ce, could not but strengthen the system which was giving
peace and prosperity to their country, honour and consideration to
themselves.

It was in the beginning of the thirty-first year of his reign that
Akbar heard of the death of his brother at Kabul, and that the
frontier province of Badakshan had been overrun by the Uzbeks, who
also threatened Kabul. The situation was grave, and such as, he
concluded, imperatively required his own presence. Accordingly, in
the middle of November, he set out with an army for the Punjab,
reached the Sutlej at the end of the following month, and marched
straight to Rawal Pindi. Learning there that affairs at Kabul were
likely to take a direction favourable to his interests, he marched to
his new fort of Attock, despatched thence one force under Bhagwan Das
to conquer Kashmir, another to chastise the Baluchis, and a third to
move against Swat. Of these three expeditions, the last met with
disaster. The Yusufzais not only repulsed the first attack of the
Mughals, but when reinforcements, sent by Akbar under his special
favourite, Raja Birbal, joined the attacking party, they too were
driven back with a loss of 8,000 men, amongst whom was the Raja.[3]
It was the {132} severest defeat the Mughal troops had ever
experienced. To repair it, the Emperor despatched his best commander,
Raja Todar Mall, supported by Raja Man Singh, of Jaipur. These
generals manoeuvred with great caution, supporting their advance by
stockades, and eventually completely defeated the tribes in the
Khaibar Pass.

[Footnote 3: Raja Birbal was a Brahman, a poet, and a skilful
musician. He was noted for his liberality and his _bonhomie_. 'His
short verses, bon mots, and jokes,' writes Blochmann (_Ain-i-Akbari_,
p. 405) 'are still in the mouths of the people of Hindustan.']

Meanwhile, the expedition sent against Kashmir had been but a degree
more successful. The commanders of it had reached the Pass of
Shuliyas, and had found it blockaded by the Musalman ruler of the
country. They waited for supplies for some days, but the rain and
snow came on, and before they could move there came the news of the
defeat inflicted by the Yusufzais. This deprived them of what
remained to them of nerve, and they hastened to make peace with the
ruler of Kashmir, on the condition of his becoming a nominal
tributary, and then returned to Akbar. The Emperor testified his
sense of their want of enterprise by according to them a very cold