[Footnote 16:  Noer, I, 224-226]

[Illustration:  VIEW OF FATHPUR]

Bihari Mal was a prince of the small Rajput state Ambir, and possessed sufficient political comprehension to understand after Akbar’s first great successes that his own insignificant power and the nearness of Delhi made it advisable to voluntarily recognize the Emperor as his liege lord.  Therefore he came with son, grandson and retainers to swear allegiance to Akbar.  Upon his arrival at the imperial camp before Delhi, a most surprising sight met his eyes.  Men were running in every direction, fleeing wildly before a raging elephant who wrought destruction to everything that came within his reach.  Upon the neck of this enraged brute sat a young man in perfect calmness belaboring the animal’s head with the iron prong which is used universally in India for guiding elephants.  The Rajputs sprang from their horses and came up perfectly unconcerned to observe the interesting spectacle, and broke out in loud applause when the conquered elephant knelt down in exhaustion.  The young man sprang from its back and cordially greeted the Rajput princes (who now for the first time recognized Akbar in the elephant-tamer) bidding them welcome to his red imperial tent.  From this occurrence dates the friendship of the two men.  In later years Bihari Mai’s son and grandson occupied high places in the imperial service, and Akbar married a daughter of the Rajput chief who became the mother of his son and successor Selim, afterwards the Emperor Jehangir.  Later on Akbar received a number of other Rajput women in his harem.

Not all of Akbar’s relations to the Rajputs however were of such a friendly kind.  As his grandfather Baber before him, he had many bitter battles with them, for no other Indian people had opposed him so vigorously as they.  Their domain blocked the way to the south, and from their rugged mountains and strongly fortified cities the Rajputs harassed the surrounding country by many invasions and destroyed order, commerce and communication quite after the manner of the German robber barons of the Middle Ages.  Their overthrow was accordingly a public necessity.

The most powerful of these Rajput chiefs was the Prince of Mewar who had particularly attracted the attention of the Emperor by his support of the rebels.  The control of Mewar rested upon the possession of the fortress Chitor which was built on a monstrous cliff one hundred and twenty meters high, rising abruptly from the plain and was equipped with every means of defence that could be contrived by the military skill of that time for an incomparably strong bulwark.  On the plain at its summit which measured over twelve kilometers in circumference a city well supplied with water lay within the fortification walls.  There an experienced general, Jaymal, “the Lion of Chitor,” was in command.  I have not time to relate the particulars of the siege, the laying of ditches and mines and the uninterrupted battles