Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/206

176 and is pointed out to travellers as the Alamgiri Mahal.

Years afterwards, when he returned to the Deccan in 1682, a wall four miles long was built round the city by his order to protect it from Maratha raids. The work cost three lakhs of rupees and was completed in four months through the active exertions of Dianat Khan Khafi. The city has undergone much change at the hands of the Nizams whose first capital it was, and of their French officers who lived here with almost regal authority.

We now turn to his public life during these five years.

Since Aurangzib had laid down the vice- royalty of the Deccan in May 1644, the Mughal administration there had not prospered. True, the country enjoyed unwonted repose after a half century of war with Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golkonda. True, there was no disturbance of public peace by invasion from across the frontier, and no expedition against refractory feudatories. But agriculture had not been promoted, the peasantry had not been cherished, and new lands had not been brought under tillage. On the contrary, much cultivated soil had lapsed into the jungle, the cultivators