adopted a
tinge of weakness. At any rate, he soon had reason to feel that his
concessions to his rebellious son had produced no good effect. For
Salim, whose memory was excellent, and whose hatred was insatiable,
took the opportunity of the return of Abulfazl from the Deccan, but
slightly attended, to instigate the Raja of Orchha to waylay and
murder him.[6]

[Footnote 6: Prince Salim justifies, in his _Memoirs_, the murder on
the ground that Abulfazl had been the chief instigator of Akbar in
his religious aberrations, as he regarded them. To the last he
treated the Raja of Orchha with the greatest consideration.]

The murder of his friend was a heavy blow to Akbar. Happily he never
knew the share his son had in that atrocious deed. Believing that the
Raja of Orchha was the sole culprit, he despatched a force against
him. The guilty Raja fled to the jungles, and succeeded in avoiding
capture, until the death of Akbar rendered unnecessary his attempts
to conceal himself. A reconciliation with Salim followed, and {140}
the Emperor once more despatched his eldest son to put down the
disturbances in Mewar. These disturbances, it may be mentioned, were
caused by the continued refusal of Rana Partap Singh to submit to the
Mughal. After his defeat at Huldighat in 1576, that prince had fled
to the jungles, closely followed by the imperial army. Fortune
continued so adverse to him that after a series of reverses,
unrelieved by one success, he resolved, with his family and trusting
friends, to abandon Mewar, and found another kingdom on the Indus. He
had already set out, when the unexampled devotion of his minister
placed in his hands the means of continuing the contest, and he
determined to try one more campaign. Turning upon his adversaries,
rendered careless by continued success, he smote them in the hinder
part, and, in 1586, had recovered all Mewar, the fortress of Chitor
and Mandalgarh excepted. Cut off from Chitor, he had established a
new capital at Udaipur, a place which subsequently gave its name to
his principality. When he died, in 1597, he was still holding his
own. He was succeeded by his son, Amra Rana, who, at the time at
which we have arrived, was bidding defiance, in Mewar, to all the
efforts of the imperial troops (1603).

Prince Salim had a great opportunity. The forces placed at his
disposal were considerable enough, if energetically employed, to
complete the conquest of Mewar, but he displayed so little