History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c86.s1.12

v5.c86.s1.12

His industry in administration was marvellous. In addition to regularly holding daily Courts (sometimes twice a day) and Wednesday trials, he wrote orders on letters and petitions with his own hand and dictated the very language of official replies. Four volumes of these, relating only to his last four years, are still extant and testify to his prodigious working capacity. The Italian physician Gemeli Careri thus describes the Emperor giving public audience (21 March 1695): "He was of a low stature, with a large nose, slender and stooping with age. The whiteness of his round beard was more visible on his olive-coloured skin. . . I admired to see him endorse the petitions [of those who had business] with his own hand, without spectacles, and by his cheerful smiling countenance seem to be pleased with the employment." [Churchill's *Voyages*, iv. 222.]