icer was, to a great extent,
independent of the local governor, being directly responsible to the
sovereign.

Theoretically, the administration of justice was perfect, for it was
dispensed according to the Muhammadan principle that the state was
dependent on the law. That law was administered by the Kazis or
judges in conformity with a code which was the result of accumulated
decisions based on the Kuran, but modified by the customs of the
country. The Kazi decided all matters of a civil character; all
questions, in fact, which did not affect the safety of the state. But
criminal cases were reserved to the jurisdiction of a body of men
whose mode of procedure {76} was practically undefined, and who,
nominated and supported by the Crown, sometimes trenched on the
authority of the Kazi. The general contentment of the people would
seem, however, to authorise the conclusion that, on the whole, the
administration of justice was performed in a satisfactory manner.
Time had welded together the interests of the families of the earlier
Muhammadan immigrant and those of the Hindu inhabitant, and they both
looked alike to the law to afford them such protection as was
possible. In spite of the many wars, the general condition of the
country was undoubtedly, if the native records may be trusted, very
flourishing.

It is important to note, in considering the administration upon which
we are now entering, that neither Babar nor Humayun had changed, to
any material extent, the system of their Afghan predecessors in
India. Babar, indeed, had been accustomed to a system even more
autocratic. Whether in Ferghana, in Samarkand, or in Kabul, he had
not only been the supreme lord in the capital, but also the feudal
lord of the governors of provinces appointed by himself. Those
governors, those chiefs of districts or of jaghirs, did indeed
exercise an authority almost absolute within their respective
domains. But they were always removable at the pleasure of the
sovereign, and it became an object with them to administer on a plan
which would secure substantial justice, or to maintain at the court
agents who should watch over their interests with the ruling prince.

{77} 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 Babar, too, as with his son, the form of government had been a
pure despotism