Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/201

Rh They carried off the imperial elephants within hail of the cantonments, and even shut the Emperor up in his own trenches, so that 'not a single person durst venture out of the camp .'

The marvellous thing about this wearisome campaign of twenty years is the way in which the brave old Emperor endured its many hardships and disappointments.

'He was nearly sixty-five when he crossed the Narbada to begin on this long war, and had attained his eighty-first year before he quitted his cantonment at Bairampúr [to make his last grand sweep over the Maráthá country]. The fatigues of marches and sieges were little suited to such an age; and in spite of the display of luxury in his camp equipage, he suffered hardships that would have tried the constitution of a younger man. While he was yet at Bairampúr, a sudden flood of the Bhíma overwhelmed his cantonment in the darkness of the night, and during the violence of one of those falls of rain which are only seen in tropical climates: a great portion of the cantonment was swept away, and the rest laid under water; the alarm and confusion increased the evil: 12,000 persons are said to have perished, and horses, camels, and cattle without number. The Emperor himself was in danger, the inundation rising over the elevated spot which he occupied, when it was arrested (as his courtiers averred) by the efficacy of his prayers. A similar disaster was produced by the descent of a torrent during the siege of Parlí; and, indeed, the storms of that inclement region must have exposed him to many sufferings during the numerous rainy seasons he spent within it. The impassable streams, the flooded valleys, the miry bottoms, and narrow ways, caused