Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/28

10 fully filled, and he slept little; "his sleep looked more like waking." He ate but one meal a day, and that in moderation, never approaching satiety. Ganges water, "cooled with saltpetre," was his drink, and it was kept sealed for fear of poison. He took meat but twice a week, and even then with repugnance, for he disliked making his body a "tomb for beasts"; but some meat he found necessary to support his fatigues. He was a man of great energy and constant occupation, capable of immense and prolonged effort, and fond of all manly exercises. He was a fine polo player and so devoted to the game that he used to play it even by night, using fireballs. The chase was his keenest delight, and he would break the tedium of the long marches of his many campaigns by hunting elephants or tigers on the way. We read of 350 elephants taken in a single day; at another time he stalked wild asses for thirty-five miles, and shot sixteen. He had names for his guns, and kept records of their performances. There were vast battues, when thousands of deer, nilgau, or Indian blue antelope, jackals, and foxes were driven by the beaters in a circle of forty miles, and the lines drawn closer and closer, till Akbar could enjoy at his ease several days' shooting and hawking with plenty of sport, and still leave a few thousand head for his followers to practise on. These battues sometimes took place by night, and there is a curious painting of the period, showing one of these nocturnal hunts with the emperor on horseback, and the game, startled by the bright flashing of a lantern, leaping as the chief