India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of Hindustan

"It is a country," he writes, "that has few pleasures to recommend it. It is extremely ugly. All its towers and its lands have a uniform look. Its gardens have no walls; the greater part of it is level plain. And the people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly society. They have no good horses, no good flesh, no good grapes, or musk-melons, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths or colleges, no candles or torches--never even a candlestick!"

Poor Babar! It was now the hottest of the hot weather, and the heat in the summer of 1526 "chanced to be unusually oppressive." Hitherto these northern invaders had sought relief from discomfort in return to their cooler climes; but Babar had other aims. He wished to establish himself Emperor of India, and all around him in Mêwar, in Mârwar, in Gwalîor, everywhere save in the line of his victorious march, lay enemies.

He determined to remain, but had to meet as determined an opposition on the part of his troops.

"Where is the sense of decency," he writes, "of eternally dinning the same tale into the ears of one who had seen the facts with his own eyes, and formed a calm and fixed resolve in regard to the business in hand? What use was there in the whole army, down to the very dregs, giving me their stupid, uninformed opinions?"

"Are we to turn back from all we have accomplished and fly to Kâbul like men who have been discomfited! Let no man who calls himself my friend ever again moot such a thing, but if there be any of you who cannot bring himself to stay, let him go!"

Needless to say, this appeal to personal friendship was effectual, though apparently pleasantry passed between the comrades-in-arms.

"Could I but cross the river Sind,
Damned if I would return to Hind."

"Babar thanks God who gave him Sind and Ind,
Heat of the plains, chill of the mountain cold.
Does not the scorch of Delhi bring to his mind
Bitter bite of frost in Ghuzni of old?"

He was always writing verses; always, as he puts it, "wandering into these follies. For God's sake, do not think amiss of me for them."

His determination to stick by what he had won proved a great factor for peace. Many of the Mahomedan governors and petty kings acknowledged him as suzerain; he forced others to submission, and, ere the rains fell, bringing a welcome cessation to the fiery heat, he found himself with only Hindus to conquer. He attempted this at first by generosity and kindness. The son of Hassan-Khân, Râjah of Mêwat (who from his name must have been a converted Hindu), was a prisoner of war. Babar returned him to his father with a friendly message; but the overture failed. No sooner at ease about his son than the chief overtly joined the enemy, and with Râjah Sanga of Mêwar (sixth in succession from Hamîr, whose widow-wife won back Chitore), marched to attack Babar. They met at the ridge of Sîkri, about 20 miles from Agra, where in after years Babar's grandson, the great Akbar, was to found his city of victory.

We can imagine the meeting, for Râjah Sanga, though an old man, was, in his way, Babar's double in chivalry and vitality. Both knew it was war to the death. And the old "Lion of the Râjputs," minus an eye and an arm, lame of leg and with eighty scars of battle on his body, must have taken stock of his foeman with inward admiration.

Here was no weakling, unnerved by luxury, but a man after a Râjput's heart. A man who swam every river he crossed for sheer joy in breasting a strong stream, who lived in the saddle, who, if challenged, would snatch up a comrade in either arm, and run round the battlements of a fort, leaping the embrasures in laughing derision; a man, too, well versed in warfare, better armed, if with a far smaller force at his disposal.

But if Babar had advantages he had also disadvantages. The hot weather had told on his troops, a preliminary reverse at Byâna had unsteadied their nerves, which broke down absolutely when an astrologer, arriving unseasonably from Kâbul, talked about the aspect of Mars and loudly presaged disaster. It needed all Babar's marvellous vitality, all that self-confidence which is the very essence of genius, to keep his followers in hand. For he recognised the virtues of his enemies. He saw that they were animated by one all-vivifying spirit of devotion, of national pride.

To match this, if he could, in his own rough-and-ready hordes of horsemen, he proclaimed a "Jehâd," or Holy War. Yet something more was needed to "stiffen their sinews, and summon up the blood." His own mind reverted, despite his courage, to many a sin of omission and commission. It was a time for repentance, for vows, for anything which would, as it were, bring the fourth dimension into life. So one evening he assembled his troops; before them he broke his jewelled wine-cups and beakers, he emptied the wine of Shirâz, the wine of Tabrêz upon the dust, and solemnly made his confession of sin, his vow of total abstinence. His manifesto began well--"Gentlemen and soldiers! Whoso sits down to the feast of life must end by drinking the cup of death."

It was an inspiration! Wine-cups poured on to the pile, oaths were sworn, from that moment the army plucked up courage. There was no good in further delay. Babar had staked his all on this chance, he was eager to try conclusions. On 12th March he marched his army in battle array for 2 miles, he himself galloping along the line encouraging, giving special orders how each division was to act, how each separate man was to proceed and engage. But it was not until Saturday, the 16th March 1527, that the second great fight between the west and the east, between Mongol and Aryan, Islâmism and Hinduism began, this time on the plains of Kanwâha. What the force of the imperial troops was is unknown; most likely less than one-half of the two hundred thousand said to have been ranged on the Râjput side. In truth, there were almost too many there, and their interests were too divided.

So suspicion of some treachery is not lacking. Be that as it may, both sides fought bravely; but Babar's unusual disposition of his troops, by which fully one-half of his force was held in reserve, seems to have turned the tide of fortune in his direction, and by evening (the battle began at half-past nine in the morning) the last lingering remnant of concerted Râjput resistance was swept away, and Babar was unquestioned Emperor of India. Had he then pressed his victory home, the Râjput power would have been shattered absolutely. But he preferred to take the task in detail. It is a thousand pities that Babar's desire to do justice to this great battle induced him to give it in the grandiloquent and elaborate despatch of his Secretary, instead of in one of his own inimitable descriptions, but we have at least the satisfaction of reading the torrent of abuse with which he greeted the astrologer who--"most unwisely"--came to congratulate him on his victory. "Insufferable evil-speaker" is one of the mildest of his epithets; but he gave him a liberal present, and bid him quit the presence and the dominions for ever.

He spent the next few months in attempting to restore order to the Government, and when winter brought the fighting season once more, he marched on the town of Chandêri, which had become a stronghold of the remaining Râjputs. Here he saw, almost contemptuously, the final sacrifice of the Johâr. It did not impress him, possibly because he held the previous defence of the fortress to have been poor, half-hearted.

About this time prolonged attacks of fever warned him that he could not in India trifle with his health as he had trifled with it in the north.

He thought once that he had hit on a marvellous febrifuge--the translation of religious tracts into verse!--and he records with interest how one bout ended before he had finished his task; but the effect was not lasting. Still, nothing crippled his extraordinary energy, and so late as March 1529 he writes in his diary:

"I swam across the Ganges for amusement. I counted my strokes, and found that I swam over in thirty-three; then I took my breath and swam back. I had crossed by swimming every river I met, except (till then) the Ganges."<

He was very happy, apparently, in these days. India was at peace under stern military control. At Agra, where he had settled, beautiful gardens were growing up, in which flourished many a flower he had loved in the wild adventurous days of his youth. Nor did he confine himself to old favourites. We read of a wonderful red oleander, unlike all other oleanders, which he found in an ancient garden at Gwalîor. His old love of Nature, too, finds expression in a detailed account of the fauna and flora of his new possessions.

Finally, he was happy in his domestic relations. In the Memoirs of his daughter, Gulbadan, we read of the joyful evening when news came to him that the long-expected caravan from Kâbul was within six miles of the city, when, without waiting for a horse, bareheaded, in slipper-shoon, he had run out to meet his "Dearest-dear," had met her, and walked the weary miles along the dusty road beside her palanquin.

Mahum being the pet name for the wife who had borne him the three daughters whom he loved so well, the son Humâyon of whom he was so proud.

"I was just talking to his mother about him when in he came" (from Badakhshân). "His presence opened our hearts like rosebuds, and made our eyes shine like torches. The truth is, that his conversation has an inexpressible charm, he realises absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood."

The story is a strange one, but it is well authenticated. In October A.D. 1530 Humâyon was brought back to Agra, sick. The physicians despaired of his life, the learned doctors declared that nothing could save him save the Mercy of God, and suggested some supreme sacrifice.

Babar caught at the idea. "I can give my life," he said, "it is the dearest thing I have, and it is the dearest thing on earth to my son."

And in spite of remonstrance--the learned doctors having apparently intended a present to God (through them!) of money or jewels--he adhered to his decision. He entered his son's room, he stood at the head of the bed in prayer, then walked round it three times, solemnly saying the while: "On me be thy suffering."

Was it the extreme nervous, tension acting on a constitution weakened by fever, by hardships of every kind, which made his prayer effectual? Who can say? Certain it is that he died in his forty-ninth year, and Humâyon lived on to die at the same age.

Babar, by his own request, was buried beside his mother in the Garden of the New Year at Kâbul. He rests there within hearing of the running streams, within sight of the tulips and roses which he so dearly loved, for which he had so often longed with a "deep home-sickness and sense of exile."

THE GREAT MOGHULS

HUMÂYON

A.D. 1530 TO A.D. 1556

Humâyon was practically the only son of his father. There can be no doubt that Babar regarded Mahum, the mother of the four children of whom he was so passionately fond, Humâyon, Rose-blush, Rose-face, Rose-body, from a different standpoint from his other wives, of whom he seems to have had four. This, however, did not prevent there being three other princes, Kamrân, Hindal, and Âskari, in the direct line of succession. Apparently they must have been somewhat troublesome before Babar's death, since one of his last words to his beloved heir was the hope that kindness and forgiveness should ever be shown to them. And right well did Humâyon keep his promise. Had he been less affectionate, less tender-hearted, he had been a better and a more successful king. His patience was early tried. Almost before the deep and sincere mourning for the kindly dead, which Lady Rose-body describes in her Memoirs, was over, he had to decide between fraternal war and Kamrân's claim to supremacy in the Punjâb. He chose the latter, an initial mistake which cost him dear. There must, indeed, have been some impression abroad that the new king had less fibre than his father, for from the very first Humâyon found himself enmeshed in a perfect network of revolt and conspiracy. He was now a young man of three-and-twenty, tall, extremely handsome, witty, and of the most charming manners. Unfortunately, he had already contracted the opium habit, which, though as yet it had not set its mark on his vitality, undoubtedly disposed him to be more easy-going than even Nature had intended him to be; and that is saying much, for his sweetness of temper is surprising. His whole life appears to have been spent in forgiving injuries which, by all the rules of justice and expediency, he should not have forgiven. Succeeding to his father in A.D. 1530, he was instantly engaged in war--fruitless war. Brave to a fault, not without intelligence, something always seemed to stand between him and success. The story of his failure to relieve Chitore is typical of him. Its widowed Râni, in sore straits to save it for her infant son from the hands of Bahâdur-Shâh, King of Guzerât (one of the many kings who snatched at every opportunity of enlarging their borders), sent a Râm-Rukhi, or Bracelet-of-the-Brother, to Humâyon. Now this Brother-Bracelet is in Râjasthân what a lady's glove was to chivalry. Only in greater degree, for the recipient becomes a brother--a bracelet-bound brother. There is no value in the pledge. It is generally a thin silk cord, to which are attached seven differently-coloured tassels; but once given and accepted by the return of a tiny silken bodice, called a kachli, it is an inviolable tie. In her extremity Kurnâtavi sent hers to Humâyon, whose fame as a puissant knight had reached her ears. He was enchanted with the romance of the idea, and instantly left the campaign on which he was engaged to go to her rescue. And then? Then he dallied. Then he became involved in a wordy, witty, pedantic war in verse with Bahâdur-Shâh, in which much point was laid on the resemblance of the name Chitore to some other word; in the midst of which the city fell, and suffered yet one more sack.

But the most memorable event of the early years of his reign was, however, the siege of Chunar, where he found himself first matched against the man who was eventually for a time to wrest his kingdom from him, and send him out a wanderer on the face of the earth for twelve long years.

This siege, which Humâyon felt compelled to carry through before marching on Bengal, was in reality a deep-laid plan of the rebel Sher-Khân. It was a method--often adopted in modern warfare, but until then unheard of in the East--of holding up his enemy's forces until such time as he had consolidated his own powers. It answered admirably. The rock of Chunar, detached outpost of the Vindhya mountains which frowns over the Ganges, engaged all Humâyon's attention for months, and when, after reducing it, he pushed on, Sher-Khân once more met brute-force by guile, and leading Humâyon on, left him to stew for the rainy season in the delta of the Ganges, a prey to flood and fever, while he himself looked down on him from the low hills of Northern Berars. It was a bitter beating! A prey to mosquitoes, to malaria, it was with difficulty that Humâyon's troops managed to preserve their communications with their base. Every tank was a lake, every brook a river. Their spirits sank, and no sooner were the roads opened than they deserted in hundreds; Prince Hindal--who, despite the virtue of being nearly always faithful to his brother, appears to have been of little good to him--setting the example by leaving ere the rains had stopped.

So when the dry season brought the possibility of campaign, Humâyon had no choice but to retreat from the now daily increasing boldness of his enemy, and try to force his way back to Agra. In this he was stopped by the river Ganges, which it was necessary to cross in order to avoid an entrenched camp which he could neither pass nor hope to reduce.

The bridge of boats took close on two months to complete, and then, a night or two before retreat became possible, the imperial camp was surprised about daybreak by the watchful enemy. It must have been a very complete surprise, for the emperor himself had only time to mount his horse, and after a vain appeal to his officers for one effort at least to repel the attack, accept their advice and ride for his life to the river-side. The bridge was not finished, there was no time for hesitation, so Humâyon urged his horse into the stream. It sank ere it could reach the shore, and the emperor would undoubtedly have done so likewise, but for the intervention of a water-carrier who was crossing with his skin bag, inflated with air, doing duty as a float.

It proved enough to support two; Humâyon's life was saved, but his queen was left in Sher-Shâh's hands. The whole story has a smack of opium about it, and it seems more than probable that the young king, roused out of a drugged sleep, had not his wits about him. Nothing else can explain the fact of Babar's son running like a hare, and leaving his womenkind behind him. His wife appears, however, not to have suffered thereby in any way, not even in her affection for her handsome, thriftless king, for it was she, a childless widow, who after his death erected the splendid mausoleum at Delhi which bears his name.

There is also something of opium in the promise which Humâyon made to the water-carrier, that if he came to Agra, and if he found Humâyon alive, he might, as a reward, claim to be king for a day.

He did come, so we are told, and for a day sate on the throne of the Emperor of India. Humâyon, always fond of a joke, made merry over this one, and had prime fun in cutting up the water-carrier's skin bag into wads (which were duly stamped as coin in the mint), and in other merry antics, for he was light-hearted like his father. Nevertheless, the jest cost him dear, for it drew down on him the wrath of his sour brother Kamrân, who always nourished the secret belief--not an unfounded one--that he would have made a better king than his brother.

This, however, was after Humâyon's generous condonation of both his brothers' grievous faults, and should have closed their lips from criticism. For both Kamrân and Hindal, seizing the opportunity of this disaster, claimed the throne, and marching on Agra from different sides, fell out over the question, until recalled to a sense of their common danger from the Bengal enemy.

Then the three royal brothers made friends, Humâyon, as ever, eager to clasp hands with those of whom he used to say: "How can I quarrel with them? Are they not monuments of my dear, dead father?"

Practically this defeat on the banks of the Ganges was Humâyon's Waterloo. He held his head above water for a while, attempted another campaign next year, lost once more on the banks of the Ganges near Kanauj, and was, with his army, absolutely driven into the river. Thence he escaped with difficulty, and but for the timely aid of two turbans knotted and thrown out to him, would undoubtedly have been drowned under the high bank which was too steep for his elephant to climb. Joined by his brothers Hindal and Âskari, he fled to Agra, thence with his women and part of his treasures to Delhi, and so, gathering what he could at the latter place, to Lahôre. But he was no welcome guest to Kamrân, who, fearing to be embroiled in the quarrel with Sher-Shâh, withdrew to Kâbul, leaving Humâyon helpless. He turned then to Sinde as a refuge, and after two and a half years of many adventures, found himself a mere wanderer in the desert.

It was, then, at the lowest ebb of fortune, that Fate interfered to make him--which is, indeed, his only real claim to remembrance--the father of the greatest king India has ever known.

The story is romantic in the extreme. His brother Hindal was over the Indus-water, in the rich province of Sehwân, and Humâyon, who from bitter experience had reason to doubt the former's loyalty, was keeping an eye on his proceedings. He therefore crossed the river for an interview at the town of Patâr. He found Hindal in the midst of festivities; for what purpose history sayeth not, but from what followed it seems likely that it was preparatory to a marriage. His mother, at any rate, gave an entertainment to all the ladies of the court, and at this Humâyon saw, and instantly fell in love with, a girl of sixteen, called Hamida-Begum. Hearing she was not as yet betrothed, he instantly said he would marry her. Then ensued a violent quarrel between the brothers, from which it seems likely that Humâyon's fancy had chosen the bride-elect. The girl wept at both brothers. They stormed; but finally Hindal's mother counselled her son to yield, and the thirty-eight-year-old Humâyon carried off the prize. Their honeymoon cannot have been cloudless, for they spent it in danger of their lives; but Humâyon must from his temperament have been a most beguiling bridegroom, and the little bride's tears soon dried. She followed him bravely, early in the next year, through the Great Desert of India, where horse and man nearly died of thirst.

That ceaseless marching from fresh enemies by day and night must have been a terrible experience for the young wife, soon to become a mother; but she had at least the consolation of her husband's deep, absorbing devotion. Once when her palfrey fell never to rise again, the king put her on his charger, and walked beside her bridle rein all through the long, weary night-march. The stars must have looked down kindly on them as they toiled along, hand fast in hand.

It is a pretty picture, anyhow. So, after unheard-of miseries, they gained the quaint, stern old fort of Amarkôt, which rises bare and square out of the desert sand. One can imagine that August day, with the parching wind beating the fine, sharp sand of the desert against the purple-stained bricks, and grinding them to grey frostiness.

Here the Pathân chatelain, taking pity on the outwearied princess, offered her asylum. Humâyon, however, must go on; there was no rest, no shelter for such as he. It was four days after the sorrowful parting that a courier rode post-haste after the wanderer, telling him that a son was born to him-his first, his only son. There was no gold in the camp to give the messenger. All of regal pomp that could be found was a bag of musk, and this the proud father broke upon an earthenware platter, and distributed to his followers as a royal present in honour of "an event which diffused its fragrance over the whole habitable world."

One historian gives a somewhat different version of the birth of Akbar. In it he was born under a tree in the desert, and the little sixteen-year-old mother wept with fear at the hard-featured village midwife summoned hastily to her aid, then flung her arms round her and cried for joy when the boy-baby was put into her young arms. Within a month she and the child were back sharing her lover-husband's danger. It increased day by day, hour by hour. When the young Akbar was but a year old, it reached its climax. Compelled to quit Sinde, Humâyon, his wife and child with him, and some half a dozen followers, was on his way to Kandahâr, when news came that his brother Âskari was marching against him in force. There was nothing for it but swift, immediate flight. But the weather was boisterous, the only safe road almost impassable.

How about the child? Rapidly calculating chances, they decided on leaving the infant prince behind them. What tears, what forebodings must not have been miserable Hamida's--what vain kisses and strainings to her heart!

But when Âskari entered the little camp, the deed was done. The baby Akbar was there regal in his nurse's arms, with all his equipage, all his poor mockery of state and service about him, but the two fugitives were riding hard for the Persian frontier.

THE HOUSE OF SÛR

A.D. 1542 TO A.D. 1554

Sher-khân, the man who, worsting Humâyon, seized on the throne, had no atom of royal blood in his veins. He was a plain soldier, though of good birth; but, his father neglecting him, he had run away from home and entered the ranks. A rough-and-ready soldier, too, who, even in Babar's time, had not scrupled to tell a friend that in his opinion it would be no hard task to "drive these foreign Moghuls from Hindustan; for though the king himself was a man of parts, he trusted too much to his ministers, who were corrupt."

The friend laughed; but Sher-Khân was right even in his estimate of the king who, curiously enough, singled him out unerringly a few days afterwards, when, at a military banquet, he called for a knife to carve a chicken withal, and, the servant taking no notice of his rough order, immediately drew his dagger and coolly used it with contemptuous disregard for the diversion of his neighbours. Babar's quick eye caught the incident, and he remarked: "He may be a great man yet; trifles do not disconcert him."

He does not, however, appear to have been either an amiable or an estimable person, though he was not vicious, and even his successes as a soldier are somewhat too crafty for admiration. He knew well when to attack, when to retreat, and, if imperialist and Râjput accounts are to be trusted, was not over-scrupulous in his use of the white flag.

Then there is no doubt but that a secret understanding existed between him and Humâyon's brother Kamrân; for on the withdrawal of the latter from Lahôre, Sher-Shâh instantly pounced down on it, and would have captured the fugitive king but for his hasty flight.

He does not in truth appeal to one's sympathies, this Afghân of the House of Sûr, though he was by no means without good points. It is, however, impossible to get up much interest in a man who picks a quarrel with an innocent Râjput râjah on the ground that he has Mahomedan women in his harem, and who, after a lengthy siege, induces capitulation by promise of the garrison being allowed to march out with their arms and their property: thereinafter, on the advice of a learned doctor of law (who declared it was a sin to keep faith with infidels), proceeding to surround the brave band and cut them off!

It is satisfactory to learn that they sold their lives dearly. But Sher-Shâh continued to be diplomatic. He gained his success against the Râjah of Mârwar by a stratagem. Finding himself in a tight place, he forged treasonable correspondence between himself and certain of the Râjput generals, which was then so disposed of as to fall into the generalissimo's hands. The distrust thus sown of his levees' loyalty caused the râjah to give way; and with disastrous results.

The death of this Machiavel in armour was a Nemesis, for it arose in consequence of the Râjah of Kalinjasr's refusal to capitulate, on the ground of Sher-Shâh's many treacheries.

In the subsequent mining which became necessary to reduce the fort, Sher-Shâh was blown to bits in an explosion of a powder magazine that had not been properly secured.

Despite his treachery, he did much for India in the way of public works. The caravanserais, the wells which still stud the course of the high road from Bengal to the Indus, are of his building; and the very trees which shade the weary traveller in the long marching, if not of his planting, stand in the places of those which he watered with care.

He reigned five years, and left two sons. The elder and rightful heir preferred obscurity to prolonged battle for the crown, and after a while disappeared and was no more heard of, leaving Islâm-Shâh, or, as he is called by a mispronunciation, Salîm-Shâh, to follow in his father's treacherous footsteps. The most noteworthy event in his reign was the insurrection of the Mâhdi sect, led by one Ilâhi. The tenets of their faith seem to have been curiously destructive of each other. Neither their profession of predestination nor their pure socialism prevented them from going about armed, meting out lynch-law to all and sundry whom they deemed to be disobeying any divine law.

They must have been uncomfortable people to deal with, but the faith spread to such alarming proportions, that Salîm-Shâh finally called a Court of Arches to decide whether "Ilâhi's pertinaciously disrespectful manner to the king was consistent with his situation as a subject, or was enjoined by any precept of the Koran?"

He was subsequently tried on the accusation of presuming to personate the Great Mâhdi--for whose advent all pious Mahomedans look--condemned, and refusing to abjure his faith, was brought up for punishment, though at the time suffering from the plague which was then raging. He died under the third lash.

Almost immediately after this, Salîm-Shâh himself died, when his cousin Mobârik succeeded by a singularly brutal murder. Prince Ferôze, Salîm-Shâh's son, was then twelve years old. His mother, Bibi Bhâi, was Mobârik's sister, and devoted to her dissolute, pleasure-loving brother, whose life she had begged of the king. Notwithstanding this, immediately on the latter's death Mobârik entered the harem, tore the wretched boy from his mother's very arms, and killed him with his own hand.

Fraternal affection with a vengeance. His subsequent career was in keeping with this initial act. Sensual to a degree and absolutely illiterate, he set a Hindu usurer called Hemu at the head of affairs, and contented himself with remaining in the harem, and parading the city with pomp, surrounded by a body of archers, whose duty it was to discharge gold-headed arrows worth ten or twelve rupees each amongst the crowd; the scramble for them amusing the jaded satiety of this truly Eastern potentate.

He succeeded in A.D. 1552, and for two years the throne was the centre of a perfect anarchy of revolt.

Hemu, who seems to have had wits, held his own until faced by the returning Humâyon, backed by that splendid old Turkomân soldier, Byrâm Khân. Backed also by the son, whom eleven years before he had left alone with his nurses in the royal camp on the road to Kandahâr, and who now--an extremely youthful warrior--won back empire for his father by precipitating an action before the walls of Lahôre, in which the Moghuls, "animated by the conduct of that young hero," seemed to forget that they were mortal.

THE WANDERINGS OF A KING

A.D. 1542 TO A.D. 1556

When Humâyon and his Queen Hamida-Bânu-Begum left the infant Akbar to face fortune by himself, their own hopes for the future were low indeed. Look where they would, there seemed small chance of success.

India itself had practically become independent of Delhi, where the dreamful, opium-drugged king had thought to consolidate his empire by building a new capital. It is curious to mark in that fourteen-mile-long expanse of faintly-broken ground strewn with purple-stained bricks, which stretches between the massive ruins about the Kutb Minâr to modern Delhi at the foot of the red ridge, how each succeeding dynasty had shifted its ground nearer and nearer the river, until at last it flowed beneath the very walls of the palace which Shâh-jahân built, and where his descendant Bahâdur-Shâh carried on, in 1857, the conspiracy which led at last to the extinction of the Moghul dynasty.

The long fight for Râjputana which had gone on for centuries so that the taking and retaking of its principal forts forms the standing dish of every reign, had for the time ended in temporary independence.

Even at Chitore, Humâyon's delay in coming to the rescue of his bracelet-bound sister had been unproductive of result; for the Princess Kurnâvati's young son Udâi-Singh had escaped, and was now back in his own.

The story of his escape is still a favourite one in India, and women, cuddling their babies, tell breathlessly how one Râjputni once gave her child to death to save a king.

Little Udâi-Singh, smuggled to safety with his foster-mother, found asylum in his half-brother's palace. But one night screams rose from the women's apartments, followed by the sudden ominous death-wail. Punnia, the foster-mother, knew what had happened. The half-brother must have been assassinated as a preliminary to the murder of her charge. She caught him up, thrust opium into his mouth with a last drop of her milk, hid him, still sleeping, in a fruit-basket, and sent him out by the hands of a faithful servant, to await her among the rushes of the river-bed.

Then, throwing the little king's rich coverlet over her own child, she sat down to wait--for what?

And yet, when it did come, human nature was almost too strong for her. She could only point to the little sleeper in reply to that clamour for "The King! The King!"

And still she had to wait. To weep reservedly over her own darling, to do him reverence, and so, the last ceremony over, steal away hastily to where her king waited her in the rushes. Then, dry-eyed, stern, she carried him, drawing life from her bereaved breast, over wild hill and dale, till, reaching the mountain fortress of Komulmêr, she could set her nurseling on the governor's knee, and say: "Guard him--he is the King!"

Udâi-Singh, unfortunately, grew up unworthy of his foster-mother's sacrifice. Still, he held Chitore, and many another Râjput prince held other portions of the central tableland of India, whose rocky mountains form an ideal country for independence and revolt. For the rest, as we have seen, the Dekkan, Guzerât, and Mâlwa were held by Mahomedan dynasties, as were the smaller principalities of Khandêsh, Bengal, Joûnpur, Multân, Sinde. Towards the south-east the vast kingdom, mostly forest, of Orissa remained unexplored, and in the west, the whole narrow strip which includes the Western Ghâts figures not at all in history. Yet it was on this narrow strip that the first grip of Europe on Hindustan was to be laid.

Columbus was sailing the High Seas. The maritime nations, Italy, England, Spain, were on the qui vive for new worlds, and in 1484--just a year after Babar was born on Valentine's day--one Pedro de Covilham set out for India, overland, by the orders of King John of Portugal, with instructions to return with a report as to the practicability of reaching Hindustan' by sea. He reached India, being, apparently, the first European to touch its soil, but was detained on the return journey by the Arabs.

Ere he reached home in A.D. 1525 (after close on six and-thirty years of imprisonment), Portugal had acted on the advice which he had managed to send, God knows how. Vasco da Gama, leaving the Tagus in 1497, "coasted Guinea southwards, until he rounded into the Indian Ocean"; so reached Calicut in A.D. 1498. It was the beginning. Almost each year that followed saw a fresh, and ever a larger armament sent out chiefly by the Portuguese Order of Christ, with the ostensible object of converting the heathen. We read of nine, of seventeen, finally, in 1507, of twenty-two ships carrying one thousand five hundred fighting-men, and the very first Viceroy of India, Dom Francesco Almeda. Goa was taken and made the seat of Government by Dom Alfonso Albuquerque--after a tussle for the Viceroyalty--in 1510, and in 1542 St Francis Xavier, joint founder of the Jesuits with Ignatius Loyola, went out on a mission and had an enormous success of marvellous stability, since to this day a large proportion of the population on the south-west coast is professedly Roman Catholic.

Thus all India is practically accounted for in this, the first half of the sixteenth century. At a casual glance it seems as if here we have the vast continent tabulated, scheduled, within our reach. But a closer look shows us that these dynasties, these wars, these annexations and depredations, are but scratches on the surface of life. The India of reality was, as ever, in the fields, heedless of politics, heedless of all things beyond the village cosmogony save that recurring cry of, "The Toorkh! the Toorkh!"

That brought ruin, perchance death; but after death comes life, after ruin prosperity. And the new masters, no matter who they were, were not on the whole bad masters. When the revenues of the state depend upon the peasantry and the peasantry only, it is not politic to press the revenue-giver too hardly. There can be small doubt, therefore, that the general state of the country was distinctly flourishing. The land-rent or land-tax, call it what you will, was high, but the land itself was abundant, the people who had to live on it not too numerous. And luxury did not come, as it came in Europe, to the lives of the poor to make them poorer still. The standard of living did not rise, women were content with the fashions of their mothers; men asked no more than to be let live and die; humanity was its own amusement.

Practically, there was little difference in the system of Government under Hindu and Mahomedan rule. In both, the supreme power was easy of access. Petitions could be brought to the final authority without any difficulty, and a certain rough justice undoubtedly prevailed.

The king hired and paid for a portion of the army which he mounted on his own horses, but a large number of men came in independent parties under leaders of their own.

Such was the India which Humâyon left behind him for twelve long years. His adventures during this time are less entertaining than the wanderings of that prince of Bohemians, his father, but they are still interesting.

When he crossed the Persian border, he found himself received with a certain contemptuous pity. Still, female servants were sent to attend on the queen, and demonstrations were made in his favour. Arrived at the court of King Tahmâsp, however, the exiled monarch of India found himself by no means on a bed of roses. Even the gift of the greatest treasure he possessed, a huge diamond, did not ameliorate his situation; for Shâh Tahmâsp affected to despise the jewel, and is said to have sent it away disdainfully in a gift to the King of the Dekkan. But the whole history of this diamond, which has now disappeared, is a fine romance. It is said to have been the eye of Shiv-ji in some shrine, and to have passed into the possession of many conquerors, until it was given to Babar in recognition of chivalrous kindness and courtesy shown to them by the family of the Râjah of Chitore. Babar, who kept nothing for himself, gave the stone, "worth half the daily expenditure of the world," to his son. It is said to have weighed about 280 carats, and to have been of the purest water; it is also conjectured that it reappeared as the Great Moghul diamond which Tavernier describes as belonging to Shâh-jahân, and that possibly it is this very stone which, cleft and badly cut, still shines as the Koh-i-nur.

It did not, anyhow, avail Humâyon much. More effective was his servile consent to wear the red cap of the Persian, and by this becoming a khizil bash, renounce his Sunni faith, and proclaim himself a Shiah. He did not do this without much pressure, and at the very last nearly broke bondage; but the promise of ten thousand horse wherewith to recover his kingdom was too tempting. With this force he attacked Kandahâr, where his brother Âskari still held little Akbar as a hostage; or, rather, had so held him until the attacking army loomed over the horizon, when, after some hesitation as to whether it would not be wiser to send the boy under honourable escort to his father, Âskari decided on obeying his brother Kamrân's orders, and despatched the little prisoner to Kâbul. The story of that inclement winter march across the hills, with its attempts at rescue and numberless adventures, would make a charming book for English children.

After five months siege, Kandahâr surrendered, "Dearest Lady" having succeeded in obtaining a promise of pardon for Âskari from his brother. It was revoked, however, in an altogether indefensible manner, and Âskari was kept in chains for the next three years. This is so unlike Humâyon's usual conduct towards his brothers, that it gives colour to the assertion made by some authorities that Âskari's punishment was due to the discovery of a further offence.

After Kandahâr had capitulated, Humâyon marched on Kamrân and Kâbul. This is the march rendered famous by Sir Donald Stewart in the Afghân War, and by Lord Roberts' subsequent and rapid repetition. It was now winter, which had set in with extraordinary severity, and much of the country was under snow. Half-way to Kâbul Humâyon was joined by his brother Hindal, who, with brief intervals of hesitation, appears to have been fairly faithful. Their amalgamated armies proved too formidable for Kamrân to face, though at first he had prepared for extremities by removing little Akbar from his grand-aunt "Dearest Lady's" care, and giving the lad to a trusted creature of his own; so flight to Ghuzni followed. The child, however, remained, and Humâyon's delight at recovering his little son was great. Taking the boy in his arms, he exclaimed: "Joseph was cast by envious brethren into the pit; but in the end he was exalted to great glory, as thou shalt be, my son."

Only remaining in Kâbul long enough to restore the young prince to safer keeping, Humâyon set off in pursuit of his brother, who, finding the gates of Ghuzni closed against him, had fled to the Indus; but while on this campaign Humâyon fell so sick that his life was despaired of. After two months' confinement to bed he recovered, only to find himself deserted by his troops, and to hear that Kamrân, returning to Kâbul one dawn, had managed to slip in with a chosen band of followers as the city gates were being opened, had murdered the governor in his bath, had put out the eyes of Fazl and Muttro, the young prince's foster-brothers and playfellows, and had given the young prince himself into the charge of unkindly eunuchs. It was an anxious moment, and the almost despairing father, still weak from illness, set himself to beat up recruits and march to recover his capital, recover his son. Kamrân's troops, meeting with a reverse in the suburbs of the city, where--this being April--the peach-blossom must have been all ablow, Humstyon was enabled to establish himself on an eminence which commands the town, and to commence shelling it. Whereupon Kamrân sent a message to say that if the cannonade continued, he would expose the young heir to all his father's high hopes on the wall where the fire was hottest. A brutal threat, upon the carrying out of which history stands divided, some authorities saying that Akbar was so exposed, others declaring that Humâyon ordered the artillery to cease firing.

Be that as it may, on the 28th of April he entered the city in triumph, Kamrân having fled the previous night.

So little Akbar was once more in his father's arms. In his mother's also, ere long, for Hamida-Bânu-Begum rejoined her husband in the spring. Regarding this, a pretty story is told by Aunt Rosebody in her Memoirs. Humâyon, ever a lover of pleasure, devised a sumptuous entertainment to welcome his wife, and amongst the many devices for amusement was this. All the ladies of the family, unveiled, resplendent in jewels, were to range themselves in a circle round a hall; and to this dazzling company the baby-prince--he was but four--was to be introduced to choose for himself a mother! One can imagine the scene. Those laughing faces-all but one--around the child who had not seen her he sought for two long years. The pause for hesitation, the sickening suffocation of one heart, the sudden sense of shyness, of loneliness, making one little mouth droop.

Then a quick cry, "Amna! Amna-jân!" and Hamida's arms closed convulsively over the sobbing child. What laughter! What tears! As Auntie Rosebody loves to say of all things that bring the sudden vivifying touch of emotion, "It was like the Day of Resurrection." But the young Akbar's trials were not yet over, neither were his father's dangers. In the summer of 1548 Humâyon once more pursued Kamrân, taking with him at first both Akbar and Akbar's mother--for whom the king (or, as he was now called, the emperor) had an affection that never wavered. Finding the way rough, he sent them back to Kâbul; and when he marched out from that city the next time on the same bootless errand, he left the boy, who was now eight years old, behind him as Governor of Kâbul, under tutorship. Whereupon Kamrân, who appears to have had the faculty of doubling like a hare, taking advantage of a serious wound which delayed his brother in the Sertun Pass, slipped to his rear, and for the third time captured Kâbul and that apple of Humâyon's eyes, Prince Akbar.

This was the last of Kamrân's exploits, however, for Humâyon, after suffering agonies of fear lest evil should happen to his heir, gained a complete and final victory over his brother, who fled once more; not, however, to the emperor's great relief, taking Akbar with him. He was soon after captured by the King of the Ghakkur tribe, that warlike race of the Indian Salt Range who broke the ranks of the Ghuzni Mahmûd, and assassinated his successor in campaign, Ghori-Mahomed. Being immediately betrayed to Humâyon, he met his fate at last. Yet even now, after treasons seventy-and-seven, he was nearly forgiven; would have been forgiven but for the fact that Humâyon's favourite brother, Hindal, had been killed in the pursuit of him. He deserved death, but the blindness which was meted out to him leaves us with a revulsion of feeling against the man who was driven by his adherents into giving the order. A revulsion which Humâyon hardly deserved, since, opium-soddened, flighty in a way, unreliable as he was, cruelty was not one of his faults.

And the adherents were right. With Kamrân scotched, Humâyon's fortunes began at once to improve, and in 1535 he was able to invade the Punjâb with fifteen thousand horse. Within a year he was once more Emperor in Delhi; but not for long. Six months after he re-ascended the throne, before he had time even to take breath and look around him, he fell from the roof of his library, and died from the result of the accident four days afterwards. Visitors to Delhi are still shown the broken stairs from which he fell, and are told the story of how, descending the steps, he heard the call to prayer, and stopped to repeat the creed and sit down till the long sonorous sound of the muâzzim had ended. And how, in attempting to rise again, his staff slipped on the polished marble of the step.

The parapet is certainly but a foot high; but as one looks over it, and remembers that Humâyon was a man in the prime of life, the wonder comes if the opium which claimed so large a share in the emperor's life had not an equal share in his death.