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158 hold as much ground as his camp and cities covered, but the rest of the Deccan was in the hands of the Marathas.

Aurangzib's plan seems to have been, first, to cut off the Marathas' funds by exterminating the kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur, which paid blackmail to the brigands; and then to ferret the "mountain rats" out of their holes. The first part of his programme was the less difficult. The old Deccan kingdoms were in no condition to offer serious resistance to Aurangzib's grand army. They might have been annexed long before, but for the selfish indolence of the Moghul generals. The Bijapuris indeed resorted to their usual tactics, laying waste all the country round the capital till the Moghul army was half-famished, and then hovering about its flanks and harassing its movements with a pertinacity worthy of Sivaji himself. In August, 1685, however, Aurangzib in person took command of the siege. Under his searching eye the work of intrenching and mining round the six miles of ramparts went on heartily. A close blockade was established, and at last, after more than a year's labour, Bijapur was starved out in November, 1686. The old capital of the Adil Shahs, once full of splendid palaces, became the home of the owl and jackal. It stands yet, a melancholy, silent ruin. Its beautiful mosques still raise their minarets above the stone walls, which are even now so inviolate that one might fancy he gazed upon a living city. Within, all is solitude and desolation. The "Visiapur" which astounded so many travellers by its wealth and magnifi-