ill as
a mere conqueror. It was the grandson who struck into the soil the
roots which took a firm hold of it, sprung up, and bore rich and
abundant fruit in the happiness and contentment of the conquered
races.

{10} This is the argument to the development of which I have devoted
the following pages. The book seems to me naturally to divide itself
into three parts. To Babar, as the developer of the idea of the
invasion and conquest of India, I have devoted the first part. He was
a remarkable man, and he would have been remarkable in any age. When
he died, at the early age of forty-eight, he left behind him a record
which may be read with interest and profit even at the close of this
nineteenth century. It has seemed to me the more necessary to devote
a considerable space to him inasmuch as the reader will not fail to
discern, in the actions of the grandson, the spirit and energy and
innate nobility of character of the grandfather. Of Humayun, whose
life properly belongs to the first part, I have written as much only
as seemed to me necessary to illustrate the cause of his fall, and to
describe the early days of the hero of the book, who was born in
Sind, during the father's flight from India.

The remaining two-thirds of the book have been given to Akbar. But,
here again, I have subdivided the subject. In the first of the
two-thirds, I have narrated, from the pages and on the authority of
contemporary Muhammadan historians, the political events of the
reign. In the last chapter I have endeavoured to paint the man. From
the basis of the records of the Ain-i-Akbari and other works I have
tried to show what he was as an administrator, as an organiser, as
the promulgator of a system which {11} we English have to a great
extent inherited, as a conciliator of differences which had lasted
through five hundred years, of prejudices which had lived for all
time. I have described him as a husband, as a father, as a man, who,
despite of a religious education abounding in the inculcation of
hostility to all who differed from him, gave his intellect the freest
course, and based his conduct on the teachings of his intellect. This
chapter, I am free to confess, constitutes the most interesting
portion of the book. For the sake of it, I must ask the reader to
pardon me for inflicting upon him that which precedes it.

{12}

CHAPTER II
THE FAMILY AND EARLY DAYS OF BABAR

On the 9th of April, 1336, there was born to the chief