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124 the guests ever went empty away. The building was completed by the end of the year.

The following year was uneventful, but the year 1577 was marked by that rebellion in Orissa under Dáúd of which I have already spoken. The campaign was stirring whilst it lasted, but the death of Dáúd and his uncle put an end to it.

This year, likewise, there was trouble in Rájpútána. Alone of all the sovereigns of the territories known by that name, the Ráná of Mewár had refused the matrimonial alliance offered to his female relatives by Akbar. Descended, as he believed, from the immortal gods, he regarded such an alliance as a degradation. He refused it then, whilst he was yet struggling for existence. He refused it, though he saw the Rájpút prince whom he most hated, the Rájá of Jodhpur, enriched, in consequence of his compliance, by the acquisition of four districts, yielding an ample revenue. He remained obdurate, defying the power of Akbar. Ráná Udai Singh had in 1568 lost his capital, and had fled to the jungles of Rajpípla, and there had died in 1572.

His son, Partáp Singh, inherited all his obstinacy, and many of the noble qualities of his grandfather, the famous Sanga Ráná. Without a capital, without resources, his kindred and clansmen dispirited by the reverses of his house, yet sympathising with him in his refusal to ally himself with a Muhammadan, Partáp Singh had established himself at Kombalmír, in the Arávallis, and had endeavoured to organise the country for a renewed struggle. Some infor-