As the army was the defence and prop of the Mogul government, so finance was its sustenance. Here again the regulations of the Sacred Law were but scantily observed. Akbar, aided by Todar Mal and extending the methods of the Afghan Sher Shah, reduced to order and regularity the existing revenue system, which in the course of centuries of varying rule had become much confused. By ancient custom of India, the sovereign as primary owner of the land was entitled to one-third of the crops in kind. It was Akbar’s task to change the system to a more modern money régime, a step in progress which the Ottomans have not been able to take even to the present day. In classical times as in late years, India, importing less of other commodities than she exported, steadily absorbed gold and silver. It is likely that a large share of the wealth of the newly-discovered Americas had already by Akbar’s day made its way to India through the increasing Portuguese trade, and that Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro thus unwittingly gave him the means of modernizing his land revenue. Several great tasks were involved in the change. All the cultivated land of India had to be measured, its quality judged, its average annual produce for the first nineteen years of Akbar’s reign calculated, and the amount of the government’s share for each tract reduced to current money. At first, it was attempted to renew the settlement annually; but, since this proved very difficult in a large and conservative land, a ten-year basis was eventually adopted. When the British came to power they found the revenue in a state of confusion which indicated that at some time during the Mogul period the evaluation had ceased to be made regularly, modifications of the last assessment having then been introduced successively, until all system had disappeared.