Storia do Mogor 338.22.1

338.22.1

Madraspatam, on the 5th of January, 1705. (Signed) Nicolao Manuci. [Here the manuscript breaks off, and resumes abruptly at the top of the next folio — viz., 218. A leaf must be missing or misplaced. The fragments which follow consist most probably of detached passages which were to be worked up into Part V., in which some of them do appear.] . . . [218] in my presence. Aurangzeb feels forced to continue the war against Shiva Ji (i.e., the Mahrattahs), and he has from the first had the ambition of conquering the countries of others, be it by treachery or force of arms. In the execution of these designs there have died in his armies over a hundred thousand souls yearly, and of animals, horses, pack-oxen, camels, elephants, et cetera, over three hundred thousand. In spite of the greatness of the empire, by reason of which supplies of these necessaries always used to be forthcoming in abundance, the great nobles and the famed generals and captains have nowadays to go without them. Their families are in distress, and to such a state have their wives and daughters come that throughout the empire they are forced by their sufferings to ask alms in the streets. It is noteworthy that the wives of commanders of some consideration, through the distress they are in, move from door to door with nothing but a plain white sheet over their head.