Thus far I have been guided mainly by the memoirs of the illustrious man whose achievements I have briefly recorded. There is but little more to tell. Shortly after his return from his victorious campaign in Behar his health began to decline. The fact could not be concealed, and an account of it reached his eldest son, Humáyún, then Governor of Badakshán. That prince, making over his government to his brother, Hindal, hastened to Agra. He arrived there early in 1530, was most affectionately received, and by his sprightly wit and genial manners, made many friends. He had been there but six months when he was attacked by a serious illness. When the illness was at its height, and the life of the young prince was despaired of, an incident occurred which shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the unselfishness and affection of Bábar. It is thus related in the supplemental chapter to the Memoirs.6
6 This chapter was added by the translators. The same circumstance is related also by Mr. Erskine in his Bábar and Humáyún.
'When all hopes from medicine were over, and whilst several men of skill were talking to the Emperor of the melancholy situation of his son, Abul Báká, a personage highly venerated for his knowledge and piety, remarked to Bábar that in such a case the Almighty had sometimes vouchsafed to receive the most valuable thing possessed by one friend, as an offering in exchange for the life of another. Bábar exclaimed that, of all things, his life was dearest to Humáyún, as Humáyún's was to him; that his life, therefore, he most cheerfully devoted as a sacrifice for that of his son; and prayed the Most High to vouchsafe to accept it.' Vainly did his courtiers remonstrate. He persisted, we are told, in his resolution; walked thrice round the dying prince, a solemnity similar to that used by the Muhammadans in sacrifices, and, retiring, prayed earnestly. After a time he was heard to exclaim: 'I have borne it away! I have borne it away!' The Musalmán historians relate that almost from that moment Humáyún began to recover and the strength of Bábar began proportionately to decay. He lingered on to the end of the year 1530. On the 26th December he restored his soul to his Maker, in his palace of the Chárbágh, near Agra, in the forty-ninth year of his age. His remains were, in accordance with his dying request, conveyed to Kábul, where they were interred in a lovely spot, about a mile from the city.
Amongst the famous conquerors of the world Bábar will always occupy a very high place. His character created his career. Inheriting but the shadow of a small kingdom in Central Asia, he died master of the territories lying between the Karamnásá and the Oxus, and those between the Narbadá and the Himálayas. His nature was a joyous nature. Generous, confiding, always hopeful, he managed to attract the affection of all with whom he came in contact. He was keenly sensitive to all that was beautiful in nature; had cultivated his own remarkable talents to a degree quite unusual in the age in which he lived; and was gifted with strong affections and a very vivid imagination. He loved war and glory, but he did not neglect the arts of peace. He made it a duty to inquire into the condition of the races whom he subdued and to devise for them ameliorating measures. He was fond of gardening, of architecture, of music, and he was no mean poet. But the greatest glory of his character was that attributed to him by one who knew him well, and who thus recorded his opinion in Taríkhí Reshídí. 'Of all his qualities,' wrote Haidar Mirzá, 'his generosity and humanity took the lead.' Though he lived long enough only to conquer and not long enough to consolidate, the task of conquering could hardly have been committed to hands more pure.
Bábar left four sons: Muhammad Humáyún Mirzá, who succeeded him, born April 5, 1508: Kámrán Mirzá, Hindal Mirzá, and Askarí Mirzá. Before his death he had introduced Humáyún to a specially convened council of ministers as his successor, and had given him his dying injunctions. The points upon which he had specially laid stress were: the conscientious discharge of duties to God and man; the honest and assiduous administration of justice; the seasoning of punishment to the guilty with the extension of tenderness and mercy to the ignorant and penitent, with protection to the poor and defenceless; he besought Humáyún, moreover, to deal kindly and affectionately towards his brothers.
Thus died, in the flower of his manhood, the illustrious chief who introduced the Mughal dynasty into India; who, conquering the provinces of the North-west and some districts in the centre of the peninsula, acquired for that dynasty the prescriptive right to claim them as its own. He had many great qualities. But, in Hindustán, he had had neither the time nor the opportunity to introduce into the provinces he had conquered such a system of administration as would weld the parts theretofore separate into one homogeneous whole. It may be doubted whether, great as he was, he possessed to a high degree the genius of constructive legislation. Nowhere had he given any signs of it. In Kábul and in Hindustán alike, he had pursued the policy of the conquerors who had preceded him, that of bestowing conquered provinces and districts on adherents, to be governed by them in direct responsibility to himself, each according to his own plan. Thus it happened that when he died the provinces in India which acknowledged him as master were bound together by that tie alone. Agra had nothing in common with Lucknow; Delhi with Jaunpur. Heavy tolls marked the divisions of territories, inhabited by races of different origin, who were only bound together by the sovereignty of Bábar over all. He bequeathed to his son, Humáyún, then, a congeries of territories uncemented by any bond of union or of common interest, except that which had been concentrated in his life. In a word, when he died, the Mughal dynasty, like the Muhammadan dynasties which had preceded it, had shot down no roots into the soil of Hindustán.