nded now entirely
upon the genius of the sovereign.

[Footnote 3: The message ran: 'As I was fully assured of your honesty
and fidelity I left all important affairs of State to your charge,
and thought only of my own pleasures. I have now determined to take
the reins of government into my own hands, and it is desirable that
you should now make the pilgrimage to Mekka, upon which you have been
so long intent. A suitable jagir out of the parganas of Hindustan
shall be assigned to your maintenance, the revenues of which shall be
transmitted to you by your agents.' Elliot, vol. v. p. 264.]

[Footnote 4: The motive attributed to the assassin was simply
revenge. Bairam was stabbed in the back so that the point of the long
dagger came out at his breast. 'With an Allahu Akbar' (God is great)
'on his lips he died,' writes Blochmann in his _Ain-i-Akbari_. His
son was provided for by Akbar.]

{91}

CHAPTER XI
CHRONICLE OF THE REIGN

The position in India, in the sixth year of Akbar's reign, dating
from the battle of Panipat, but the first of his personal rule, may
thus be summarised. He held the Punjab and the North-western
Provinces, as we know those provinces, including Gwalior and Ajmere
to the west, Lucknow, and the remainder of Oudh, including Allahabad,
as far as Jaunpur, to the east. Benares, Chanar, and the provinces of
Bengal and Behar, were still held by princes of the house of Sur, or
by the representatives of other Afghan families. The whole of
Southern India, the greater part of Western India, were outside the
territories which acknowledged his sway.

There can be little doubt that, during the five years of his tutelage
under Bairam, Akbar had deeply considered the question of how to
govern India so as to unite the hearts of the princes and people
under the protecting arm of a sovereign whom they should regard as
national. The question was encumbered with difficulties. Four
centuries of the rule of Muhammadan sovereigns who had made no
attempt to cement into one bond of mutual interests the {92} various
races who inhabited the peninsula, each ruling on the principle of
temporary superiority, each falling as soon as a greater power
presented itself, had not only introduced a conviction of the
ephemeral character of the successive dynasties, and of the actual
dynasty for the time being. It had also left scattered all over the
country, from Bengal to Gujarat, a number of pretenders, offshoots of
families