the false. One story says that it was he who 
 summoned Babar and the Moghuls into Hindu- 
 stan, to drive out the cruel Afghans who op- 
 pressed the people. It may be true that he met 
 Babar during the brief interval when the Emperor 
 was trying to put his conquests in order, even 
 though he may not have foretold that Babar and 
 he should each found a dynasty of ten sovereigns. 
 
 He died at the age of seventy, appointing one 
 of his disciples as " Guru " or teacher, since of 
 his two sons, one, in disregard of his father's
 
 THE SONS OP THE SWORD 1469-1764. 389 
 
 teaching, had become an ascetic, the other was 
 given over to pleasure. But the Sikhs believed 
 that his spirit became incarnate in the body of 
 the nine Gurus who followed him. " Nanak thus 
 put on other habiliments, as one lamp is lighted 
 at another." 
 
 Ram Das, the third successor to Nanak, was 
 one of the holy men whom Akbar " heard gladly," 
 and to him was granted a piece of land to the 
 north of Lahore. Here he made a tank, " the 
 Pool of the Water of Life," wherein still stands 
 the Golden Temple, the holy place that is to the 
 Sikhs what Mecca is to the Mahommedan, or 
 Benares to the Hindu. In the pool the Sikhs 
 who are baptised into their religion by water- 
 bathe before they pass into the temple enriched 
 with spoils from Moghul tomb and palace, where 
 the white -robed high priest reads the "Granth" 
 or sacred book, and receives their offerings. Fans 
 wave to and fro above the " Granth," embroidered 
 coverings enwrap it ; when it is carried in pro- 
 cession jewelled canopies are borne over it, and 
 brooms of peacock feathers sweep the dust of the 
 worshippers from the temple floor. 
 
 All these splendours date from long after the 
 time of Ram Das, in whose day the Sikhs were 
 a small and obscure sect, of no wealth or import- 
 ance. It was his son, Arjun, who made Amritsar
 
 390 THE SONS OF THE SWOED 1469-1764. 
 
 their holy city, and first compiled the " Granth." 
 Under his rule the Sikhs increased and prospered, 
 acquiring a great reputation in foreign countries 
 as traders, and paying a fixed tax or tithe to the 
 Guru. 
 
 There was a certain official administering the 
 finances of the Lahore province under the Em- 
 peror Jahangir, who sought a husband for his 
 daughter. Someone suggested that he might 
 do worse than take the son of Arjun. " Shall 
 I give my daughter to a beggar's son?" he 
 objected. " Arjun is wealthy," urged the match- 
 maker. " That may be," answered the official, 
 "but he receives alms from other men." 
 
 Some busybody repeated this speech to Arjun, 
 and when the official who in the meantime had 
 been considering the matter more carefully sent 
 a formal proposal for a marriage between the 
 children, the Guru would not hear of any such 
 thing. Never, he vowed, should his son marry the 
 daughter of a man who had called him a beggar. 
 
 The official,^ insulted in his turn, avenged 
 himself by slandering Arjun to Jahangir. The 
 Emperor, engaged just then in impaling seven 
 hundred of the men who had been concerned in 
 his son Khusru's rebellion, was told that the 
 Sikh Guru had prayed for the Prince's success. 
 Arjun was summoned before his Majesty, fined,
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 391 
 
 and imprisoned. The Sikh stories tell that even 
 though he had justified himself to the Emperor, 
 his enemy still held him in ward, and threatened 
 to bring other accusations against him. On the 
 morning of the day on which he was to be 
 brought for a second time before Jahangir, he 
 asked leave to bathe in the river Ravi. His 
 guards watched him wading out into the shallow 
 stream, till suddenly he vanished. Whether he 
 had let himself sink beneath the waters, or 
 whether, as his disciples believed, he was 
 miraculously rapt from them, no human eye 
 ever beheld him again. 
 
 For many years he had been childless. Then 
 his wife remembered that a very old man, the 
 last of those who had followed Nanak, still 
 survived. Dressed in her richest sari, she bowed 
 before him, and laid offerings worthy of a princess 
 at his feet, imploring him to bless her so that 
 she might bear a son. But the old man turned 
 away his head, and made no answer. 
 
 She came again, and this time she brought no 
 train of servants, but entered his presence alone. 
 Her feet were bare, her sari was that of a 
 peasant woman, and on her head she bore the 
 offerings of food that the poorest bring. Then 
 the old man smiled upon her. "A son shalt 
 thou bear who shall be lord of grace and power,
 
 392 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 and from him shall spring all the Gurus who 
 are to come after him." 
 
 This son, Har Govind, only eleven years old 
 at the time of his father's death, was soon at 
 work organising the Sikhs into a military caste. 
 He led them to battle against their enemies, or 
 those of the empire, wearing two swords in his 
 girdle, one so he said to avenge his father's 
 death, one to stay the false miracles of Mahom- 
 medanism. This did not prevent him from 
 serving Jahangir for many years ; and in spite 
 of differences of opinion after that Emperor's 
 death, which brought him and his followers into 
 collision with the troops of Delhi, he died in peace. 
 
 Two of his descendants succeeded him, who 
 did nothing worthy of remembrance. Then came 
 the turn of his younger son, Teg Bahadur, who 
 had the misfortune to draw upon himself the 
 unfavourable notice of Aurangzib. The Sikhs 
 maintain that he was living the life of a saint 
 and an apostle, and that he was foully slandered 
 by a jealous nephew who had looked to be 
 acknowledged as the Guru in his stead. Other 
 authorities represent him as leading the life of 
 a Robin Hood in the deserts near the Sutlej, 
 levying contributions from rich Hindus, which 
 he shared with the peasantry, who regarded him 
 with not unnatural affection.
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 393 
 
 Saint or robber, Teg Bahadur received a sum- 
 mons to Delhi which he might not disregard, 
 for the sake of his followers, who must all 
 perish were he to resist. He had always refused 
 to wear the sword of Har Govind, saying that 
 he was not worthy ; he now bound it upon his 
 young son, another Govind. "I go to death ; 
 see to it that my body is not left for dogs and 
 vultures to tear, and avenge me when the time 
 shall come." 
 
 At Delhi he was thrown into prison, whence 
 they brought him before Aurangzib, who bade 
 him work some miracle if power were indeed 
 given him from heaven. Now miracles were for- 
 bidden to the Guru. " Fight with no weapon save 
 the sword of God," Nanak had enjoined them ; 
 " a holy teacher hath no means save the purity 
 of his doctrine." Teg Bahadur made answer that 
 the duty of man was to pray to the Lord ; he 
 could do no more. 
 
 The Emperor condemned him to die, on the 
 pretext that he had been seen standing on the 
 roof of his prison in the fort, gazing towards 
 the rooms where the royal harem dwelt. 
 
 "0 Emperor!" cried the Guru, "I was on the 
 top storey of my prison, but I looked not at 
 thy private apartments or at thy queens. I was 
 looking towards the white men who shall come
 
 394 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 from overseas to tear down thy purdahs and 
 destroy thine empire." 
 
 This was in 1675. Nearly two hundred years 
 afterwards, when Nicholson led Sikhs to the 
 assault of Delhi, they chanted Teg Bahadur's 
 prophecy as they charged. 
 
 A Sikh legend tells how, at the last, when 
 brought forth to execution, Teg Bahadur con- 
 fessed to the Emperor that though he might 
 not work miracles, he knew of a charm that 
 could save from death. Let him write it on a 
 piece of paper, and fasten it about his neck, 
 and the sword of the executioner could not harm 
 him. Emperor and court watched while he 
 traced a few words on paper and while the 
 sword flashed in the air, when, to their surprise 
 and disappointment, the Guru's head and body 
 rolled apart. One of them picked up the paper 
 and opened it ; within was written, " My head 
 I gave, my secret I gave not." l 
 
 His body, exposed in the streets of Delhi, was 
 stolen thence by some of his followers, belong- 
 ing to the sweepers, whose touch is pollution to 
 the other castes of Hindus. For the next twenty 
 years nothing was heard of his son. 
 
 In the wastes and solitudes where he hunted 
 
 1 In the original there is a play upon the words " Sir," a head, 
 and " Sirr ," a secret.
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 395 
 
 the wild beasts, enlightenment came upon Govind ; 
 he chastened his body with fasting and penance, 
 he gave his soul to contemplation, he made sacri- 
 fice like the heroes of olden time, and the " Great 
 Mother," Bhavani, appeared amid the smoke of 
 the burnt-offering, and touched his sword, in 
 token that victory and power were given unto 
 him. 
 
 Then he gathered the Sikhs about him, and 
 gave them the new law. The way of salvation 
 was open to all as Nanak had declared, two 
 hundred years before and the bond of union 
 was to be the sword. All caste was to be for- 
 gotten ; all the disciples should bathe in the 
 sacred pool, and eat together of the sacred food 
 which made them of the "Khalsa" the elect. 
 Their hair should be unshorn, they should bear 
 steel about them, and their garments should be 
 blue in colour. No longer were they to be 
 called "Sikhs" or "disciples," for each of them 
 from the hour of his baptism into the faith 
 became " Sing," or " a lion " a warrior vowed 
 to arms, to slay the " Toorks." 
 
 The appeal was answered ; some few disciples 
 were of such high caste that they would not 
 consent to be brought down to a level with 
 sudras and sweepers ; the rest accepted the new 
 law, and many more joined them. It is proof
 
 396 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 that " the brotherhood of the sword " binds more 
 closely than ties of race, creed, or position, that 
 one hundred and fifty years after Guru Govind's 
 initiation, Mountstuart Elphinstone could write 
 that " the Sikhs have now as distinct a national 
 character as any of the original races in India." 
 
 Govind and his followers now began a series 
 of small campaigns, as the foes or allies of the 
 various hill chiefs in their neighbourhood. Then 
 Aurangzib, taking alarm at their success, and 
 perhaps fearing that another Sivaji had arisen 
 in the north, sent an army against them. " The 
 Khalsa" was not yet strong enough to face the 
 troops of Delhi ; Govind might condemn all 
 who deserted him to suffer in this life and the 
 next, but spiritual weapons were not so terrible 
 as the Moghul artillery. Day after day saw 
 the gaps in their ranks widen, till only forty 
 men were left with him. He sent away his 
 mother, his wives, and his two youngest boys, 
 who escaped to Sirhind ; there they were betrayed 
 to the Moghuls, who slew the lads in cold blood. 
 
 Govind had taken refuge in a fort with his 
 elder sons, and the two-score men who still re- 
 mained faithful. The Moghuls closed upon them ; 
 both the young men and most of the garrison 
 were slain, and Govind, who had vainly exposed 
 himself everywhere, fled again, under cover of a
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 397 
 
 dark night. Aided by kindly Muslims, whom 
 he had befriended in former days, he escaped, 
 disguised in the blue dress of a Pir, into the 
 broken country near Bhatinda, whither the 
 Moghul troops did not trouble to follow him. 
 Some will have it that the Sikhs wear blue 
 clothes in memory of this flight of their last 
 Guru. 
 
 In the inevitable struggle for the throne which 
 followed the death of Aurangzib, Bahadur Shah, 
 who had overcome two of his brothers, and 
 taken what was left of the empire to himself, 
 summoned Govind to his aid, and gave him a 
 military command. Once again the Sikh war- 
 cry of " Wah ! Guru ! " was heard, and the 
 "Khalsa" gathered together. But Govind would 
 lead them no more; Nanak's prophecy of "ten 
 kings" was about to be fulfilled. In a fit of 
 passion he had slain a Pathan horse-dealer with 
 whom he was quarrelling over the payment due 
 for some horses. Remorse came too late to the 
 childless man, whose slain father was still un- 
 avenged. He was ever in the company of the 
 dealer's sons, playing games of skill with them, 
 harping continually upon the duty of revenge, 
 as if he sought death at their hands. Their 
 mother, too, whetted her tongue upon the sons 
 who had not the courage to take blood for blood,
 
 398 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 and at last, while Govind slept, the young men 
 crept up to him, unperceived, and stabbed him 
 where he lay. 
 
 The Guru started up ; his men hurried in 
 from all sides and seized the Pathans, who 
 smiled scornfully ; they had avenged their father, 
 and could face death unmoved. " Loose them ! " 
 commanded Govind ; " harm them not ; they 
 have done well." 
 
 " Who shall show us the way when thou art 
 gone ? " wept his disciples. " Who shall lead us 
 to victory? Thou hast no son to stand in thy 
 stead." 
 
 "Be of good cheer," answered the dying man, 
 "the Ten are no more, and I go to deliver the 
 ' Khalsa ' to Him who continueth. He who wishes 
 to behold the Guru, let him search the Granth ; 
 he who wishes to behold the Guru shall behold 
 him in the ' Khalsa.' Be strong, be faithful ; 
 behold, wherever five Sikhs are gathered together, 
 there will I be in the midst of them." 
 
 It was on the banks of the river Godavery, 
 in the Deccan, at the end of the year 1708, that 
 Govind died, and since that time no other Guru 
 has arisen among the Sikhs. 
 
 To the north-west sped Banda, whom the dead 
 man had appointed to lead the " Khalsa " in war, 
 and displayed the arrows of Govind to the Sikhs
 
 THE SONS OP THE SWORD 1469-1764. 399 
 
 who mustered at his call. Here was pledge and 
 token of victory ; let them avenge the slaughtered 
 sons of their Guru upon the accursed "Toork." 
 Then followed eight years of reprisals from either 
 side. Like a swarm of locusts the Sikhs swept 
 down upon the province of Sirhind, and spread 
 through the country to the east of the Sutlej 
 and the Jumna, destroying mosques, slaughter- 
 ing mullahs, massacring and plundering wher- 
 ever they went. In the town of Sirhind fearful 
 vengence was taken men, women, and children 
 were butchered, even the dead were not allowed 
 to rest, but were torn from their graves and 
 flung to the jackal and the vulture. For many 
 generations afterwards no faithful Sikh would 
 go by the place where Sirhind had once stood 
 without bringing away a brick, so that nothing 
 might remain to tell where Govind's sons had 
 been murdered. 
 
 A temporary repulse drove them back to their 
 headquarters upon the upper waters of the 
 Sutlej, between Lodiana and the mountains; 
 thence, in a little while, they broke forth again, 
 and were laying waste all the country between 
 Lahore and Delhi. Bahadur Shah, the Emperor, 
 himself came against them, and forced them to 
 leave the open country. Banda and his men 
 retreated like savage dogs, biting fiercely at
 
 400 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 
 
 every step of the way, and took refuge in a 
 fort. Here, while the legions of Delhi hemmed 
 them closer and closer, they endured the last 
 extremity of famine, until so many had died of 
 starvation that they could hold out no longer. 
 Then the survivors came forth, sword in hand ; 
 some fell, after slaying numbers of the enemy ; 
 a few cut their way through the lines, and 
 escaped. 
 
 There was one among them who by dress and 
 appearance seemed to be their leader ; he was 
 captured by the Moghuls, and brought before the 
 Emperor. Great was the wrath of all when he 
 was found to be, not Banda, but a Hindu convert 
 who had taken his place ; the real Banda had 
 been among the few who escaped. 
 
 Bahadur Shah had neither the grace to forgive 
 nor the courage to punish outright ; he would not 
 take the life of the brave Sikh, but he ordered 
 him to be shut up in an iron cage and sent 
 to Delhi. 
 
 Banda lost no time in making himself felt, 
 and for a while there was none to stay him ; 
 Bahadur Shah had died at Lahore, and his sons 
 must needs go through the usual civil war in 
 order to establish the succession. Sirhind was 
 again plundered, and the Punjab suffered much 
 before an army under the governor of Kashmir
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 401 
 
 defeated the Sikhs, and sent them back once 
 more towards the hills. 
 
 Shut up in the strong fort he had built for 
 himself between the Ravi and the Beas, Banda 
 and his men again endured all the horrors of 
 slow starvation, and this time there was no 
 escape. Some were killed at once upon surrender ; 
 Banda and seven hundred and forty men were 
 sent to Delhi, and paraded through the streets, 
 mounted upon camels, and dressed in black sheep- 
 skins, with the wool outside. The smooth-faced 
 people of the city cursed the shaggy ruffians, 
 with their flowing hair and long beards parted 
 in the middle and brushed over their ears, after 
 the fashion of the Sikhs. One old woman saw 
 among them the man who had assassinated her 
 son, the governor of Sirhind ; seizing a stone, 
 she flung it down with so true an aim, that it 
 crashed upon the Sikh's skull, and he fell dead. 
 
 Every day a hundred of the prisoners were 
 executed all, we are told, disputing who should 
 be the first to go ; on the eighth day, Banda 
 himself was exposed in an iron cage, and put 
 to death with fearful tortures. Every living 
 thing belonging to him, from his son to his cat, 
 was slain with him. 
 
 For a while the " Khalsa " seemed to have come 
 to an end ; with a price set on the head of every 
 
 2 c
 
 402 THE SONS OF THE SWORD H69-1764. 
 
 Sikh, those who would not conform must hide 
 in the jungles or the hills. 
 
 For a generation other creeds and races tore 
 the empire of Akbar asunder, the Marathas ad- 
 vancing to the very gates of Delhi, the Afghans 
 seizing upon Kandahar. Then Nadir Shah, the 
 Persian, entered Delhi, and for two months 
 pillaged, murdered, and tortured at his will. 
 In the anarchy that followed, the Sikhs who 
 until then had been earning a precarious, and 
 what might almost have been considered an 
 honest, livelihood as petty robbers gathered 
 together in bands and plundered with strict 
 impartiality the stragglers from his army and 
 the fugitives from Delhi. For the first time in 
 many years they dared to visit Amritsar in open 
 day and bathe in the Water of Life. 
 
 The empire lay in the death throes, and foe 
 after foe cut a portion from the quivering body. 
 Ahmad Shah, the Afghan ruler of Kandahar, now 
 turned southwards and attacked Delhi. The old 
 days when the men of the hills came down 
 through the northern gates, in wave upon wave 
 of invasion, to ravage the fat plains of Hindu- 
 stan, had returned again ; four times did he come 
 with a host of spoilers at his back. The third 
 time he seized Delhi, and repeated the weary 
 round of pillage, torture, and violence.
 
 THE SONS OF THE SWORD 1469-1764. 403 
 
 It was the opportunity of the Sikhs, who for 
 some time had been seizing upon one territory 
 and another, as chance favoured them, often 
 driven back and forced to disperse, but collect- 
 ing again, with invincible obstinacy, so soon as 
 the immediate pressure was relaxed. They occu- 
 pied Lahore, and used the Moghul mint to strike 
 a rupee "coined by the grace of the Khalsa." 
 Then for a little while the Marathas were par- 
 amount ; the Sikhs must leave Lahore. Then 
 Ahmad Shah crossed the Indus for the fourth 
 time, and beat the wolves of the Deccan at 
 Panipat (1761). On his way back to Kandahar, 
 to appease the religious enthusiasm of his army, 
 he destroyed the temples which the Sikhs had 
 lately rebuilt at Amritsar, bathing their founda- 
 tions in bullocks' blood, slaughtering cows in the 
 sacred pool, and washing out the desecrated 
 mosques with the blood of slain Sikhs. 
 
 He went, and while India lay inert and help- 
 less, Maratha and Moghul incapable of further 
 effort, the Sikhs rallied, and were up and doing. 
 They plundered a Pathan colony, they slew a 
 Khan who had offended them, they marched once 
 more to Sirhind, where the Afghan governor came 
 out to meet them in 1763. After their victory, 
 men told how the Sikh horsemen scattered apart, 
 and rode day and night through the plains
 
 404 THE SONS OF THE SWOKD 1469-1764. 
 
 between the Sutlej and the Jumna, each flinging 
 his belt, his sword sheath, his scarf into the 
 villages that he passed, as a sign that he had 
 taken possession, until all were nearly stripped 
 naked before their wild ride had come to an 
 end. The town of Sirhind itself was made a 
 desolation for ever. 
 
 In the next year they were masters of Lahore, 
 with their chained Afghan captives washing the 
 foundations of the mosques in the blood of swine. 
 At Amritsar they held a solemn assembly, and 
 struck coins with the inscription, " Grace, power, 
 and victory without pause, Guru Govind Sing 
 obtained from Nanak." 
 
 A hundred and forty years later the Sikhs 
 had gathered at the Durbar of 1903, to acclaim 
 the ruler of the white race whose coming Teg 
 Bahadur had foretold. They came together to 
 worship at the shrine erected in memory of 
 their murdered Guru ; they made prayers and 
 offerings ; and they saluted their " Granth " with 
 the cry of " God save the King."
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 
 1707-1761 
 
 ' ' The country was torn to pieces with civil wars, and groaned under 
 every species of domestic confusion. Villainy was practised in every form ; 
 all law and religion were trodden under foot ; the bonds of private friendship 
 and connections, as well as of society and government, were broken ; and 
 every individual, as if amidst a forest of wild beasts, could rely upon nothing 
 but the strength of his own arm." A. Dow (referring to India in 1754).
 
 XVIIL 
 
 THE DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE- 
 1707-1761. 
 
 THE last agonies of a dying empire, when the 
 decay has been brought on by its own folly, 
 stupidity, and selfishness, are as painful to dwell 
 upon as the last agonies of a human being in like 
 case. The events of the next fifty years must 
 be passed over as briefly as possible ; were they 
 told in detail, scarcely a human being could 
 endure the record of misery, crime, anarchy, 
 cowardice, and selfishness beyond belief, and 
 cruelties which can hardly be named. 
 
 A transient gleam of brightness came in the 
 short reign of Aurangzib's son, Bahadur Shah. 
 With Rajputana in revolt, the Sikhs overrunning 
 the Punjab, the Marathas terrorising the Deccan, 
 and the Jats breaking loose near Agra, and 
 hampered, moreover, by having to fight two of 
 his brothers before attending to the rest of the 
 empire, he did the utmost that man could do
 
 408 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 against such odds. When once the princes' 
 insurrection had been put down, he pardoned 
 all the chiefs who had taken part with them, 
 and bound them to himself with favour and 
 honours. He released Sahu, the son of Sambaji, 
 who had been a prisoner at the Moghul Court 
 since the time of his father's execution, and sent 
 him to keep the Marathas in such order as was 
 consistent with their nature. He made a peace 
 with the Eajputs, by which Udaipur and Jodhpur 
 were rendered independent in all but the name ; 
 and then he went against the Sikhs, who had 
 proved more than a match for his generals. But 
 he was an old man nearly seventy years of 
 age and he had not made much impression upon 
 them when death overtook him in 1712. 
 
 " Great confusion immediately followed in the 
 royal camp, and loud cries were heard on every 
 side. The amirs and officials left the royal tents 
 in the darkness of the night, and went off to 
 join the young princes. Many persons of no 
 party, and followers of the camp, unmindful of 
 what fate had in store for them, were greatly 
 alarmed, and went off to the city with their 
 families. Kuffians and vagabonds began to lay 
 their hands upon the goods of many. Several 
 persons were to be seen seeking refuge in one 
 little shop. Friends and relations were unable
 
 DEATH-THROES OP AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 409 
 
 to answer the calls made upon them. Great 
 disturbances rose in the armies of the princes, 
 and none of the great men had any hope of 
 saving their lives. The soldiers loudly demanded 
 their pay and allowances, and joining the un- 
 ceremonious servants, they made use of foul and 
 abusive language, and laid their hands on every- 
 thing they found. Fathers could do nothing to 
 help their sons, nor sons for their fathers. Every 
 man had enough to do in taking care of himself, 
 and the scene was like the Day of Judgment/' 
 
 It was a picture in miniature of the state of 
 the whole empire for the next hundred years. 
 
 The usual civil war followed ; then Zulfikar 
 Khan, the paymaster, set up a puppet Emperor, 
 in whose name he ruled for a few months until 
 both were murdered. By this time Timur's 
 descendants had become mere shadow - princes, 
 incapable of power, delegating their authority 
 into the hands of some "Mayor of the Palace." 
 The next king-makers were two Sayyid brothers, 
 whose wretched tool, the Emperor Farukh Siyar, 
 struggled helplessly against their usurpations until 
 blinded and murdered by their orders, after a 
 reign of a few years, during which, we are told, 
 " Muslims and Hindus united in prayers for the 
 downfall of the government." 
 
 Of such little importance were the successors
 
 410 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 of Aurangzib in death as in life, that not one 
 has a mausoleum to mark his grave, and it is 
 not known for certain where some of them were 
 buried. "Deposed and blinded," "Deposed and 
 murdered," " Deposed, blinded, and murdered," 
 are the records opposite nearly all their names 
 up to the time of Shah Alam, the most unhappy 
 of all, who, blinded by Ghulam Kadir the Rohilla, 
 remained a prisoner in the hands of Ghulam's 
 conquerors, the Marathas, until rescued by Lord 
 Lake in 1803. If there were any respite from 
 revolt and invasion, it was generally occupied 
 in fratricidal strife and intrigue. Every son of 
 the Emperor knew that it must be "Takht" or 
 " Takhta," " the Throne " or " the Bier," and seized 
 any opportunity of getting rid of his brothers 
 and near relations. 
 
 Two child kings, set up by the Sayyids in Farukh 
 Siyar's stead, died happily for themselves of 
 consumption ; then came Mohammad Shah, the 
 last Moghul to sit upon the Peacock Throne. 
 Again there was a momentary pause on the road 
 to ruin. Among the chief nobles was a truculent 
 old Turkoman, son of one of Aurangzib's favourite 
 officers, who figures in the chronicles of the time 
 under the various names and titles of Mir-Kamr- 
 ad-din, Chin Kilich Khan, Asaf Jah, and the 
 Nizam. Hating the Sayyids, both as rivals and as
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 411 
 
 Shia heretics, he raised an army and went against 
 them. Their power was broken, and when shortly 
 afterwards one was assassinated and the other 
 thrown into prison, there was space for strength- 
 ening the defences of what fragments of empire 
 remained. The Nizam founded the " buffer state " 
 of Hyderabad, to keep off the Marathas, and left 
 his son to rule it while he directed affairs at Delhi 
 as Grand Vezir. 
 
 The feeble, profligate Emperor, given over to 
 debauchery and bad company, left his signet in 
 the hands of his mistress, who used it as she 
 pleased, and would not even show common civility 
 to the one man who might have preserved the 
 fragments of his empire for him. When Asaf Jah 
 came to the durbar with the formal obeisance of 
 the days when the Moghul Court was more than 
 an empty splendour, the insolent boys who were 
 Mohammad Shah's chosen companions would 
 whisper unreproved to their master, " See how the 
 Deccan monkeys dance ! " 
 
 Weary of mockery and ingratitude, the old 
 warrior made the excuse of a Maratha inroad to 
 go back to the Deccan. There with a stout hand 
 he put down foray and rebellion, so that at last 
 the highways were free again for travellers and 
 merchants. Even he, however, was not strong 
 enough to refuse the chauth a tax as disgraceful
 
 412 DEATH-THROES OP AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 as the Danegeld of Ethelred the Unready. The 
 utmost he could obtain was that his own officers 
 should collect it from the people, and deliver it to 
 the Marathas, who by this time were levying their 
 blackmail not only in the Deccan but in Gujarat, 
 in Malwa, in the very heart of the empire. 
 
 The leader among the wolf-pack by this time 
 was no longer the Raja of Satara, the descendant 
 of Sivaji, who was almost as little of an influence 
 as the Emperor himself, but his Peshwa, or Prime 
 Minister, Baji Eao. Unscrupulous as all former 
 leaders, and of clearer sight than most of them, 
 this man realised that the time had come for the 
 Marathas to found the empire promised to Sivaji 
 by the " Great Mother." " The Maratha flag shall 
 fly from the Kistna to the Attock," he told the 
 Raja, who, stirred to unwonted energy, replied, 
 " Ay, you shall plant it beyond the Himalaya." 
 " Let us strike at the withering tree," urged 
 Baji Rao ; " the branches must fall of themselves." 
 And he acted upon his own counsel with such 
 good effect that in a few years he led his horsemen 
 to the gates of Delhi. Asaf Jah, hurrying to the 
 Emperor's help, with power to call out all the 
 resources of the state, could only muster thirty- 
 four thousand men, and these were worsted by the 
 usual Maratha tactics. The Nizam was obliged to 
 make terms with the Peshwa, and to cede to him
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 413 
 
 all the territories between the Narbada and the 
 Chambal, including the whole of the province of 
 Malva. 
 
 If Asaf Jah had hoped to win a breathing-space 
 for the empire and himself by this surrender, he 
 was soon undeceived ; an enemy more terrible than 
 any since the days when Timur the Lame had laid 
 Delhi waste was coming upon Hindustan. 
 
 Nadir Shah, the Turkoman, had risen to the 
 throne of Persia through the stages by which 
 many Oriental kings have passed first slave, 
 then freebooter, then general under a king whose 
 authority was only nominal, and lastly king in 
 name as well as in fact. The rulers of Delhi had 
 seen little reason to trouble themselves about him 
 up to this time ; if he chose to tear Kandahar from 
 the Chilzais, it was many years since it had 
 belonged to the Moghul Empire. They had for- 
 gotten how, in the day of their pride, Kandahar 
 had been a stepping-stone to further conquest. 
 When he seized Ghazni and Kabul, they solaced 
 themselves with the thought that the wild tribes 
 who infested the hills between Kabul and Peshawar 
 might be trusted to bar the road to the south ; 
 they had forgotten that the subsidies formerly 
 paid to the hillmen, like most of the payments 
 due from Delhi, had fallen into arrears. 
 
 Then came the tidings, early in 1738, that Nadir
 
 414 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 had crossed the Indus, and was on his way to 
 Lahore. 
 
 " Notwithstanding all this, the careless Emperor 
 and the ungrateful nobles, having covered their 
 faces with the veil of gross negligence, were 
 awaiting the approaching misfortune." Counsels 
 were divided. Asaf Jah, the Nizam, objected to 
 every proposal made by the Khan - Dauran or 
 Captain - General of the Emperor's forces, and 
 was also upon ill terms with Sa'adat Ali, the 
 Viceroy of Oudh. The Emperor was not strong 
 enough to put down their bickerings with a firm 
 hand, and while they quarrelled the Persian army 
 drew nearer and nearer. There was an action 
 at Kurnal, a few miles north of Panipat a 
 miserable blunder from beginning to end, so far 
 as the Moghuls were concerned ; Sa'adat joined 
 battle on his own account, hearing that Nadir's 
 horsemen were plundering his camp and baggage, 
 the Khan - Dauran followed him, " without due 
 preparation" or waiting for orders, and the Nizam 
 held stubbornly aloof. The Khan - Dauran was 
 mortally wounded, and the Viceroy was taken 
 prisoner, but their men fought so obstinately 
 till the close of day that Nadir Shah, who, judg- 
 ing from the events of late years, had expected 
 to meet with no resistance, was somewhat dis- 
 concerted, and began to consider whether it would
 
 Mohammad Shah.
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 415 
 
 not be better to return to Persia, if he could 
 obtain a sufficient indemnity before he departed. 
 Some say at this point that the Emperor, who 
 had lost what little courage he ever possessed at 
 the Khan-Dauran's death, threw up the struggle ; 
 others that he was betrayed by Sa'adat Ali and 
 Asaf Jah. Modern writers are inclined to think 
 that these men have been maligned by partisan 
 contemporaries. Be the fault whose it may, just 
 when there was a hope of seeing the invaders 
 depart, the wretched Mohammad caused himself 
 to be carried to the Persian camp in his palanquin, 
 a scanty retinue accompanying him. 
 
 Out to meet him came the Persian a stoutly 
 built man, over six feet high, burnt brown by 
 exposure to all weathers. The Emperors sat side 
 by side in the place of honour, and Nadir pre- 
 sented the ceremonial cup of coffee to his guest 
 with his own hands, saying, " Since you have 
 done me the honour to come here, you are my 
 brother, and may you remain happy in the empire 
 of Hindustan." 
 
 So much conventional courtesy demanded, then 
 the real spirit of the man broke out : " What a 
 ruler in Islam are you ! " he cried in his rough, 
 rude voice; "you not only pay tribute to those 
 dirty Hindu savages in the south, but when an 
 invader comes against you, as I have done, you
 
 416 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 give up the game without a single honest 
 struggle ! " 
 
 After this outbreak Nadir withdrew to another 
 tent to arrange the terms of peace, while his 
 servants spread the feast which Eastern hospi- 
 tality and royal etiquette alike required of him. 
 When he came back, Mohammad, surrounded by 
 the Persian officers, was making as good a meal 
 as Louis XVI. among the sans-culottes. 
 
 " What a man is this who can bear thus easily 
 the loss of power and liberty ! " scoffed the Persian, 
 in angry contempt. 
 
 But Mohammad cared for nothing else so long 
 as there should be peace in his days, and he 
 readily agreed to all Nadir's conditions which, 
 indeed, he was in no position to refuse. The 
 Persian army was to rest from its labours within 
 the walls of Delhi, while Nadir collected an 
 indemnity for the trouble and expense to which 
 he had been put in coming thus far. 
 
 Side by side, the Persian on a horse, the Moghul 
 on an elephant, the two Emperors entered Delhi, 
 and were lodged in the red fort, Nadir making 
 his headquarters in the Diwan-i-Khas, where 
 Shah Jahan's inscription still mocked the fallen 
 son of Timur : " If a Paradise be on the face of 
 the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." He 
 was a stern disciplinarian, and for two days his
 
 Nadir Shah.
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 417 
 
 army durst no more than eye the riches about 
 them, and the quaking townsfolk went unmolested. 
 
 Then a false rumour flew that he had been 
 murdered by command of the Moghul Emperor. 
 It is said that the alarm was caused by a woman 
 guard in the harem, who discharged her match- 
 lock : whether this be true, or whether it be an 
 instance of the almost invariable habit of the 
 sons of Adam to put the blame for every disaster 
 upon some woman, the citizens of Delhi rose out 
 of sheer blind terror and fell upon the Persians. 
 "About midnight the officers of Nadir Shah, 
 frightened and trembling," told their master that 
 three thousand of his men had been put to 
 death. " The Shah, angry at being roused, said, 
 ' The men of my army are maliciously accusing 
 the people of Hindustan, so that I should kill 
 a number of them, and give the signal for 
 plunder.' But when this information was re- 
 peated over and over again to the Shah, he 
 seized his sword, and he himself made that sword 
 a standard, and issued the order for slaughter." 
 
 " From that night till five hours of the follow- 
 ing day, man, woman, animal, and every living 
 thing which came under the eyes of the Persians, 
 was put to the sword, and from every house ran 
 a stream of blood." The Chandni Chauk where 
 
 2 D
 
 418 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 the jewellers sat, the Dariba Bazaar, and the 
 buildings round the Jama Masjid were set on 
 fire ; and through nine fearful hours of carnage 
 and destruction Nadir watched from the little 
 " Golden Mosque " overlooking the Bazaar close 
 to what is now the police station. There he 
 sat, glowering, his protruding under -lip thrust 
 forward, as Mohammad Shah and the nobles of 
 Delhi came before him with downcast eyes. 
 "What would you? Speak!" thundered the 
 Persian. Mohammad answered with a burst of 
 tears, and an entreaty for mercy upon his un- 
 happy people. 
 
 So thoroughly did the terrible Nadir keep his 
 men in hand that the massacre ceased instantly 
 when he spoke the word. Many thousands (some 
 say twenty, some a hundred thousand) lay dead 
 amidst their burning homes. "For a long time 
 the streets remained strewn with corpses, as the 
 walks of a garden with dead flowers and leaves. 
 The town was reduced to ashes, and had the ap- 
 pearance of a plain consumed with fire." 
 
 The soldiers having thus taken " the rest and 
 refreshment" that they needed, their commander 
 began to collect the indemnity. He seized upon all 
 the royal jewels, " many of which w r ere unrivalled 
 in beauty by any in the world," and the contents
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 419 
 
 of the treasury. " In short, the accumulated 
 wealth of three hundred and forty -eight years 
 changed masters in a moment." The great nobles 
 were made to redeem their property by heavy 
 fines, and contributions of elephants, jewels, and 
 whatever else pleased the conqueror's fancy. 
 Then a formal inventory of all the property in 
 Delhi was taken, and each man was assessed ac- 
 cording to his means. "Now commenced the 
 work of spoliation, watered by the tears of the 
 people." Many slew themselves to escape torture 
 or disgrace. " Sleep and rest forsook the city. 
 In every chamber and house was heard the cry 
 of affliction." 
 
 Having wrung the uttermost farthing from the 
 citizens, married his son to a daughter of the 
 Emperor, and made a treaty whereby he was 
 recognised as lord of all the country west of the 
 Indus, Nadir Shah returned to Persia. Before 
 he went, with his own hand he invested Moham- 
 mad with all the trappings of royalty, and bade 
 the nobles of Delhi serve their Emperor loyally 
 or expect punishment from himself. He carried 
 off with him the most skilful workmen and arti- 
 sans of Delhi, and other plunder to the value of 
 eighty millions of pounds, besides what each man 
 had been able to purvey for himself. "His
 
 420 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 Majesty bestowed on Nadir Shah, with his own 
 munificent hand, as a parting present, the Pea- 
 cock Throne" never again to be used by the 
 House of Timur after the terrible day on which 
 Emperor and Shah had sat side by side upon it 
 and drunk coffee together after the massacre had 
 ceased. Doubtless the Emperor felt that it 
 was a small price to pay for seeing the last of 
 his conqueror. 
 
 But though Nadir Shah came not again, he 
 had shown the way to Delhi, and there were 
 others ready to glean where he had reaped. 
 Once again invaders came from Ghor and Ghazni, 
 as in the days of Mahmud the Image -breaker. 
 When Nadir was assassinated in his tent by his 
 own followers in 1747, his empire fell asunder, 
 and the southern portion yielded to an Afghan 
 chief, Ahmad Shah Daurani, who in the following 
 year marched down into the Punjab. Here he 
 was met by a Moghul army, and to the surprise 
 of all concerned suffered such a defeat that he 
 was thankful to turn his back upon Hindustan 
 for the time. During the campaign, the Nizam's 
 cousin, the Vezir of Delhi, was killed by an 
 Afghan round-shot while he prayed in his tent, 
 and the loss broke the heart of the Emperor, 
 whose insensibility in former years had amazed
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 421 
 
 the Persians. " The staff of my old age is broken, 
 is snapped : no such faithful servant can I find 
 again." He fell dead among the cushions of his 
 despoiled throne, an Emperor reduced to such 
 mean estate that his coffin was an old clock-case, 
 found in the palace, over which was flung a 
 tattered cloth from the harem. 
 
 First one titular Emperor succeeded him, and 
 then another feeble creatures, who each reigned 
 for a few years, and was then murdered by a too 
 powerful subject. It was in the days of the 
 first, Ahmad, that serious trouble arose with the 
 Afghans of Rohilkhund, that race for whom 
 Macaulay and Burke expressed a sympathy 
 that would certainly have been chilled at the 
 fountain-head if either politician had ever experi- 
 enced their methods. These thieves and ruffians 
 had risen to such a pitch of insolence that the 
 Nawab of Oudh was fain to call the Marathas to 
 his help. The empire was little the better for 
 the change of spoilers ; the new allies gave a 
 temporary check to the Rohillas, but indemnified 
 themselves for their trouble by levying chauth 
 everywhere. 
 
 Ahmad Shah returned once more to India, and 
 had to be bought off with the cession of the 
 Punjab. This took effect merely for a short
 
 422 DEATH-THROES OP AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 time ; in 1756 he was in Delhi, where his troops 
 repeated the horrors of Nadir Shah's sack, and 
 removed anything of value that had escaped the 
 notice of the Persians. 
 
 In 1759 he returned to India for the fourth 
 time, and his approach was the signal for the 
 murder of the Emperor Alamgir II. Delhi was 
 sacked again, this time by Rohillas and Pathans 
 in conjunction, who slaughtered and spoiled till 
 they were driven from the ruins of the city by 
 the stench of the decaying corpses. 
 
 The heir -apparent was a fugitive, the throne 
 was empty, who was to be master of the little 
 tract of country round Delhi and Agra, the sole 
 remainder of the empire of the Great Moghul? 
 The withered trunk had fallen, and the twigs 
 had begun an independent growth. The Deccan, 
 like the empire, had broken into numerous little 
 states, the chief of which was governed by the 
 Nawab of Arcot ; all were nominally vassal to 
 the Nizam of Hyderabad, who sometimes found 
 them more than he could control. The descendant 
 of Sa'adat Ali was now the sovereign of Oudh 
 and Allahabad, far greater and more powerful 
 than the Emperor whose viceroy he was supposed 
 to be. Afghans held the Punjab, Gujarat and 
 Malwa had been seized by the Marathas. Of 
 European powers, the day of Portugal was over,
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 423 
 
 and that of Holland drawing to its close. The 
 French East India Company was paramount in 
 Southern India, and both Hyderabad and Arcot 
 made appeal to the Governor of Pondicherry 
 in the case of disputed succession. 
 
 The English East India Company was of far 
 less importance, though it had extended its 
 influence since the days of Sir Thomas Roe. 
 Bombay had been gained by the marriage of 
 Charles II. with the Portuguese princess, who, 
 abused on all sides for her religion or for her 
 " beggarliness," brought a more valuable dowry 
 to her husband's country than any queen-consort 
 before or after her. Fort St George had been 
 established in 1639, in the time of Shah Jahan. 
 The Emperor Farukh Siyar's only claim to remem- 
 brance is that in 1715, at the request of the 
 Scotch surgeon, William Hamilton, he granted 
 to the English factory at Calcutta the possession 
 of lands extending for ten miles along either 
 bank of the Hugli. Hamilton, bidden to name 
 his own reward for curing the Emperor of a 
 tumour, had, like Gabriel Boughton, asked 
 nothing for himself, 
 
 In the last agonies of the Moghul Empire, 
 Bengal had drifted so far apart that what befell 
 there seemed to concern Delhi not at all. It 
 could be nothing to the Emperor, when the
 
 424 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 Nawab of Bengal attacked Calcutta in 1756, and 
 shut up his European prisoners in a space of 
 twenty feet square, or when, in the following 
 year, an officer in the East India Company's 
 service, Robert Clive, avenged the victims of the 
 " Black Hole " on the battlefield of Plassey. 
 
 It seemed a question whether the death-blow to 
 the empire should come from Central India or from 
 the north from the Marathas or the Afghans. 
 The Marathas were no longer ruled by one hand, 
 whether the hand were that of the negligible Raja 
 of Satara or that of his Peshwa, Balaji Rao, son of 
 that Baji who had vowed to plant their banner 
 at Attock ; they had split up into many little 
 states under various rulers, such as the Gaikwar 
 of Baroda Holkar who had possessed himself 
 of half Malwa and Sindhia of Gwalior, whose 
 ancestor had carried the Peshwa's slippers. All 
 for the moment were united nominally for the 
 faith of the Hindus, in reality with intent to take 
 what they could from Delhi before other spoilers 
 had stripped it bare. Their leader was the 
 Peshwa's cousin and minister, Sadasheo Rao, 
 commonly known by his title of " the Bhao," who 
 came to war with silk - lined tents and richly 
 caparisoned horses, and officers arrayed in cloth 
 of gold, so that his army looked like that of the 
 Moghuls in the hour of their glory. No longer
 
 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 425 
 
 depending on the light-armed irregular horsemen 
 that had often scattered the troops of Delhi in 
 flight, he also brought a park of artillery, and a 
 force of drilled infantry under the command of 
 an officer trained by Monsieur de Bussy, the 
 French general. On their way northwards they 
 were joined by Suraj Mai, leader of the Jat 
 army. 
 
 Delhi was sacked again of what little remained 
 to it ; the flowered silver ceiling of the Audience 
 Hall was torn down, and thrown into the melting- 
 pot, while Ahmad Shah Daurani waited on the 
 frontier of Oudh, unable to move in the heavy 
 rains. It was not till October that he crossed the 
 Jumna, and placed himself between Delhi and 
 the army of the Marathas who were entrenched 
 behind a ditch fifty feet wide and twelve feet deep, 
 on the plain of Panipat. Their allies, the Jats 
 and the Eajputs, had deserted them, but there 
 were more left than Ahmad Shah would find it 
 easy to tackle, even with the help of Najib, the 
 chief of the Eohillas, and the Nawab of Oudh, who 
 had joined him in this struggle of Mohammedan 
 against Hindu. 
 
 The Afghan made no attempt to storm the 
 position ; with fewer foot than the Marathas, and 
 only forty guns as against their two hundred, he 
 knew that he must play a waiting game. So he
 
 426 DEATH-THROES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 encamped " at the distance of twice the range of 
 a cannon - ball," and through the short winter 
 days and long winter nights of the next two 
 months watched from his red tent outside the 
 defences. 
 
 The opposing hosts had changed characters ; the 
 Marathas sat within their entrenched position, 
 protected by their artillery, while the Afghan 
 horsemen hovered about the country cutting off 
 supplies, and falling upon the detachments who 
 sallied out to bring grass and forage, until none 
 dared venture from the camp. 
 
 Though skirmishes took place daily, the Afghan 
 officers pleaded in vain to be allowed to advance 
 in force. Ahmad Shah knew that hunger and 
 privation and close confinement were all fighting 
 for him against the undisciplined Maratha hordes, 
 and he waited, while the Bhao vainly attempted 
 negotiation, offering to accept any conditions of 
 peace that might please the Shah. All the Shah's 
 allies were ready to make terms, with one excep- 
 tion Najib the leader of the Rohillas. With 
 brutal common -sense, he maintained that the 
 Marathas would never be bound by agreements. 
 " Oaths are not chains ; they are only words, 
 things that will never bind the enemy when once 
 he has escaped from danger. By one effort we 
 can get this thorn out of our sides." Ahmad Shah,
 
 DEATH-THROES OP AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 42V 
 
 to whom he appealed, expressed a profound dis- 
 belief in Maratha penitence ; now that there was 
 a chance of making an end of these pests, he 
 would not forego it. 
 
 It was the night of January 5, 1761, and the 
 Maratha leaders, who had not tasted food for two 
 days, were assembled in their great durbar tent, 
 shivering with cold, and demanding, since death 
 was inevitable, to be led forth to die sword in 
 hand. With perfect composure the Bhao distri- 
 buted the pan and betel which are the signal for 
 dismissing an assembly, and all swore to make 
 a sally an hour before daybreak and drive away 
 the enemy, or perish where they stood. Together 
 they consumed the last morsel of food left in the 
 camp ; they dyed faces and hands yellow with 
 turmeric ; they left one end of their turbans to 
 hang loose, in token that they were ready for 
 death. 
 
 An hour before the cold January dawn had 
 broken they poured forth from the camp. Until 
 noon the battle swayed to and fro, like all battles, 
 " with confused noise and garments rolled in 
 blood." The air was rent with shouts of " Har, 
 Mahadeo!" and "Din! din!" and the dust from 
 beneath the hoofs of the cavalry darkened the 
 sky, so that no man could see the face of him 
 who stood at his side. So fierce was the Maratha
 
 428 DEATH-THROES OP AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 
 
 onslaught that Ahmad Shah sent word for the 
 ladies of his household to mount swift steeds 
 and be ready to gain " the verge of safety and 
 the nook of security" if his men were borne 
 down. 
 
 At the critical moment, when the battle was 
 neither won nor lost, the Shah sent out his reserve 
 to rally those who fled, and cut down those who 
 refused to turn back. Still fortune wavered, and 
 the Marathas were not yet overpowered, when 
 Mulhar Rao Holkar, having received a message 
 from the Bhao, turned and left the field ; the 
 Gaikwar followed him. Then the fight became a 
 rout and the rout a grim butchery. The Bhao, 
 who had been seen to descend from his elephant 
 and mount his Arab charger just before Holkar's 
 flight, disappeared in the eddy ; his body was 
 found afterwards beneath a heap of dead, so 
 gashed and mangled that it was recognised only 
 by three pearls that the spoilers had not stripped 
 from it. Sindhia escaped by hard riding, with a 
 wound that lamed him for life. Thousands were 
 killed upon the field ; the dead bodies lay strewn 
 shoulder to shoulder all the way from Panipat to 
 Delhi. Many prisoners were taken ; the women 
 and children were kept as slaves, the men ranged 
 in line and given a few grains of parched corn and 
 a few drops of water in the palms of their hands,
 
 DEATH-THKOES OF AN EMPIRE 1707-1761. 429 
 
 after which their heads were cut off and piled in 
 heaps outside the Afghan tents. 
 
 The Peshwa was moving down to the help of 
 the Bhao, of whose plight he had heard, when, as 
 he crossed the Nerbada in the middle of January, 
 he met a runner who gave him a letter. He 
 opened it and read the words, "Two pearls have 
 been dissolved, twenty -seven gold mohurs lost, 
 and of the silver and copper the total cannot be 
 cast up." 
 
 Then he knew what had befallen the Bhao's 
 army, and from that day he pined away until he 
 died. The power of the Marathas was broken ; 
 not a family among them but mourned kinsmen 
 missing or slain. The wolf-pack would rend and 
 spoil and devour for many years to come, until a 
 stronger hand than that of the Afghans curbed 
 them ; but yet never again would they be strong 
 as when they met fate on the plain where the 
 invaders of Hindustan have met it from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Ahmad Shah returned to his own country ; the 
 Moghul Empire of Delhi had ceased to exist 
 except in name.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 ON THE EOAD TO DELHI. 
 
 THE Maratha power had been scotched but not 
 killed, and a new and terrible adversary was 
 rising in the south, where Hyder Ali had usurped 
 the throne of Mysore. 
 
 There was a miserable period of chaos and 
 anarchy. A Rohilla chief sacked Delhi and 
 blinded the Emperor, Shah Alam II., perpetrat- 
 ing such hideous cruelties upon his family as 
 cannot be written. Blind and helpless, the Great 
 Moghul passed into the hands of the Marathas, 
 who were overrunning all the country. Between 
 war, famine, and robbery, Hindustan was grad- 
 ually becoming depopulated at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, and communication between 
 the few villages that still existed was frequently 
 cut off by the wild beasts that infested the high- 
 way. Save in Rajputana, scarcely any reigning 
 family in India "could boast more than twenty- 
 
 2 E
 
 434 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 
 
 five years of independent and definite political 
 existence." 1 
 
 All over the land Hindu and Muslim looked with 
 longing to the one power strong enough to quench 
 all these disorders and give peace in their time. 
 
 "The goodness of the English is beyond all 
 bounds," wrote a Muslim chronicler about the 
 year 1764, "and it is on account of their own 
 and their servants' honesty that they are so 
 fortunate and wealthy. 
 
 "They are a wonderful nation, endowed with 
 equity and justice," writes another, a few years 
 latter. " May they be always happy and continue 
 to administer justice." 
 
 " When will you take this country ? " a faquir 
 asked Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1801. "The 
 country wants you. The Hindus are villains. 
 When will you take the country ? " 
 
 It was a question asked over and over again ; 
 but even when the battle of Buxar (1764) had 
 settled the fate of Bengal, and the storming of 
 Seringapatam (1799) had made it possible to 
 effect the pacification of Southern India, and 
 the treaty of Basain (1802) had decided that the 
 Maratha Confederacy was no longer to spoil and 
 ravage a distracted country, no new ruler was 
 yet proclaimed in Delhi. 
 
 1 Sir A. Lyall.
 
 ON THE ROAD TO DELHI. 435 
 
 For in Delhi a poor old man, whom Lord Lake 
 had rescued from the Marathas, sat beneath a 
 tattered canopy and called himself by the titles 
 of the bygone Emperors who had made Delhi 
 great. At no time of his life had he been ruler 
 of more than "from Delhi to Palam" 1 as a 
 popular couplet ran, but he was the repre- 
 sentative of the Great Moghul. 
 
 Two more after him sat in the despoiled palace, 
 in squalor and poverty, unable even to keep order 
 within the red walls of the Fort. Then came the 
 time when Englishmen, encamped along the rocky 
 spur of the Aravali hills overlooking the city, 
 chafed in impotence and wrath through long sum- 
 mer days, because it was still a far cry to Delhi. 
 
 It was in September 1857 that the Sappers and 
 Miners opened the Kashmir Gate, and the last 
 of the sons of Timur ceased to reign, even in 
 name. It was in December 1911 that an English 
 king showed himself to the crowds who thronged 
 the city, upon the wall where the Moghul Emper- 
 ors were wont to stand, and once more made Delhi 
 the chief city of India as in the days of old. 
 
 a village less than eleven miles from Delhi.
 
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 40 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Educational Works. 41 
 
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 42 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
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 Educational Works. 43 
 
 Now issued at Is. 6d. net to meet the requirements of the 
 Education Department for a Latin Translation Book suited to 
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 form the volume has been extensively used by the greater Public 
 Schools, and is in its Twelfth Edition. A specimen copy will be 
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 a view to introduction. 
 
 TWELFTH EDITION. 
 
 AN EASY LATIN CONSTRUING BOOK, 
 
 WITH VOCABULARY. 
 
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 Late Head-Master of the Fettes College, Edinburgh, and sometime 
 Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge ; 
 
 REV. C. DARNELL, M.A., 
 
 Late Head-Master of Cargilfleld Preparatory School, Edinburgh, 
 
 and Scholar of Pembroke and Downing 
 
 Colleges, Cambridge. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PART I. Stories and Fables The Wolf on his Death-BedAlex- 
 ander and the Pirate Zeno's Teaching Ten Helpers The Swallow 
 and the Ants Discontent Pleasures of Country Life The Wolf and 
 the Lamb Simplicity of Farm Life in Ancient Italy The Conceited 
 Jackdaw The Ant and the Grasshopper The Hares contemplate 
 Suicide The Clever Parrot Simple Living The Human Hand The 
 Bear Value of Rivers Love of the Country Juno and the Peacock 
 The Camel The Swallow and the Birds The Boy and the Echo The 
 Stag and the Fountain The Cat's Device The Human Figure The 
 Silly Crow Abraham's Death-Bed The Frogs ask for a King The 
 Gods select severally a Favourite Tree Hear the Other Side. 
 
 PART II. Historical Extracts THE STORY OF THE FABII : Histori- 
 cal Introduction The Story of the Fabii. THE CONQUEST OF VEII : 
 Historical Introduction The Conquest of Veii. THE SACRIFICE OF 
 DECIUS : Historical Introduction The Sacrifice of Decius. 
 
 PART III. The First Roman Invasion of Britain Introduction 
 to Extracts from Caesar's Commentaries The First Roman Invasion of 
 Britain. 
 
 PART IV. The Life of Alexander the Great Historical Intro- 
 duction Life and Campaigns of Alexander the Great. 
 
 APPENDIX. VOCABULARY. ADDENDA. 
 
 Two Maps to Illustrate the First Roman Invasion of Britain and the 
 
 Campaigns of Alexander the Great.
 
 44 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 First Latin Sentences and Prose. 
 
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 Camenarum Flosculos in Usum Fettesianorum decerptos 
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 Educational Works. 45 
 
 Greek Accidence. 
 
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 With an Introduction by H. W. AUDEN, M.A., Principal, Upper Canada 
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 Edinburgh. 2s. 6d. 
 
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 eminently profitable preliminary reading for the earnest and diligent worker in 
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 Greek Unseens. 
 
 BEING ONE HUNDRED PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION AT SIGHT IN JUNIOR 
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 This little book is designed for the use of those preparing for the Leaving Cer- 
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 Greel The extracts are drawn from over a score of different authors, and regard 
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 ment to progressive difficulty.
 
 46 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Greek Verse Unseens. 
 
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 Outlines of Greek History. 
 
 By the SAME AUTHOR. In 1 vol. [In preparation. 
 
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 Educational Works. 47 
 
 V30W iij!.' 
 
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 J 6 > ... j
 
 48 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 BLACKWOODS' CLASSICAL TEXTS continued. 
 
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 Educational Works. 49 
 
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 Cicero Select Letters. 
 
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 MODERN LANGUAGES. 
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 Historical Reader of Early French. 
 
 Containing Passages Illustrative of the Growth of the French Language 
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 D
 
 50 William Black wood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Outlines of the History of German Literature. 
 
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 Educational Works. 51 
 
 DR LUBOVIUS' GERMAN SERIES. 
 A Practical German Grammar, Reader and Writer. 
 
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 and the notes to the passages, as well as the grammatical introduction, give 
 
 real assistance The part of the book dealing with German philology deserves 
 
 great praise." 
 
 A Compendious German Reader. 
 
 Consisting of Historical Extracts, Specimens of German Literature, Lives 
 of German Authors, an Outline of German History (1640-1890), Biographical and 
 Historical Notes. Especially adapted for the use of Army Classes. By G. B. 
 BEAK, M.A. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Guardian. "This method of compilation is certainly an improvement on the 
 hotch-potch of miscellaneous passages to be found in many of the older books. " 
 
 Spartanerjunglinge. A Story of Life in a Cadet College. 
 
 By PAUL VON SZCZEPANSKI. Edited, with Vocabulary and Notes, by J. M. 
 MORRISON, M.A., Master in Modern Languages, Aberdeen Grammar 
 School. 2s. 
 
 Scotsman. " An admirable reader for teaching German on the new method, 
 and is sure to prove popular both with students and with teachers." 
 
 A German Reader for Technical Schools. 
 
 By EWALD F. SKCKLER, Senior Language Master at the Birmingham Muni- 
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 Lecturer, Stourbridge Technical School. 2s.
 
 52 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 SPANISH. 
 
 A Spanish Grammar. 
 
 With Copious Ezercises in Translation and Composition ; Easy reading 
 Lessons and Extracts from Spanish Authors ; a List of Idioms ; a Glossary 
 of Commercial Terms (English-Spanish) ; and a copious General Vocabulary 
 (Spanish-English). By WILLIAM A. KESSBN, Teacher of Spanish, Billhead 
 High School, Glasgow. 3s. 6d. 
 Investors' Review. "To the student who wishes to master the Spanish 
 
 language for commercial or literary purposes this admirable little book will 
 
 prove invaluable." 
 Commerce. " Contains practically all that is necessary for the acquirement 
 
 of a working knowledge of the language." 
 
 MATHEMATICS. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 With numerous Examples, Revision Tests, and Examination Papers. By 
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 Elementary Algebra. 
 
 The Complete Book, 288 pp., cloth, 2s. With Answers, 2s. 6d. Answers 
 
 sold separately, price 9d. Pt. I., 64 pp., 6d. Pt. II., 64 pp., 6d. Pt. 
 
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 2d. Answers to Pt. IV., 3d. 
 
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 exercises are remarkably good, and the arrangement of the subject-matter is on 
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 Handbook ol Mental Arithmetic. 
 
 With 7200 Examples and Answers. 264 pp. 2s. 6d. Also in Six Parts, 
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 Teachers' Monthly. "The examples are mainly concrete, as tney should 
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 difficulty.' 
 
 Educational News." This is, as a matter of fact, at once a handbook and a 
 handy book. It is an absolute storehouse of exercises in mental computations. 
 There are most valuable practical hints to teachers."
 
 Educational Works. 53 
 
 Modern Geometry of the Point, Straight Line, and 
 Circle. 
 
 An Elementary Treatise. By J. A. THIRD, D.Sc., Headmaster of Spier's 
 School, Beith. 3s. 
 
 Schoolmaster. ' ' Each branch of this wide subject is treated with brevity, 
 it is true, and yet with amazing completeness considering the size of the volume. 
 So earnest and reliable an effort deserves success." 
 
 Journal of Education. "An exceedingly useful text -book, full enough 
 for nearly every educational purpose, and yet not repellent by overloading." 
 
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 its kind. The subject is treated with complete thoroughness and honesty." 
 
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 128 pp., cloth, Is. Also in Two Parts. Pt. I., Parallelograms and Tri- 
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 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Answers may be had separately, price 2d. 
 each Part. 
 Educational Times. "The explanations are always clear and to the point, 
 
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 Higher Arithmetic. 
 
 For Ex-Standard and Contimiation Classes. 128 pp. Paper, 6d. ; cloth, 8d. 
 With Answers, cloth, lid. Answers may be had separately, price 3d. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Fifty-Fifth Thousand. 
 
 Elements of Modern Geography. 
 
 By the Bev. ALEXANDER MAOKAT, LL.D., F.B.G.S. Bevised to the 
 
 present time. Pp. 300. 3s. 
 Schoolmaster. "For senior pupils or pupil-teachers the book contains all 
 
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 authorship and editing." 
 
 One Hundred and Ninety-Sixth Thousand. 
 
 Outlines of Modern Geography. 
 
 By the SAME AUTHOR. Revised to the present time. Pp. 128. Is. 
 These ' Outlines ' in many respects an epitome of the ' Elements ' are care- 
 fully prepared to meet the wants of beginners. The arrangement is the same 
 as in the Author's larger works. 
 
 One Hundred and Fifth Thousand, 
 
 First Steps in Geography. 
 
 By the SAMB AUTHOR. 18mo, pp. 56. Sewed, 4d. ; in cloth, 6d.
 
 54 William Black wood & Sons' List. 
 
 A Manual of Classical Geography. 
 
 By JOHN L. MYBBS, M.A., Professor of Ancient History, Oxford. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 
 CHEMISTRY AND POPULAR 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Forty Elementary Lessons in Chemistry. 
 
 By W. L. SARGAWT, M.A., Headmaster, Oakham School. Illustrated. 
 
 Is. 6d. 
 
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 shows the compiler to have a real grip of sound educational principles. The book 
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 Inorganic Tables, with Notes and Equations. 
 
 By H. M. TIMPANY, B.Sc., Science Master, Borough Technical School, 
 Shrewsbury. Crown 8vo, Is. 
 
 Things of Everyday. 
 
 A Popular Science Reader on Some Common Things. With Illus- 
 trations. 2s. 
 Guardian. " Will be found useful by teachers in elementary and continuation 
 
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 and strongly bound, and illustrated by beautifully clear diagrams." 
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 An Intermediate Text- Book of Geology. 
 
 By Professor CHARLES LAPWOBTH, LL.D., University, Birmingham. 
 Founded on Dr PAGE'S ' Introductory Text-Book of Geology. ' With Illus- 
 trations. 5s. 
 
 Educational News. "The work is lucid and attractive, and will take high 
 rank among the best text-books on the subject." 
 
 Publishers' Circular. "The arrangement of the new book is in every way 
 excellent, and it need hardly be said that it is thoroughly up to date in all 
 
 details Simplicity and clearness in the book areas pronounced as its accuracy, 
 
 and students and teachers alike will find it of lasting benefit to them." 
 
 Education, " The name of the Author is a guarantee that the subject is 
 effectively treated, and the information and views up to date." 
 
 PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 A Manual of Palaeontology. 
 
 For the Use of Students. With a General Introduction on the Principles of 
 Palaeontology. By Professor H. ALLKYNE NICHOLSON, Aberdeen, and 
 RICHARD LYDBKKBR, B. A., F.G.S. &c. Third Edition. Entirely rewritten 
 and greatly enlarged. 2 vols. 8vo, with 1419 Engravings. 63s.
 
 Educational Works. 55 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Fifteenth Edition , Revised. 
 
 Introductory Text- Book of Physical Geography. 
 
 With Sketch-Maps and Illustrations. By DAVID PAGE, LL.1., &c., Pro- 
 fessor of Geology in the Durham College of Science, Newcastle. Revised 
 by Professor CHARLES LAPWOETH. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Athenaeum. "The divisions of the subject are so clearly defined, the explana- 
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 satisfactorily shown, and, above all, the bearings of the allied sciences to Physical 
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 that difficulties have been removed and the path of study smoothed before him." 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND LOGIC. 
 
 An Introductory Text- Book of Logic. 
 
 With Numerous Examples and Exercises. By SYDNEY HERBERT MELLONE, 
 M.A. (Lond.), D.Sc. (Edin.); Examiner in Philosophy in the University of 
 Edinburgh. Fifth Edition, Eevised. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
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 sity professors of to-day is expounded with clearness, and upon an instructive 
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 in modern logic The book, in fine, is an excellent working text-book of its 
 
 subject, likely to prove useful both to students and to teachers. 
 
 Elements of Psychology. 
 
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 DRUMMOND, M.A. (Edin.) Second Edition, Eevised. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 Scotsman. "Thoroughness is a feature of the work, and, treating psychology 
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 Education. " The authors of this volume have made satisfactory use of 
 accredited authorities ; in addition, they have pursued original investigations 
 and conducted experiments, with the result that great freshness of treatment 
 marks their contribution to the teaching of psychology " 
 
 A Short History of Logic. 
 
 By ROBERT ADAMSON, LL.D., Late Professor of Logic in the University of 
 Glasgow. Edited by W. R. SORLEY, Litt.D., LL.D., Fellow of the British 
 Academy, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Crown 
 8vo, 5s net. 
 
 "There is no other History of Logic short or long in English, and no similar 
 short work in any other language." 
 
 FORESTRY. 
 
 The Elements of British Forestry. 
 
 A Handbook for Forest Apprentices and Students of Forestry. By JOHN 
 NISBET, D.CE., Professor of Forestry at the West of Scotland Agricultural 
 College, Author of ' The Forester. ' Crown 8vo, 5s. 6d. net. 
 
 Forest Entomology. 
 
 By A. T. GILLANDERS, Wood Manager to His Grace the Duke of Northumber- 
 land, E.G. Second Edition, Revised. With 351 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 
 15s. net.
 
 56 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 ELEMENTARY SERIES. 
 
 BLACKWOOD5' 
 
 LITERATURE READERS. 
 
 Edited by JOHN ADAMS, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 Professor of Education in tbe University of London. 
 
 BOOK I. Pp. 228. Price Is. 
 
 BOOK II Pp. 275. Price Is. 4d. 
 
 BOOK III Pp.303. Price Is. 6d. 
 
 BOOK IV Pp. 381. Price Is. 6d. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 This new Series would seek to do for Literature what has 
 already been done by many series of School Readers for 
 History, Geography, and Science. Many teachers feel that 
 their pupils should be introduced as soon as possible to the 
 works of the great writers, and that reading may be learnt 
 from these works at least as well as from compilation's 
 specially written for the young. Because of recent changes 
 in Inspection, the present is a specially suitable time for 
 the Introduction of such a series into Elementary Schools! 
 In the Preparatory Departments of Secondary Schools the 
 need for such a series is clamant. 
 
 It is to be noted that the books are not manuals of 
 English literature, but merely Readers, the matter of whicfi 
 is drawn entirely from authors of recognised standing. AJ1 
 the usual aids given in Readers are supplied ; but illustra- 
 tions, as affording no help in dealing with Literature, are 
 excluded from the series. 
 
 " The volumes, which are capitally printed, consist of selected 
 readings of increasing difficulty, to -which notes and exercises are 
 added at the end. The selected pieces are admirably chosen, especially 
 in the later books, which will form a beginning for a really sound 
 and wide appreciation of the stores of good English verse and 
 prose." Athenaeum, 
 
 "The selected readings are interesting, and possessed of real 
 
 literary value. The books are well bound, the paper is excellent, 
 
 and the unusual boldness and clear spacing of the type go far to 
 
 compensate for the entire absence of pictorial illustrations. "Guardian. 
 
 A very excellent gradus to the more accessible heights of the 
 
 English Parnassus The appendices on spelling, word-building, 
 
 and grammar are the work of a skilful, practical teacher." Pa/7 
 MaU Gazette. 
 
 " If we had the making of the English Educational Code for 
 Elementary Schools, we should insert a regulation that all boys and 
 girls should spend two whole years on these four books, and on 
 nothing else." Bradford Observer. 
 
 "The books are graded with remarkable skill." Glasgow Herald.
 
 Educational Works. 
 
 57 
 
 " Absolutely the best set of all the history readers that have hitherto 
 been published." The Guardian. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 FOR THE CHILDREN OP THE BRITISH EMPIRE. (In Five Books.) 
 
 ByM. B. SYNQE. 
 
 With Coloured Frontispieces and numerous Illustrations by 
 B. M. Synge, A.R.E., and Maps. 
 
 BOOK I. ON THE SHORES OF THE GREAT SEA. Is. 4d. 
 Colonial Edition, Is. 6d. 
 
 THE Home of Abraham Into Africa- 
 Joseph in Egypt The Children of Israel 
 The First Merchant Fleet Hiram, King of 
 Tyre King Solomon's Fleet The Story of 
 Carthage The Story of the Argonauts The 
 Siege of Troy The Adventures of Ulysses 
 The Dawn of History The Fall of Tyre 
 The Rise of Carthage Hanno's Adventures 
 The Battle of Marathon King Ahasuerus 
 How Leonidas kept the Pass Some 
 
 Greek Colonies Athens The Death of 
 Socrates The Story of Romulus and Remus 
 HowHoratius kept the Bridge Coriolanus 
 Alexander the Great King of Macedonia 
 The Conquest of India Alexander's 
 City The Roman Fleet The Adventures of 
 Hannibal The End of Carthage The 
 Triumph of Rome Julius Caesar The 
 Flight of Pompey The Death of Caesar. 
 
 SHOOK II. THE DISCOVERY OF NEW WORLDS. IB. 6d., 
 
 THE Roman World The Tragedy of Nero 
 The Great Fire in Rome The Destruction 
 of Pompeii Marcus Aurelius Christians to 
 the Lions A New Rome The Armies of 
 the North King Arthur and his Knights 
 How the Northmen conquered England 
 The First Crusade Frederick Barbarossa 
 The Third Crusade The Days of Chivalry 
 Queen of the Adriatic The Story of 
 Marco Polo Dante's Great Poem The 
 
 Maid of Orleans Prince Henry, the Sailor 
 The Invention of Printing Vasco da Gama's 
 Great Voyage Golden Goa Christopher 
 Columbus The Last of the Moors Dis- 
 covery of the New World Columbus in 
 Chains Discovery of the Pacific Magel- 
 lan's Straits Montezuma Siege and Fall of 
 Mexico Conquest of Peru A Great 
 Awakening. 
 
 BOOK III. THE AWAKENING OF EUROPE. Is. 6d. 
 
 Colonial Edition, Is. 9d. 
 
 STORV of the Netherlands The Story of 
 Martin Luther The Massacre of St Bar- 
 tholomewThe Siege of Leyden William 
 the Silent Drake's Voyage round the 
 World The Great Armada Virginia Story 
 of the Revenge Sir Walter Raleigh The 
 ' Fairy Queen ' First Voyage of the East 
 India Company Henry Hudson Captain 
 John Smith The Founding of Quebec 
 The Pilgrim Fathers Thirty Years of War 
 The Dutch at Sea Van Riebeek's Colony 
 
 Oliver Cromwell Two Famous Admirals 
 De Ruyter The Founder of Pennsyl- 
 vaniaThe ' Pilgrim's Progress ' William's 
 Invitation The Struggle in Ireland The 
 Siege of Vienna by the Turks The Story of 
 the Huguenots The Battle of Blenheim- 
 How Peter the Great learned Shipbuilding 
 --Charles XII. of Sweden The Boyhood of 
 Frederick the Great Anson's Voyage round 
 the World Maria Theresa The Story of 
 Scotland.
 
 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WORLD continued. 
 
 BOOK IV. THE STRUGGLE 
 
 THE Story of the Great Mogul Robert 
 Clive The Black Hole of Calcutta The 
 Struggle for North America George Wash- 
 ingtonHow Pitt saved England The Fall 
 of Quebec "The Great Lord Hawke" 
 The Declaration of Independence Captain 
 Cook's Story James Bruce and the Nile 
 The Trial of Warren Hastings Maria 
 Antoinette The Fall of the Bastile 
 Napoleon Bonaparte Horatio Nelson The 
 Adventures of Mungo Park The Travels of 
 Baron Humboldt The Battle of the Nile 
 
 FOE! SEA POWER, is. 9d. 
 
 Copenhagen Napoleon Trafalgar The 
 Death of Nelson The Rise of Wellington 
 The First Australian Colony Story of the 
 Slave Trade The Defence of Saragoza Sir 
 John Moore at Corunna The Victory of 
 Talavera The Peasant Hero of the Tyrol 
 The "Shannon" and the "Chesapeake" 
 Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow Welling- 
 ton's Victories in Spain The Fall of the 
 Empire Story of the Steam Engine Water- 
 loo The Exile of St Helena. 
 
 BOOK V. GROWTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 2s. 
 
 How Spain lost South America The Greek 
 War Victoria, Queen of England The 
 Great Boer Trek The Story of Natal The 
 Story of Canada The Winning of the West 
 A Great Arctic Expedition Discoveries in 
 
 South Africa Livingstone's discoveries in 
 Central Africa China's Long Sleep Japan, 
 Britain's Ally Russia The Annexation of 
 Burma The Story of Afghanistan The 
 Empire of India Gordon, the Hero of 
 
 Australia The Last King of France Louis I Khartum The Redemption of Egypt The 
 
 Kossuth and Hungary The Crimean War 
 The Indian Mutiny King of United Italy 
 Civil War in America The Mexican Re- 
 volution Founding the German Empire 
 The Franco-German War The Dream of 
 Cecil Rhodes The Dutch Republics in 
 
 Story of British West Africa The Story of 
 Uganda The Founding of Rhodesia 
 British South Africa The Dominion of 
 Canada Australia The New Nation 
 Freedom for Cuba Reign of Queen Victoria 
 Welding the Empire Citizenship. 
 
 Also in 2 volumes, at 3s. 6d. each net, suitable as prize books. 
 
 Uniform with this Series. 
 
 THE WORLD'S CHILDHOOD. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by Brinsley Le Fanu. 
 
 10. 
 
 I. STORIES 
 
 Lit-tle Red Ri-ding Hood. 
 
 The Three Bears. 
 
 The Snow-Child. 
 
 Tom Thumb. 
 
 The Ug-ly Duck -ling. 
 
 Puss in Boots. 
 
 The Lit-tle Girl and the Cats. 
 
 Jack and the Bean-Sulk. 
 
 Gpl-dy. 
 
 Cin-der-el-la Part I. 
 
 OF THE FAIRIES, lod. 
 
 CONTEXTS 
 
 11. Cin-der-el-la Part II. 
 
 12. The Lost Bell. 
 
 13. Jack the Gi-ant Kill-er. 
 
 14. Star-bright and Bird-ie. 
 
 15. Beau-ty and the Beast.' 
 
 16. Peach-Dar-ling. 
 
 17. In Search of a Night's Rest. 
 
 18. Dick Whit-ting-ton and his Cat. 
 
 19. The Sleep-ing Beau-ty. 
 
 II. STORIES OF THE GREEK GODS AND HEROES, tod. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. A-bout the Gods. 
 
 2. The Names of the Gods. 
 
 3. Turn-ed in-to Stone. 
 
 4. The Shin-ing Char-i-ot. 
 
 5. The Laur-el Tree. 
 
 6. A Horse with Wings. 
 
 7. The Cy-press Tree. 
 
 8. The Fruits of the Earth. 
 
 9. Cu-pid's Gold-en Ar-rows. 
 
 10. Pan's Pipe. 
 
 11. A Long Sleep. 
 
 12. The Re-ward of Kind-ness. 
 
 13. At-a-lan-ta's Race. 
 
 14. The Stor-y of Al-ces-tis. 
 
 15. The Snow-White Bull. 
 
 16. The Spi-der and his Web 
 
 17. I-o the White Cow. 
 
 18. The Three Gold-en Ap-ples. 
 
 19. The Ol-ive Tree. 
 
 20. A Boy Her-o of Old. 
 
 21. The Thread of Ar-i-ad-ne. 
 
 22. The Boy who tried to Fly. 
 
 23. The Gold-en Harp. 
 Teacher's Appendix.
 
 Educational Works. 59 
 
 "If history can be given a form likely to make it palatable to young folks, "F" 
 has succeded in doing so in these ' Stories of the English.' It is no exaggeration to 
 say that the book represents not only a masterpiece la literature for children, 
 but a work of no slight value for the national good." -Scotsman. 
 
 STORIES OF THE ENGLISH 
 FOR SCHOOLS. 
 
 By F. 
 
 FOR JUNIOR SCHOLARS. 
 VOL. I. FBOM THE COMING OP THE ENGLISH TO THE ARMADA. 1s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. The coming of the White Horse The coming of the Cross The Fight 
 with the Raven Alfred the Great Edward the Confessor William the Conquerer The 
 Kings of the Golden Broom Richard Lion-Heart King John and Magna Charta Earl 
 Simon the Righteous Edward the Englishman Bannoekburn and Berkeley The Lions 
 and the Lilies A King dethroned Prince Hal King Harry The Wars of the Roses 
 Henry VIII. and the Revolt from Rome Edward VI. and Mary Elizabeth, the Great 
 Queen : (1) English Adventurers and the Cruise of the Pelican ; (2) Mary, Queen of Scots ; 
 (3) Papist Plots and the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew ; (4) The Armada. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. Dover Castle The Pharos, Dover Norsemen Homes of our 
 Ancestors Chateau Gaillard Tomb of a Crusader (Gervase Alard), Winchelsea Church 
 Carnarvon Castle Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey Knights of the Fourteenth 
 Century Edward the Third The Battle of Cressy Tomb of Edward the Third, West- 
 minster Abbey Tomb of the Black Prince, Canterbury Cathedral Richard II. on his 
 voyage to Ireland Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey Henry V. with Military 
 Attendants Henry V. addressing his Army Joan of Arc The Crowning of Henry VII. 
 on Bosworth Field Henry VIII. Wolsey Sir Thomas More taking leave of his Daughter 
 Calais during the Sixteenth Century Queen Elizabeth The Armada Drake Mary, 
 Queen of Scots Drake playing Bowls with his Captains Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 FOR SENIOR SCHOLARS. 
 VOL. II. THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER AND GREATER ENGLAND. 1 s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. The First of the Stuarts The Struggle for Power The Puritan Tyranny 
 The Second Struggle for Power : Charles II. The Revolution The Fight with France : 
 The Dutch King Queen Anne and Marlborough Greater England The Story of Anson 
 The Story of Wolfe The Story of Captain Cook The Story of Olive The War of American- 
 Independence The great French War The Story of Nelson The Story of the Great Duke 
 The End of the Stories. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS James I. Bacon Charles I. A Cavalier Oliver Cromwell The 
 Great Fire of London The Seven Bishops going to the Tower Landing of William of 
 Orange in England Marlborough Gibraltar Chatham Fight between the Centurion and 
 the Manila Ship General Wolfe The Death of Captain Cook Washington Pitt- 
 Napoleon Bonaparte Nelson H.M.S. Victory, Portsmouth Harbour Duke of Wellington- 
 Napoleon on board the Bellerophon. 
 
 Molra O'Neill, Author of ' Songs of the Glen of Antrim,' writing to Mr Blackwood, 
 says : " F.'s ' Stories of the English ' was written for my little daughter Susan. The 
 child is quite fascinated by it, but equally so are all the grown-up friends to whom 
 I have shown it. I lent it once to a sailor uncle, and he sat up to all hours of that 
 night with it, and afterwards told me that he could hardly believe that such an 
 account of Kelson's great battles had been written by a woman, because it was 
 technically accurate. And a soldier friend and critic used almost the same words 
 about the account of Marlborough's campaigns. F. is the most patient and faithful 
 student of history that I know. She has such a strong literary sense that she simply 
 could not write anything except in a literary form, and combined with it she has- 
 that rare thing, a judicial mind. This, I think, gives her work a quite peculiar 
 value."
 
 60 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Standard Readers. 
 
 Revised Edition. With Supplementary Pages, consisting of "Spelling 
 Lists," "Word-Building," "Prefixes and Suffixes," &c. Profusely Illus- 
 trated with Superior Engravings. 
 
 BOOK I. 40 Lessons I j . . . 8d. 
 
 BOOK II. 40 Lessons , . 9d - 
 
 BOOK III. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. Od. 
 
 BOOK IV. 60 Lessons . . . . Is. 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 60 Lessons .H { . . Is. 4d. 
 
 BOOK VI. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. 6d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "We strongly recommend these books Children will be 
 
 sure to like them; the matter is extremely suitable and interesting, the print 
 very distinct, and the paper a pleasure to feel." 
 
 Infant Series. 
 
 FIRST PICTURE PRIMER . . Sewed, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 SECOND PICTURE PRIMER . . Sewed, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 PICTURE READING SHEETS. 
 
 IST SERIES. | 2ND SERIES. 
 
 Each containing 16 sheets, unmounted, 3s. 6d. Mounted on 8 boards, 
 with cloth border, price 14s. ; varnished, 3s. 6d. per set extra. 
 
 Or the 16 sheets laid on linen, varnished, and mounted on a roller, 
 17s. 6d. 
 
 THE INFANT PICTURE READER. With numerous Illustrations. 
 Cloth, limp, 6d. 
 
 Educational News. "Teachers will find these Primers a useful introduction 
 to the art of reading. We consider them well adapted to their purpose." 
 
 Geographical Readers. 
 
 With numerous Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations. 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL PRIMER. (For Stand. I.) 96 pp. 9d. 
 
 BOOK I. (For Stand. II.) 96pp. . . 9d. 
 
 BOOK II. (For Stand. III.) 156 pp. . . Is. Od. 
 
 BOOK III. (For Stand. IV.) 192 pp. . . Is. 3d. 
 
 BOOK IV. (For Stand. V.) 256 pp. . . Is. 6d. 
 
 BOOK V. (For Stand. VI.) 256 pp. . . Is. 6d. 
 
 BOOK VI. (For Stand. VII.) 256 pp. . . Is. 9d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. " This is a really excellent series of Geographical Readers. 
 The volumes have, in common, the attractiveness which good paper, clear type, 
 effective woodcuts, and durable binding can present ; whilst their contents, both 
 as to quality and quantity, are so graded as to be admirably adapted to the 
 several stages of the pupil's progress."
 
 Educational Works. 61 
 
 Historical Readers. 
 
 With numerous Portraits, Maps, and other Illustrations. 
 
 SHORT STORIES FROM ENGLISH 
 
 HISTORY *- . . , . . 160pp. Is. Od. 
 
 FIRST HISTORICAL READER . . .160 pp. Is. Od. 
 
 SECOND HISTORICAL READER . . .224 pp. Is. 4d- 
 
 THIRD HISTORICAL READER > % . . 256 pp. Is. 6d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "These new Historical Readers have been carefully compiled. 
 The facts are well selected ; the story is well told in language most likely to 
 impress itself in the memory of young children ; and the poetical pieces are 
 fitting accompaniments to the prose." 
 
 School Board Chronicle. " The treatment is unconventional, but always 
 in good taste. The volumes will meet with much favour generally as lively, 
 useful, high-toned Historical Readers." 
 
 Standard Authors. 
 
 Adapted for Schools. 
 
 HAWTHORNE'S TANGLEWOOD TALES. With Notes and Illustra- 
 tions. 160 pp. Is. 2d. 
 
 Aytoun's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. 
 
 With Introduction, Notes, and Life of the Author, for Junior Classes. 
 
 EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3$d. 
 
 THE BURIAL-MARCH OF DUNDEE 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3$d. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF THE SCOTS . . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 Teachers' Aid. "Capital annotated editions Beautifully clear and 
 
 painstaking ; we commend them heartily to our brother and sister teachers." 
 
 Educational News. "Useful issues of well-known poems The notes 
 
 are exceedingly appropriate, and leave nothing in doubt. For class purposes 
 we can specially recommend these little books." 
 
 School Recitation Books. 
 
 BOOK I. 32 pages . . . . 2d. 
 
 BOOK II. 32 pages . ^,VJv:. 2d. 
 
 BOOK III. 48 pages . . *.,. . 3d. 
 
 BOOK IV. 48 pages . . ;- ., . 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 64 pages . ;r;.,. p v v , . 4d. 
 
 BOOK VI. 64 pages . . ^.* . 4d. 
 
 Schoolmistress. " These six books are a valuable contribution to school 
 literature. The poems for each standard are judiciously chosen, the explanatory 
 notes and questions at the end of every lesson are very suitable."
 
 62 William Black wood & Sons' List. 
 
 Grammar and Analysis. 
 
 BOOK II. 24 pages . . Paper, ld. ; cloth, 2d. 
 
 BOOK III. 24 pages . . Paper, l|d. ; cloth, 2d. 
 
 BOOK IV. 48 pages . . Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 64 pages . . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 BOOK VI. 64 pages . . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 BOOK VII. 64 pages . . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "This is a series of good practical books whose merits ought 
 to ensure for them a wide sale. Among their leading merits are simplicity in 
 definitions, judicious recapitulation, and abundance of well-selected exercises 
 for practice." 
 
 Teachers' Aid. "For thoroughness, method, style, and high -class work, 
 
 commend us to these little text-books A practical hand has impressed 
 
 every line with individuality We are determined to use them in our own 
 
 department." 
 
 Arithmetical Exercises. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 . Paper, l$d. ; cloth, 2d. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 . Paper, l^d. ; cloth, 2|d. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 . Paper, 2d. 
 
 cloth, 3d. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 . Paper, 2d. 
 
 cloth, 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 . Paper, 2d. 
 
 cloth, 3d. 
 
 BOOK VL 
 
 . Paper, 2d. 
 
 cloth, 3d. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 . Paper, 3d. 
 
 cloth, 4d. 
 
 HIGHER ARITHMETIC for Ex-Standard an 
 
 d Continua- 
 
 tion Classes. 128 pp. . 
 
 . Paper, 6d. 
 
 cloth, 8d. 
 
 %* ANSWERS may be had separately, and are supplied direct 
 to Teachers only. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "We can speak in terms of high praise respecting this series 
 of Arithmetical Exercises. They have been carefully constructed. They are 
 
 well graduated, and contain a large and varied collection of examples We 
 
 can recommend the series to our readers." 
 
 Schoolmistress. " Large quantity, excellent quality, great variety, and good 
 arrangement are the characteristics of this set of Arithmetical Exercises." 
 
 Elementary Grammar and Composition. 
 
 Based on the ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. With a Chapter on WORD-BUILDING 
 and DERIVATION, and containing numerous Exercises. New Edition. Is. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "A very valuable book. It is constructive as well as analytic, 
 and well-planned exercises have been framed to teach the young student how to 
 
 use the elements of his mother-tongue. A junior text-book that is calculated 
 
 to yield most satisfactory results. " 
 
 Educational Times. "The plan ought to work well A decided advance 
 
 from the old-fashioned practice of teaching."
 
 Educational Works. 63 
 
 Grammar and Analysis. 
 
 Scotch Code. 
 
 STANDARD IL 24 pages. Paper, l$d. ; cloth, 2$d. 
 
 STANDARD III. 32 pages. Paper, l|d. ; cloth, 2d. 
 
 STANDARD IV. 56 pages. Paper, 2$d. ; cloth, 3 |d. 
 
 STANDARD V. 56 pages. Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 STANDARD VI. 64 pages. Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 Teachers' Aid. "These are thoughtfully written and very practically con- 
 ceived little helps They are most exhaustive, and brimming with examples." 
 
 New Arithmetical Exercises. 
 
 Scotch Code. 
 
 STANDARD I. 32 pages . Paper, IJd. ; cloth, 2$d. 
 STANDARD II. 32 pages . Paper, l|d. ; cloth, 2Jd. 
 STANDARD III. 56 pages . Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 STANDARD IV. 64 pages . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 STANDARD V. 80 pages . Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. 
 STANDARD VI. 80 pages . Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. 
 HIGHER ARITHMETIC for Ex-Standard and Continua- 
 tion Classes 128 pages . Paper, 6d. ; cloth, 8d. 
 
 %* ANSWERS may be had separately, and are supplied direct 
 to Teachers only. 
 
 Educational News. "The gradation of the exercises is perfect, and the 
 examples, which are very numerous, are of every conceivable variety. There is 
 ample choice for the teacher under every head. We recommend the series as 
 excellent School Arithmetics." 
 
 Merit Certificate Arithmetic. 
 
 96 pp. Paper cover, 6d. ; cloth, 8d. ' ' 
 
 Mensuration. 
 
 128 pp., cloth, Is. Also in Two Parts. Pt. I., Parallelograms and 
 Triangles. 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Pt. II., Circles and Solids. 
 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Answers may he had separately, price 
 2d. each Part. 
 
 Educational Times. "The explanations are always clear and to the point, 
 while the exercises are so exceptionally numerous that a wide selection is 
 offered to the students who make use of the book." 
 
 A First Book on Physical Geography. 
 
 For Use in Schools. 64 pp. 4d. 
 
 Journal of Education. "This is a capital little book, describing shortly 
 and clearly the geographical phenomena of nature."
 
 64 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Manual Instruction Woodwork. DESIGNED TO MEET THE 
 REQUIREMENTS OP THE MINUTE OF THE SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT 
 ON MANUAL INSTRUCTION. By GEORGE ST JOHN, Undenominational 
 School, Handsworth, Birmingham. With 100 Illustrations. Is. 
 
 Blackwoods' Simplex Civil Service Copy Books. 
 
 By JOHN T. PEARCE, B.A., Leith Academy. Price 2d. each. 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE SERIES. 
 
 No. 1. Elements, Short Letters, Words. 
 . 2. Long Letters, Easy Words. 
 , 3. Capitals, Half-line Words, 
 i 4. Text, Double Ruling, Sentences, 
 i 5. Half-Text, Sentences, Figures, 
 i 6. Intermediate, Transcription, &c. 
 i 7. Small Hand, Double Ruling, 
 i 8. Small Hand, Single Ruling. 
 The Headlines are graduated, up-to-date, and attractive. 
 
 Blackwoods' Universal Writing Books. 
 
 Have been designed to accompany the above series, and teachers will find it 
 advantageous to use them as Dictation Copies, because by them the learner 
 is kept continually writing at the correct slope, &c. No 1. is adapted for 
 LOWKR CLASSES, No. 2 for HIGHER CLASSES. Price 2d. each. 
 
 Practical Teacher. "Our readers would do well to write for a specimen of 
 this book, and of the blank exercise-books ruled on the same principle. They 
 are worth careful attention." 
 
 School World. "Those teachers who are anxious to train their pupils to 
 write in the style associated with Civil Service Competitions should find the 
 copy-books designed by Mr Pearce very useful. The writing is certainly simple ; 
 it may, in fact, be reduced to four elements, in which the pupil is rigorously 
 exercised in the earlier books before proceeding in later numbers to continuous 
 writing." 
 
 Schoolmaster. " Those of our readers in search of new books should see 
 these." 
 
 Journal of Education. "Aids the eye and guides the hand, and thus 
 checkmates any bias towards error in the slope." 
 
 UNIVERSITY CALENDARS. 
 
 St Andrews University Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 St Andrews University L.L.A. Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, Is. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
 4/12.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 HIGHSMITH 45-102 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
 
 LIBRARY USS'OUL 1 
 
 A 000644146 3 
 
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