command of the army. He little thought that he should never see Delhi again; that after twenty-six years of stubborn warfare he should die among the ruins of his hopes in the land where he had first held government. Forty-five years before, in 1636, he had come to Khándésh a youthful devotee of seventeen. As a man in the prime of life, he had gone near to conquering the coveted kingdoms (1656). And now at the age of sixty-three he resumed his old work with all his former energy. He could not foresee that a quarter of a century later, a weary old man on the verge of ninety, he would still be there, still fighting the same foe, still enduring the same fatigues and exerting the same iron will, till the worn out frame at last gave way, and the indomitable soul fled to its rest.
The Emperor's first step was to endeavour to strike awe into the Maráthás by sending his sons, the Princes Mu'azzam and A'zam, to scour the country. It was useless proceeding. The Maráthás offered no opposition, and left their rugged country to punish the invaders. Prince Mu'azzam accordingly marched through the whole Konkan, and laid it waste, and when he reached the end he found that he had hardly a horse fit to carry him, and that his men were marching afoot, half-starving. The enemy had cut down the grass, so that no fodder could be obtained: the Mughal troopers 'had no food but cocoa-nuts, and the grain called kúdún, which acted like poison upon them. Great numbers of men and horses died. Those who escaped death dragged on a half-existence, and with
