THE FORTRESS OF CHAMPANERE. 
69 
and bravery, and for a length of time little or no 
progress was made by the besiegers. The garrison 
were provided with provisions sufficient to last for 
several years ; but still with that unaccountable pro- 
pensity to accumulate, which characterises some men, 
who are never satisfied with a sufficiency, the gover- 
nor determined to continue adding to his already over- 
grown store at all hazards. He was in the habit of 
receiving his supplies daily by a secret pathway, 
which led through a thick wood, seldom traversed 
but by the solitary wanderer who might happen un- 
intentionally to deviate into this unfrequented track. 
The jungle was almost impenetrable, no part of it 
having been cleared, and the path to the fortress being 
unknown save to the inhabitants of a distant village, 
who daily conveyed to the besieged certain supplies 
stipulated for by the governor. 
Humayoon was frequently in the habit of recon- 
noitring in consequence of the slow progress of the 
siege, which he had almost made up his mind to 
abandon, when he fell in with a party of country 
people in the act of transporting provisions to the 
fortress. Suspecting this, he ordered them without 
hesitation to be seized, and when they were conducted 
into his presence, after he had reached his camp, he 
questioned them, with that grace and urbanity of 
manner for which he was always distinguished, 
upon the nature of their connexion with the enemy. 
It appeared from their replies that they had no in- 
tercourse with them but that arising from their 
supplying them with a certain quantity of provisions, 
which they had bound themselves by contract to do 
