beasts,
as well as of the human inhabitants. In the intervals between his
battles, or between his rollicking drinking parties, which for some
years of his life degenerated into drunken orgies, we often find Babar
lost in admiration of some beautiful landscape, or collecting flowers
and planting fruit trees. Wherever he came, Babar's first care was
to dig wells and plant fruit and flower gardens. India owes much to
the Great Moguls' love of horticulture.

When Babar had drilled his unruly Afghan subjects into something
like order, he made, in 1506, one more unsuccessful attempt to crush
Shaibani. However, in 1510, when that doughty warrior was defeated and
slain by Ismail, Shah of Persia, Samarkand fell once more into Babar's
hands, as a vassal of the Shah. Eight months afterwards he was driven
out again. From that time Babar gave up all hopes of re-establishing
the empire of his ancestor Timur, and turned his face towards India. In
1519 he gathered an army for his first expedition, which was, however,
more of a reconnaissance than a conquest. Four more attempts he made,
until at last, in 1526, with only 10,000 men, he defeated the hosts
of Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Afghan kings of Delhi, who, with
15,000 of his troops, were left dead on the field of Panipat.

Thus, after many struggles, Babar became "master and conqueror of the
mighty empire of Hindustan," but he had to fight two more great battles
before his sovereignty was undisputed--one in 1527 near Fatehpur
Sikri, with the great chief of the Rajputs, Raja Sanga of Chitore,
and another in 1529 near Buxar, with the Afghans who had settled in
Bengal. The next year Babar died in his garden palace at Agra The
nobility of his character was conspicuous in his death as it was
in his life. He was devotedly attached to his eldest son, Humayun,
who was seized with malarial fever while staying at his country
estate at Sambhal. Babar had him removed by boat to Agra, but his
physicians declared that the case was hopeless. Babar's own health had
suffered much during his life in India, and he was terribly agitated
by the news. When some one suggested that in such circumstances the
Almighty sometimes deigned to accept the thing most valued by one
friend in exchange for the life of another, Babar exclaimed that
of all things his life was dearest to Humayun, as Humayun's was to
him. He would sacrifice his own life to save his son. His courtiers
entreated him to give up instead