BABAR

BABAR was the sixth in descent from Tamerlane. His grandfather, Abu Said Mirza, left eleven sons, among whom his extensive dominions were divided. Omar Sheikh Mirza, the fourth son, was for some time governor of Kabul, but was transferred to Ferghana, situated on the upper course of the Jaxartes. This province, of which he was in possession when Abu Said died, was afterwards held by him as an independent sovereignty. He had married the sister of Mahmud Khan, a descendant of Chaghatai Khan, and through him connected with Chinghiz Khan. Babar was her son, and was, consequently, by the mother’s side, a Mughul. It is somewhat singular that, in his own Memoirs, he always speaks with contempt of the Mughul race, though the dynasty which he was about to establish in India was destined to take its name from it. The explanation is, that the title Great Mughul was not chosen by him, but was applied, in accordance with the Hindu custom of giving the name of Mughuls to all the Muhammedans of the north-west, with the single exception of the Afghans. When his father died, Babar was only twelve years of age. He was thus deprived of his natural protector before he could be expected to be able to act for himself. To add to the misfortune, his uncles, who ought to have befriended him, were ungenerous enough to resent a quarrel which they had had with the father, on the son. But Babar had talents equal to the difficulties of his position. On learning his father’s death, he took immediate steps to secure the succession. As the eldest son, he had the best title to it, and there was no room for dispute. It was necessary, however, to consult his uncle, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, ruler of Samarqand and Bokhara, to whom the supremacy belonged; and Babar sent an embassy to him, to say, “It is plain you must place one of your servants in the command of this country; I am at once your son and your servant; if you appoint me, your purpose will be answered in the most satisfactory manner.” This honest but plain dealing gave dissatisfaction, and a hostile answer was returned. The uncle was, in fact, already on the march, determined to complete the conquest which he had begun while Babar’s father was alive, and make himself sole master of Ferghana. On this occasion fortune favoured the friendless youth. In crossing a river, the bridge, which was crowded with his uncle’s troops, gave way, and great numbers of men, horses and camels perished. This was regarded as ominous particularly as a defeat had been sustained at the same spot three or four years before. The army, in consequence, became panic-struck, and showed the utmost reluctance to advance. While they were hesitating, the horses were seized with a fatal disease, and Babar’s army made its appearance. All these circumstances made the invaders disposed to listen to terms of accommodation, and patch up a hasty peace, when a resolute advance of a few miles would probably have put them in possession of Indijan, Babar’s capital.

No sooner was this danger escaped, than another, of an equally formidable nature, threatened him. The Sultan Mahmud Khan made his appearance in the north, and laid siege to Babar’s fortress of Akhsi. After repeated assaults, which were repulsed with great valour, he abandoned the attempt as hopeless, and made the best of his way home. A third enemy advanced from the east, plundering and devastating as he came. He was, however, still more easily disposed of than the others, having brought himself into a position out of which, if full advantage had been taken, he could not have extricated himself. Babar, thus freed from the perils which had environed him, turned his leisure to good account, and made many important internal improvements.

He had hitherto been contented to act on the defensive, but in 1495 he found himself strong enough to change his tactics, and attempt the conquest of Khojend. It had at one time belonged to his father, and on this ground he thought himself entitled to take it if he could. The task proved easier than he anticipated, and he gained possession of it almost without resistance. His next attempt was on Uratuppa; but as the inhabitants had carried home all their grain and provender, thus making it impossible for him to obtain supplies, and as the winter was about to set in, he was obliged to retreat. In 1496, the succession to Samarqand having been disputed, three different claimants appeared, and invaded the country in three different directions. Babar was one of them; but as none of them was able to establish an ascendency, they all three retired. In the following year Babar renewed the attempt, and conducted his operations with so much skill and valour, that, before the year expired, both the city and territory of Samarqand were in his possession. He was accordingly crowned, and acknowledged by most of the nobles; but as the city had capitulated, and he was anxious to conciliate the inhabitants, he forbade all plunder. The troops were grievously disappointed, and began to disperse. Others, not satisfied with this, went off in a body, and offered their services to Jehangir Mirza, Babar’s brother, who was treacherous enough to listen to their overtures, and seize on Indijan, one of the leading districts of Ferghana.

At this time, when all the talents which Babar possessed would scarcely have sufficed, he was seized with a dangerous illness, and found his affairs on the verge of ruin. Samarqand was held by a most precarious tenure; and it was obvious that the moment he ceased to overawe it by his personal presence, he would lose it altogether. He resolved, notwithstanding, to make this sacrifice; for his paternal dominions were dearer to him than any new conquest, however valuable, and he could not brook the idea of having them dismembered by the perfidy of a brother. He accordingly set out towards Indijan, but he arrived only in time enough to learn that the officers to whom the defence of it was intrusted, had been induced, by a rumour of his death, to surrender, and that Jehangir had actually mounted the throne. Both Samarqand and Indijan were thus lost. Babar was now in the utmost distress, and applied for aid to his maternal uncle, Sultan Mahmud Khan. His brother Jehangir applied at the same time, and Mahmud, unwilling to interfere in the quarrels of his nephews, gave no assistance to either. Ultimately, however, he departed so far from this resolution as to take open part with Babar, who, after various vicissitudes, recovered his paternal kingdom in 1499. He even set out to attempt the recovery of Samarqand, but was only on the way when he received the mortifying intelligence that the Uzbeks had anticipated him, and made themselves masters both of Samarqand and Bokhara. The consequence was, that he was not only frustrated in the hope of taking Samarqand, but again lost Ferghana, which had been overrun in his absence.

His only resource was to betake himself to the mountains, and wait there till fortune should again smile upon him. While almost disconsolate at the disasters which had befallen him, he lay down in a grove to sleep, and dreamed that Abdullah, a darvesh of great repute, called at his house. He invited him to sit down, and ordered a table-cloth to be spread for him; but the darvesh, apparently offended, rose to go away. While Babar endeavoured to detain him, the darvesh took hold of his arm, and lifted him up towards the sky. The dream is neither striking nor significant; but Babar and his followers regarded it as a promise of future good fortune, and determined, in consequence, to make another attempt on Samarqand.

The capture of the city was one of the exploits on which Babar particularly plumed himself, and he dwells on it with evident exultation in his Memoirs. Here, however, only the leading facts can be mentioned. His small party mustered only 320 men, and yet with these he succeeded in making himself master of a large capital, occupied by warlike Uzbeks, whom Shaibani Khan, a veteran general of high reputation, commanded. Having secretly arrived in the vicinity at midnight, he sent forward eighty of his party to a low part of the wall, which they immediately scaled by means of a grappling-rope. Going afterwards round, they surprised and overpowered the guard in charge of one of the gates, opened it, and let in Babar with the 240 who were with him. They immediately rushed along the streets, proclaiming Babar’s name as they passed. It carried a charm with it to the ears of many of the inhabitants, who immediately rallied around him, while the Uzbeks ran confusedly from place to place, ignorant both of the position and numbers of their assailants. When the alarm reached the headquarters, Shaibani Khan, who occupied the fort with 7,000 men, set out with a small body to reconnoitre, and on finding that Babar had gained some thousands of the inhabitants, who were rending the air with acclamations, was so frightened that he took the opposite gate, and fled towards Bokhara. Babar obtained quiet possession.

Babar was aware that the victory was only half won so long as the Uzbeks maintained their footing in the country, and he laboured to unite the neighbouring chiefs in a general coalition for the purpose of expelling them. Owing to dissensions and jealousies, his exertions were unavailing, and he was left to fight single-handed with his formidable foes. They proved more than a match for him; and he sustained a defeat which obliged him to shut himself up within the walls. Here he defended himself till he suffered all the horrors of famine, and saw no resource but to take advantage of the night, and escape with about 100 faithful attendants. This flight took place in the beginning of 1501, and he was once more a homeless wanderer. He found an asylum with his uncle, Sultan Mahmud Khan, who gave him the town of Aratiba for his residence. Here his relentless enemy, Shaibani Khan, found him out, and he removed to Tashkend, where he remained for some time in a state of despondency. At length an opening appeared in his hereditary kingdom, and by the aid of his two uncles he obtained possession of Akhsi, one of its strongest forts. It was only a gleam of sunshine before the coming storm. Shaibani Khan again appeared, and conquered as before. In addition to his own misfortune, Babar had the misery to see his uncles involved in his fate. They were both taken prisoners, and released only at the expense of their kingdoms. Sultan Mahmud Khan was unable to bear up under the stroke, and his health began to decline. One of his friends, hinting that Shaibani Khan had poisoned him, offered some tirik of Khutta, a medicine which was then in high repute as an antidote. The sultan replied, “Yes! Shaibani Khan has poisoned me indeed! He has taken away my kingdom, which it is not in the power of your tirik of Khutta to restore.”

Babar had at one time some thoughts of trying his fortune in China. His own country, at all events, seemed shut against him, and he quitted it for ever. But he had no intention of closing his career. Though he had seen much of the world, and experienced many reverses, he had only attained the age when most men begin to make their appearance in the public stage of life. He was little more than twenty, and was borne up by the belief, which conscious talent and great natural buoyancy of spirits suggested, that some great destiny awaited him. In 1504 he took the direction of the east, where he saw no field of enterprise so promising as Kabul, which had fallen into a state of anarchy. It had once been ruled by his father, and subsequently by his uncle, Ulugh Beg, who had died in 1501, leaving an infant son. The minister took the whole government into his own hands, but soon disgusted the nobles, and was assassinated. Great convulsions followed, and Kabul became a common prey to dissensions within, and invasion from without. A foreign usurper was on the throne when Babar arrived. He found little difficulty in displacing him; and though his cousin, the above son of Ulugh Beg, was still alive, he regarded the kingdom as a lawful conquest, and ruled it in his own name. His ambition was not yet satisfied, and, taking advantage of favourable circumstances, he made himself master of Kandahar. It would seem that at this period his thoughts were turned to Hindustan, and the invasion of it was openly talked of and discussed in his court. Various circumstances, however, concurred to postpone any actual preparations.

The earliest of these was the appearance of the restless and implacable Shaibani Khan, who drove Babar from Kandahar, and re-seated the former ruler. Shaibani Khan, having ultimately met his master in Shah Ismail Sufi of Persia, was defeated and slain. Babar immediately proposed an alliance with the Shah, by whose aid he hoped to regain his former dominions. Nor was he disappointed. With an army of 60,000 horse, partly furnished by the Persian monarch, he took Khunduz, subdued Bokhara, and in 1511 was seated for the third time on the throne of Samarqand. Here he fixed his residence, and left Kabul to be governed under him by his brother, Nasir Mirza. This return of prosperity was short-lived; for he was immediately engaged in a series of sanguinary struggles with the Uzbeks. These were generally to his disadvantage; and in 1518 he arrived, shorn of all his new conquests, to resume the government of Kabul. His brother Nasir Mirza returned to his government of Ghazni.

Babar had now been nearly twenty years King of Kabul, and during that long period had often turned a wistful eye to India. Other objects of ambition had repeatedly started up and tempted him to try his fortune in the west; but the difficulties had proved insurmountable, and the conviction had been forced upon him, that if his name was to descend to posterity as a great conqueror and mighty monarch, the east was the quarter in which he must gain his laurels. The times were favourable. The throne of Delhi had been occupied by a series of Afghan chiefs, who had never gained the affections of the people, and ruled only by the sword. While thus requiring all the aid which union could give, interminable feuds prevailed, and the succession was regulated not so much by the ordinary rules of relationship, as by court intrigue, faction, and assassination. Under this wretched system the kingdom had been broken up into fragments, and Delhi exhibited merely a shadow of its former greatness. It was impossible not to perceive that a country thus ruled, and acknowledged at the same time to be one of the grandest, fairest, and richest regions of the globe, presented facilities and attractions to the conqueror far greater than the west could furnish; and the only wonder is, that a prince so talented and so ambitious as Babar should have remained so long on its frontiers without making an actual inroad into it.

Babar’s first Indian campaign took place in 1519. On that occasion, after overrunning the territory between Kabul and the Indus, he crossed over into the Punjab, and advanced as far as Bhira. From this place he sent a message to Ibrahim Lodi, the King of Delhi, reminding him that the Punjab had been frequently possessed by the house of Tamerlane, and demanding that to him, as a branch of that house, it should be voluntarily resigned, unless he was prepared to see the war carried farther into India. In this campaign he reached the Chenab, and then returned to Kabul. His second Indian campaign was made in the course of the same year. His main object was to reduce Lahore, but after reaching Peshawar, and advancing to the Indus, intelligence of an invasion of Budukshan by the King of Kashgar compelled him to return. He marched a third time against India in 1520, and had reached Sialkot when he learned that his presence was immediately required to defend his capital against an invasion from Kandahar. He had not only repulsed the invader, but pursued him to Kandahar, and captured it, when, in 1524, Daulat Khan sent the tempting invitation formerly mentioned. In compliance with it, Babar advanced to the neighbourhood of Lahore, which he entered in triumph, after gaining a signal victory. Daulat Khan having afterwards turned against him, he found his prospects of success so seriously affected, that he rested satisfied with appointing governors over the districts which he had conquered, and again returned home.

Ala-ud-din Lodi, the brother of Ibrahim Lodi, King of Delhi, had been left in command of the Kabul forces, and for a time was so successful, that he pushed forward to the vicinity of Delhi. Here he seemed to have gained a victory, till his own carelessness and the want of discipline turned it into a complete defeat, and obliged him to retire precipitately into the Punjab. Babar, on hearing of the disaster, immediately bestirred himself, and made his appearance in India. This was his fifth, and proved his most decisive Indian campaign.

His force was comparatively small. After crossing the Indus on the 15th of December, 1525, he mustered it, and found that he had only 10,000 chosen horse. At Sialkot, however, he was joined by Ala-ud-din, and thus obtained a considerable reinforcement. The first appearance of opposition was on the part of Daulat Khan, and his son Ghazi Khan, who had again espoused the cause of the King of Delhi, and were encamped on the banks of the Ravi, near Lahore, with an army of 40,000. They were afraid to risk an action, and, as Babar advanced, retreated—the former to Malwat, and the latter to the hills. Babar immediately invested Malwat, and obliged it to capitulate in a few days. On this occasion he generously forgave Daulat Khan, and exerted himself in restraining the rapacity of his troops, who, as soon as the gates were opened, broke in, and commenced an indiscriminate plunder. Rushing in among them, he at great personal risk rescued a lady belonging to Daulat Khan’s family, whom a ruffian had seized, and saved a fine library which had been collected by Ghazi Khan, who was a poet and a man of learning.

The dissensions which prevailed at Delhi, and the invitations which he received from the malcontents, induced him to advance without delay. He experienced little serious opposition till Ibrahim himself advanced to meet him, at the head of 10,000 horse and 1,000 elephants. Babar’s army was not a fifth of this number; but every man in it was a soldier highly disciplined, attached to his chief, and resolved to conquer or die; whereas the Delhi force was a heterogeneous mass, composed of the most discordant materials. The result was not long doubtful, and Ibrahim himself was among the slain. This battle, which was fought on the 20th of April, 1526, decided the fate of Hindustan. Babar did not fail to make the most of his victory. He immediately despatched his son Humayun to occupy Agra, and another detachment to march rapidly on Delhi, while he followed with the main body. His entrance was unopposed, and he took formal possession as sovereign. The fort of Agra offered some resistance; but the terror of the Mughul arms was so general, that the Rajputs who defended it offered to capitulate. Instead of levying a ransom from individuals, Babar consented to accept of a diamond, weighing 672 carats, which he presented to his son Humayun. On entering the Delhi treasury, he appears to have been astonished at the amount, and immediately began to distribute it with the greatest profusion, as if he had imagined it inexhaustible. Not satisfied with making rich presents to all his chiefs, and even to the merchants who followed his camp, he made large donations to holy places in various countries, and caused a sharokh to be given to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom of Kabul, without distinction of slave or free. The gift to each was rather less than a shilling, but the aggregate sum must have been enormous. His prodigality on this occasion procured him the nickname of “Callender,” after a religious order whose rule is to make no provision for the morrow.

Had Babar been intending, like Tamerlane, to quit India, this squandering of the treasury might easily have been explained, and even justified, on grounds of policy; but the folly of the proceeding seems extreme, when it is considered that he from the first regarded it as a permanent conquest, and determined to make Delhi his future capital. The question had undergone formal discussion after the capture, and many of his most experienced officers, contrasting the smallness of his army with the threatening appearance which the Afghans still continued to present in various quarters, were urgent for his return to Kabul, or at least retreat to the Punjab; but he at once put an end to all their remonstrances, by exclaiming, “What would all the Muhammedan kings in the world say of a monarch whom the fear of death obliged to abandon such a kingdom!”

The idea of departure being abandoned, it required all Babar’s skill and energy to make good his position. Several Afghan competitors connected with the late royal family were set up against him, and sanguinary battles were fought, generally, however, to his advantage. As a necessary consequence, his cause advanced, while that of his enemies rapidly declined; and many who had stood aloof, with the intention of ultimately joining the winning side, made their submission. But his greatest dangers were not in the field; for those who feared to encounter him there, did not scruple at any means which promised to be successful. One of the most flagrant attempts made on his life was by the mother of Ibrahim Lodi, the late sovereign. She had become his captive, and he had treated her with great respect and kindness; but the destruction which he had brought on his family was not to be forgiven, and she bribed Babar’s taster and cook to poison some hare-soup intended for him. He actually partook of it, but the poisoning having been overdone, affected the taste, and he desisted in time to save his life.

Babar was still in the full vigour of life, and might, in the course of nature, have been expected to have a long career before him; but he had crowded the events of a lifetime into a comparatively short period, and began to exhibit symptoms of a premature old age. Fever after fever attacked him; and, beginning to feel his end approaching, he sent for his son Humayun, and appointed him his successor. A few months after, on the 24th of December, 1530, he breathed his last. He had reigned thirty-eight years, but of these only five were spent on the throne of Delhi. Considering the shortness of the period, it is wonderful how much had been accomplished in it. Not only had Afghan insurrections been put down, and the whole Muhammedan population reconciled to the new dynasty, but great battles had been fought, and great victories gained over insurgent Hindus. After Mewar, Malwa, and Mewat had been subdued, Bihar, on both sides of the Ganges, was overrun, and the King of Bengal barely saved his independence by submitting to an ignominious peace. The throne of the Great Mughul was thus not only set up, but seemed to be firmly established.

The love of nature, which Babar retained in all its freshness to the very last, and of which many touching instances are recorded by himself, appeared in his selection of a final resting-place. It was in the vicinity of Kabul, on the banks of a clear running stream, at the foot of a hill commanding a noble prospect. There his tomb still stands, and in front of it a small but chaste mosque of white marble. His character is best learned from his Memoirs or Autobiography, in which his opinions and feelings are candidly expressed, and a full insight is given into the conduct both of the monarch and the man. Few lives so full of vicissitudes and temptations would bear to be so minutely investigated, and suffer so little from the investigation. Take him all in all, in his varied and seldom combined capacities as a writer, a soldier, and a ruler, it must be admitted that his proper place is among the greatest men whom the East has produced. It is almost needless to say that both his public and his private life exhibit blemishes. Among those of the former description may be mentioned his folly in squandering the treasure found in Delhi; and among those of the latter, his bacchanalian habits, which he is said not to have abandoned till they had made serious inroads on his constitution.

Babar left four sons. The second, Kamran, who at the time of his father’s death was governor of Kabul and Kandahar, not only retained possession of them, but made good a claim to the Punjab. The two youngest sons were at first contented to hold governments in India under Humayun, who, as eldest son, and by Babar’s special appointment, mounted the throne of Delhi. He soon found it anything but a bed of roses. The cession of the Punjab to Kamran, without any effort to preserve it, was a kind of premium offered to aggression, which was accordingly attempted in various quarters. The first contest was with Bahadur Shah, King of Gujarat, who had rendered himself formidable by the annexation of Malwa, and the establishment of his supremacy over several adjoining territories. The ostensible cause of quarrel was the protection given by Bahadur Shah to Muhammad Zaman Mirza, who had taken refuge with him after a rebellion against his brother-in-law, Humayun, had failed. During a series of struggles, with various alternations of success, Bahadur first lost, and then recovered his kingdom.

The next formidable opponent who appeared was Sher Khan Sur, who had made himself master both of Bihar and Bengal. Humayun advanced against him from Agra, and arrived with a powerful army before the fort of Chumar, near Benaras, in the beginning of 1538. Sher Khan had been taken somewhat by surprise, and as his object, therefore, was to gain time, he left Chumar strongly garrisoned and retired farther into the interior. Humayun did not venture to advance while the enemy possessed such a place in his rear, and resolved to lay siege to it. He was thus detained for several months, and only succeeded at last because the provisions of the garrison were exhausted. This siege derives importance from the regular manner in which it was conducted, and the great use made of gunpowder and artillery, both by besiegers and besieged.

Humayun now advanced along the Ganges, but Sher Khan continued to pursue his tactics of not risking a general engagement, and only offering such resistance as might suffice to protract the advance. Humayun ought now to have become perfectly aware of the trap which was laid for him, and been satisfied to select some strong position, at least till the rainy season was over. Instead of this, he found himself in the lower basin of the Ganges when its whole delta was flooded, and every brook had swollen into an impassable torrent. Meanwhile Sher Khan, by a dexterous movement, placed himself in his rear, and cut off his retreat. The King of Delhi was at last alive to his perilous condition, and endeavoured to elude his enemy by preparing boats to cross over to the other side of the Ganges. While thus occupied, he allowed himself to be completely surprised, and had barely time to mount his horse and make for the river. He immediately plunged in, but his speed, after bearing him nobly for a while, sunk exhausted. His fate would have been the same, had not a water-carrier, who was crossing, by the aid of the water-skin, which he had inflated for that purpose, seized him before he sunk, and carried him to the opposite bank. He reached Agra in the end of June, 1539, but his whole army had perished, and his queen was Sher Khan’s captive.

Humayun made the best use of his escape; and, by the aid of his brothers, Kamran and Hindal, who, after taking very suspicious measures, had become cordially united with him, kept the enemy at bay. By the spring of 1540 he thought himself strong enough for a new campaign. The armies came in sight of each other, and continued for some time manoeuvring, till Humayun, alarmed at some symptoms of desertion, determined to risk a general engagement. It proved disastrous; and in the flight which ensued, his escape was as extraordinary as before. His horse was wounded, and he was on the point of being killed or taken, when he found an elephant, mounted it, and hastened to the Ganges. The driver hesitated to swim the river, and gave place to an eunuch who undertook the task. He reached the opposite bank in safety, but, on account of its height, could not land, till two soldiers who happened to be present joined their turbans, and throwing one end to him, drew him up. His situation was now hopeless; and he had only time to remove his family and his treasure from Agra and Delhi, and hasten off with them to Lahore. Here his reception was not very gracious, as his brother Kamran feared he might prove a dangerous competitor, and was also preparing to make his peace with Sher Khan, by ceding the Punjab to him.

Humayun, thus abandoned by his brother, turned his thoughts to Sind, and endeavoured, partly by persuasion and partly by force, to obtain possession of it. He failed; and then threw himself on the protection of the Raja of Marwar. To accomplish this he was obliged to cross the desert, and even there had the mortification to perceive that the raja was only meditating how he might best deliver him to his enemies. Flight into the desert was again his only resource. While wandering here, encumbered with the women of his family, a body of horse was seen approaching. They were headed by the son of the Raja of Marwar. Nothing short of death or captivity was foreboded; but after a great show of hostility, the raja’s son apparently relented, furnished them with water, and allowed them to proceed. The horrors of the desert were still before them; and at last Humayun, with only seven attendants, reached Amarkot. Here he was not only hospitably entertained, but furnished with the means of making a second attempt upon Sind. It might have succeeded, but the raja who accompanied him, indignant at obtaining no redress for an insult which he had received, suddenly withdrew with all his Hindu followers. His position was now desperate, and he was only too glad to make an arrangement which permitted him to withdraw from Sind and set out for Kandahar. This province belonged to Kamran, and was then held for him by one of his younger brothers. Humayun, travelling with his wife and an infant child, afterwards the celebrated Emperor Akbar, had arrived within 130 miles of his destination, when one of his old adherents rode hastily up, and gave him the startling intelligence that his brother Mirza Askari was at hand, with the intention of making him prisoner. He had only time to mount the queen behind him, and take to flight. The infant could not be thus carried, and fell, with his attendants, into the hands of his uncle. Humayun continued his flight with a few followers till he arrived within the Persian dominions. He was sent to Herat to await the Shah’s orders.

Sher Khan, on Humayun’s flight, made a kind of triumphant progress, and was soon in possession of all the territories which had acknowledged the authority of the King of Delhi. His reign, or usurpation as it is sometimes called, though his title was at least as good as Babar’s, had been commenced in 1540. During the three following years he made himself master of Malwa, Marwar, and Mewar, and was carrying on the siege of Kallinjar, in 1545, when he was killed by the explosion of a powder magazine. His eldest son, Adil Khan, had previously been recognized by him as his successor; but the feebleness of his character induced the chiefs to set him aside, and give the throne to his brother, Jalal Khan, who assumed the title of Salim Shah. His reign, which lasted nine years, during which several important internal improvements were made, and public works erected, was on the whole peaceful. He left a son of the age of twelve, but he was murdered by his uncle, Muhammad Khan, who usurped the throne, and is known by the title of Adili. His conduct on the throne was such as might have been expected after the atrocity by which he had gained it, and he made himself universally odious by his follies and iniquities. For a time, however, the abilities of Hemu, a Hindu of low origin, to whom he had committed the government, kept him on his seat; and he pursued a course of utter lawlessness, first squandering his treasury, and then indiscriminately confiscating the property of his subjects, in order to procure the means of indulging in his extravagances and low debaucheries. After he had narrowly escaped the dagger of an assassin, a confederacy was formed against him. It failed in the first instance, but other revolts were successful; and Ibrahim Sur, making himself master of Delhi and Agra, Adili was left in possession only of the eastern provinces. Ibrahim, having in his turn been driven out of Delhi and Agra by Sikandar Sur, who had proclaimed himself King of the Punjab, endeavoured to compensate himself by wrestling some more territory from Adili, but was repulsed by Hemu. This success did not at all improve his condition, for intelligence immediately arrived that Bengal and Malwa had both revolted, and that Humayun, who had returned, had defeated Sikandar, and was once more seated in Delhi. This last intelligence proved the most fatal of all; for though Humayun soon died, his son Akbar succeeded, and brought the Mughul empire to its highest pitch of glory. Adili was maintained for some time by Hemu; but on that Hindu’s death his success was at an end, and he lost his life fighting in Bengal.

Humayun’s reception by Shah Tamasp, the second of the Safavi or Sufi Kings of Persia, had been on the whole favourable, though accompanied with many mortifying circumstances. Before he could obtain any assistance, he was obliged to cede the province of Kandahar, and adopt the Shiite form of Muhammedanism. After these concessions, he was furnished with a body of 14,000 horse, under the command of the Shah’s son, Morad Mirza. His own followers mustered only about 700. He first proceeded against Kandahar, which he reached in March, 1545. It was in possession of Mirza Askari, as governor of his other brother, Kamran. The siege was immediately commenced, but proceeded languidly for five months, at the end of which desertion and famine obliged Mirza Askari to surrender. Humayun, probably soured by misfortune, forgot the humanity which had formed the best feature in his character; and, disregarding the promise of pardon which he had given, subjected his brother to the most contumelious treatment, and then kept him nearly three years as a prisoner in chains. He also violated his agreement with the Shah, by keeping Kandahar to himself, and maltreating his Persian auxiliaries.

From Kandahar he proceeded against Kabul, and expelled Kamran, who was obliged to take refuge in Sind. The capture was the more gratifying that it enabled him to recover his son Akbar, now a child of about three years of age. After a time Kamran returned, and a series of struggles took place, during which the greatest barbarities were perpetrated on both sides; and Akbar, who had again fallen into the enemy’s hands, escaped almost miraculously, after his uncle had, with savage cruelty, exposed him to the full fire of his father’s cannon. Kamran was ultimately defeated and obliged again to flee; but by the aid of the Uzbeks, obtained possession of Bukushan. Thither Humayun followed. He was victorious, and returned in triumph to Kabul in the end of 1548. His affairs now assumed so promising an appearance that he began to talk of attempting the conquest of Transoxiana; but his bad fortune returned, and in a battle with Kamran, who had once more taken the field, he sustained a total defeat. On this occasion he made another of his remarkable escapes. A soldier had wounded him, and was about to repeat the blow, when he was so confounded by the sternness with which Humayun exclaimed, “Wretch! how dare you?” that he dropped his arm and let him escape. He fled with only eleven attendants, while Akbar again fell into his uncle’s hands. Another turn in the wheel of fortune placed Humayun in the ascendent, and Kamran became his prisoner. The manner in which he disposed of him is a great blot on his memory. At first he gave him a most friendly reception, seated him on his right hand, feasted him, shared half of his slice of water-melon with him, and spent the evening with him in “jollity and carousing.” In the morning his peremptory orders were to put out his brother’s eyes. They were executed, Kamran exclaiming during the agony of the torture, “O Lord, my God! whatever sins I have committed have been amply punished in this world; have compassion on me in the next.” He died soon after at Mecca, where he had wished to end his days.

In the meantime circumstances in India had become favourable, and Humayun, setting out from Kabul in January, 1555, at the head of 15,000 horse, invaded the Punjab and took Lahore. After some delay he continued his march, obliged Sikandar Shah to take refuge among the lower ranges of the Himalaya, and made himself master of Delhi and Agra. He had thus regained possession of his capital and a portion of his original territories, but was not destined long to enjoy them. His life had been the sport of fortune—his death was to resemble it. He had only been six months in Delhi, and was one day, after a walk on the terrace of his library, descending by the stair which was placed on the outside, and consisted of narrow steps, guarded only by a parapet about a foot high. Hearing the call to prayer from the minaret, he stopped, as is usual, repeated his creed, and sat down to wait till the muezzin had made his round. In rising, his staff by which he was supporting himself slipped, and he fell headlong over the parapet. He was taken up insensible, and died four days after, on the 25th of January, 1556, at the age of fifty-one. He had commenced his reign twenty-five years before, but sixteen of these had been spent in exile from his capital.

As Humayun’s reign reached to the middle of the sixteenth century, it may be considered as forming the link between medieval and modern India. It will be proper, therefore, before continuing the narrative, to take a survey of the political condition of India at this period.

In the reign of Muhammad Tughluk, which commenced in 1325, almost the whole of India proper—understanding by that name both Hindustan and the Deccan—was subject to Muhammedan sway. The chief territories not thus subject were a long narrow tract in the south-west of the peninsula, the kingdom of Orissa, consisting of an unexplored and densely wooded region, stretching for about 500 miles along the coast from the Ganges to the Godavari, with a medium width of about 350 miles; and Rajputana in the north-west, consisting of a number of independent chieftainships, of which the limits cannot easily be assigned, as they were constantly changing in their dimensions, according as the Muhammedan invaders or the native chiefs gained the ascendency. Before the termination of Muhammad Tughluk’s reign, in 1351, the extent of his dominions had shrunk exceedingly, in consequence of his misgovernment. In 1340 Bengal threw off its yoke, and became an independent kingdom; in 1344, the example was imitated by the Rajas of Telengana and Carnatic, the former recovering his capital of Warangal, and the latter establishing a new capital at Vijayanagar, on the Tungabhadra; while the Muhammedans were obliged to rest satisfied with a frontier which extended no farther south than the banks of the Krishna, and no farther east than the meridian of Hyderabad. In 1347, a Hindu movement on a still more extended scale took place, and the Muhammedans were driven across the Narmada. Hassan Gangu, the head of this last movement, founded in the Deccan the extensive kingdom of Bahmani, which continued to subsist for 170 years. While the Hindu rajas remained united, the Muhammedans strove in vain to regain what they had lost, and made scarcely any impression, but when they began again to indulge in internal dissensions, the Muhammedans again extended their conquests, subdued Warangal, and obtained possession of the country between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra.

In Hindustan and the adjoining territories, various kingdoms independent of Delhi were established. Among these, one of the most extensive and durable was Gujarat, which, instead of being confined to the territory which bore that name, extended over Malwa, which was twice conquered, and finally annexed to it. The Rajputs of Mewar also repeatedly bent before it, and Khandash acknowledged its supremacy. Humayun occupied it for a short time, but it soon recovered itself, and was independent at the accession of his son Akbar. Malwa, before it fell under the power of Gujarat, had long maintained a separate independence, and for some time was under the domination of a Hindu, who, though not the nominal, was virtually the real sovereign, and filled all the highest offices with his own countrymen. Bengal has been already mentioned; and, besides it, Khandash, Jaunpur, Sind, and Multan were all independent at Akbar’s succession. Of the Rajput states, the most important which were independent at the same period, are Mewar, ruled by the Ranas of Udaipur, though at one time reduced to a kind of vassalage under Gujarat—Marwar, held by the Rathors, who, after being driven out of Kanauj, where they had early established themselves, retired to the desert between the table-land and the Indus, subdued the Jats, the original inhabitants, and extended their dominion over a large territory, throwing off a younger branch, which afterwards formed the separate state of Bikaner—Jaisalmer, where the Bhattis had made their settlement in the western part of the desert, at so early a period that their history is lost in fable—and Amber, or Jaipur, possessed by the tribe of Cachwaha, who do not figure much in early times, but have a proof of their importance in the fact that Akbar married their raja’s daughter. Besides these are many minor states in the desert and along the east of the table-land. In the north, along the slopes of the Himalaya, from Kashmir east to the highlands which overlook the delta of the Ganges, all the petty states were ruled by their own independent sovereigns.

Such was the state of matters when Akbar came to the throne in 1556. His long and prosperous reign forms a new era in the history of India. It is of importance, however, to remember that before it commenced, another event, in which the future destiny of India was more deeply involved, had occurred. The route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered more than half a century before; and the Portuguese had set the first example of those European settlements which, imitated and improved upon, were afterwards to expand, under British energy and prowess, into a magnificent empire. To this great event, therefore, were we now to give our first attention, we should only be following the order of time, but some advantages in respect of arrangement will be gained by continuing the thread of Muhammedan narrative unbroken to the conclusion of Akbar’s reign. The empire of the Great Mughul, almost extinguished during the misfortunes of Humayun, will thus be seen not only re-established, but raised to a degree of splendour which it never attained before; and it will, in consequence, be unnecessary, in tracing European progress, to be constantly turning aside in order to contemplate the internal changes which were at the same time taking place.