Muntakhab al-tawarikh 64.7

64.7

Himun thereupon, making that fortress the centre of his operations, attacked it continuously every day, subjecting the fort to a heavy bombardment. Khan the father of Ibrahim Khan kept the fort provided with supplies by way of the mountain passes to the westward of Baiana. Himun kept up the siege of this fort for three months, and made inroads on the districts of Baiana on all sides, pillaging and destroying. Nearly all the books which my late father possessed in Basawar were destroyed. A severe famine prevailed throughout the eastern portion of Hindustan, especially in Agra, Baiana, and Dihli. It was so severe a famine that one ser of jowari grain had reached two half-tankahs, and was in fact not to be had (even at that price). Men of wealth and position had to close their houses, and died by tens or twenties or even more in one place, getting neither grave nor shroud. The Hindus also were in the same plight, and the bulk of the people were fain to live on the seeds of the Mughailan thorn and on wild herbs, also on the skins of the oxen which the rich slaughtered and sold from time to time; after a few days their hands and feet swelled and they died. As a date for that year the phrase Khashm-i-Izad (Divine wrath) was invented. The writer of these pages with these guilty eyes of his saw man eating his fellow-man in those terrible days. So awful was their aspect that no one dared let his glance rest upon them;