f the Emperor permeate through every town and every
province, and yet not sufficiently centralising to kill local
traditions, local customs, local habits of thought,--that was a task
his grandfather had never attempted; which, to his father, would have
seemed an impossibility, even if it had occurred or {79} had been
presented to him. Yet, in their schemes, the absence of such a
programme had left the empire conquered on the morrow of the Panipat
of 1526, an empire without root in the soil, dependent absolutely on
continued military success; liable to be overthrown by the first
strong gust; not one whit more stable than the empires of the
Ghaznivides, the Ghors, the Khiljis, the Tughlaks, the Saiyids, the
Lodis, which had preceded it. That it was not more stable was proved
by the ease with which the empire founded by Babar succumbed, in the
succeeding reign, to the attacks of Sher Shah. It may be admitted
that if Babar had been immortal he might possibly have beaten back
Sher Shah. But that admission serves to prove my argument. Babar was
a very able general. So likewise was Sher Khan. Humayun was flighty,
versatile, and unpractical; as a general of but small account. It is
possible that the Sher Khan who triumphed over Humayun might have
been beaten by Babar. But that only proves that the system introduced
by Babar was the system to which he had been accustomed all his
life--the system which had alternately lost and won for him Ferghana
and Samarkand; which had given him Kabul, and, a few years later,
India; the system of the rule of the strongest. Nowhere, neither in
Ferghana, nor in Samarkand, nor in Kabul, nor in the Punjab, nor in
India, had it shot down any roots. It was in fact impossible it could
do so, for it possessed no germinating power.

{80} And now, at the close of 1556, the empire won and lost and won
again was in the hands of a boy, reared in the school of adversity
and trial, one month over fourteen years.[1] Panipat had given him
India. Young as he was, he had seen much of affairs. He had been
constantly consulted by his father: he had undergone a practical
military education under Bairam, the first commander of the day: he
had governed the Punjab for over six months. But it was as an
administrator as well as a conqueror that he was now about to be
tried. In that respect neither the example of his father, nor the
precepts of Bairam, could influence him for good. So far as can be
known, he had already