CHAPTER XLVII.
 
Nâdir Shâh arrives at the plain of Karnâl, fights a pitched battle with Mohammed Shâh, and gains the victory.— Nâdir Shâh takes up his quarters in the citadel of Shâh Jehân Abâd.— Revolt and general massacre of the inhabitants of Dehli.— Nâdir Shâh takes Sind and Kâbol to his own possession.— Mohammed Shâh is confirmed in his sovereignty.— Mar­riage of the son of Nâdir Shâh.

TWICE or thrice from Lâhôr also, before he came up with the Indian army, Nâdir Shâh sent a message to Mohammed Shâh to expedite the return to him of his ambassador Mohammed Khân. But although they carried the ambassador along with them on their march, they would not grant him his congé; and at that time it did not appear, what their design could be in keeping him. At length Nâdir Shâh came up, the two armies met on the plain of Karnâl, which is four stages distant from Shâh Jehân Abâd, and war was joined between them. The Indians having gathered their artillery around were closely hemmed in by their own field-pieces, and as a division of the Kizil Bâsh had also formed a ring on every side of them, all intercourse with the exterior was closed to them and dearth and famine fell on that army, so that their condition turned out to be such as in the world of their pride they had never even imagined. Nâdir Shâh divided his army into two parts; one he left to guard his camp, and with the other division he assaulted the Indians. Borhâno 'L Molk was taken alive: Khân Dôrân, the Amîro 'L Omarâ, and Mozaffir Khân his brother, and a number of the distinguished Omarâs, with an immense quantity of troops were slain. In the midst of the action night intervened. Moham­med Shâh and those who had escaped the sword, who were still an innumerable multitude, finding the cavalry of the Kizil Bâsh spread around them on all sides, were afraid to stir, and although they saw themselves unable to maintain their position, they remained on the spot. Whoever fled, if he fell not into the hands of the Kizil Bâsh, the peasantry of those parts put an end to his life; or if they spared his blood, they let him not go before they had stripped him naked.

Arabic Poetry.*
When the raven guides a nation in its course
The burial-grounds of the Magi are its noon-day dormitories.

In short, the Nizâmo 'L Molk and Mohammed Shâh with some of his courtiers having repaired to the camp of Nâdir Shâh to resign themselves and offer their excuses, met with clemency and forgiveness; and Nâdir Shâh, having cheered and solaced Mohammed Shâh, gave him the glad inti­mation, that he should suffer no injury in his life, his empire, or his dignity.

Nâdir Shâh, then, with both the armies entered the city, and took up his quarters in the castle of Shâh Jehân Abâd. Mohammed Shâh was also with him in the castle, and the Indian chiefs and soldiers settled in their habitations according to their former and accustomed arrangements. This was on the ninth of Dzo 'l hijjah, one thousand one hundred and fifty-one (A.D. 1739.). On the after­noon of the eleventh of the same month, the Indians spread a report that Nâdir Shâh was dead; some saying, that he had died a natural death, others pretending, that he had been assassinated by the treachery and contrivance of Mohammed Shâh. In whatever way, within the course of an hour, his death became the talk of the whole city, whilst he was sound and safe, sitting with a large assembly in the castle, the gates of which were open night and day, employed in the despatch of important business. Some portions of his army were quartered round the fort and in the houses of the city, and some were encamped on the bank of the river which joins the city. Briefly, in consequence of this mere lying report, troops upon troops of rash fools, furnished with arms and accoutrements of war, raised tumult and confusion in every skirt and corner of the town, and turned their endeavours to the slaughter and plunder of the Kizil Bâsh. This scene spread itself over the whole city. The Kizil Bâsh soldiers, who under­stood not the language of the Indians, and had no acquaintance with the places, were scattered and walking about by ones and twos in every street and market; and the Indians coming sud­denly upon them put them to slaughter. Though night came on, the mischievous promoters of the tumult gave themselves no rest, and the disorder continued to increase. After a true statement of the affair had been several times brought to Nâdir Shâh, he issued an order to his army, that every man should remain quiet in his place and station and not occupy himself with vengeance; and, that if the Indians made an attack upon them, they should keep themselves on the defen­sive. Not one of the Indian Omarâs that night, though fully aware of what was going forward, offered himself at all to allay the fire of this tumultuous revolt: on the contrary, some men whom at their own request they had obtained from Nâdir Shâh for their private security and pro­tection, and had taken home with them, were slaughtered in their houses. And whereas in the battle of Karnâl only about twenty men of the Kizil Bâsh were slightly wounded with arrow shots, and not more than three were killed; in this scene of riot near seven thousand of them died by violence.

At day-break the tumult was still increasing in its vehemence. Soon afterwards, Nâdir Shâh rode down from the castle, and gave orders for a general massacre. To the division of horse and foot charged with this service he said, that as far as the very spot, in every direction, where a Kizil Bâsh had been killed, they were not to leave alive a single Indian. The Persian troops, having begun their work of destruction and pillage, entered the palaces and dwellings of the city, and making an immense slaughter, carried away the property as plunder, and the women and children as slaves. A great part also of the city was laid waste and burnt down. When half the day was past and the number of the slain exceeded all cal­culation, Nâdir Shâh sounded the note of mercy to those who survived the slaughter, and the troopers drew back their hands. After some days, the streets and houses being full of dead bodies, and the air contaminated, and the passage through the town being consequently difficult, an order for its purification was promulgated. The Kôtwâl, or civil governor of the city, having collected the bodies at every pass, with the rubbish and litter of the fallen buildings, burnt them all in heaps, without distinction of Infidel or Moslem.

Nâdir Shâh now took possession of the imperial treasures; and quantities of gold were obtained also from the people. Being for certain urgent motives in haste to return, he detached from the empire of Hindôstân and the dominions of Mohammed Shâh, and annexed to the kingdom of Irân the whole of the province of Sind and the district of Kâbol, with some places in the Pan­jâb which are in assignment to the latter dis­trict.

Having sent for Mohammed Shâh and the Indian Omarâs, he held an assembly, in which he gave the Jîcah, or diadem, to the former, and to the latter presented robes of honour; and having imparted to them some wholesome advice, he left them in possession of the sovereign authority.

To his infant son Nasr Ollah Mîrzâ, whom he had with him, he joined in the bonds of matri­mony a daughter of one of the grand-children of the Emperor Awrang Zîb; and on the seventh of the month Safar one thousand one hundred and fifty-two (A. D. 1739.) having beaten the drum of retreat from Shâh Jehân Abâd, he set out on his return to his dominions.