A History of Agriculture in India v2.c73.s2: Akbar's Camp
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c73.s2
- Language
- English
Akbar's Camp
v2.c73.s2.1
Akbar's camp equipage consisted of tents and portable houses, in an enclosure formed by a high wall of canvas screens, and containing great halls for public receptions, apartments for feasting, galleries for exercise, and chambers for retirement; all framed of the most costly materials, and adapted to the most luxurious enjoyment.
v2.c73.s2.2
‘The enclosure was 1,530 yards square (1,279 m²). The tents and wall were of various colours and patterns within, but all red on the outside, and crowned with gilded globes and pinnacles, forming a sort of castle in the midst of the camp. The camp itself showed like a beautiful city of tents, of many colours, disposed in streets without the least disorder, covering a space of about five miles (8 km) across, and affording a glorious spectacle seen at once from a height.
v2.c73.s2.3
‘The greatest displays of his grandeur were at the annual feasts of the vernal equinox, and the king’s birthday. They lasted for several days, during which there was a general fair and many processions and other pompous shows. The king’s usual place was in a rich tent, in the midst of awnings to keep off the sun. At least two acres (0.8 ha) were thus spread with silk and gold carpets and hangings, as rich as velvet, embroidered with gold, pearl, and precious stones could make them. The nobility had similar pavilions, where they received visits from each other, and sometimes from the king; dresses, jewels, horses, and elephants were bestowed on the nobility; the king was weighed in golden scales against silver, gold, perfumes, and other substances in succession, which were distributed among the spectators. Almonds and other fruits, of gold and silver, were scattered by the king’s own hand, and eagerly caught up by the courtiers, though of little intrinsic value. On the great day of each festival, the king was seated on his throne, in a marble palace, surrounded by nobles wearing high heron plumes and “sparkling with diamonds like the firmament.” Many hundred elephants passed before him in companies, all most richly adorned, and the leading elephant of each company with gold plates on its head and breast, set with rubies and emeralds.
v2.c73.s2.4
‘Trains of caparisoned horses followed; and, after them, rhinoceroses, lions, tigers, and panthers, hunting leopards, hounds, and hawks; the whole concluding with an innumerable host of cavalry glittering with cloth of gold.
v2.c73.s2.5
‘In the midst of all this splendour, Akbar appeared with as much simplicity as dignity. He is thus described by two European eye-witnesses: “After remarking that he had less show or state than other Asiatic princes, they say, that ‘he is affable and majestical, merciful and severe’; that he is skilful in mechanical arts, as ‘making guns, casting ordinance, etc.; of sparing diet, sleeps but three hours a day, curiously industrious, affable to the vulgar, seeming to grace them and their presents with more respective ceremonies than the grandees; loved and feared of his own, terrible to his enemies’.”’¹
v2.c73.s2.6
¹ Elphinstone, Hon. M. *The History of India—the Hindu and Mahometan Periods*, pp. 548-549