~J 
he reached his advanced troops at Paitun, the whole, Ferishta 
states, did not exceed 3,000 men. They had marched four 
hundred and fifty miles in nine days. With this small force the 
Emperor marched direct on Ahmedabad, ordering the royal kettle- 
drums to beat as he approached the enemy’s camp. Mahomed 
Hoosein Mirza, the king’s cousin, one of the rebels, rode out to 
reconnoitre, and perceiving one of the Emperor’s officers examining 
the ford, asked whose army was approaching, and was told it was 
Akber in person. “Impossible!” he exclaimed, “it is only 
fourteen days since one of my spies saw him at Agra.” “It is 
only nine days since he marched,” was the reply. I need not 
linger on the details of the battle which ensued ; but it resulted in 
a complete victory for the Emperor. 
HIS INTERNAL POLICY. 
But it is to his internal policy that Akber owes his place in that 
highest order of princes, whose reigns have been a blessing to 
mankind; and that policy shows itself in different shapes, as it 
affects religion or civil government. The most remarkable quality 
in Akber was his religious toleration. When we remember the 
age in which he lived, and that at that date Europe was divided 
into hostile religious camps, whose only anxiety was to burn one 
another; and that not one man in power and authority, had will 
or power to protest against such a spirit—what Akber accom- 
plished was most remarkable. Surrounded by fierce fanaticism, 
he succeeded in establishing perfect religious equality and freedom 
throughout his vast dominions. Some of his ablest ministers were 
Hindoos, and the path to honour and promotion was open to all 
who possessed merit. Though Akber escaped, his friend and 
minister, Abul Fazl, fell by an assassin’s hand. The Emperor was 
spared the bitter pang of knowing in his lifetime that the assassin- 
ation of his friend was instigated by his own son Selim. The 
latter, afterwards the Emperor Jehanger, has placed the matter 
beyond doubt by confessing it at length in his own memoirs, and 
defending it on the ground that Abul Fazl had persuaded Akber 
to renounce the Koran, and to deny the divine mission of 
Mahomet. 
