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Similarly the army was composed of the personal retainers of the sovereign, swollen by the personal retainers of his chiefs and vassals and by the native tribes of the provinces occupied. With Bábar, too, as with his son, the form of government had been a pure despotism. Free institutions were unknown. The laws passed by one sovereign might be annulled by his successor.
Before the arrival in India of Bábar he had taken the then famous fort of Ranthambor. But he had continued, and was continuing, his career of conquest, and the news which troubled Bábar was to the effect that the great Rájpút chief had just taken the strong hill-fort of Kandar, a few miles to the eastward of Ranthambor.
At a critical moment his uncles left Babar to the mercy of his enemy, and he was again forced to fly for his life, hotly pursued by Tambal's horsemen. He was overtaken by two of them, who, not daring to pit themselves against Babar's prodigious strength and courage, tried to inveigle him into a trap. Babar gives a moving description of this great crisis in his life.
In this palace stands the third metal column Feroze-Schachs-Laht. The inscriptions upon it show that it existed a hundred years before the birth of Christ, and may therefore be considered as one of the oldest monuments of India. It was brought here from Lahore at the time this palace was built. The Purana-Killa, or the old fortress of the palace of Babar, is much decayed.
During that period Bábar chastised the Afgháns of the mountains, took Swát, and finally acquired Kandahár by right of treaty . He took possession of, and incorporated in his dominions, that city and its dependencies, including parts of the lowlands lying chiefly along the lower course of the Helmand.
Towards the end of the rainy season Bábar held a council to meet these and other difficulties. At this council it was arranged that, whilst his eldest son, Humáyún, then eighteen years old, should march eastward, to complete the subjection of the Duáb, Oudh, and Jaunpur, Bábar should remain at Agra to superintend there the general direction of affairs.
The brave and simple-hearted Babar, the wandering Humayun, the glorious Akbar, the easy but uncertain-tempered Jahangir, the magnificent Shahjahan, all these rulers combined some of the best elements of Turkish character and their administration was better than that of any other Oriental country of their date.
I must pass lightly over the proceedings of the next seven years, eventful though they were. In those years, from 1507 to 1514, Bábar marching northwards, recovered Fergháná, defeated the Uzbeks, and took Bokhára and Samarkand. But the Uzbeks, returning, defeated Bábar at Kulmalik, and forced him to abandon those two cities.
Akbar, accompanied by Bairam Khan, the ablest of Humayun's generals, was in Sind when he received at the same time the news of his father's death and of the revolt of the Viceroy at Kabul He was then little more than thirteen years old, but, like Babar under similar circumstances, he was prompt in decision and in action.
"Cover your heads with dust, ye people, while ye thank the Merciful One that Khânzâda Khânum of the House of Babar hath found freedom, that after a long and godly life she hath found rest and peace. Bismillah ul " The long Arabic sentence went rolling through the Hall, while Kumran stood stunned by the suddenness of his aunt's death.
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