The emperor’s infantry were, at least from Akbar’s time, matchlockmen; they seem to have been the only trustworthy and efficient foot-soldiers. It would appear that their clumsy weapons, improved by Akbar himself, were not changed up to the time of Aurangzeb; for Bernier reports that in his day the muskets were rested on forks and fired by men who squatted on the ground, and who feared that the flash might damage their eyebrows and beards. On account of the method of payment it is not possible to estimate closely the number of the emperor’s cavalry, or _Mansabdars_. Men who agreed to furnish from five to five thousand troopers were taken into his service, and pay (_mansab_) was assigned for the stipulated number; but even in Akbar’s time, according to Badauni, it was possible to present followers hired only for the occasion, and yet to draw life-long pay for their services. In later years there ceased to be even approximate correspondence between the amount of pay and the number of troops furnished. The _mansab_ was then regarded as a salary, or even as a pension. The more numerous feudal cavalry consisted of the holders (with their followers) of _jagirs_, or grants, of the revenue of districts of larger or smaller size, in return for which they served without other pay, except in case of unduly prolonged campaigns. Holders of large areas were accustomed to administer them in person, whereas those who held smaller sections would often leave the administration to the governors of provinces, who in time tended to appropriate the revenues. Aurangzeb, however, pursued the policy of assigning service in regions remote from the appointee’s _jagir_, and of retaining wives and children at the court as pledges of fidelity. Hindu _Rajahs_ were easily brought into the system by being invested with analogous rights in their hereditary territories. Apart from these cases, the appointments, as in Turkey, were not regarded as hereditary, but were apt to be given to fresh recruits of ability from beyond the mountains. It was customary to make small assignments to sons of dead _Jagirdars_, and to increase their allowances upon proof of merit. _Jagirdars_ and _Rajahs_, like Timariotes and _Zaims_, had jurisdiction and other governmental duties in the areas assigned to them, and thus carried a large part of the task of local government. Ultimately many of the higher positions became hereditary in families which worked toward independence in the days of decline.