Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/199

Rh were covered, with immense loss in elephants, horses, and camels. Against such hardships the effeminate soldiers rebelled. They were continually crying for 'the flesh-pots of Egypt,' the comfortable tents and cookery of their cantonment at Bairampúr.

The Maráthás, on the other hand, cared nothing for luxuries: hard work and hard fare were their accustomed diet, and a cake of millet sufficed them for a meal, with perhaps an onion for 'point.' They defended a fort to the last, and then defended another fort. They were pursued from place to place, but were never daunted, and they filled up the intervals of sieges by harassing the Mughal armies, stopping convoys of supplies, and laying the country waste in the path of the enemy. There was no bringing them to a decisive engagement. It was one long series of petty victories followed by larger losses.

To narrate the events of the guerilla warfare, which filled the whole twenty years which elapsed between the conquest of Golkonda and the death of Aurangzíb, would be to write a catalogue of mountain sieges and an inventory of raids. Nothing was gained that was worth the labour; the Maráthás became increasingly objects of dread to the demoralized Mughal army; and the country, exasperated by the sufferings of a prolonged occupation by an alien and licentious soldiery, became more and more devoted to the cause of the intrepid bandits, which they identified as their own. An extract from the Muhammadan historian, Kháfí Khán, who is loth to record disaster to his sovereign's