usual custom he exposed himself to showers of bullets without once
being hit (the superstition of his soldiers considered him
invulnerable) and finally the critical shot was one in which Akbar
with his own hand laid low the brave commander of Chitor. Then the
defenders considered their cause lost, and the next night saw a
barbarous sight, peculiarly Indian in character: the so-called Jauhar
demanded his offering according to an old Rajput custom. Many great
fires gleamed weirdly in the fortress. To escape imprisonment and to
save their honor from the horrors of captivity, the women mounted the
solemnly arranged funeral pyres, while all the men, clad in saffron
hued garments, consecrated themselves to death. When the victors
entered the city on the next morning a battle began which raged until
the third evening, when there was no one left to kill. Eight thousand
warriors had fallen, besides thirty thousand inhabitants of Chitor who
had participated in the fight.

With the conquest of Chitor which I have treated at considerable
length because it ended in a typically Indian manner, the resistance
of the Rajputs broke down. After Akbar had attained his purpose he was
on the friendliest terms with the vanquished. It testifies to his
nobility of character as well as to his political wisdom that after
this complete success he not only did not celebrate a triumph, but on
the contrary proclaimed the renown of the vanquished throughout all
India by erecting before the gate of the imperial palace at Delhi two
immense stone elephants with the statues of Jaymal, the "Lion of
Chitor," and of the noble youth Pata who had performed the most heroic
deeds in the defense of Chitor. By thus honoring his conquered foes in
such a magnanimous manner Akbar found the right way to the heart of
the Rajputs. By constant bestowal of favors he gradually succeeded in
so reconciling the noble Rajputs to the loss of their independence