English settlers or traders at Surat should be protected. An ambassador from England should reside at his court, and customs dues on imports should amount to no more than 3 per cent. This treaty, which contained many other privileges, was received by Captain Best at Surat, on February 6, 1613, and necessarily becomes a famous incident in the progress of the English in India. They may be considered as established from that period, and their heretofore desultory proceedings to be at an end. CHAPTER XIV. OF THE MAHOMEDAN KINGS OF GUZERAT (continued from nated, 1526. WHEN Sikunder, who succeeded his father Mozuffer Shah II., ascended the throne, there were two parties in the State-one his own, which was the weakest; the other that of his brother, Bahadur. Imád-ool-Moolk, the minister, secretly favouring the latter, and believing that the king intended to put him Sikunder to death, watched his opportunity, and caused him to Shah assassi be assassinated on May 31, 1526, after a brief reign of three months. At this time, Bahadur was absent at Dehly, where he had taken refuge; but, when his younger brother, Mahmood Nusseer Khan, was elevated to the throne, under the Shah II. suctitle of Mahmood Shah II., and letters reached him ceeds, 1526. from many of the nobility offering him assistance to attain his rightful position, he set out for Guzerat. He had, however, been offered the kingdom of Joonpoor, in Bengal, by the Afghans; and, undecided as to whether he should accept this offer, or proceed to Guzerat, determined to leave the matter to chance or fate, and to take whatever direction his horse should proceed in. Casting the reins on its neck, the animal took the southern road; and Bahadur, believing in the omen, proceeded. He was joined on the frontier by parties of the nobility, and proceeded to Nehrwalla Puttun, where he was formally crowned on August 3, Bahadur 1526, and reached Ahmedabad on the 28th, when his Shah crowned, brother was deposed. In 1528 the king entered upon 1326. a campaign against Boorhan Nizam Shah of Ahmednugger, on behalf of Imád Shah, king of Berar, and marched as far as Mahore; but the expedition was fruitless of result, except the nominal submission of the Ahmednugger king, and his acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Bahadur over his dominions. In 1531, however, when visited by Boorhan Nizam Shah in Khandesh, he withdrew his pretensions, and even conferred royal honours and insignia upon him, as is related in the history of Ahmednugger. During this campaign, the fortress of Raiseen was surrendered by Lôkman, the brother of Rajah Silhuddy, its owner, who had been taken prisoner, on condition of his brother's release, and became the scene of a terrible and memorable tragedy. Wishing to remove the females of his family before the Mahomedan garrison should take possession, Lokman proceeded to the private apartments, where he was received with indignation by Doorgawutty, his brother's wife, who upbraided him with cowardice in not defending the fort, hitherto deemed impreg nable; and having previously filled the palace with combustibles, she set fire to the place, and with 700 other women perished in the conflagration. This event so affected the brothers, Silhuddy and Lokman, that, at the head of a few adherents, they attacked their guards, and perished to a man. The Portuguese armament for the reduction of Diu arrived after the king's return to his capital, and its defeat is only slightly alluded to by the Guzerat historian, though it was in reality a great victory against an immense expedition. One of the guns taken from the Portuguese was the largest ever then seen, and was taken to the fort of Champanair. In 1533 Mahomed Zumán Mirza, a relative of the Emperor Hoomayoon, fled to Guzerat, and the king contemptuously refused all demands to give him up. Not content with protecting this prince, Bahadur Shah, over confident of his strength, conferred the highest honours upon him. About the same time also, Tartar Khan, the son of the late Emperor Bheilole Lody of Dehly, also a fugitive, received a warm reception; and Bahadur Shah appears to have contemplated the possibility of becoming emperor. Tartar Khan was furnished with an army of 40,000 men; but he was utterly defeated by the Prince Hindál Mirza; and the Emperor Hoomayoon, who had been waiting a suitable opportunity, now declared war against Bahadur Shah, and marched upon Guzerat: but purposely delayed by the way, till its king had finished the siege of Chittore. After some desultory movements, Bahadur Shah, depending upon his artillery, and against the advice of his best officers, intrenched himself. By this act he left the country open to the Moghuls, who cut off all his supplies, and the army became reduced to such straits, that Bahadur Shah fled secretly at night to Mandoo; but he was pursued, and sending his jewels and treasures to Diu, took refuge at Cambay. The siege of Champanair and occupation of Guzerat followed, as has been related in the history of the first reign of Hoomayoon. No sooner had the emperor left the province, than an insurrection against the Moghuls broke out, and they retired, after a few feeble and ineffectual struggles. by the Portu During the war with Hoomayoon, and while the king was at Cambay, he had concluded a treaty with the Portuguese, in the hope of receiving their assistance: by which, with other stipulations, permission to erect a fort at Diu was granted. This treaty was executed in 1534, and the Portuguese seem to have lost no time in constructing a very strong fortification. When the Moghuls withdrew, Bahadur Shah evidently repented of what he had done; and, as the Portuguese historian, Faria de Souza, and the Mahomedan, in the 'Mirat Iskunderi,' both relate, was endeavouring to get the fort into his possession. The Portuguese general and viceroy, Nuño de Cuerpa, was invited to a conference, which he declined: and the king was proceeding to the viceroy's ship, according to the Portuguese account, when a sudden brawl arose between some Portuguese officers and the king's attendants, during which the king, falling into the sea, was struck Bahadur with a pike, and killed. The Mahomedan account is Shah killed somewhat different, and attributes the act to deliberate guese, 1537. previous arrangement; nor is it at all improbable that treachery was intended on both sides. The event happened on February 14, 1537, in the thirty-first year of the king's life, and eleventh of his reign. The gorgeous jewels and treasures he had sent to Diu -the spoils of Hindoo princes of Guzerat-had been forwarded to Medina for greater security, and fell into the hands of Soliman, the sooltan of Constantinople, by whom they were appropriated Bahadur Shah having left no offspring, the throne Meerun was conferred by the nobles of the State upon Meerun Mahomed Mahomed Farooky of Khandésh, the late king's ceeds, 1537; nephew; but he died suddenly, after a brief reign of hardly two months, and the only representative of the royal line that remained was Mahmood, the son of the late king's brother, Latteef, who was residing at Boorhanpoor. He was Mahmood now sent for, and crowned at Ahmedabad, on April 5, Shah III. sue1538. Mahmood appears to have been a moderate man, of simple habits, fond of erecting palaces and ornamenting parks, but in public affairs a mere cipher. His deer-park was walled round, and was fourteen miles in circumference; and in his reign, also, Surat was strongly fortified to repel the frequent incursions of the Portuguese. Having incurred the deadly enmity of his private chaplain Boorhan, whom on one occasion Mahmood he had built up to his neck in a mud wall, he was Shah assassi assassinated at his instigation in the year 1553, after a reign of fifteen years. On this occasion Boorhan succeeded in destroying several of the ministers by armed men, whom he had Farooky su and dies. ceeds, 1538. nated, 1553. stationed in the king's chamber, and even assumed the crown; but he and his accomplices were all put to death as soon as they appeared in public. Mahmood left no heir, and a youth named Ahmed Shah 1553. Mozuffer ceeds, 1561. Ahmed, declared to be a son of the Prince, Ahmed, succeeds, was crowned; but during his inglorious reign of eight years he was admitted to no exercise of power, and the affairs of State were managed by the nobles, who seem, for the most part, to have divided the kingdom among them. In the year 1561, the king was found dead of wounds, lying Is killed, 1561. under the wall of a nobleman's house, where it was supposed he had been carrying on an intrigue. He had left no heir, and a boy named Hubeeb, declared to be a son of Mahmood Shah II., was produced and crowned under the title of Mozuffer Shah III. Etimád Khan became regent and minister, Shab III. suc- but was a weak character, afraid of his colleagues, among whom he divided the kingdom into five districts (reserving one for himself), over which they were virtually supreme. In the year 1566 Chungiz Khan, the most active and ambitious among them, declared independence at Talnair, of which he had gained possession; and proceeding towards the capital, defeated Etimád Khan and the king, and took possession of it. He now allotted estates to the five sons of Mahomed Sooltan Mirza, who had fled before the Emperor Akbur; but these persons in the sequel disputed his authority, and even defeated him in a general action. Chungiz Khan was afterwards killed while playing at choughan, by an Abyssinian-an event which gave some relief to Etimád Khan; but it was of short duration. Quarrels ensued between him and the other powerful chiefs, and eventually he wrote to the Emperor Akbur, requesting him to come and take possession of the kingdom. The emperor proceeded at once to Guzerat, where he was received without opposition, and the kingdom was annexed to the empire on November 20, 1572. The king abdicated, and was provided with an estate; but nine years afterwards he escaped from surveillance, and in his last efforts to regain his kingdom, Mozuffer Shah III. displayed more spirit and energy than when he was its real Sovereign. After his final struggle, in 1584, he retreated into Kattywar, where, until his death, he lived under the protection of Rajah Rái Singh. Thus ended the royal dynasty of Guzerat, which had reigned, for the most part in great splendour, from 1396 to 1572, or 176 years. CHAPTER XV OF THE ADIL SHAHY DYNASTY OF BEEJAPOOR (continued from Chapter XX., Book III.), A.D. 1534 тo 1579. THE long reign of the Emperor Akbur, and the occurrences which preceded it after the first reign of Hoomayoon, have brought the history of the Moghul dynasty down to the period of his death, in 1605; and it becomes necessary to revert to the progress of the other kingdoms of India, to make the general history of the period as complete as possible. Up to the death of the emperor, no interference with any of the Deccan kingdoms, except Ahmednugger, had taken place; and their power, and the interests attached to their progress, entitles them to more consideration than has hitherto been bestowed upon them by writers of Indian history. As has been already related in Chapter XX., Book III., Ibrahim Adil Shah succeeded to the crown on the dethronement A.D. 1534. Shah restores Beejapoor. of his brother Mulloo, in 1534. His first act was to Reformation abolish the profession of the Sheea faith, and to re- in England. store the Soony, and also to exchange Persian for Ibrahim Adil Mahratta, as the language of accounts and current the Soony business in the State. This involved the introduction faith in of many Brahmins into the royal service, and was a concession to Hindoo influence which had a marked effect. The foreign troops, the majority of whom were Persians and therefore Sheeas, were discharged, and their places supplied by Deccanies and Abyssinians. The new army consisted of 30,000 cavalry, the horses of which, for the most part, belonged to the State; and it does not appear that infantry or artillery formed any considerable part of the Beejapoor equipment. Of Mahomedan the foreign cavalry discharged, 3,000 were taken into cavalry enter the service of Ramraj, the Hindoo prince of Beeja- Rajah of nugger; and as they refused to salute an infidel, a Korán was placed before the rajah's throne, to which the usual reverence was paid. The year after Ibrahim Adil Shah's accession, a revolution occurred at Beejanugger, and the aid of the Beejapoor king was sought by the rajah for his own support. This proceeding, involving Mahomedan intervention, caused vast alarm throughout the Hindoo kingdom, and for the Ibrahim Adil present arrested mutual differences. Ibrahim, who Shah assists had proceeded to Beejanugger, was royally enter- Becjanugger. tained by the Beejanugger. the Rajah of |