e highest degree of prosperity up to that time. Bengal was
not only tranquil, but furnished moneys to the imperial exchequer.
The ruler of Mewar was still being hunted by the imperial troops, but
in no other part of India was the sound of arms heard.

In the course of his journeys Akbar had noticed how the imposition of
inland tolls, justifiable so long as the several provinces of
Hindustan were governed by rival rulers, tended only, now that so
many provinces were under one head, to perpetuate differences. Early
in 1581, then, he abolished the tamgha, or inland tolls, throughout
his dominions. The same edict proclaimed likewise the abolition of
the jizya, a capitation tax imposed by the Afghan rulers of India
upon those subjects who did not follow the faith of Muhammad. It was
the Emperor's noble intention that thought should be free; that every
one of his subjects should worship after his own fashion and
according to his own convictions, and he carried out this principle
to the end of his days. The most important political event of the
year was the rebellion of a body of disaffected nobles in Bengal.
Acting without much cohesion they were defeated and dispersed.

{127} The year following, 1582, Akbar marched at the head of an army
to the Punjab to repulse an invasion made from Kabul by his own
brother, Muhammad Hakim Mirza. The rebel brother had arrived close to
Lahore before Akbar had reached Panipat. The news, however, of the
march of Akbar produced upon him the conviction that his invasion
must miscarry. He accordingly retreated from Lahore, and fell back on
Kabul. Akbar followed him by way of Sirhind, Kalanaur, and Rotas;
then crossed the Indus at the point where Attock now stands, giving,
as he crossed the river, instructions for the erection of a fortress
at that place.

He advanced on to Peshawar, and pushed forward a division of his army
under his son, Prince Murad, to recover Kabul. Murad was a young man,
tall and thin, with a livid complexion, but much given to drink, from
the effects of which he and his brother, Prince Danyal, eventually
died. Marching very rapidly, he encountered the army of his uncle at
Khurd-Kabul and totally defeated him. Akbar had followed him with a
supporting army, and entered Kabul three days after him. There he
remained three weeks, then, having pardoned his brother and
re-bestowed upon him the government of Kabul, he returned by way of
the Khaibar to Lahore, settled the governm