their swords and shields, and sought after that death which they all obtained."*

Advices were about this time received, that a detachment sent against the Patan chiefs of the Lodi tribes, who were still in arms in the Eastern provinces, had been defeated. Baber immediately marched in person to Kanouje, and having thrown a bridge of boats across the Ganges, passed that river in pursuit of the enemy, who, after a faint resistance, took to flight. In the following year, Sultan Mahmood Lodi again took the field, and possessed himself of Bahar. Baber advanced as far as Kurrah, on the Ganges, where Sultan Jilâleddin, of the Purab dynasty of Patans, prepared a grand entertainment for his imperial guest. Again Mahmoud's army was broken up at his approach. Baber afterwards made an extensive circuit through Bahar and Oude, and after receiving the submission of these provinces, and an embassy of peace from the Bengalese, once more returned to his capital. A few months after (Sept. 1529), his own Journal abruptly terminates. Whether he composed memoirs of the remaining fifteen months of his life, is uncertain. The state of his health, which was now rapidly declining, probably diminished his usual activity. Hûmâiûn, anxious, apparently, to be near the seat of empire, left his government of Badakshan in the charge of his brother, and set out for Agra; where, though he was neither sent for nor expected, the affections of his father and the influence of his mother procured him a good reception. After remaining for some time at court, he went to his govern

* Dow, ii. 115. Baber describes them as rushing out in a state of complete nudity, and engaging his troops with ungovernable desperation.

ment at Sambal, where, about six months after, he fell dangerously ill. Baber, deeply affected at the tidings, gave directions that he should be conveyed to Agra by water, where he safely arrived, but his life was despaired of. The sequel, as given by the Mohammedan historians, is too extraordinary to be omitted.

"When all hopes from medicine were over, and while several men of skill were talking to the Emperor of the melancholy situation of his son, Abul Baka, a personage highly venerated for his knowledge and piety, remarked to Baber, that in such a case, the Almighty had sometimes vouchsafed to receive the most valuable thing possessed by one friend, as an offering in exchange for the life of another. Baber, exclaiming that, of all things, his life was dearest to Hûmâiûn, as Hûmâiûn's was to him, and that, next to the life of Hûmâiûn, his own was what he most valued, devoted his life to heaven as a sacrifice for his son's. The noblemen around him entreated him to retract the rash vow, and, in place of the first offering, to give the diamond taken at Agra, and reckoned the most valuable on earth; (urging,) that the ancient sages had said, that it was the dearest of our worldly possessions alone, that was to be offered to heaven. But he persisted in his resolution, declaring that no stone, of whatever value, could be put in competition with his life. He three times walked round the dying prince; a solemnity similar to that used in sacrifices and heave-offerings; * and retiring, prayed earnestly to God. After some time, he was heard to

"It is customary among the Mussulmans, as it was among the Jews, to waive presents of money or jewels thrice round the head of the person to whom they are offered, on particular occasions, as on betrothings, marriages, &c. There is supposed to be something sacred in this rite, which averts misfortune."

exclaim, I have borne it away! I have borne it away!' The Mussulman historians assure us, that Hûmâiûn almost immediately began to recover, and that, in proportion as he recovered, the health and strength of Baber visibly decayed. .....With that unvarying affection for his family which he shewed in all the circumstances of his life, he strongly besought Hûmâiûn to be kind and forgiving to his brothers. Hûmâiûn promised, and, what in such circumstances is rare, kept his promise.' Baber expired at the Charbagh palace, near Agra, Dec. 26, 1530, in the forty-eighth year of his age, and the thirty-seventh of his reign as a sovereign prince. He had reigned over part of Hindustan five years. His remains were, in conformity to his own wish, carried to Caubul, and interred in a hill that still bears his name. His character is thus summed up by Mr. Erskine, the accomplished Editor of the Memoirs.

“Zahîr-ed-dîn Muhammed Baber was undoubtedly one of the most illustrious men of his age, and one of the most eminent and accomplished princes that ever adorned an Asiatic throne. He is represented as having been above the middle size, of great vigour of body, fond of all field and warlike sports, an excellent swordsman, and a skilful archer. As a proof of his bodily strength, it is mentioned, that he used to leap from one pinnacle to another of the pinnated ramparts used in the East, in his double-soled boots; and that he even frequently took a man under each arm, and went leaping along the rampart from one of the pointed pinnacles to another. Having been early trained to the conduct of business, and tutored in the school of adversity, the powers of his mind received

* Erskine's Mem, of Baber, p. 427,

their full development. He ascended the throne at the age of twelve; and before he had attained his twentieth year, the young prince had shared every variety of fortune. He had not only been the ruler of subject provinces, but had been in thraldom to his own ambitious nobles, and obliged to conceal every sentiment of his heart. He had been alternately hailed and obeyed as a conqueror and deliverer by rich and extensive kingdoms, and forced to lurk in the deserts and mountains of his own native kingdom as a houseless wanderer. Down to the last dregs of life, we perceive in him the strong feelings of an affection for his early friends and early enjoyments, rarely seen among princes. Perhaps the free manners of the Turki tribes had combined with the events of his early life, in cherishing these amiable feelings. He had betimes been taught, by the voice of events that could not lie, that he was a man dependent on the kindness and fidelity of other men; and, in dangers and escapes with his followers, had learned that he was only one of an association, whose general safety and success depended on the result of their mutual exertions in a The native benevolence and gayety of his disposition seems ever to overflow on all around him; and he talks of his mothers, his grandmothers, and sisters with some garrulity indeed, but the garrulity of a good son and a good brother. Of his companions in arms, he always speaks with the frank gayety of a soldier; and it is a relief to the reader, in the midst of the pompous coldness of Asiatic history, to find a king who can weep for days, and tell us that he wept for the playmate of his boyhood. Indeed, an uncommon portion of good nature and good humour runs through all his character; and, even to political

common cause.

offences, he will be found, in a remarkable degree, indulgent and forgiving.

"In the character of the founder of a new dynasty in one of the richest and most powerful empires on earth, we may expect to find a union of the great qualities of a statesman and a general; and Baber possessed the leading qualifications of both in a high degree. But we are not, in that age, to look for any deeply-laid or regular plans of civil polity, even in the most accomplished princes. Baber's superiority over the chiefs to whom he was opposed, arose chiefly from his active disposition and lively good sense. Ambitious as he was, and fond of conquest and of glory in all its shapes, the enterprise in which he was for the season engaged, seems to have absorbed his whole soul, and all his faculties were exerted to bring it, whatever it was, to a fortunate issue. His elastic mind was not broken by discomfiture; and few princes who have achieved such glorious conquests, have suffered more numerous or decisive defeats. His personal courage was conspicuous during his whole life; but it may be doubted, whether, in spite of his final success, he was so much entitled to the character of a great captain as of a successful partisan, and a bold adventurer. In the earlier part of his career, his armies were very small. Most of his expeditions were rather successful inroads, than skilful campaigns. But he shewed a genius and a power of observation, which, in other circumstances, would have raised him to the rank of the most accomplished commanders. As he had the sense to perceive the errors which he committed in his earlier years, so, with the superiority that belongs to a great mind, conscious of its powers, he always readily acknowledges them. His conduct during the rebellion of the Moguls at Kâbul, and the