Note 47 — The Eighteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

Having conferred on Muqarrab K., who is one of the old officials,47 the government and administration of Agra, I gave him his leave. In the neighbourhood of Fatḥpūr, Mukarram K. and his brother ʿAbdu-s-Salām had the good fortune to pay their respects. On the 22nd the entertainment for my lunar weighment took place in the town of Mathura, and the fifty-seventh year of my age began auspiciously and happily. At Mathura I went on by boat seeing what was to be seen, and hunting. On the way the huntsmen reported that a tigress with three cubs had appeared. Disembarking from the boat I engaged in the pleasure of sport. As the cubs were small I ordered them to be taken by hand, and killed the mother with my gun. At this time it was reported to me that the villagers48 and cultivators on the other side of the river Jumna had not given up stealing and highway robbery, and, passing their time in the shelter of thick jungles and difficult strong places in stubbornness and fearlessness, would not pay their rents to the jagirdars. I gave an order to K͟hān Jahān to take a force of mansabdars with him and give them exemplary punishment, and having slaughtered, imprisoned, and plundered them, raze to the ground their strongholds and forts, and tear up from the root their thorn-brakes of mischief and disturbance. The next day the force crossed the river and made a hot attack on them. As they had no time for escape by flight they planted firmly the foot of folly, and showed fight. Many of them were slaughtered: their women and children were taken prisoners, and much booty fell into the hands of the victorious army.