tents and baggage, but found them again at midnight, having been obliged till then to take up my lodging under a tree.  This part of the country is much infested by thieves, and is hardly under obedience to government, except so far as it is kept under by force.  It belongs to a rajah, who has no desire to see the king.  The exactor complained, and some few of the people that fled being taken, were chained by the neck and brought before the king, all the rest having fled into the mountains.  At night the king caused the town near which he was encamped to be set on fire, appointing a new governor, with orders to re-build and new-people the town, and to reduce the district under more regular government and better civilization.  He left a party of horse with the new governor, to enable him to perform this service.

On the 20th, the people who had fled to the mountains, being enraged at the burning of their town, set upon a number of stragglers who had been left behind, killing many of them, and plundering the rest.  The 22d, having no accounts of the presents I expected from Surat, I went at night to visit the king, to observe how he might receive me.  I found him seated in an unusual manner, so that I knew not what place to occupy, and not willing to mix among the great men, as was offered me, and doubting whether I might go into the apartment where the king was, which was cut down in the bank of a river, I went to the brink and stood alone.  There were none near the king, except Etiman Dowlet his father-in-law, Asaph Khan, and three or four others.  The king observed me, and having allowed me to stay a while, he called me in with a gracious smile, and pointed with his hand for me to stand beside him, a favour so unusual, that it pleased and honoured me, and of which I soon experienced the good effects, in the behaviour of the great men of the court.  He led me to talk with him, and when I called for an interpreter, he refused it, pressing me to use such Persian words as I had learnt.  Our discourse, in consequence, had not much sense or coherence, yet he was pleased with it, and shewed his approbation in a very courteous manner.

On the 24th of January, news came to court, that the Deccaners were not to be frightened out of their dominions, as had been pretended by Asaph Khan and Noormahal, on purpose to persuade the king into this expedition.  For they had sent off all their baggage and other impediments into the interior of their country, and lay upon the frontiers with 50,000 horse, resolved to fight in defence of their dominions; while Sultan Churrum had hitherto advanced no farther than Mundu, afraid both of the enemy and Khan Khana.  The king’s councellors now changed their advice, declaring that they expected the Deccaners would have been so alarmed by his majesty’s passage over the last hills, as to have submitted at the terror of his approach; and as they now found the contrary, they advised the king to convert his journey into a hunting excursion,