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(not including Bengal) "into forty-seven districts, and to tave appointed proper officers for the Government and protection of each. To restore and to open the communication between the different parts of his dominions, and in order to facilitate the safe and easy transmission of intelligence, he built a line of sardes or hostelries at short distances on the whole road from the further extremity of Bengal to the Indus through the These saraes were open to strangers of entire length of his empire. every rank and religion, and were entrusted to servants who, at the public expense, furnished travellers with water and victuals as they arrived. Every sarae had a post-house, and this system of post-houses was extended over the principal roads in his dominions. On each side of the grand roads were planted rows of mango and other fruit trees, affording both shelter and refreshment to the tired and thirsty passenger ; and wells supported by solid masonry, were dug at short distances. At all the chief halting places he built mosques, and provided for them an adequate establishment of imams, muazzans and other servants. He appears also The police, which he to have made provision for the indigent sick. So safe were the highways that the established, was strict and vigilant. most helpless person might carry a basin of gold, and sleep in the open country without need of a watchman" (Erskine II, 442). " He established a law that the muqaddams of the villages where any traveller was robbed should be subject to fine, and for fear of its infliction the zamindars used to patrol the roads at night" (Note, page 458, Cowell's Elphinstone). The revenue reforms of Akbar and Todar Mai are believed to have been modelled on these of Sher Khan, who " was intimately acquainted with the revenue and agricultural system of India a knowledge without which no ruler of that country, whatever 'his abilities may be, can hope to do justice to his subjects" (Erskine II, page 442).
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SalimShah (1545-1553) displayed the same administrative "The qanungos, who keep the revenue accounts
ability as his
of parganas, he employed to watch over and report on the condition of the ryots and the state of the cultivation of the soil, on the crops, and the extent of He preserved all lands granted for religious or offences and crime. He kept up his father's saraes in their charitable purposes inviolate. father.
whole extent, and the distribution of food to travellers, and for that purpose In addition carefully protected all the lands that had been given to them. he ordered a sarae to be built between each two of his father's adding a mosque, a reader, a well, and a water-carrier to each. He also gave the post-houses so many additional horses as to enable them to convey intelligence with increased speed from place to place. He appropriated to himself the whole revenues of his kingdom, instead of scattering them by assigna" Circular tions, and paid his soldiers wholly in money" (pp., 472, 474). orders were issued through the proper channels to every district, touching on matters religious, political, or revenue, in aU their most minute bearings, and containing rules and regulations which concerned not only the army, These but cultivators, merchants, and persons of other professions." matters belong more properly to the history of India ; other facts concerning Bilgram are found under Hardoi. The family of the Sayyads prospered durmg the reign of the bigot A'lamgir, and in A. D. 1677, 1088 H., one of them, Muhammad Fazil, conquered pargana Bawan and received from
