210 
[No. 3, 
Letter by Col. E. T. Dalton, C. S. I., Commissioner of Cliutia Nag¬ 
pur, on a large picture representing the conquest of Baldmau in 1660 
by Baud Khan, Aurangzib’’s General . 
You no doubt recollect my telling you of the great picture of the at¬ 
tack of the Palamau Fort by Daud Khan, Aurangzib’s general. The 
picture is preserved as an heirloom by Daud’s descendants at Daudnagar, 
in South Bihar, and I entered into various negoeiations with divers persons 
to obtain a copy ; but not succeeding I had almost given it up, when to my 
surprise Ahmad Husain, the Agent of the Qazi of Palamau, a connection of 
the Daudnagar family, came to my house with the picture. 
Mr. Peppe had to photograph it in pieces ; for it is 30 feet in length by 
about 12 feet in breadth, done on cloth. I send a plan of the whole 
on a reduced scale omitting the figures, and the following description, which 
should be read with the account of the battle given in Yol. XL. of the 
Journal, for 1871, p. 127. 
The picture represents the camp of D&ud Khan on the 16th Pabi’ II, 
and the entrenchment of the enemy and the different positions from the 
first attack on the Cliero position by Tahawwur Khan, which opened the 
fight rather sooner than Daud had intended, to the final capture of the Fort 
and flight of the ‘ Gawars,’ # as the enemy is contemptuously called, on the 
27th KabP II, 1070 (20tli December, 1660). 
The first division of the picture shows Daud’s entrenched camp, an 
oblong enclosure. On two sides, the front and right, large guns are in posi¬ 
tion ; to the rear of numerous small tents in the enclosure is a row of pavil- 
lions, with banners in front of them, in the following order : 
* The word Gawdr ( gfd ) is to be distinguished from Gdivar (). The latter 
word is a corruption of Kdfar, the Persian pronunciation of the Arabic Kctfir , ‘ an infi¬ 
del’ ; and it is further corrupted to Gabr ), in which form it is often applied to 
the Parsls or fire worshipper (Guebres). The historians of Timur’s reign use Gabr even 
for * Hindus.’ 
But Gaioar is used by Muhammadan historians as an equivalent for ‘ wild aboriginal 
tribes,’ and hence for ‘ thieves and cattle-lifters,’ in which sense it is entered in native Dic¬ 
tionaries. Vide also Badaoni I, 85, 168, 234; and Dowson, Y, 193, note 6. 
A similar term is the word Muwds or Muioasd ( and Lulyo ) ? who are no 
doubt the “ Muasis” of Dalton’s Ethnology (pp. 154, 221, 230, 231, 280). They are men¬ 
tioned in Badaoni I, 228, 252, 262, 326; II, 376; vide also Journal, Bombay Geogr. 
Society, II, 55. Badaoni generally calls them Muivds i be-muwdsd, i. e. ‘ the heartless 
Muwasis.’ The Editor. 
