18G7.] TJie Initial Coinage of Bengal 59 



more significantly shown by a reference to the additional number 

 of Mint-cities, the singular variety of new types produced, and above 

 all, by the sustained series and corroborating repetitions of annual 

 dates. It is under the latter aspect alone that I have now to com- 

 ment on the history of a reign already sufficiently told in other pages. 

 Sikandar Shah placidly succeeded his father towards the end of 759 

 A.n., and the coins of the period sufficiently support the date of such 

 a transfer of power, in the final year 758 recorded on the issues of the 

 father, though proof of the accession of the son is less marked, as 

 the seeming anomaly obtained— under the conjoint efforts of father 

 and son to achieve release from thraldom to a distant suzerain — of a 

 concession to the son of much independent power, and, coincidently, 

 the right to coin money in his own name, whether in his own camps 

 or in his father's royal cities. Though some of the earlier designed 

 coins give evidence of due humility in titular phraseology, the same 

 simplicity is adhered to, in continuous mintages, long after the 

 removal of any possible impediments or restrictions to the adoption 

 of comparatively exalted titles ; though in the more independent 

 governmental mintages of 758 A.n. (No. 21) thc^fexJi e>Ua.l~J| is affect- 

 ed even during the life-time of the father, and, after his own accession, 

 higher assumptions, and a more definite approach towards personal 

 hierarchical honors, are discovered in the metropolitan issues of 76#- 

 780 (No. 22), while special service against the infidels seems to be 

 implied in the novel intitulation of *JJ| 1^-c^I^aIaJi " The conqueror of 

 the enemies of God," on the Fin'izabad money of 769 a.h. (No. 23). 



But the most interesting details furnished by Sikandar's coins are 

 those which illustrate the geographical distribution of the chief seats 

 of government. Unlike the Northern Moslems, who, in the difficulty 

 of moving the Eastern hosts — conventionally deemed essential to an 

 Imperial progress — over the imperfect highways of Hindustan, con- 

 fined themselves ordinarily to one fixed metropolis, the kings of 

 Bengal enjoyed facilities of river communication almost unprecedented : 

 their various capitals, situated within easy distance of one another, 

 were at all times accessible by water, — a differently constructed 

 State barge secured at any season free approach to the seaboard 

 cities of the Great Ganges or the towns on the narrow channels of 

 the western streams. These frequent regal visitations are incidentally 



