Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/113

106 foot to the mausoleum of the first Muhammadan saint of India, Ma'inu-i-din Chisti of Sijistan, on the summit of the hill of Ajmere. He had not then emancipated himself from his early training. He remained ten days at Ajmere, and returned thence to Agra by way of Mewát.

Akbar spent the spring and rainy season at Agra. He then designed the conquest of the strong fortress of Rantambhor in Jaipur, but whilst the army he had raised for this purpose was on its march, disturbances in Gujarát, followed by an invasion of Central India from that side, compelled Akbar to divert his troops to meet that danger. He then decided to march in person with another army against Rantambhor. This he did early in the following year (1569). As soon as he had compelled the surrender of the fortress, he returned to Agra, stopping on the way a week at Ajmere, to visit once again the mausoleum of the saint.

This year he founded Fatehpur-Síkrí, the magnificent ruins of which compel, in the present day, the admiration of the traveller. The story is thus told by the author of the Tabakat. After stating that Akbar had had two sons, twins, neither of whom had lived, he goes on to say that Shaikh Salím Chisti, who resided at Sikri, twenty-two miles to the south-west of Agra, had promised him a son who should survive. Full of the hope of the fulfilment of this promise, Akbar, after his return from Rantambhor, had paid the saint several visits, remaining there ten to twenty days on each