Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/173

 THE NEW CAPITAL A FAILURE 139 The ill-considered plan had failed: Daulatabad was a monument of misdirected energy. The long road, a forty days' journey, between Delhi and the new capital, laid out with infinite care, bordered with trees all the way like an avenue in a park, with frequent inns and rest-houses, only beckoned the exiles home. The Sultan, who had the wisdom to recognize his failure, ordered the people back to Delhi, but few survived to return. He imported " learned men and gentlemen, traders and landholders " from the country to repopulate the de- serted capital; but they did not flourish, and it was long before Delhi recovered its prosperity. Ibn Batuta found the great suburbs sparsely occupied, and the city still seemed almost deserted. It is but just to the Sultan to admit that he did his best to remedy some of his mistakes. If he could not repeople Delhi at a stroke with the rapidity with which he had emptied it, he did much to mitigate the distress caused by famine and excessive taxation. He abolished (in 1341) all taxes beyond the legal alms and the government tithes, and himself sat twice a week to receive the complaints of the oppressed. He dis- tributed daily food to all the people of Delhi for six months in a time of scarcity, and he organized an excellent system of government loans to agriculturists which would have been of great service but for the dishonesty of the overseers. To meet the heavy drain upon the treasury he made his famous experiment of a token currency, possibly taking the idea from the paper money issued by Khubilai Khan in China or