vigour and terminated without advantage. The "Afgháns ”Patháns, or native Muslims, continued to quarrel among themselves in the eastern provinces; the ostensible head of their ill-cemented confederacy was Mahmud Lodi, brother of the late Sultan Ibrahim: this chief had risen to power on the overthrow of Jalál-ud-din, Lohání, to whom Farid had attached himself on leaving the camp of Bábar; and about 1535 Mahmud possessed himself of Jaunpur. The contentions of the Indian Muslims were for the time abated, and Farid-who had hitherto been only a petty district-officer-began to prepare himself for the task of organising a permanent anti-Mughal movement, and, about this time, assumed the title of Sher Khán.

Humaiun was quick to perceive the dangerous abilities of the new Pathan leader, but slow to act upon his discovery. Amusing the Emperor with insincere negotiation, Sher Khán took possession of the fort of Chunár, near Benares; and Humaiun, confiding in his professions, turned once more to his western wars. Sher Khan's next step was to persuade Mahmud to retire to Gaur, and leave him a free hand in Bihár. In 1537 Humaiun, returning from fresh failure in Gujarát, determined to seek compensation in the eastern provinces. More than six months were wasted before Chunár, which was not won till 8th January, 1538. Meanwhile Sher Khán had gone to Gaur and driven out his nominal master, Mahmud Lodi, who repaired to the camp of Humaiun. Sher Khán now stood forth openly as the leader of the Pathán reaction; though the odds appeared heavy. On one hand was Humaiun, born to succession, chivalrous and accomplished, with the Lodi leader on his side. On the other a solitary native adventurer far from having any hereditary right, and with no advantages but what he could derive from his own intellect and character. Yet the event proved that these were enough to turn the scale. The brother of Humaiun was in revolt at Kábul, and recruits could

not join the army from that land of soldiers; the Turks and Mughals who had followed Bábar had become demoralised by twelve years of wealth and ease; the Emperor himself, with many good qualities, was a frivolous, dissipated opium-eater. On the other hand Sher Khán was full of audacity, energy, and vigilance, aware of the danger of dissension amongst his followers, and able to make of them a united body.

The result was soon apparent. In 1538 Sher Khán inflicted several minor checks on the Emperor, whose attention was at the same time distracted by news of a revolt at Agra; and who retired with such precipitation as to leave the ladies of his household in his enemy's hands. Sher Khán treated his captives nobly, and sent them to Agra unharmed. But he at the same time showed his sense of his ascendant star by assuming the further title of "Sher Sháh, Sultan-i-’Adil.”*

In April, 1540, the Emperor took the field once more, and marching down the Duab arrived at Kanauj in the early part of May. Sher Shah, having advanced from the eastward, had taken post on the opposite bank of the Ganges; and, on hearing of the arrival of the Mughals, send a herald over to their camp, not to offer peace, but to propose terms of combat. If his Majesty preferred the Patháns should cross: if not they were ready to await his Majesty's pleasure. Humaiun scornfully replied that if "Sher Khán" would only make room he would come over and meet him: the consequence of which— doubtless foreseen by the Pathán leader-was this, that the Mughals would be left to fight after the confusion of the passage, with their backs to the river. He accordingly, with every appearance of good faith and courtesy, retired for five miles-while the Mughals crossed-and there he awaited their onslaught in a strongly intrenched position. But the Mughals had little stomach for the fray: "let us go," the men were heard to cry; "let us go and rest in our own homes." The Meaning:-""" "The just Lord."

attack was, therefore, delayed. Meantime the heat grew to a dreadful height for the luxurious foreigners; and the early rain fell with violence, flooding the camp, and swelling the volume of the Ganges already filled by the melting of the Himalaya snows. Daily surprises and skirmishes wore them out, while flushing the spirits of their antagonists. At last, on the morning of the 17th May, as if weary of the situation, both armies at the same time left their lines, under their respective chiefs. But Humaiun found no better spirit among his officers than among the men. Twenty-seven tughs* were lowered and concealed by those whose pride it should have been to display those ensigns. "From this," naively observes one of these officers, whose narrative is here followed, "from this conduct of our officers may be imagined the conduct of the men." In spite of their artillery, in spite of threefold numbers, the Mughals could not be got to fight. "Before the enemy had let fly an arrow," pursues Haidar Mirza, "we were, virtually defeated: not a gun was fired, not a man was wounded, friend or foe." The panic-stricken men-at-arms clattered into the mud in all the vain panoply of armour-clad men and horses; the only deaths were of fugitives smothered or drowned. Never was a great host so discomfited. The Emperor was carried away in the flight, led to the river by an unknown cavalier in black, who unceremoniously seized his bridle. the bank he found an elephant on which he was carried over. Hurrying to Agra he made but a short stay there: his mind, it was noticed, wandered; he spoke of supernatural terrors that had aided the Patháns. One of his brothers hurried on to Kábul, and so barred the direct way of escape; the luckless Humaiun was fain to depart into Multan and Sindh.

For nearly fifteen years he disappears from Indian history, during the early part of which period Sher Shah exercised a

Vide, note in last chapter.

beneficent dominion in Hindustan.

He assumed the Empire

at Delhi, 25th January, 1542, being about sixty years of age; and the rest of his brief career was devoted to the establishment of the unity which he had long ago perceived to be the great need of his country. Though a devout Muslim he never oppressed his Hindu subjects. His progresses were the cause of good to the people instead of being-as is too often the case in India-the occasions of devastation. He laboured ceaselessly for the protection of the public: "it behoves great men," he said, "to be always working." He divided the land into 116,000 fiscal unions, in each of which he placed five officials, one of whom was an Hindu accountant, and one a judicial officer, whose duty was to mediate between the servants of the crown and the members of the community. A new digest of civil and penal law was substituted for the narrow code of Islam. The lands were assessed, for one year at a time, the assessment being based on a measurement of the cultivation and an appraisement of the various crops. No official was allowed to remain in the same place for more than two years. All districts but those on the frontiers were deprived of arms. A royal highway, planted on either side with trees and patrolled by police, ran from the shores of the Bay of Bengal to the banks of the river Jehlam. Three other great roads traversed the Empire; one from Agra to Burhanpore on the border of the Deccan, a second crossed Rajputana, and a third led from Lahore to Multan daily posts carried letters along these roads from place to place. The rural population was still sparse, and the tillage depended on a scanty supply of labour; for which reason the Government was the more urgently required to care for the comfort and content of the peasantry. Even in a hostile country the people should not be molested: "if we drive away the agriculturist," said the Sháh, “all our conquests can be of but little profit.”

It is a welcome task to take note of such things as a break

in the long annals of rapine and slaughter, and we can do so without hesitation; for the acts of Sher Shah are attested by his enemies, writing when he was dead, and when his dynasty had passed away for ever. But in the midst of his strenuous beneficence he encountered the caprice of fate which takes away a man, apparently necessary, before his work is done. Sher Shah was besieging the fort of Kálinjar, in Bundelkhand, when he was struck by the fragment of an exploding tumbril, on 22nd May, 1545. Taken to his tent, he lay dying for two days, retaining his consciousness, and speaking of duty to the last. His body was carried to his native place, and buried in a fine mausoleum, which is still to be seen in the centre of the town of Sasseram, by the side of the "Grand Trunk Road," which the modern rulers of India have laid down on the line of his own highway.

It is the misfortune of absolute monarchy that the best rulers can never ensure a worthy successor. Sher Shah's sovereignty was assumed by his son Salím, or Islám, Sháh, a young man apparently not ill-prepared for the post, but labouring under the usual trials of a prince born for power which he has done nothing to acquire. The old contentiousness of the Pathan nobility sprang up when the strong restraining hand was no longer there. The whole period of Salím's reign was consumed in intrigues and fruitless quarrels: and on his death in November, 1554, his son was murdered and a scene of confusion ensued. The native Muslims fell into such a state of quarrelsome imbecility that the chief command fell into the hands of a Hindu chandler named Hému.

In the meanwhile Humaiun had first wandered distractedly in Sindh, where he became the father of a more able and fortunate son. In 1543 he made his way by Herát to Persia, where he was hospitably received, but made to profess adhesion to the Shia denomination; and with the aid of Persian troops he obtained possession of Kandahar and, ultimately of Kábul,