India Through the Ages Part 22

He thought once that he had hit on a marvellous febrifuge--the translation of religious tracts into verse!--and he records with interest how one bout ended before he had finished his task; but the effect was not lasting. Still, nothing crippled his extraordinary energy, and so late as March 1529 he writes in his diary:

"I swam across the Ganges for amus.e.m.e.nt. I counted my strokes, and found that I swam over in thirty-three; then I took my breath and swam back. I had crossed by swimming every river I met, except (till then) the Ganges."

He was very happy, apparently, in these days. India was at peace under stern military control. At Agra, where he had settled, beautiful gardens were growing up, in which flourished many a flower he had loved in the wild adventurous days of his youth. Nor did he confine himself to old favourites. We read of a wonderful red oleander, unlike all other oleanders, which he found in an ancient garden at Gwalior.

His old love of Nature, too, finds expression in a detailed account of the fauna and flora of his new possessions.

Finally, he was happy in his domestic relations. In the Memoirs of his daughter, Gulbadan, we read of the joyful evening when news came to him that the long-expected caravan from Kabul was within six miles of the city, when, without waiting for a horse, bareheaded, in slipper-shoon, he had run out to meet his "Dearest-dear," had met her, and walked the weary miles along the dusty road beside her palanquin.

In Babar's Memoirs this stands in a single sentence, pregnant with meaning:--

"On Sunday at midnight I met Mahum again"--

Mahum being the pet name for the wife who had borne him the three daughters whom he loved so well, the son Humayon of whom he was so proud.

Concerning the latter he writes:--

"I was just talking to his mother about him when in he came" (from Badakhshan). "His presence opened our hearts like rosebuds, and made our eyes s.h.i.+ne like torches. The truth is, that his conversation has an inexpressible charm, he realises absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood."

Brave words these; but Babar was ready to stand by them to the death.

The story is a strange one, but it is well authenticated. In October A.D. 1530 Humayon was brought back to Agra, sick. The physicians despaired of his life, the learned doctors declared that nothing could save him save the Mercy of G.o.d, and suggested some supreme sacrifice.

Babar caught at the idea. "I can give my life," he said, "it is the dearest thing I have, and it is the dearest thing on earth to my son."

And in spite of remonstrance--the learned doctors having apparently intended a present to G.o.d (through them!) of money or jewels--he adhered to his decision. He entered his son's room, he stood at the head of the bed in prayer, then walked round it three times, solemnly saying the while: "On me be thy suffering."

Was it the extreme nervous, tension acting on a const.i.tution weakened by fever, by hards.h.i.+ps of every kind, which made his prayer effectual?

Who can say? Certain it is that he died in his forty-ninth year, and Humayon lived on to die at the same age.

Babar, by his own request, was buried beside his mother in the Garden of the New Year at Kabul. He rests there within hearing of the running streams, within sight of the tulips and roses which he so dearly loved, for which he had so often longed with a "deep home-sickness and sense of exile."

So the most romantic figure of Indian history vanishes from our ken.

THE GREAT MOGHULS

HUMaYON

A.D. 1530 TO A.D. 1556

Humayon was practically the only son of his father. There can be no doubt that Babar regarded Mahum, the mother of the four children of whom he was so pa.s.sionately fond, Humayon, Rose-blush, Rose-face, Rose-body, from a different standpoint from his other wives, of whom he seems to have had four. This, however, did not prevent there being three other princes, Kamran, Hindal, and askari, in the direct line of succession. Apparently they must have been somewhat troublesome before Babar's death, since one of his last words to his beloved heir was the hope that kindness and forgiveness should ever be shown to them. And right well did Humayon keep his promise. Had he been less affectionate, less tender-hearted, he had been a better and a more successful king. His patience was early tried. Almost before the deep and sincere mourning for the kindly dead, which Lady Rose-body describes in her Memoirs, was over, he had to decide between fraternal war and Kamran's claim to supremacy in the Punjab. He chose the latter, an initial mistake which cost him dear. There must, indeed, have been some impression abroad that the new king had less fibre than his father, for from the very first Humayon found himself enmeshed in a perfect network of revolt and conspiracy. He was now a young man of three-and-twenty, tall, extremely handsome, witty, and of the most charming manners. Unfortunately, he had already contracted the opium habit, which, though as yet it had not set its mark on his vitality, undoubtedly disposed him to be more easy-going than even Nature had intended him to be; and that is saying much, for his sweetness of temper is surprising. His whole life appears to have been spent in forgiving injuries which, by all the rules of justice and expediency, he should not have forgiven. Succeeding to his father in A.D. 1530, he was instantly engaged in war--fruitless war. Brave to a fault, not without intelligence, something always seemed to stand between him and success. The story of his failure to relieve Chitore is typical of him. Its widowed Rani, in sore straits to save it for her infant son from the hands of Bahadur-Shah, King of Guzerat (one of the many kings who s.n.a.t.c.hed at every opportunity of enlarging their borders), sent a Ram-Rukhi, or Bracelet-of-the-Brother, to Humayon. Now this Brother-Bracelet is in Rajasthan what a lady's glove was to chivalry.

Only in greater degree, for the recipient becomes a brother--a bracelet-bound brother. There is no value in the pledge. It is generally a thin silk cord, to which are attached seven differently-coloured ta.s.sels; but once given and accepted by the return of a tiny silken bodice, called a _kachli_, it is an inviolable tie. In her extremity Kurnatavi sent hers to Humayon, whose fame as a puissant knight had reached her ears. He was enchanted with the romance of the idea, and instantly left the campaign on which he was engaged to go to her rescue.

And then? Then he dallied. Then he became involved in a wordy, witty, pedantic war in verse with Bahadur-Shah, in which much point was laid on the resemblance of the name Chitore to some other word; in the midst of which the city fell, and suffered yet one more sack.

But the most memorable event of the early years of his reign was, however, the siege of Chunar, where he found himself first matched against the man who was eventually for a time to wrest his kingdom from him, and send him out a wanderer on the face of the earth for twelve long years.

This siege, which Humayon felt compelled to carry through before marching on Bengal, was in reality a deep-laid plan of the rebel Sher-Khan. It was a method--often adopted in modern warfare, but until then unheard of in the East--of holding up his enemy's forces until such time as he had consolidated his own powers. It answered admirably. The rock of Chunar, detached outpost of the Vindhya mountains which frowns over the Ganges, engaged all Humayon's attention for months, and when, after reducing it, he pushed on, Sher-Khan once more met brute-force by guile, and leading Humayon on, left him to stew for the rainy season in the delta of the Ganges, a prey to flood and fever, while he himself looked down on him from the low hills of Northern Berars. It was a bitter beating! A prey to mosquitoes, to malaria, it was with difficulty that Humayon's troops managed to preserve their communications with their base. Every tank was a lake, every brook a river. Their spirits sank, and no sooner were the roads opened than they deserted in hundreds; Prince Hindal--who, despite the virtue of being nearly always faithful to his brother, appears to have been of little good to him--setting the example by leaving ere the rains had stopped.

So when the dry season brought the possibility of campaign, Humayon had no choice but to retreat from the now daily increasing boldness of his enemy, and try to force his way back to Agra. In this he was stopped by the river Ganges, which it was necessary to cross in order to avoid an entrenched camp which he could neither pa.s.s nor hope to reduce.

The bridge of boats took close on two months to complete, and then, a night or two before retreat became possible, the imperial camp was surprised about daybreak by the watchful enemy. It must have been a very complete surprise, for the emperor himself had only time to mount his horse, and after a vain appeal to his officers for one effort at least to repel the attack, accept their advice and ride for his life to the river-side. The bridge was not finished, there was no time for hesitation, so Humayon urged his horse into the stream. It sank ere it could reach the sh.o.r.e, and the emperor would undoubtedly have done so likewise, but for the intervention of a water-carrier who was crossing with his skin bag, inflated with air, doing duty as a float.

It proved enough to support two; Humayon's life was saved, but his queen was left in Sher-Shah's hands. The whole story has a smack of opium about it, and it seems more than probable that the young king, roused out of a drugged sleep, had not his wits about him. Nothing else can explain the fact of Babar's son running like a hare, and leaving his womenkind behind him. His wife appears, however, not to have suffered thereby in any way, not even in her affection for her handsome, thriftless king, for it was she, a childless widow, who after his death erected the splendid mausoleum at Delhi which bears his name.

There is also something of opium in the promise which Humayon made to the water-carrier, that _if_ he came to Agra, and _if_ he found Humayon alive, he might, as a reward, claim to be king for a day.

He did come, so we are told, and for a day sate on the throne of the Emperor of India. Humayon, always fond of a joke, made merry over this one, and had prime fun in cutting up the water-carrier's skin bag into wads (which were duly stamped as coin in the mint), and in other merry antics, for he was light-hearted like his father. Nevertheless, the jest cost him dear, for it drew down on him the wrath of his sour brother Kamran, who always nourished the secret belief--not an unfounded one--that he would have made a better king than his brother.

This, however, was after Humayon's generous condonation of both his brothers' grievous faults, and should have closed their lips from criticism. For both Kamran and Hindal, seizing the opportunity of this disaster, claimed the throne, and marching on Agra from different sides, fell out over the question, until recalled to a sense of their common danger from the Bengal enemy.

Then the three royal brothers made friends, Humayon, as ever, eager to clasp hands with those of whom he used to say: "How can I quarrel with them? Are they not monuments of my dear, dead father?"

Practically this defeat on the banks of the Ganges was Humayon's Waterloo. He held his head above water for a while, attempted another campaign next year, lost once more on the banks of the Ganges near Kanauj, and was, with his army, absolutely driven into the river.

Thence he escaped with difficulty, and but for the timely aid of two turbans knotted and thrown out to him, would undoubtedly have been drowned under the high bank which was too steep for his elephant to climb. Joined by his brothers Hindal and askari, he fled to Agra, thence with his women and part of his treasures to Delhi, and so, gathering what he could at the latter place, to Lah.o.r.e. But he was no welcome guest to Kamran, who, fearing to be embroiled in the quarrel with Sher-Shah, withdrew to Kabul, leaving Humayon helpless. He turned then to Sinde as a refuge, and after two and a half years of many adventures, found himself a mere wanderer in the desert.

It was, then, at the lowest ebb of fortune, that Fate interfered to make him--which is, indeed, his only real claim to remembrance--the father of the greatest king India has ever known.

The story is romantic in the extreme. His brother Hindal was over the Indus-water, in the rich province of Sehwan, and Humayon, who from bitter experience had reason to doubt the former's loyalty, was keeping an eye on his proceedings. He therefore crossed the river for an interview at the town of Patar. He found Hindal in the midst of festivities; for what purpose history sayeth not, but from what followed it seems likely that it was preparatory to a marriage. His mother, at any rate, gave an entertainment to all the ladies of the court, and at this Humayon saw, and instantly fell in love with, a girl of sixteen, called Hamida-Begum. Hearing she was not as yet betrothed, he instantly said he would marry her. Then ensued a violent quarrel between the brothers, from which it seems likely that Humayon's fancy had chosen the bride-elect. The girl wept at both brothers. They stormed; but finally Hindal's mother counselled her son to yield, and the thirty-eight-year-old Humayon carried off the prize.

Their honeymoon cannot have been cloudless, for they spent it in danger of their lives; but Humayon must from his temperament have been a most beguiling bridegroom, and the little bride's tears soon dried.

She followed him bravely, early in the next year, through the Great Desert of India, where horse and man nearly died of thirst.

That ceaseless marching from fresh enemies by day and night must have been a terrible experience for the young wife, soon to become a mother; but she had at least the consolation of her husband's deep, absorbing devotion. Once when her palfrey fell never to rise again, the king put her on his charger, and walked beside her bridle rein all through the long, weary night-march. The stars must have looked down kindly on them as they toiled along, hand fast in hand.

It is a pretty picture, anyhow. So, after unheard-of miseries, they gained the quaint, stern old fort of Amarkot, which rises bare and square out of the desert sand. One can imagine that August day, with the parching wind beating the fine, sharp sand of the desert against the purple-stained bricks, and grinding them to grey frostiness.

Here the Pathan chatelain, taking pity on the outwearied princess, offered her asylum. Humayon, however, must go on; there was no rest, no shelter for such as he. It was four days after the sorrowful parting that a courier rode post-haste after the wanderer, telling him that a son was born to him-his first, his only son. There was no gold in the camp to give the messenger. All of regal pomp that could be found was a bag of musk, and this the proud father broke upon an earthenware platter, and distributed to his followers as a royal present in honour of "an event which diffused its fragrance over the whole habitable world."

One historian gives a somewhat different version of the birth of Akbar. In it he was born under a tree in the desert, and the little sixteen-year-old mother wept with fear at the hard-featured village midwife summoned hastily to her aid, then flung her arms round her and cried for joy when the boy-baby was put into her young arms. Within a month she and the child were back sharing her lover-husband's danger.

It increased day by day, hour by hour. When the young Akbar was but a year old, it reached its climax. Compelled to quit Sinde, Humayon, his wife and child with him, and some half a dozen followers, was on his way to Kandahar, when news came that his brother askari was marching against him in force. There was nothing for it but swift, immediate flight. But the weather was boisterous, the only safe road almost impa.s.sable.

How about the child? Rapidly calculating chances, they decided on leaving the infant prince behind them. What tears, what forebodings must not have been miserable Hamida's--what vain kisses and strainings to her heart!

But when askari entered the little camp, the deed was done. The baby Akbar was there regal in his nurse's arms, with all his equipage, all his poor mockery of state and service about him, but the two fugitives were riding hard for the Persian frontier.

Humayon had lost all things, even his fatherhood.