Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/29

Rh shikar, or huntsman, draws his bow. Akbar had also mechanical genius. He devised a new method of making gun-barrels of spirally rolled iron, which could not burst; he invented a machine which cleaned sixteen barrels at once, another by which seventeen guns could be fired simultaneously with one match, and there were many more things that he improved by his talent for invention.

THE DAULAT BAGH, AJMIR.

Nothing seemed to fatigue Akbar. He is said to have ridden from Ajmir to Agra, a distance of 240 miles, in a day and a night, and even if (with some authorities) we double the time, it is still wonderful travelling, and one is not surprised to read that he often exhausted his horses when pushing on night and day at breakneck speed. He liked to see a good fight, too, and one day at Thanesar he chanced upon a curious spectacle. It was the annual festival, and there was a vast crowd beside the sacred lake; the holy men were gathering a rich harvest in charity, when the