The force under Bhowput was now approaching
rapidly to Raiseen, under the impression that
the King had but few troops with him. Bahadur
Shah directed Imad-ool-Moolk and Meeran Ma-
Alum Khan, the governor of Kalpy, who had rebelled against Hoomayoon Padshah of Dehly, happening to be in attendance on the King of Guzerat at this time, received the governments of Bhilsa, Raiseen, and Chundery. Bahadur Shah employed the remainder of that year in hunting elephants, and in marching through the country which formerly acknowledged allegiance to the King of Malwa; and having reduced it to obedience, placed his own governors and officers to collect the revenues, and left troops to support their authority. Early in the next year he deputed Meeran Mahomed Khan to march and reduce the fort of Gagrone, wrested from the late Sooltan Mahmood by the troops of the Rana of Chittoor; but as the place had not yet fallen, the King himself moved in that direction, on which the enemy evacuated it without further resistance. From Gagrone the King returned to Mando, leaving Imad-ool-Moolk and Yekhtiar Khan to reduce Runtunbhore, and shortly after he returned to Guzerat to expel the Europeans who had occupied the island of Diù. Upon his approach, however, the enemy fled, leaving their guns upon the island; one of which was the largest ever before seen in India, and required a machine to be constructed for conveying it to Champanere.*
In the year 940 Mahomed Zuman Mirza,
*
a
relative of Hoomayoon Padshah f Dehly, who
had been confined in the fort of Byana, making
his escape, came to the court of Bahadur Shah.
Hoomayoon wrote to the King of Guzerat to
deliver him up, threatening, in case of refusal,
to march and lay waste Guzerat. Bahadur Shah,
little accustomed to comply with demands from
any potentate, returned an intemperate and haughty
reply (which eventually brought upon him his
ruin); and in order to show the contempt in which
he held the threats of Hoomayoon he conferred
the highest dignities on the Mogul prince, thus
wantonly irritating the wound which he had
already inflicted. The King returned to Cham-