in a few days stormed the fortress. Having
secured the submission of the country he marched rapidly eastward,
joined his defeated generals near Kanauj, threw a bridge across the
Ganges near that place, drove the enemy--the remnant of the Lodi
party--before him, re-occupied Lucknow, crossed the Gumti and the
Gogra, and forced the dispirited foe to disperse. He then returned to
Agra to resume the threads of the administration he was arranging.

[Footnote 4: Rana Sanga was severely wounded, and the choicest
chieftains of his army were slain. The Rana died the same year at
Baswa on the frontiers of Mewat.]

But he was not allowed time to remain quiet. The {43} old Muhammadan
party in Jaunpur had never been effectively subdued. The rich kingdom
of Behar, adjoining that of Jaunpur, had, up to this time, been
unassailed. And now the Muhammadan nobles of both districts combined
to place in the hands of a prince of the house of Lodi--the same who
had aided Sanga Rana against Babar--the chief authority in the united
kingdom. The conspiracy had been conducted with so much secrecy that
the result of it only reached Babar on the 1st of February, 1529. He
was then at Dholpur, a place which he greatly affected, engaged with
his nobles in laying out gardens, and otherwise improving and
beautifying the place. That very day he returned to Agra, and taking
with him such troops as he had at hand, marched the day following to
join his son Askari's army, then at Dakdaki, a village near Karra,[5]
on the right bank of the Ganges. He reached that place on the 27th,
and found Askari's army on the opposite bank of the river. He at once
directed that prince to conform his movements on the left bank to
those of his own on the right.

[Footnote 5: Karra is now in ruins. It is in the tahsil or district
of the same name in the Allahabad division. In the times of Babar and
Akbar it was very prosperous.]

The news which reached Babar here was not of a nature to console. The
enemy, to the number of a hundred thousand, had rallied round the
standard of Mahmud Lodi; whilst one of his own generals, Sher Khan,
whom he had distinguished by marks of his favour, had joined the
insurgents and had {44} occupied Benares with his division. Mahmud
Lodi was besieging Chanar, twenty-six miles from the sacred city.

Babar immediately advanced, compelled Mahmud Lodi to raise the siege
of Chanar, forced Sher Khan to evacuate Benares and re-cross the
Ganges, and, cr