Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/124

Rh inspectors, so that they might at once estimate and satisfy the claims of the raiyats and farmers, and obviate any interference with the revenue collectors.' This plan, which is in all essentials the plan of the western people who virtually succeeded to the Mughal, deprived war of its horrors for the people over whose territories it was necessary to march.

Whilst Akbar is paying a visit of twelve days' duration to the tomb of the saint at Ajmere, it is advisable that we examine for a moment the position of affairs in Behar and Bengal.

The Afghán king of Bengal and Behar, who sat upon the joint throne at the time of the Mughal re-conquest of the North-western Provinces, had after a time acknowledged upon paper the suzerainty of Akbar. But it was, and it had remained a mere paper acknowledgment. He had paid no tribute, and he had rendered no homage. During the second expedition of Akbar to Gujarát this prince had died. His son and immediate successor had been promptly murdered by his nobles, and these, constituting only a fraction, though a powerful fraction, of the court, had raised a younger brother, Dáúd Khán, to the throne. But Dáúd was a man who cared only for pleasure, and his accession was the cause of the revolt of a powerful nobleman of the Lodí family, who, raising his standard in the fort of Rohtásgarh, in the Shahábád district of Behar, declared his independence. A peace, however, was patched up between them^ and Dáúd, taking ad-