Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/147

CHAP. VI.] the commencement of the second siege of Qandahar the letters become more full and frequent, and we get a detailed and most authentic account of Aurangzib's efforts at Qandahar, his feeling at his father's censure, his financial difficulties in the Deccan, the administrative problems that he handled there, the crooked ways of Mughal diplomacy with Bijapur and Golkonda, and lastly, of his hopes and fears, plans and movements during the war of succession, and his relations with his captive father. Half a century later, Sadiq of Ambala collected Qabil Khan's drafts, supplemented them with a history of the war of succession extracted from the Amal-i-Salih and the Alamgir-namah, added 131 letters which he himself had written as secretary to the luckless prince Muhammad Akbar, and published the whole to the world. In the Khuda Bakhsh MS. the collection forms a folio volume of 586 pages, of inestimable value to the historian of the epoch.

The province of Multan contained a war-like and unsettled population divided into a number