A. D. 1605
he carried so far that it had assumed the form of open revolt, from which, how-
ever, second and better thouglits induced him to desist. Another crime which
stains his memory, is the share he had in the murder of Abulfazl, who
had long been his father's favourite minister, and is still celebrated cis the his-
torian of his reign. Abulfazl was returning from the Deccan when he fell into Template:Right sidenot
an ambuscade, which Narsing Deo, Rajah of Orcha, in Bundeleund, had laid for
him, at the instigation of Prince Selim, and fell fighting valiantly. Had Akber
been aware of the share which his son had in this atrocity, he would probably
have taken effectual steps to disinherit him; since, without this additional
aggravation, the tidings so affected him that he wept bitterly, and passed two
days and nights without sleep. This first paroxysm over, he vowed revenge,
and took it by inflicting on Narsing Deo said all his race severities of which his
reign happily affords few examples.
Akber's successes in the Deccan In the south Akber's usual good fortune had attended him ; his arm.s, though not uniformly, were so generally successful, that most of the princes hastened to make their submission; and he returned to Agra in 1602, so satisfied with the result, that in a proclamation which he issued, he assumed, in addition to his other titles, that of Prince of the Deccan. While thus at the head of a mighty empire, of which he had himself been the main architect, and surrounded by a magnificence which few if any sovereigns have ever equalled, Akber, in his declining years, was far from happy. He had scarcely ceased to mourn for his second son, when his third son, Prince Daniel, whose marriage in 1604 he had celebrated with great festivities, died within a twelvemonth, the victim of his own drunken habits. But his sorrow for the dead members of his family was His domestic sorrows not so distressing as the shame and agony produced by the misconduct of the living. Selim, his only surviving son and destined successor, after a promise of reform, had sunk deeper than ever in his vicious courses, acting habitually with the caprice of a madman and the cruelty of a tyrant. A quarrel with his own son Khosroo had such an effect on that youths mother, that she destroyed herself by poison Akber, who had through life manifested the greatest decision, seems now to have hesitated as to his future arrangements. He shuddered at the thought of being succeeded by Selim, and yet in Khosroo, Selim's eldest son, he beheld the very passions which disgraced Selim himself There was a third son, Khurram He had entwined himself around the heart of his grandfather, but the fearful consequences of a disputed succession appear to have deterred him from making any destination in his favour. Amid these distressing trials and perplexities, his health began visibly to give way, and after an illness, during the last ten days of which he was confined to bed, and employed much of his time in giving good counsels to his son, he expired on the 13th of His death October, 1605. Of the sixty-four years of his life, fifty-one had been spent on the throne. He was buried near Agra, in a tomb consisting of a solid pyramid, surrounded by cloisters, galleries, and domes, and of such immense dimensions,
