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NOVEMBER, 1899.]
HISTORY OF THE BAHMANI DYNASTY.
281
Gujarat; but for several stages, owing to the difficulties of the road and the thickness of the jungle, it is hardly practicable.
Verse.
The earth is more waterless than brimstore,
The wind more heart-burning than hell."
As a matter of necessity Sultan Mahmûd chose that route for the passage of his army, and said: "The difficulty of the route is easier than throwing one's solf into the jaws of destruction."
Turning aside from the direction of Daulatabad, which was the route of the Gujarât ariny, he inarched with as much speed as possible towards Akot. When the tyrannical army entered that valley and desert of which the chief of the Gonds had told them, owing to the numbers of the army and the length and narrowness of the road, the hot winds and the scarcity of fresh water, the troops were excessively distressed; and in the first march five or six thousand of them died of thirst. A band of Gonds who were robbers on that road, when they saw the sufferings of the army from want of water, took the opportunity to plunder them from front and rear and right and left. The remainder of the army, after encountering a thousand difficulties and dangers, had managed half dead to reach Karan.15
Notwithstanding the trouble and torment suffered by the army of Sultan Mahmûd from want of water on the first march, immediately upon hearing this news, being in terror of their lives they started on, sometimes rising and sometimes falling. It is stated on reliable authority that on that march a cup of water was sold for two rupees, and was thought very cheap at the price. The truth is that since the designs of Sultan Mahmûd were not accommodated to propriety and rectitude towards mankind no result but disaster and reverse of fortune accrued to him from that improper and unfair movement. From the seed of trouble and tyranny which he had sown he neither saw nor gathered any fruit but regret and affliction, On the second stage of his march he lost a great number of men; and those who escaped death were so knocked up by the fatigue of the journey that they would have preferred death to life. Mahmûd Khilji, who was himself the originator of his own anpraiseworthy movement, put to death the chief of Gondwarah whom he suspected of purposely misleading them, though he had graphically decribed the difficulties of the route.
After the flight of Mahmûd Khilji, Sultan Nizam Shah wrote and sent to Sultan Mahmûd Gujarati a letter thanking him for his kindness,10
A year after this Sultan Mahmud Khilji again took it into his head to wage war, and with nearly 90,000 cavalry he set out towards the Dakḥan. When Sultan Nizam Shah heard of this he assembled his army and unfurled his standard for the purpose of repelling the aggression; and at the same time despatched a letter to Sultan Mahmud of Gujarat informing him of the enemy's invasion. When the ruler of Gujarât was informed of the boldness of Mahmûd Khilji he at once prepared to oppose him.
Mahmûd Khilji through fear of him shrank from the encounter, and halted on the frontiers of Devagiri (Daulatâbâd), where he contemplated his own territory with a look of reflection and anxiety, thinking that perhaps the flood of destruction might surround him, and there might be no opportunity for retreat by the way he had come. When he was assured of the approach of the army of Gujarât, like a gnat which flies from the sound of the wind he beat the drum of return, and hastened away.
When Sultan Nizam Shah became aware of the flight of his enemy he wrote the following letter to Sultan Mahmûd Gujarati:- 17
15 This is probably meant for Karanja, Lat. 20° 29′ N., Long. 77° 32′ E.
16 The letter occupies a page and a half of the MS., and being written in extremely ornate style, and inter spersed with Arabic quotations, the reader will probably thank me for omitting it.
17 The greater portion of this letter is omitted for the same reason as the other.
