Protected by the capable men who upheld Akbar, the royal ladies had not again to flee before foes or to suffer violent change of fortune. Humāyūn had planned their journey from Kābul to India. Akbar more than once in his first year of rule had to cancel the orders he had given to effect it. Three military affairs disturbed the plan,—the suppression of the revolt of Abū'l-ma'ālī, the operations against Sikandar Afghān, and the encounter with Hīmū at Pānīpat. At length amīrs were named to escort the ladies from Kābul. The officers set out, but on their march received orders to act first against Sulaimān Mīrzā, who, on hearing of Humāyūn's death, had come over from Badakhshān to besiege Kābul. This was the first of a series of his attempts on the city, to which he laid fanciful claim as head of the house of Tīmūr after Humāyūn. The approach of the imperial troops broke up his siege, and his claim having been accommodated by reading his name once in the khuba at Kābul, he went home and left the ladies free to start.

They made their journey in time to arrive during the first quarter of 1557 near where lay the royal camp, at Mānkot, in the western Sewāliks. The Emperor came a stage from it to meet them, and was ‘much comforted by the reunion.’ With Ḥamīda-bānū Begam, to whom, as Empress-mother, the chief place must be assigned, were Gul-badan, Gul-chihra, Ḥājī, and Salīma Begams. There was also a large company of officers' wives.

Perhaps the ladies remained near the camp until it broke up and went to Lāhōr. It left that city on its march for Dihlī on December 7th, 1557; at Jalindhar it halted, and here, with pomp and amidst general interest, Bairām Khān-i-khānān married Salīma Sulān Begam, a grand­daughter of Bābar. She was a half-niece of Humāyūn, and she had with Akbar cousinship of the ‘four-anna’ degree. Bābar was their common ancestor, and their differing grandmothers diluted the cousinly relation.

This alliance had been arranged by Humāyūn, and the use of sipurdan by Abū'l-faẓl when writing of it, shows that what was now celebrated was a marriage, and not a betrothal. This point is mentioned here because some writers fix Salīma's age at this time as five, an estimate which is not supported by known facts of her life. The bride was probably a reward for the surpassing services done by Bairām for Humāyūn, the newest being those of the Resto­ration. Bairām was a man to whom seems due the largesse of the hand of a king's daughter; he out-topped his con­temporaries by his full stature in capacity, culture, faithful­ness, and character. Salīma,* though much his junior, was in other respects a fit wife for him. She was an educated woman; ranks amongst verse-makers so completely as to have a pen-name (takhallas), and stands out gently, by birth, character, and attainments.

Khiẓr Khwāja Khān had gone to Hindūstān with Humāyūn in 1554, and early in 1556 had been appointed by Akbar to the government of Lāhōr. He was left to carry on operations against Sikandar Afghān when Akbar was called away by Hīmū's movements, and he was defeated. The few words said about him give the impression that he was not a good soldier, and he is never again named in responsible command. The slight things recorded of him point to subsequent comfortable existence at court as the ‘husband of the Emperor's aunt, Gul-badan Begam.’ Once he made a gift of horses to Akbar; in 1563 he helped to nurse Akbar when the latter was wounded in Dihlī; and there is no record of his death. He was raised to high military rank, and at some time was amīru-l-umara', but the Āīn-i-akbarī does not place him in its list of manṣabdārs. He stands twelfth in the general list of the abaqāt, and amongst the chiefs of 5,000.

From her coming to India in 1557 to the time of her pilgrimage in 1574, our princess is not mentioned by the historians. The interval held much of deep interest to her and to others of her generation whose lives were slipping away under the safeguarding of Akbar. Some survivors of an older day, witnesses of Bairām's fidelity to Humāyūn, must have felt his downfall keenly. Ḥamīda can hardly have been ignorant of the intrigue which brought this about, because she was related to the chief actors in it,— Māham anaga, Adham Khān, and Shihābu-d-dīn Aḥmad Nishāpūrī. The last was governor of Dihlī, where she lived, and part of the scheme to separate Akbar from Bairām took him to Dihlī to see her, and thus under the eye of Shihāb. Ḥamīda must have had clear in memory the truly valid services done for her husband by Bairām during the Persian exile. The plot had its nucleus in a sayyid circle and in families religious by inheritance, and it was carried out at the point of the tongue. Muḥammad Bāqī Khān kūka, the anaga's elder son, does not appear as taking part in it. He served the Emperor till 1584, rose to be a chief of 3,000, and of his character nothing is known. His younger brother, Adham, although put to death in 1562, had become chief of 5,000. All that is said of him is bad, and he, like his mother, was fluent in detrac­tion and did all in his power to poison the mind of Akbar against the worthiest of his amīrs.

Many comments have been made upon Māham anaga, both by the Persian writers and by their European com­mentators. Abū'l-faẓl calls her a cupola of chastity, and it is now possible to wipe from her reputation the stain suggested by Professor Blochmann when writing of the parentage of Adham. She was wife of Nadīm Khān kūka, a faithful servant of Humāyūn. This fragment of useful information was brought to light by Mr. Beveridge, who found it in a MS. of Colonel Hanna, which may yield other valuable matter on quasi-domestic points. Māham anaga may be granted the praise she deserves as a nurse who earned the affection of Akbar to the end of her life; she is entitled to such praise as belongs to a mother who screens a son's every fault and pushes his fortunes with all her influence. She must take the dispraise of not pushing her elder son's as she did Adham's. Bāyazīd bīyāt speaks of her as kind to him, and tells little stories which show her the centre of small affairs. I have not discerned in her any sign of talent. Whatever influence Akbar's affection gave her would be strengthened by her connection with his mother, and perhaps, too, with other women who were de­scended from Aḥmad Jāmī. Amongst these was Ḥājī Begam, Humāyūn's widow and a person much regarded by the Emperor.

In the year following Bairām's death, Adham Khān, who, says the abaqāt, held a place higher than the other courtiers because he was his mother's son, was on duty in Mālwa against Bāz Bahādur Sūr. Incidents resulted which emphasize regret that for such as the actors in them Bairām had had to make way. Māham anaga was de facto prime minister; Mu'nim Khān had been made Khān-i-khānān , and it was looked for by his friend the anaga that he should become prime minister de jure. Bāz Bahādur was defeated and fled from Sārangpūr. Aping the Hindūs, he had ordered his servants to kill the women of his household in the event of his defeat. Several had been so killed, many had been wounded, when the sacrifice was inter­rupted by the imperialists under Adham. Badāyunī says that there followed slaughter by Adham and his colleague, Pīr Muḥammad Khān, of terrible extent, and his own eyes saw that these two regarded God's creation in mankind as leeks, cucumbers, and radishes,—a quaint turn of words which covers awful butchery. When remonstrated with in the name of the law, the murderers asked what was to be done with so many prisoners.

If the order for the death of the women of Bāz Bahādur's household had issued from a Rājpūt heart, there would have been no need for executioners while he was in flight. The victims were, however, not Rājpūtnīs, and they suffered only to gratify the vanity of a Moslim. Amongst those wounded was Rūp-matī, a dancing-girl renowned through­out Hindūstān for beauty, singing, and poetic gifts. Her name seems that of a Hindū. Her wounds, inflicted by Bāz Bahādur's order, were severe and she wished to die. Adham let her know that, if she would care for herself, he would send her to her master when she could travel. She took his promise as true, had her wounds dressed and re­covered. When she claimed fulfilment of Adham's word, she was told to consider herself as his slave. He entered her room, raised her veil, and saw her dead by her own act.