Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/23

 grandson, Akbar, that the Mogul empire became firmly founded.

Akbar the Great, whose long reign roughly coincides with that of our Queen Elizabeth, was rarely enlightened for an Oriental despot. By a policy of religious toleration, he won over the Hindoo princes, while he reduced the independent Mohamedan chiefs under his authority, and did much towards welding Northern India into a powerful union of provinces, ruled through his lieutenants. His less wise heirs, cursed by self-indulgent luxury and by family discords, added to the splendour rather than to the strength of this dominion. Its last famous reign was that of Aurungzebe, covering the second half of the seventeenth century. A bigoted Mohamedan, he alienated the Hindoos by persecution, while he spent many years in conquering the independent Moslem kings of the south, only to ripen the decay of his vast empire. After his death, it began to go to pieces like that of Alexander the Great. His feeble successors dwindled into puppets in the hands of one or another artful minister. Their satraps at a distance, under various titles, asserted a practical autocracy. And now had sprung up a new Hindoo power, the warlike hordes of the Mahrattas, whose great leader Sivajee, from his