Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/139

132 severest defeat the Mughal troops had ever experienced. To repair it, the Emperor despatched his best commander, Rájá Todar Mall, supported by Rájá Mán Singh, of Jaipur. Those generals manœuvred with great caution, supporting their advance by stockades, and eventually completely defeated the tribes in the Khaibar Pass.

Meanwhile, the expedition sent against Kashmír had been but a degree more successful. The commanders of it had reached the Pass of Shuliyas, and had found it blockaded by the Musalmán ruler of the country. They waited for supplies for some days, but the rain and snow came on, and before they could move there came the news of the defeat inflicted by the Yusufzais. This deprived them of what remained to them of nerve, and they hastened to make peace with the ruler of Kashmír, on the condition of his becoming a nominal tributary, and then returned to Akbar. The Emperor testified his sense of their want of enterprise by according to them a very cold reception, and forbidding them to appear at court. But the mind of Akbar could not long harbour resentment, and he soon forgave them.

Of the three expeditions, that against the Balúchís alone was immediately successful. Those hardy warriors submitted without resistance to the Mughal Emperor. As soon as the efforts of Todar Mall and Mán Singh had opened the Khaibar Pass, Akbar appointed the latter, the nephew and heir to the Jaipur Rájá, to be Governor of Kábul, and went