Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s17.23

v2.c27.s17.23

As day followed day after the destruction of the treasure convoy under Parāshar Dādāji (6th January), life within the entrenchments at Pānipāt became harder and harder to sustain. There was no food and no firewood for man and no grass for the horses. The stench of the carcases of men and beasts lying uncremated and unburied, and the effluvia of the evacuations of four lakhs of living creatures, made the confines of the entrenchment a living hell for human beings. At last the soldiers, in the agony of hunger, got out of hand and broke out in a general plunder of the houses in the city of Pānipāt. But their outrage yielded very little, because very little had now been left in that small poor and battered city.