184 7- J Account of the Town and Palace of Feerozabad. 985 



Khan, from the "old city." At length, by the mediation of some 

 nobles, peace was concluded between the parties ; but Mulloo Yekbal 

 Khan, perfidious as he was, and regardless of the sacred oaths of the 

 treaty, attacked Mookurrib Khan in his own house, and slew him. He 

 also seized Mahmood Togluk and deprived him of all but the name of 

 king." 



The next mention we have of Feerozabad, is on the occasion of the 

 invasion of Taimoor, which occurred very shortly after the events de- 

 tailed above. On the 13th January 1398, (5th of Jummadi-ool-awal 

 A. H. 801,*) this scourge of the human race, after putting to death so 

 large a number of prisoners on the plain beyond (east of) Louse, as 

 must have deluged the land with blood, forced the river without opposi- 

 tion, and encamped " on the plain of Feerozabad." This plain was, in 

 all probability, either the land now occupied by Jaisinghpoora, and 

 further south, towards the tomb of Munsoor x\lee Khan (Sufdur 

 Jung) or the spot now occupied by modern Dehli. While Dehli be- 

 came the prey of the ferocious army which he commanded, Feerozabad 

 seems to have escaped the fury of those madmen, for we learn that on 

 Taimoor finally quitting Dehli after revelling for 15 days in blood, and 

 rapine, he marched three miles to Feerozabad (an important fact for 

 hereafter fixing, with tolerable exactitude the position of " Dehli or 

 old Dehli," and which supports our previous inference, that the Dehli 

 of those times was just beyond Indraput) and having encamped there, 

 offered up his prayers in the large mosque, which is said by the histo- 

 rian to have been on the banks of the Jumna ; but for this assertion, 

 we might suppose, it was the Kalan Musjeed which was alluded to. 



Ten years after Taimoor' s invasion we find Mahmood Togluk, still 

 nominal king, defending himself in Feerozabad successfully against his 

 ultimate successor Saiud Khizr Khan, in consequence of the enemy 

 suffering from a scarcity of forage and grain. 



Three years after Khizr Khan returned to the assault, on which occa- 

 sion Mahmood shut himself up in the old citadel of Secree, while 

 Yekteear Khan, who commanded in Feerozabad, seeing the desperate 

 condition of the king's affairs, joined Khizr Khan, and admitted him 

 into the fort (Feerozabad), notwithstanding which Mahmood made a 



* There appears an error of 17 days in the abbreviated translation of the ZurTurnama, 

 by P. dela Croix, but we cannot speak with certainly without a more close investiga- 

 tion. Should this prove to be the case as we suspect it will, or the 13th January 1398, 

 a* above, we should read 27th December 1397. -II. C.— II. L. 



