In the caligraphy of books and letters Sultán Muhammad abashed the most accomplished scribes. The excellence of his hand-writing, the ease of his composition, the sublimity of his style, and the play of his fancy, left the most accomplished teachers and professors far behind. He was an adept in the use of metaphor. If any teacher of composition had sought to rival him, he would have failed. He knew by heart a good deal of Persian poetry, and understood it well. In his epistles he showed himself skilled in metaphor, and frequently quoted Persian verse. He was well acquainted with the Sikandar náma, and also with the Búm-i salím Námah and the Táríkh-i Mah-múdí . * * * No learned or scientific man, or scribe, or poet, or wit, or physician, could have had the presumption to argue with him about his own special pursuit, nor would he have been able to maintain his position against the throttling arguments of the Sultán. * * *

The dogmas of philosophers, which are productive of in­difference and hardness of heart, had a powerful influence over him. But the declarations of the holy books, and the utterances of the Prophets, which inculcate benevolence and humility, and hold out the prospect of future punishment, were not deemed worthy of attention. The punishment of Musulmáns, and the execution of true believers, with him became a practice and a passion. Numbers of doctors, and elders, and saiyids, and súfís, and kalandars, and clerks, and soldiers, received punishment by his order. Not a day or week passed without the spilling of much Musulmán blood, and the running of streams of gore before the entrance of his palace. * * *

In the course of twenty-seven years, a complete karn, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords made him to prevail over the dominions of several kings, and brought the people of many coun­tries under his rule in Hindustán, Gujarát, Málwa, the Mahratta (country), Tilang, Kampila, Dhúr-samundar, Ma'bar, Lakhnautí, Sat-gánw (Chittagong), Sunár-gánw, and Tirhut. If I were to write a full account of all the affairs of his reign, and of all that passed, with his faults and shortcomings, I should fill many volumes. In this history I have recorded all the great and im­portant matters of his reign, and the beginning and the end of every conquest; but the rise and termination of every mutiny, and of events (of minor importance), I have passed over. * * *

Sultán Muhammad planned in his own breast three or four projects by which the whole of the habitable world was to be brought under the rule of his servants, but he never talked over these projects with any of his councillors and friends. Whatever he conceived he considered to be good, but in promulgating and enforcing his schemes he lost his hold upon the territories he possessed, disgusted his people, and emptied his treasury. Em­barrassment followed embarrassment, and confusion became worse confounded. The ill feeling of the people gave rise to outbreaks and revolts. The rules for enforcing the royal schemes became daily more oppressive to the people. More and more the people became disaffected, more and more the mind of the king was set against them, and the numbers of those brought to punishment increased. The tribute of most of the distant countries and districts was lost, and many of the soldiers and servants were scattered and left in distant lands. Deficiencies appeared in the treasury. The mind of the Sultán lost its equilibrium. In the extreme weakness and harshness* of his temper he gave himself up to severity. Gujarát and Deogír were the only (distant) possessions that remained. In the old territories, dependent on Dehlí, the capital, disaffection and rebellion sprung up. By the will of fate many different projects occurred to the mind of the Sultán, which appeared to him moderate and suit­able, and were enforced for several years, but the people could not endure them.* These schemes effected the ruin of the Sultán's empire, and the decay of the people. Every one of them that was enforced wrought some wrong and mischief, and the minds of all men, high and low, were disgusted with their ruler. Territories and districts which had been securely settled were lost. When the Sultán found that his orders did not work so well as he desired, he became still more embittered against his people. He cut them down like weeds and punished them. So many wretches were ready to slaughter true and orthodox Musul-máns as had never before been created from the days of Adam. * * * If the twenty prophets had been given into the hands of these minions, I verily believe that they would not have allowed them to live one night. * * *

The first project which the Sultán formed, and which operated to the ruin of the country and the decay of the people, was that he thought he ought to get ten or five per cent more tribute from the lands in the Doáb. To accomplish this he invented some oppressive ábwábs* (cesses), and made stoppages from the land-revenues until the backs of the raiyats were broken. The cesses were collected so rigorously that the raiyats were impoverished and reduced to beggary. Those who were rich and had property became rebels; the lands were ruined, and cultivation was entirely arrested. When the raiyats in distant countries heard of the distress and ruin of the raiyats in the Doáb, through fear of the same evil befalling them, they threw off their allegiance and betook themselves to the jungles. The decline of cultiva­tion, and the distress of the raiyats in the Doáb, and the failure of convoys of corn from Hindustán, produced a fatal famine in Dehlí and its environs, and throughout the Doáb. Grain became dear. There was a deficiency of rain, so the famine became general. It continued for some years, and thousands upon thousands of people perished of want. Communities were re­duced to distress, and families were broken up. The glory of the State, and the power of the government of Sultán Muham­mad, from this time withered and decayed.

The second project of Sultán Muhammad, which was ruinous to the capital of the empire, and distressing to the chief men of the country, was that of making Deogír his capital, under the title of Daulatábád. This place held a central situation: Dehlí, Gujarát, Lakhnautí, Sat-gánw, Sunár-gánw, Tilang, Ma'bar, Dhúr-samundar, and Kampila were about equi-distant from thence, there being but a slight difference in the distances. Without any consultation, and without carefully looking into the advantages and disadvantages on every side, he brought ruin upon Dehlí, that city which, for 170 or 180 years, had grown in prosperity, and rivalled Baghdad and Cairo. The city, with its sáráís, and its suburbs and villages, spread over four or five kos. All was destroyed. So complete was the ruin, that not a cat or a dog was left among the buildings of the city, in its palaces or in its suburbs. Troops of the natives, with their families and dependents, wives and children, men-servants and maid-servants, were forced to remove. The people, who for many years and for generations had been natives and inhabitants of the land, were broken-hearted. Many, from the toils of the long journey, perished on the road, and those who arrived at Deogír could not endure the pain of exile. In despondency they pined to death. All around Deogír, which is an infidel land, there sprung up graveyards of Musulmáns. The Sultán was bounteous in his liberality and favours to the emi­grants, both on their journey and on their arrival; but they were tender, and they could not endure the exile and suffering. They laid down their heads in that heathen land, and of all the multitudes of emigrants, few only survived to return to their home. Thus this city, the envy of the cities of the inhabited world, was reduced to ruin. The Sultán brought learned men and gentlemen, tradesmen and landholders, into the city (Dehlí) from certain towns in his territory, and made them reside there. But this importation of strangers did not populate the city; many of them died there, and more returned to their native homes. These changes and alterations were the cause of great injury to the country.