they were received with great kindness by the begum, or Princess Sahib, a daughter of Aurengzebe, whose amiable attentions consoled them during many years of captivity. The emperor himself grew very fond of the noble boy, whom he married to the daughters of the two highest chiefs in his service, one of them being Scindia, an ancestor of the late distinguished prince of that name. On the occasion of these marriages, which were celebrated with great splendor, the emperor bestowed on the young bridegroom several large districts in Jaghir, and restored to him a famous sword, called bhowanee, which had belonged to his grandfather, Sevajee, and is still preserved in the country as a valued relic of that chief.

After the capture of Raighur, the regent escaped to the Carnatic, where in consequence of the captivity of his nephew, he was proclaimed raja, and the war proceeded with still greater fury than before.

The Mahrattas never engaged an enemy in the open field, but were constantly on the watch for opportunities of making unexpected attacks, and cutting off parties of stragglers; while large bands under different leaders made predatory excursions through various parts of the country, levying contributions on the inhabitants under the name of chout, which, as already mentioned, was originally a grant from Aurengzebe to Sevajee, of a portion of the rents of certain villages in the kingdom of Bijapur, but was now levied by every Mahratta chief wherever it was possible to enforce it. The habits of the soldiers, and their mode of warfare, remind us of those of the Scottish Highlanders in former times. They never encumbered themselves with baggage, nor did they use tents, but each man carried with him a coarse blanket, a bag of millet, and an empty bag for plunder. They slept on the bare earth, with their arms and horses beside them, so that they were ready at any instant to make either an attack or a retreat.

The regular armies of the Moguls, superior as they were in discipline and numbers, contended to great disadvantage against enemies whose movements were so rapid, while their own were constantly impeded by supernumerary accompaniments. Their camp-followers-consisting of women, merchants, cooks, and servants of all kinds-frequently amounted to ten times the number of soldiers; and the habit of carrying with them all the luxuries to which they were accustomed, created a necessity for a long train of elephants, oxen, camels, and wagons, all heavily laden, especially when the emperor's moveable palaces formed a part of their burden.

Raja Ram died in the year 1700, leaving two sons, Sevajee and Sambajee, the mother of the elder being the celebrated Tara Bye, a very clever woman, who for many years exercised the authority of a sovereign princess, and carried on the war with great ability against Aurengzebe during the rest of his life-not fixing her residence in any particular place, but moving about from fort to fort according to circumstances.

The emperor, although more than eighty years of age, persevered in his fruitless endeavors to crush the growing independence of the Mahratta

nation. But the empire of the Moguls was fast declining, and several of the provinces were overrun by the enemy, particularly that of Guzerat, where many villages were plundered and set on fire, and a great part of the country laid waste.

The province of Guzerat is separated from Marwar, on the northeast, by a range of mountains, in which is Abboo, or Abboo-gush, a mountain-lake,

surrounded by many ancient religious edifices, built of marble and stone. This place is held in high veneration by the Hindus, who found a safe asylum here from the persecutions of their Mohammedan conqueror, on account of the difficulty of the mountain-passes, and the ferocity of their inhabitants. Abboo is particularly rich and fertile, and abundantly produces the vegetables of the tropical as well as the northern climates. The Mohammedans destroyed the richly-sculptured temples in the plain, using the materials for erecting their mosques and cities.

In the meantime, the English, whose possessions and influence on the eastern coast of India had considerably increased, had been several times engaged in direct hostilities with the Moguls, and Aurengzebe had threatened to expel them from his dominions. They were occasionally supported by some of the rajas, from whom they obtained grants of territory, in return for aid against the imperial authority; yet the emperor was too well aware of the importance of the British trade, to make any attempt to put into execution his threat of expulsion, and even confirmed the cessions of the rajas on making peace with the English, who in 1648 obtained a grant of the three connected villages of Chutanattee, Govindpore, and Calcutta. These new

possessions being fortified, received the name of Fort William, in honor of the king of England, William III.

The death of the emperor took place in 1707. He died in his camp at Ahmednagar, at the advanced age of eighty-nine, in the fiftieth year of his reign. Aurengzebe was remarkable for the simplicity of his habits and manners, which he constantly maintained amid the splendor of the most magnificent court in the world. An English envoy, sent on a mission to Delhi about ten years before the emperor's death, on being introduced into the imperial presence, was surprised to see a little old man, with a long silvery beard, dressed in plain white muslin, standing in the midst of a group of omrahs, whose rich robes, sparkling with jewels, formed a striking contrast to the unostentatious appearance of their sovereign.

Historians have found much difficulty in forming a correct estimate of the character of this extraordinary monarch. His crimes, written in deep and legible characters, can not be concealed; while the general tenor of his life was marked by many virtues. In the administration of justice, he was assiduous and impartial; he was liable to fits of neither passion nor caprice; his charities were almost unbounded, and he usually showed much concern for the welfare of his people. Surrounded by the most ample means of licentious indulgence, of which the example had been set by the greatest of his predecessors, the habits of his private life were pure, and even austere. Our opinion of his character must be materially affected by the degree of credit that we attach to that religious profession which he maintained through life with so much apparent zeal. It is exposed to much suspicion, from the manifest exaggeration with which it was sometimes exhibited, and still more from its having been made an instrument of ambition, and even of crimes. Yet there seems to reason to believe, that—as in the case of Cromwell, whom in many respects he resembled there may have been beneath a good deal of interested and hypocritical pretension a fund of sincerity. This conclusion seems strengthened by his persecution of the Hindu religion, the imprudence of which, in a worldly point of view, was too manifest to have escaped a prince of his penetration, and, however blameable in itself, must, in the professor of a creed essentially intolerant, admit of some palliation. There seems reason to believe that, amid the greatest aberrations, his moral feelings remained strong; that though the tempest of ambition, when it arose, swept all before it, the deeds to which it prompted were afterward a subject of deep remorse. The blood of his kindred, which he had shed, seems never to have been effaced from his mind: so that, seated on the greatest throne in the world, and possessed of every quality which could support and adorn it, Aurengzebe was miserable.

CHAPTER XIV.

REIGN OF BAHADUR SHAH.

As soon as the death of Aurengzebe became known, his eldest son, who was governor of Cabul, was proclaimed emperor in that city, while his brother Azim was elevated to the imperial dignity in the camp, where he took the command of the army. The first act of the latter was to release the Mahratta prince Saho, hoping by this measure to convert the Mahrattas into friends, and obtain aid from them against his brother, who was marching from Cabul at the head of a large army, to assert his right to the throne. But the contest was speedily decided; for the two brothers met near Agra, where a battle was fought, in which Azim was slain, when his troops submitted to the conqueror, who was immediately acknowledged at Delhi, and assumed the name of Bahadur Shah.

Saho proceeded to his own country, sending letters to Tara Bye to intimate his approach, but the lady not being willing to resign her authority, affected to believe that he was an impostor, and assembled all the ministers and chief officers, from whom she exacted an oath of fidelity to her son. There were many, however, who took up the cause of the true heir, and à civil war ensued, which lasted several years, for Tara Bye would not give up the contest until she was compelled to do so by the death of her son, who was of weak intellect, and had never been able to conduct the government himself.

This event took place about five years after the return of Saho, when Tara Bye was immediately removed from the elevated position she had so long occupied, and Sambajee, the younger son of Raja Ram, was placed at the head of the state, or, more properly speaking, at the head of his party. This party was eventually overthrown by that of Saho, who had been enthroned at Satara, where he had appointed ministers, and assumed all the ensigns of royalty, his authority being acknowledged in several extensive districts. The chief supporter of Saho was a Bramin, named Balajee Wiswanat, the hereditary accountant of a village in the Concan, a man of great ability, in both civil and military affairs. His services in the war were rewarded by Saho with the office of peishwa, or prime minister, and the government was left almost entirely to his management, while the raja pursued his favorite amusements of hunting, hawking, and fishing, for which he had acquired a taste during his residence at the Mogul court.

Thus was laid the foundation of that power afterward usurped by the peishwas, who became, in time, the real sovereigns of the Mahratta empire. About this time another people began to figure in the history of India. These were the Seiks, till then known only as a religious sect, founded in

the time of the emperor Akber, by Guru Nanik, a Hindu philosopher, whose own principles were those of a deist, but whose chief doctrine was that of universal toleration.

After the death of Akber, the Seiks were persecuted by the Mohammedans, and their leader was put to death. The tyranny with which they were treated, implanted among them the deepest hatred toward the Mogul government, and the Mussulmans generally, till it became a part of their religion to destroy, to the utmost of their power, that detested race. Their original country was Lahore; but they had been expelled from that province, and had now established a sort of religious and military commonwealth among the mountains, under a chief named Govind, who, with a view of increasing the number of his subjects, abolished all distinctions of caste, so that all who entered the fraternity might eat together of the same food, and were freed from all the restrictions which the obligation of preserving the castes unmixed imposes on other Hindus. The Seiks, however, paid great respect to the Bramins, and worshipped the Hindu gods, and they scrupulously obeyed the superstitious enactment which forbids an Indian killing a cow, even to save a family from starving.

By the regulations of Govind, every chief was destined to be a soldier at his birth, or his admission into the order. Their distinguishing marks were a blue dress and long hair and beard, and every man was to carry steel about him in some shape. At that period the Seiks were violent fanatics, and carried on their war against their oppressors with a ferocity that has seldom been surpassed.

During the reign of Bahadur Shah and his immediate successors, the most horrible scenes were witnessed in the Punjab, where the inhabitants of whole towns fell victims to the relentless fury of these frenzied warriors, whose numbers were, however, insufficient to secure any permanent advantages, until a later period.

Bahadur Shah reigned only five years. His death was followed by a dispute among his sons, who all aspired to the vacant throne, which fell to the lot of the eldest, Jehandar Shah, two of his brothers having been slain in the contest.

The reign of Jehandar was brief, for scarcely was he seated on the throne, when his nephew, Farokhsir, the son of one of the princes who had lost their lives in the preceding quarrel, raised an army at Allahabad, and proceeded to Agra, where a battle was fought, in which the emperor was defeated, and being afterward betrayed into the hands of the victor, was put to death by his command.