The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c21.13

c21.13

Then Mīrzā Muḥammad, Ḥārisī, gives in his Memoirs details of several journeys that he made. After Bahādur Shāh’s death he came from Lāhor to Dihlī in twenty three marches, viâ Nakodar, Phalūr, Ambālah, and Karnāl. The reputed distance was 107 kos, measured on the map it comes to about 288 miles, or at the rate of 2.6 miles to the kos to 278 miles. This gives only 4.65 kos or 12.09 miles a day. But then we must recollect that for most of the time he travelled in the company of Bahādur Shāh’s widows, who were bringing that emperor's body for burial at Dihlī. Under these circumstances they may be supposed to have travelled less quickly than was usual. Again in 1130 H. (1718) the same Mīrzā Muḥammad went from Dihlī to Jalālābād in the Muzaffarnagar district in five marches; the distances he gives, when added up, come to 53 kos, an average of over 10 kos (27 miles) a day. He also returned to Dihlī in five marches. The next year, 1131 H. (1719) the same man went as an ‘Āmil to parganah Rāhūn in the Jālandhar dūābah. He reached the place in twelve marches. Measured on the map the distance is roughly about 200 miles, which gives an average of 16⅔ miles as his daily march. Again in 1126 H. it took ‘Abd-ul-jalīl, Bilgrāmī, four months to march from Bhakkar to Dihlī, a distance of about 850 miles (Oriental Miscellany, pp. 133—295, Letter Nº. 6) by the usual route viâ Lāhor. This yields an average of a little over seven miles a day; but then we do not know what halts he made.