Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/19

 CriKASS. MADE OF HIDE COVERED WITH VELVET, AND STUDDED WITH NAILS. CHAPTER I THE UNITED EMPIEE AKBAR THE GREAT 1556-1605 A. D. THE long reign of Akbar, which lasted from 1556 to 1605, has been represented as the golden age of the Moghul empire. It was in reality but the beginning of the period of splendour which ended with the disas- trous wars of Aurangzib. Akbar was the true founder and organizer of the empire, but it is too often forgotten that it took him twenty years of hard fighting to bring Hindustan under subjection, and that even at his death i