y affected by his own movements, or by the
movements of his armies. With the object of carrying out this
principle, he ordered that when a particular plot of ground was
decided upon as an encampment, orderlies should be posted to protect
the cultivated ground in its vicinity. He further appointed assessors
whose duty it should be to examine the encamping ground after the
army had left it, and to place the amount of any damage done against
the government claim for revenue. The historian of the
Tabakat-i-Akbari adds that this practice became a rule in all his
campaigns; 'and sometimes even bags of money were given to these
{117} inspectors, so that they might at once estimate and satisfy the
claims of the raiyats and farmers, and obviate any interference with
the revenue collectors.' This plan, which is in all essentials the
plan of the western people who virtually succeeded to the Mughal,
deprived war of its horrors for the people over whose territories it
was necessary to march.

Whilst Akbar is paying a visit of twelve days' duration to the tomb
of the saint at Ajmere, it is advisable that we examine for a moment
the position of affairs in Behar and Bengal.

The Afghan king of Bengal and Behar, who sat upon the joint throne at
the time of the Mughal re-conquest of the North-western Provinces,
had after a time acknowledged upon paper the suzerainty of Akbar. But
it was, and it had remained a mere paper acknowledgment. He had paid
no tribute, and he had rendered no homage. During the second
expedition of Akbar to Gujarat this prince had died. His son and
immediate successor had been promptly murdered by his nobles, and
these, constituting only a fraction, though a powerful fraction, of
the court, had raised a younger brother, Daud Khan, to the throne.
But Daud was a man who cared only for pleasure, and his accession was
the cause of the revolt of a powerful nobleman of the Lodi family,
who, raising his standard in the fort of Rohtasgarh, in the Shahabad
district of Behar, declared his independence. A peace, however, was
patched up between them, and Daud, taking {118} advantage of this,
and of the trust reposed in him by the Lodi nobleman, caused the
latter to be seized and put to death. As soon as this intelligence
reached the Mughal governor of Jaunpur, that nobleman, who had been
directed by Akbar to keep a sharp eye on the affairs of Behar, and to
act as circumstances might dictate, crossed the Karamnasa, and
march