Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/169

 Chap. V[.]

REIGN OF AKBER.

135

ill C'al)(Kil atul Cash- luere.

to take possession of Cabool. In this he found no difficulty; but he immediately a.u. i5s7 after undertook another task, which brought him into collision with tribes of a more warlike character than he had previously encountered, and called for his Aki^rt

. 1 1 • canii)aigns

utmost skill and pi'owess. Cashmere, with its beautiiui valley, tempted his ambition, and he resolved to make a conquest of it. The circumstances were ftivourable ; for dissensions liad broken out in the reigning family, and the whole kingdom was torn asunder by contentling factions. But the facilities for con- <piest thus afforded were greatly counteracted by the physical features of the country. It lies embosomed among lofty mountain chains, and is accessible only through perilous pavSses. At first Akber, then at Attock, was contented to

AiTouK, from West Bank of the Gauges. —Viguu's Visit to Olnixui

send forward a detachment of his armv. It succeeded in i)enetratin<; throu-'h a pass which had not been guarded ; but a threatened want of provisions, and the sudden setting in of winter with a heavy fiiU of snow, so intimidated the officers in command that they hastily concluded a treaty by which Cashmere nominally acknowledged the Mogul su]>remacy, but was left, in every other respect, in full possession of its former independence.

This treaty was utterly at variance with AkV)er's views; and he therefore not only refused to ratify it, but, in the following year (1587), sent a second mvading army, the commander of which, by dexterously availing himself of the intestine dissensions, was admitted within the pas.ses without a struggle, and afterwards made an easy conquest. The king, having been captured, was enrolled among the nobles of Delhi, and sent to live on a domain a.s.sirnu'd him in Behar. Cashmere, rob1)ed of its indo])endence, which it had maintained for nearly 1000 years, became merely a ilogul ])rovince.

The struggles in this quarter were not yet over; for Akber's ambitjon extended t,o the subiuixation, not nierelv of Ca.shmere, but of the Af'dian mountain districts which encircle the plain of Peshawer. The most powerful of the Afghan tribes in this direction were the Yoo.soofzyes or Eusofzeis, who possessed the northern part of the Peshawer plain, and the mountain terraces which rise above it and stretch back to the snowv ridires of the Hindoo Koosh.

Cashmere eoiHUierwl.

Campaign against tlio Ysfzyes and Rosb- iiyes.