Muntakhab al-tawarikh 4.4

4.4

While Himun was encamped before Bayana, the people died with the word "bread" upon their lips, and while he valued the lives of a hundred thousand men at no more than a barley-corn, he fed his five hundred elephants upon rice, sugar, and butter. The whole world was astounded and disgusted. Himun, once every day, eat with his own followers in public, and calling the Afghans to his own table, he would invite them to eat, telling them to take up large handfuls, and he would shamefully abuse any one whom he saw eating slowly, and say, "How can you with such a slender appetite expect to fight with any rascally Mughal?" As the Afghans had now nearly lost their power, they could not muster spirit enough to reply to the unclean infidel; and laying aside the bluntness and hastiness for which they are so celebrated, they consented, whether from fear of consequences or hope of reward, to swallow his foul language like so many sweetmeats, adopting the following verses as their maxim: "Place not your hands submissively on my feet; Give me only bread, and lay your slipper on my head."