Rulers of India: Akbar Part 5

Desirous of directing the campaign himself, Akbar despatched orders to his lieutenant to suspend operations till he should arrive, then, making the hurried visit to Ajmere of which I have spoken, he hastened with a body of troops by water to Allahabad. Not halting there, he continued his journey, likewise by water, to Benares, stayed there three days, then, taking to boat again, reached the point where the Gumti flows into the Ganges. Thence, pending the receipt of news from his lieutenant, he resolved to ascend the Gumti to Jaunpur.

On his way thither, however, he received a despatch from his lieutenant, urging him to advance with all speed. Directing the boatmen to continue their course with the young princes and the ladies to Jaunpur, Akbar at once turned back, reached the point where he had left his troops, and directing that they should march along the banks in sight of the boats, descended to Chausa, the place memorable, the reader may recollect, for the defeat of his {119} father by Sher Khan. Here a despatch reached him to the effect that the enemy had made a sortie from Patna, which had caused much damage to the besiegers. Akbar pushed on therefore, still by water, and reached the besieging army on the seventh day.

The next day he called a council of war. At this he expressed his opinion that before a.s.saulting the fort it was advisable that the besiegers should occupy Hajipur, a town at the confluence of the Gandak and the Ganges, opposite to Patna. This course was adopted, and the next day Hajipur fell. Daud was so terrified by this success, and by the evident strength of the besieging army, that he evacuated Patna the same night, and fled across the Punpun, near its junction with the Ganges at Fatwa. Akbar entered the city in triumph the next morning, but, anxious to capture Daud, remained there but four hours; then, leaving his lieutenant in command of the army, followed with a well-mounted detachment in pursuit of the enemy. Swimming the Punpun on horseback he speedily came up with Daud's followers, and captured elephant after elephant, until on reaching Daryapur, he counted two hundred and sixty-five of those animals. Halting at Daryapur, he directed two of his trusted officers to continue the pursuit. These pressed on for fourteen miles further, then it became clear that Daud had evaded them, and they returned.

The conquest of Patna had given Behar to Akbar. He stayed then at Daryapur six days to const.i.tute the {120} government of the province, then nominating to the chief office the successful lieutenant who had planned the campaign, he left him to follow it up whilst he should return to Jaunpur. At that place he stayed thirty-three days, engaged in perfecting arrangements for the better administration of the country. With this view he brought Jaunpur, Benares, Chanar, and other mahalls in the vicinity, directly under the royal exchequer, and const.i.tuted the newly acquired territories south of the Karamnasa a separate government.

Having done this, he proceeded to Cawnpur, on his way to Agra. At Cawnpur he stayed four days, long enough to receive information that his general in Bengal had occupied, successively, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Garhi, and Tanda on the opposite side of the Ganges to Gaur, the ancient and famous Hindu capital of Bengal, and that he was preparing to push on further. It may be added that he carried out this resolution with vigour, and followed up Daud relentlessly, defeating him at Bajhura, and finally compelling him to surrender at Cuttack.

With the surrender of this prince, the conquest of Bengal might be regarded as achieved.

Very much elated with the good news received at Cawnpur, Akbar, deeming the campaign in Bengal as virtually terminated, pushed on to Delhi, devoted there a few days to hunting, and then made another journey to Ajmere, hunting as he marched. At Narnul he received visits from his governors of the Punjab and of Gujarat, and had the satisfaction of learning {121} that everywhere his rule was taking root in the hearts of the people. After the exchange of ideas with these n.o.blemen, he pushed on to Ajmere, made his pilgrimage to the tomb of the saint, caused to be repressed the rising of a petty chief in the jungles of Jodhpur, and then returned to his favourite residence at Fatehpur-Sikri.

He had noticed, on his many journeys, that a very great part of the territories he had traversed remained uncultivated. The evil was neither to be attributed to the nature of the soil, which was rich, nor to the laziness of the people. Sifting the matter to the bottom, Akbar came to the conclusion that the fault rather lay with the administration, which placed upon the land a tax which rendered cultivation prohibitive to the poor man. The evil, he thought, might be remedied if some plan could be devised for dividing the profits of the first year between the government and the cultivator. After a thorough examination of the whole question, he arranged that the several parganas, or subdivisions of the districts, should be examined, and that those subdivisions which contained so much land as, on cultivation, would yield ten million of tankas,[1] should be divided off, and given in charge of an honest and intelligent officer who was {122} to receive the name of Karori. The clerks and accountants of the exchequer were to make arrangements with these officers and send them to their respective districts, where, by vigilance and attention, the uncultivated land might in the course of three years be brought into a state of production, and the revenues recovered for the government. This scheme was carried out, and was found to realise all the advantages it promised.

[Footnote 1: Blochmann, in his _Ain-i-Akbari_ (note, p. 16), states that, according to Abulfazl, the weight of one dam was five tanks. As the copper coin known as 'dam' was one fortieth part of a rupee (Ibid. p. 31), it follows that ten million of tankas would equal 50,000 rupees. A pargana is a division of land nearly equalling a barony. A parganadar was called 'lord of a barony.']

The nineteenth year of the reign of Akbar was thus in all respects save one a glorious year for the young empire. Bengal and Behar had been added to North-western, Central, and Western India. Practically, in fact, all India north of the Vindhya range acknowledged the supremacy of the son of Humayun. The exception to the general prosperity was caused by a terrible famine and pestilence in Western India, the effects of which were most severely felt. Grain rose to a fabulous price, 'and horses and cows had to feed upon the bark of trees.' The famine and pestilence lasted six months.

The early part of the following year, 1575, was occupied with the pursuit of Daud and the conquest of Orissa. I have already stated how the Afghan prince was defeated at Bajhura, midway between Mughalmari and Jaleswar, and how, pursued to and invested in Cuttack, he had surrendered. The treaty concluded with him provided that he should govern the province of Orissa in the name and on behalf of the Emperor Akbar. It may be added that Daud did not keep {123} the faith he plighted on this occasion. He took the first propitious occasion to rebel, and two years later was defeated in a great battle by the Mughal general. He was taken prisoner, and in punishment of his treason his head was severed from his body on the field of battle.

For some time, however, Bengal and Orissa continued to require great vigilance and prompt action on the part of the Mughal administrators.

The other princ.i.p.al events of this year were the building by the Emperor at Fatehpur-Sikri of an Ibadat-khana, or palace for the reception of men of learning, genius, and solid acquirements. The building was divided into four halls: the western to be used by Saiyids, or descendants of the Prophet: the southern by the learned, men who had studied and acquired knowledge: the northern by those venerable for their wisdom and their subjection to inspiration. The eastern hall was devoted to the n.o.bles and officers of state, whose tastes were in unison with those of one or other of the cla.s.ses referred to. When the building was finished, the Emperor made it a practice to repair there every Friday night and on the nights of holy days, and spend the night in the society of the occupants of the halls, moving from one to the other and conversing. As a rule, the members of each hall used to present to him one of their number whom they considered most worthy of the notice and bounty of the Emperor.

The visits were always made opportunities for the distribution of largesses, and scarcely one of {124} the guests ever went empty away.

The building was completed by the end of the year.

The following year was uneventful, but the year 1577 was marked by that rebellion in Orissa under Daud of which I have already spoken.

The campaign was stirring whilst it lasted, but the death of Daud and his uncle put an end to it.

This year, likewise, there was trouble in Rajputana. Alone of all the sovereigns of the territories known by that name, the Rana of Mewar had refused the matrimonial alliance offered to his female relatives by Akbar. Descended, as he believed, from the immortal G.o.ds, he regarded such an alliance as a degradation. He refused it then, whilst he was yet struggling for existence. He refused it, though he saw the Rajput prince whom he most hated, the Raja of Jodhpur, enriched, in consequence of his compliance, by the acquisition of four districts, yielding an ample revenue. He remained obdurate, defying the power of Akbar. Rana Udai Singh had in 1568 lost his capital, and had fled to the jungles of Rajpipla, and there had died in 1572.

His son, Partap Singh, inherited all his obstinacy, and many of the n.o.ble qualities of his grandfather, the famous Sanga Rana. Without a capital, without resources, his kindred and clansmen dispirited by the reverses of his house, yet sympathising with him in his refusal to ally himself with a Muhammadan, Partap Singh had established himself at Kombalmir, in the Aravallis, and had endeavoured to organise the country for a renewed struggle. Some {125} information of his plans seems to have reached the ears of Akbar whilst he was paying his annual visit to Ajmere in 1576-7, and he despatched his most trusted general, also a Rajput, the Man Singh of Jaipur, whom we have seen fighting by his side in Gujarat, with five thousand horse, to beat him up. The two opposing forces met at Huldighat, called also Gogandah, in December 1576. The battle which followed terminated in the complete defeat of the Rana, who, when the day was lost, fled to the Aravalli hills. To deprive him of all possible resources Akbar despatched a party into the hills, with instructions to lay waste the country whilst pursuing. Akbar himself entered Mewar, arranged the mode of its administration; then proceeded to Malwa, encamped on its western frontier, arranged the administration of the territories dependent upon the city of Burhanpur, and improved that of Gujarat.

To these matters he devoted the years 1577-8. He then marched for the Punjab.

A circ.u.mstance, interesting to the people who now hold supreme sway in India, occurred to the Emperor on his way to the Punjab. He had reached Delhi, and had even proceeded a march beyond it, when a certain Haji[2] who had visited Europe, 'brought with him fine goods and fabrics for his Majesty's inspection.' The chronicler does not state more on the subject than the extract I have made, and we are left to imagine the part of Europe whence the fabrics came, and the impression they made. Akbar stayed but a short time {126} in the Punjab, then returned to Delhi, paid then his annual visit to Ajmere, and stopping there but one night, rode, accompanied by but nine persons, at the rate of over a hundred miles a day to Fatehpur-Sikri, arriving there the evening of the third day.

[Footnote 2: A Haji is a Musalman who has made the pilgrimage to Mekka.]

The following year, 1580, was remarkable for the fact that the empire attained the highest degree of prosperity up to that time. Bengal was not only tranquil, but furnished moneys to the imperial exchequer.

The ruler of Mewar was still being hunted by the imperial troops, but in no other part of India was the sound of arms heard.

In the course of his journeys Akbar had noticed how the imposition of inland tolls, justifiable so long as the several provinces of Hindustan were governed by rival rulers, tended only, now that so many provinces were under one head, to perpetuate differences. Early in 1581, then, he abolished the tamgha, or inland tolls, throughout his dominions. The same edict proclaimed likewise the abolition of the jizya, a capitation tax imposed by the Afghan rulers of India upon those subjects who did not follow the faith of Muhammad. It was the Emperor's n.o.ble intention that thought should be free; that every one of his subjects should wors.h.i.+p after his own fas.h.i.+on and according to his own convictions, and he carried out this principle to the end of his days. The most important political event of the year was the rebellion of a body of disaffected n.o.bles in Bengal.

Acting without much cohesion they were defeated and dispersed.

{127} The year following, 1582, Akbar marched at the head of an army to the Punjab to repulse an invasion made from Kabul by his own brother, Muhammad Hakim Mirza. The rebel brother had arrived close to Lah.o.r.e before Akbar had reached Panipat. The news, however, of the march of Akbar produced upon him the conviction that his invasion must miscarry. He accordingly retreated from Lah.o.r.e, and fell back on Kabul. Akbar followed him by way of Sirhind, Kalanaur, and Rotas; then crossed the Indus at the point where Attock now stands, giving, as he crossed the river, instructions for the erection of a fortress at that place.

He advanced on to Peshawar, and pushed forward a division of his army under his son, Prince Murad, to recover Kabul. Murad was a young man, tall and thin, with a livid complexion, but much given to drink, from the effects of which he and his brother, Prince Danyal, eventually died. Marching very rapidly, he encountered the army of his uncle at Khurd-Kabul and totally defeated him. Akbar had followed him with a supporting army, and entered Kabul three days after him. There he remained three weeks, then, having pardoned his brother and re-bestowed upon him the government of Kabul, he returned by way of the Khaibar to Lah.o.r.e, settled the government of the Punjab, and then marched, by way of Delhi, to Fatehpur-Sikri. 'He now,' writes the chronicler, 'remained for some time at Fatehpur, administering justice, dispensing charity, and arranging public business.'

{128} Apparently he continued to reside there throughout the year following. Rebellion was still smouldering in Bengal, but the Emperor was represented there by capable officers who reported constantly to him, and to whom he as constantly despatched instructions. The disaffection was not very serious, but it was hara.s.sing and interfered greatly with the collection of the revenues.

The beginning of 1584 found Akbar still at Fatehpur-Sikri. The princ.i.p.al events of the year were, the pacification of Bengal; the outbreak and suppression of a rebellion in Gujarat; the revolt of the ruler of Asirgarh and Burhanpur; disturbances in the Deccan; and the death of the brother of Akbar, the then ruler of Kabul. The revolts were put down and a new governor was sent to Kabul. Prosperity reigned over the empire when the year closed.

Among the firmest of the protected allies of the Emperor was Bhagwan Das, Raja of Jaipur, who had not only himself rendered splendid military service to Akbar, but whose nephew, Man Singh, held a very high command in his armies. At the period at which we have arrived this Rajput prince was governor of the Punjab. From his family Akbar now selected a wife for his son, Prince Salim, afterwards the Emperor Jahangir. The marriage was celebrated at Fatehpur-Sikri, with great ceremony and amid great rejoicings. Until this reign the Rajput princes had scornfully rejected the idea of a matrimonial alliance with princes of the Muhammadan faith. But it was the {129} desire of Akbar to weld: to carry into action the cardinal principle that differences of race and religion made no difference in the man. He had many prejudices to overcome, especially on the part of the Rajput princes, and to the last he could not conquer the obstinate resistance of the Rana of Mewar.

The others were more complaisant. They recognised in Akbar the founder of a set of principles such as had never been heard before in India. In his eyes merit was merit, whether evinced by a Hindu prince or by an Uzbek Musalman. The race and creed of the meritorious man barred neither his employment in high positions nor his rise to honour. Hence, men like Bhagwan Das, Man Singh, Todar Mall, and others, found that they enjoyed a consideration under this Muhammadan sovereign far greater and wider-reaching than that which would have accrued to them as independent rulers of their ancestral dominions.

They governed imperial provinces and commanded imperial armies. They were admitted to the closest councils of the prince whose main object was to obliterate all the dissensions and prejudices of the past, and, without diminis.h.i.+ng the real power of the local princes who entered into his scheme, to weld together, to unite under one supreme head, without loss of dignity and self-respect to anyone, the provinces till then disunited and hostile to one another.

One of the means which Akbar employed to this end was that of marriage between himself, his family, {130} and the daughters of the indigenous princes. There was, he well knew, no such equaliser as marriage. The Rajput princes could not fail to feel that their relations.h.i.+p to the heir to the throne, often to the throne itself, a.s.sured their position. When they reflected on the condition of Hindustan prior to his rule; how the Muhammadan conquests of the preceding five centuries had introduced strife and disorder without cohesion, and that this man, coming upon them as a boy, inexperienced and untried in the art of ruling, had introduced order and good government, toleration and justice, wherever he conquered; that he conquered only that he might introduce those principles; that he made no distinction between men on account of their diversity of race or of religious belief; they, apt to believe in the incarnation of the deity, must have recognised something more than ordinarily human, something approaching to the divine and beneficent, in the conduct of Akbar.

His toleration was so absolute, his trust, once given, so thorough, his principles so large and so generous, that, despite the prejudices of their birth, their religion, their surroundings, they yielded to the fascination. And when, in return, Akbar asked them to renounce one long-standing prejudice which went counter to the great principle which they recognised as the corner-stone of the new system, the prejudice which taught them to regard other men, because they were not Hindus, as impure and unclean, they all, with one marked exception, gave way. They recognised that {131} a principle such as that was not to be limited; that their practical renunciation of that portion of their narrow creed which forbade marriages with those of a different race, could not but strengthen the system which was giving peace and prosperity to their country, honour and consideration to themselves.

It was in the beginning of the thirty-first year of his reign that Akbar heard of the death of his brother at Kabul, and that the frontier province of Badakshan had been overrun by the Uzbeks, who also threatened Kabul. The situation was grave, and such as, he concluded, imperatively required his own presence. Accordingly, in the middle of November, he set out with an army for the Punjab, reached the Sutlej at the end of the following month, and marched straight to Rawal Pindi. Learning there that affairs at Kabul were likely to take a direction favourable to his interests, he marched to his new fort of Attock, despatched thence one force under Bhagwan Das to conquer Kashmir, another to chastise the Baluchis, and a third to move against Swat. Of these three expeditions, the last met with disaster. The Yusufzais not only repulsed the first attack of the Mughals, but when reinforcements, sent by Akbar under his special favourite, Raja Birbal, joined the attacking party, they too were driven back with a loss of 8,000 men, amongst whom was the Raja.[3]

It was the {132} severest defeat the Mughal troops had ever experienced. To repair it, the Emperor despatched his best commander, Raja Todar Mall, supported by Raja Man Singh, of Jaipur. These generals manoeuvred with great caution, supporting their advance by stockades, and eventually completely defeated the tribes in the Khaibar Pa.s.s.

[Footnote 3: Raja Birbal was a Brahman, a poet, and a skilful musician. He was noted for his liberality and his _bonhomie_. 'His short verses, bon mots, and jokes,' writes Blochmann (_Ain-i-Akbari_, p. 405) 'are still in the mouths of the people of Hindustan.']

Meanwhile, the expedition sent against Kashmir had been but a degree more successful. The commanders of it had reached the Pa.s.s of Shuliyas, and had found it blockaded by the Musalman ruler of the country. They waited for supplies for some days, but the rain and snow came on, and before they could move there came the news of the defeat inflicted by the Yusufzais. This deprived them of what remained to them of nerve, and they hastened to make peace with the ruler of Kashmir, on the condition of his becoming a nominal tributary, and then returned to Akbar. The Emperor testified his sense of their want of enterprise by according to them a very cold reception, and forbidding them to appear at court. But the mind of Akbar could not long harbour resentment, and he soon forgave them.

Of the three expeditions, that against the Baluchis alone was immediately successful. These hardy warriors submitted without resistance to the Mughal Emperor. As soon as the efforts of Todar Mall and Man Singh had opened the Khaibar Pa.s.s, Akbar appointed the latter, the nephew and heir to the Jaipur Raja, to be Governor of Kabul, and sent {133} him thither with a sufficient force, other troops being despatched to replace him in the Yusufzai country, and Peshawar being strongly occupied. Akbar had himself returned to Lah.o.r.e. Thence he directed a second expedition against Kashmir. As this force approached the Pa.s.ses, in the summer of 1587, a rebellion broke out against the actual ruler in Srinagar. The imperial force experienced then no difficulty in entering and conquering the country, which thus became a portion of the Mughal empire, and, in the reign of the successor of Akbar, the summer residence of the Mughal sovereigns of India. It may here be mentioned that to reach Jamrud, at the entrance of the Khaibar Pa.s.s, Man Singh had to fight and win another battle with the hill-tribes. He reached Kabul, however, and established there a stable administration. The Kabulis and the heads of the tribes, however, complained to Akbar that the rule of a Rajput prince was not agreeable to them, whereupon Akbar translated Man Singh in a similar capacity to Bengal, which just then especially required the rule of a strong hand, and replaced him at Kabul by a Musalman. He announced at the same time his intention of paying a visit to that dependency.

First of all, he secured possession of Sind (1588); then, in the spring of the following year, set out for Kashmir. On reaching Bhimbar, he left there the ladies of his harem with Prince Murad, and rode express to Srinagar. He remained there, visiting {134} the neighbourhood, till the rainy season set in, when he sent his harem to Rotas. They joined him subsequently at Attock on his way to Kabul.

The Pa.s.ses to that capital were open, all opposition on the part of the hill-tribes having ceased, so Akbar crossed the Indus at Attock, and had an easy journey thence to Kabul. He stayed there two months, visiting the gardens and places of interest. 'All the people, n.o.ble and simple, profited by his presence.'[4] He was still at Kabul when news reached him of the death of Raja Todar Mall (November 10, 1589).

The same day another trusted Hindu friend, Raja Bhagwan Das of Jaipur, also died. Akbar made then new arrangements for the governments of Kabul, Gujarat, and Jaunpur, and returned towards Hindustan.

[Footnote 4: Elliot, vol. v. p. 458.]

He had already, as I have stated, arranged for the government of Bengal. He reached Lah.o.r.e on his home journey in the beginning of 1590. Whilst residing there, information reached him that his newly appointed Governor of Gujarat, the son of his favourite nurse, had engaged in hostilities with Kathiawar and Cutch. These hostilities eventuated in the addition of those two provinces to the Emperor's dominions, and in the suicide of the prince of Afghan descent, who had fomented all the disturbances in Western India.[5] The Emperor took advantage of his stay at Lah.o.r.e to direct the more {135} complete pacification of Sind, affairs in which province had taken a disadvantageous turn. The perfect conquest of the province proved more difficult than had been antic.i.p.ated. It required large reinforcements of troops, and the display of combined firmness and caution to effect the desired result. The campaign took two years, and, during that time, Kashmir had revolted.

[Footnote 5: Vide Blochmann's _Ain-i-Akbari_, p. 326.]

The Emperor during those two years had had his head-quarters at Lah.o.r.e. No sooner did he hear that the success in Sind was complete, than Akbar, who, expecting the event, had sent on the bulk of his forces towards Bhimbar, remaining himself hunting on the banks of the Chenab, set out to rejoin his main body. On his way to it he learned that his advanced guard had forced one of the Pa.s.ses, notwithstanding fierce opposition. This event decided the war, for the soldiers of the rebel chief, resenting his action, fell upon him during the night, killed him, and cut off his head, which they sent to Akbar.

With the death of this man all opposition ceased, and Akbar, riding on to Srinagar, stayed there eight days, settling the administration, and then proceeded by way of the gorge of Baramula to Rotas, and thence to Lah.o.r.e. There he received information that his lieutenant in Bengal, the Raja Man Singh, had definitively annexed the province of Orissa to the imperial dominions. He had despatched thence to Lah.o.r.e a hundred and twenty elephants, captured in that province, as a present to the Emperor.

{136} The attempt to bring into the imperial scheme the Deccan provinces south of the Vindhyan range, followed the next year, and continued for eight years later. On the whole it was successful. The strong places, Daulatabad, Kherwa, Nasik, Asirgarh, and Ahmadnagar, opened their gates, after long sieges, to the imperial arms. And, although the territories dependent upon Ahmadnagar were not entirely subdued till 1637, the position acquired by Akbar gave him a preponderance which the Mughals retained for at least a century.

The campaign in Southern India was remarkable for three facts. The first was the dissensions of the generals sent from different parts of India to co-operate independently in the conquest, dissensions which necessitated, first, the despatch thither from Agra of the Emperor's confidant, Abulfazl, and afterwards, the journey thither of Akbar himself; secondly, the death, from excessive drinking, of the Emperor's son, Prince Murad, at Jalna; thirdly, the murder of Abulfazl, on his return to Agra, at the instigation of Prince Salim, the eldest surviving son of Akbar and his heir apparent.

Akbar had held his court for fourteen years at Lah.o.r.e when, in 1598, the necessities of the position in Southern India forced him to march thither. He had compelled the surrender of Ahmadnagar and Asirgarh, when, nominating Prince Danyal to be governor in Khandesh and Berar, and Abulfazl to complete the conquest of the territories dependent {137} upon Ahmadnagar, he marched in the spring of 1601 towards Agra.

The circ.u.mstances which required the presence of Akbar at Agra were of a very painful character. Prince Salim had from his earliest youth caused him the greatest anxiety. Nor had the anxiety been lessened as the boy approached manhood. Salim, better known to posterity as the Emperor Jahangir, was naturally cruel, and he appeared incapable of placing the smallest restraint on his pa.s.sions. He hated Abulfazl, really because he was jealous of his influence with his father; avowedly because he regarded him as the leading spirit who had caused Akbar to diverge from the narrow doctrines of the bigoted Muhammadans. Akbar had hoped for a moment that the despatch of Abulfazl to Southern India would appease the resentment of his son, and when he decided to proceed thither himself he had nominated Salim as his successor, and had confided to him, with the t.i.tle of Viceroy of Ajmere, the task of finis.h.i.+ng the war with the Rana of Mewar, which had broken out again. He had further studied his partialities by despatching the renowned Man Singh, his relation by marriage, to a.s.sist him.

The two princes were already on their march towards Mewar when information reached them that a rebellion had broken out in Bengal, of which province Man Singh was Viceroy. Man Singh was therefore compelled to march at once to repress the outbreak. Left without a counsellor, and commanding a {138} considerable force, Prince Salim resolved to take advantage of the absence of his father in the south to make a bold stroke for the crown. Renouncing, then, his march on Mewar, he hurried with his force to Agra, and when the commandant of the imperial fortress, loyal to his master, shut its gates in his face, hastened to Allahabad, occupied the fort, seized the provinces of Oudh and Behar, and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of King.

It was the news of these occurrences which drew Akbar from the Deccan. Attributing the action of Salim to the violence of a temper which had ever been impatient of control, he resolved rather to guide than to compel him. Accordingly he wrote him a letter, in which, a.s.suring him of his continued love if he would only return to his allegiance, he warned him of the consequences of continued disobedience. When this letter reached Salim, Akbar was approaching Agra at the head of an army of warriors, few in number, but the chosen of the empire. Salim, then, recognising that his position was absolutely untenable, and that if he persisted it might cost him the succession, replied in the most submissive terms. His conduct, however, did not correspond to his words. Informed, somewhat later, that the bulk of the imperial army was still in the Deccan, he marched to Itawa, levying troops as he proceeded, with the intention of waiting upon his father at the head of an imposing force. But Akbar was not deceived. He sent his son an order {139} to choose one of two courses; either to come to Agra slightly attended, or to return to Allahabad.

Prince Salim chose the latter course, receiving the promise, it is believed, that he should receive the grant of Bengal and Orissa. At any rate, he did receive the grant of those provinces. We cannot say, at this time, how much Akbar was influenced in his course by the consciousness of the comparative weakness of his own position, by his dislike of having to fight his own son, or by his affection. Probably the three sentiments combined to give to the course he adopted a tinge of weakness. At any rate, he soon had reason to feel that his concessions to his rebellious son had produced no good effect. For Salim, whose memory was excellent, and whose hatred was insatiable, took the opportunity of the return of Abulfazl from the Deccan, but slightly attended, to instigate the Raja of Orchha to waylay and murder him.[6]

[Footnote 6: Prince Salim justifies, in his _Memoirs_, the murder on the ground that Abulfazl had been the chief instigator of Akbar in his religious aberrations, as he regarded them. To the last he treated the Raja of Orchha with the greatest consideration.]

The murder of his friend was a heavy blow to Akbar. Happily he never knew the share his son had in that atrocious deed. Believing that the Raja of Orchha was the sole culprit, he despatched a force against him. The guilty Raja fled to the jungles, and succeeded in avoiding capture, until the death of Akbar rendered unnecessary his attempts to conceal himself. A reconciliation with Salim followed, and {140} the Emperor once more despatched his eldest son to put down the disturbances in Mewar. These disturbances, it may be mentioned, were caused by the continued refusal of Rana Partap Singh to submit to the Mughal. After his defeat at Huldighat in 1576, that prince had fled to the jungles, closely followed by the imperial army. Fortune continued so adverse to him that after a series of reverses, unrelieved by one success, he resolved, with his family and trusting friends, to abandon Mewar, and found another kingdom on the Indus. He had already set out, when the unexampled devotion of his minister placed in his hands the means of continuing the contest, and he determined to try one more campaign. Turning upon his adversaries, rendered careless by continued success, he smote them in the hinder part, and, in 1586, had recovered all Mewar, the fortress of Chitor and Mandalgarh excepted. Cut off from Chitor, he had established a new capital at Udaipur, a place which subsequently gave its name to his princ.i.p.ality. When he died, in 1597, he was still holding his own. He was succeeded by his son, Amra Rana, who, at the time at which we have arrived, was bidding defiance, in Mewar, to all the efforts of the imperial troops (1603).