Hakeem Mirza invades the From 1575-6 to 1579 seems to have been a brief interval of peace, employed by the emperor in civil affairs, and the construction of the splendid mosque and other buildings at Futtehpoor Sikry and Agra (he habitually avoided Dehly); and in the latter year, his brother, Mahomed Hakeem Mirza, ruler of Kabool, invaded the Punjâb, and defeated Rajah Mán Punjab, 1579. Singh, the governor of the province. It is thus evident, that Hindoos of rank now shared the highest offices with the Moghuls. The Punjab was one of the most important provinces of the empire, and the emperor would not have appointed Rajah Mán Singh to the charge of it without full confidence in his ability, both as a soldier and an administrator. Prince Hakeem Mirza invaded Lahore; and on the urgent request of his com Akbur proceeds to the Punjab, and his brother flies to Kabool. Akbur enters manders, who were defending the place, Akbur marched to the scene of action, and his brother retreated to Kabool, in February; but, following up his success, the emperor deputed his son, the Prince Moorád, to pursue him. This division was, however, defeated near Kabool; but on March 6, 1579, a victory was gained, on which the Prince Hakeem Mirza fled to the mountains, and the emperor entered Kabool. Kabool, but on his brother's submission forgave him, and restored his territories to him. Nevertheless, in October of the same year, Rajah Bhugwundas, of Jeypoor, was appointed to the charge of the city-perhaps as a check upon his brother's actions. In this year the fort of Attock on the Indus was rebuilt; and about the same time the fortifications of Allahabad, one of the most splendid memorials of the emperor's reign, were commenced. the King of Mozuffer Shah, the king of Guzerat, who had abdicated on the Insurrection emperor's first expedition into that province, had rein favour of mained at court, and had been granted an estate for his Guzerat, 1581. maintenance; but he had kept up his connection with his former dependants, and in 1581 an insurrection was commenced in his favour, which was for the time highly successful. Mozuffer Joined by Shah now proceeded to join his friends, and regained Mozuffer Shah possession of Ahmedabad and the southern districts without difficulty. After desultory operations and struggles on both sides, which continued for three years with varied success, Mirza Khan, the imperial general, brought the king to action on The king de- January 29, 1584, near Ahmedabad, and completely defeated, 1584. feated him. He fled to the vicinity of Joonagurh, and there assembled another force, and with the Jám of Joonagurh, advanced towards the capital; but did not await the attack of Mirza Khan, and again fled. He renewed his efforts a third time, when he was equally unsuccessful, and continued to reside in Kattywar, until, in 1586, he again plundered the country, but without any Deccan court. decisive result. About this period, the emperor was drawn into the disputes in the Deccan, which were in progress at the court of Ahmednugger in 1585. Shah Futteh Oolla Shirazy, a Refugees holy person who had arrived from the Deccan, received from the an office near the emperor's person, and was succeeded received at by two officers of the Ahmednugger court who had been defeated by Sulabut Khan. Other refugees followed, and were hospitably received. There can be little doubt that the accounts given by those persons of the political state of the Deccan, the constant wars between the rival sovereigns, as well as of its fertility and fine climate, acted gradually upon the emperor's mind, and induced an eventual interference in its affairs. For the present, however, the emperor was fully employed, and the most he could do was to direct Mirza Azeez Koka, the governor of Malwah, to take advantage of circumstances. In 1586 the emperor married his eldest son, the Prince Selim, to the daughter of Rajah Bhugwundas, which still further strengthened his Rajpoot connection; and as his brother, Hakeem Mirza, ruler of Kabool, had died, Akbur proceeded thither, sending Mán Singh, the son of Rajah Bhugwundas, to bring the children of the Prince Hakeem Mirza to Lahore; and the son of Mán Singh was afterwards appointed to the charge of Kabool on the part of the emperor. No objection seems to have been made by Hindoos of any grade to cross the Indus, or to serve in Afghanistan during the emperor's reign; yet it is worthy of remark that, in after times, the Hindoo Sepoys of the British army were held to have violated caste by proceeding beyond Attock. During his residence at Attock, in 1586, the emperor dispatched a force into Kashmere, which was distracted by family disputes, and another against the Afghans of Swát and Bijour, who had been uniformly rebellious. CHAPTER X. OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR AKBUR (continued), THE operations against the Afghans were more unsuccessful than any of the emperor's previous warlike undertakings. Zein Khan Koka, the emperor's foster-brother, commanded the army, being assisted by Rajah Beerbul Singh, and other distinguished officers. The rajah was an especial favourite of Akbur; witty, brave and accomplished, he was one of his habitual comrades and companions, and many of his bons mots have survived him. The Moghul forces were no match for the Eusufzyes on their own ground. The latter had been easily beaten in the plains; and pursued to their mountain valleys and fastnesses. They drew on the Moghuls, till extrication Rajah Beerbul Singh and 8,000 nen killed by the Eusufzye Afghans, 1586. was impossible; and Rajah Beerbul Singh and 8,000 men perished in one of the rugged defiles. On the other hand, Rajah Mán Singh, who had been dispatched against the Afghans of the Khyber Pass, when it had been closed by them between Kabool and Peshawur, gained a complete victory. The expedition against Kashmere, under Shah Rokh Mirza and Rajah Bhugwundas, suffered severely from snow in the passes, and did not succeed in entering the country. They were met by the King Yoosuf Shah Chuk, with whom they entered into a convention, by which a small tribute and some minor advantages were secured to the emperor; and on their return to Lahore, the king accompanied them. Akbur, however, refused to ratify the convention, detained Yoosuf Shah Chuk, and sent another force, under Mahomed Kassim Khan, who bore the title of Ameer-al-Behr, or admiral. This Kashmere annexed, 1587. officer penetrated to the capital, Sirinugger; and though Yakoob, the son of Yoosuf Shah, maintained a desultory warfare for some time, and even gained some temporary advantages, he was eventually obliged to surrender, when he and his father received estates in Behar, and were enrolled among the Akbur visits Moghul nobility. In 1589 the emperor proceeded on a tour through his new dominions, and made arrangements for their proper government; travelling thence to Kabool, where he stayed for two months. Here he received intelligence of the death of Rajah Toder Mul, his great Rajah Toder finance minister, which caused him sincere distress; and he returned to Lahore, where he continued to reside for Kashinere and Kabool, 1589. Death of Mul, 1589. some years. It does not appear that the imperial authority had ever been extended to Kattywar, where, with the Jám rajah of that province, Mozuffer Shah had taken refuge. In 1589 Mirza Azeez Koka, governor of Guzerat, attempted to annex the province. He was met by the Jám with 20,000 horse, and a severe action was the result, in which both sides lost heavily; and, as no further attempt was made by Mirza Azeez, he had probably found the Jahreja Rajpoots, the descendants of the proud Saurashtra dynasties, too powerful to be interfered with for the present; but, watching his opportunity, he took advantage of the death of the Jám in the succeeding year, and captured Joonagurh, after a siege of several months duration, when the rest of the province submitted. Sinde still remained independent. The Arghoon family had been succeeded by one of Persian extraction; among which arose continuous disputes; and the harbouring of malcontents, and other frontier troubles, gave a pretext for interference, which probably amounted to necessity. In 1590 Mirza Khan attacked Sehwán by sea, but the Prince of Sinde defended himself bravely, and the Moghuls were reduced to some straits; when a detachment from another force sent from Lahore into the north of Sinde, by a rapid march into the province, induced its ruler to submit; and in 1592 he proceeded to court, where he was favourably received; and, as was the case with all conquered princes who submitted, enrolled among the nobles of the empire. In the same year, the Prince Moorád, now twenty years old, was employed in the public service, and made governor of Malwah. Mozuffer The year 1593 was very productive of incidents. Khan, the ex-king of Guzerat, was given up by his protectors to Mirza Azeez Koka, the viceroy of Guzerat, and on his way to Ahmedabad committed suicide. In Bengal, Rajah Mán Singh, the governor, overthrew Kootloogh Khan, who had raised an insurrection of the old Afghan families, and occupied part of Orissa. The emperor, in 1590, had dispatched ambassadors to the four Kings of the Deccan, with, as it may be believed, demands to acknowledge his supremacy. They all returned in this year (1593), with the same result. The four Mahomedan kings evaded or refused the emperor's demand; and this increased his desire to bring to subjection territories which he considered belonged to the empire of Dehly. About the same period, also, Kandahar and its dependencies were made over to the emperor by Prince Roostum Mirza, whose family had occupied them independently since their possession by Persia. The Kandahar chief was created a noble of the empire, and appointed to the government of Mooltan. By the occupation of Kandahar, Akbur had thus regained the western portion of the ancient empire of India; and the whole of India itself, as far south as the Nerbudda, was now in his possession. If the reader have followed the course of events and conquests since Akbur's accession in 1556 to the present period, it will have been evident how, in the course of thirty-seven years, province after province, at different intervals, was conquered or submitted to his rule. His empire now included Afghanistan on the west, Kashmere and the Punjab on the north, and the whole of the north-western provinces; on the east, Oude and Bengal, with Orissa and Kuttack; while on the south, Malwah and Guzerat, with Sinde, formed the southern frontier. The Rajpoot provinces remained under the direct government of their own chiefs; but most of these were connected to the empire by marriages, or by political alliances, and furnished not only some of its best troops, but many of its most able commanders and civil governors. Over the whole of the rest of Northern India the emperor's administration was firmly established, and maintained in a spirit of tolerance and general advancement, which secured tranquillity and the goodwill and affection of his subjects. The emperor was, however, deeply mortified by the conduct of the Deccan sovereigns in the absolute rejection of his authority, and prepared to enforce it. An army was ordered to march southwards under the command of the Prince Daniel; but the emperor revoking the order, recalled his son, and conferred the command upon his general, Mirza Khan. The kingdom of Ahmednugger, which, as the reader will remember, adjoined Guzerat, had fallen into confusion, the particulars of which will be reviewed hereafter. A boy had been raised to the throne by the vizier of Ibrahim Adil Shah II., Meean Munjoo, to whom the nobles objected; and the vizier, besieged by them in Ahmednugger, besought the aid of the Prince Moorád Mirza, now viceroy of Guzerat. Any legitimate pretence for interference in Deccan affairs was most opportune; and the prince, with his father's permission, moved with his army towards the scene of action. Meanwhile Mirza Khan had arrived in Malwah, and at Mandoo had received the submission of Rajah Ally Khan, the ruler of Khandésh, who joined him with 6,000 horse. With these, and his own forces, he marched to join Prince Moorád, and formed a junction with him at Galna, whence the united armies marched upon Ahmednugger. Here, however, they found that the vizier, who had called upon the Moghuls for support, had been obliged to return to his master at Beejapoor, and that Ahmednugger was defended by Chánd Beebee, the widow of Ally Adil Shah of Beejapoor, a princess of Ahmednugger, who now acted as regent on behalf of her nephew. The fort was invested by the Moghul army in November 1595, and its memorable siege will be detailed in its proper place, in connection with the history of the kingdom. The siege of nugger, 1595. Several desperate assaults having failed, and an army from Beejapoor being on its way to relieve the garrison, the Prince Moorád accepted the terms offered by the queen-dowager, which included the cession of Berar; and raising the siege, marched thither to take possession of that rich and fertile province. Shortly after his departure, however, a revolution occurred at Ahmednugger, and Chánd Beebee was deprived of power. Her treaty with the Moghuls was set aside, and the chiefs of Ahmednugger and Beejapoor, at the head of 50,000 horse, marched to expel the Moghuls from the province. The armies met at Soopa, |