Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/207

CHAP. IX.] had declined in number and resources, and the revenue had fallen off greatly.

This wretched state of things was the natural result of a succession of short viceroyalties and incompetent viceroys. Khan-i-Dauran who had succeeded Aurangzib, was murdered a year afterwards. The veteran of a hundred battles, he also worked hard at the administration, transacting public business for twelve hours a day and inspecting everything himself. But he was so pitiless in exacting money from the village headmen, so harsh in squeezing the ryots, and so rough and strict to all the people under him, that the news of his death threw them into a transport of joy and was celebrated at Burhanpur as a divine deliverance.

Islam Khan Mashhadi, a very old man incapable of riding a horse, next governed the Deccan for two years, and during this short period he estranged the Deccanis by his harsh and strict conduct and enriched himself by selling the Government stores of the forts when