tion of Hindus, Rajputs, Patans, and Persians, to say nothing of opponents in the Deccan, his first necessity was a standing army. He could indeed rely upon the friendly rajas to take the field with their gallant followers against the Shi'a kingdom in the Deccan or in Afghanistan, and even against their fellow Rajputs, when the imperial cause happened to coincide with their private feuds. He could trust the Persian officers in a conflict with Patans or Hindus, though never against their Shi'a co-religionists in the Deccan. But he needed a force devoted to himself alone, a body of retainers who looked to him for rank and wealth, and even for the bare means of subsistence. This he found in the species of feudal system which had been inaugurated by Akbar. He endeavoured to bind to his personal interest a body of adventurers, generally of low descent, who derived their power and affluence solely from their sovereign, who raised them to dignity or degraded them to obscurity according to his own pleasure and caprice.
The writings of European travellers are full of reference to these amirs, or "nobles," as they call them, though it must not be forgotten that the nobility was purely official, and had no necessary connection with birth or hereditary estates. In Bernier's time there were always twenty-five or thirty of the highest amirs at the court, drawing salaries estimated at the rate of one thousand to twelve thousand horse. The number in the provinces is not stated, but must have been large, besides innumerable petty vassals of less than a thousand horse, of whom there were never less than two
