198               REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES

tains.i This man is exercising all the powers of an inde¬
pendent sovereign; laughs at the threats both of the
Mogol and of the King at Visapour; makes frequent in¬
cursions, and ravages the country on every side, from
Sourate to the gates of Goa. Yet it cannot be doubted
that, notwithstanding the deep wounds which from time
to time he inflicts upon Visapour, the kingdom finds in
this daring chieftain a seasonable and powerful coadjutor.
He distracts the attention of Aureng-Zebe by his bold and
never-ceasing enterprises, and affords so much employment
to the Indian armies, that the Mogol cannot find the
opportunity of achieving the conquest of Visapour. How
to put down Seva-Gi is become the object of chief import¬
ance. We have seen his success at Sourate; he after¬
wards captured the Portuguese settlement of Bardes, an
island contiguous to Goa.

Seventhly. It was after I had left Dehli, on my return
[to France], that I heard, at Golkonda, of the death of Chah-
Jehan,'^ and that Aureng-Zebe seemed much affected by the
event, and discovered all the marks of grief which a son
can express for the loss of his father. He set out imme-
diatel}' for Agra, where Begum-Saheb received him with
distinguished honour. She hung the mosque with tapes¬
tries of rich brocades, and in the same manner decorated
the place where the Mogol intended to alight before he
entered the fortress.    On arriving at the women's apart-

^ ' 'Tis undeniable he hath taken and maintains against the Moguls
Sixty odd strong Hills: But the Cause is, the Moguls are unacquainted
with, and their Bodies unfit for such barren and uneasy Places ; so that
they rather chuse to desert than defend them : Whereby it is suffici¬
ently evident Seva Gi is unable in the Plain to do anything but Rob,
Spoil, and return with all the speed imaginable : And on that account
it is Aurengzeeb calls hiin his Mountain-Rat, with which the greatest
Systems of Monarchy in the World, though continued by an unin¬
terrupted Descent of Imperial Ancestry, have ever been infested, finding
it more hard to fight with Mountains than Men.'—Fryer, p. 171.

^ He died on the 22d January 1666, and lies buried in the Taj, close
by the grave of his wife, the ' Lady of the Taj.'