'The wind appeared to blow in upon the poor devoted city from every
side; and the troops of Zalim Singh, who at first prevented the
people from rushing out at the gates, made off in a panic at the
horrors before them. All our establishments had been driven into the
city at the approach of Zalim Singh's troops; and scores of
elephants, hundreds of camels, and thousands of horses and ponies
perished in the flames, besides twenty-five thousand souls. Only
about five thousand persons escaped out of thirty thousand, and these
were reduced to beggary and wretchedness by the loss of their dearest
relations and their property. At the time the flames first began to
spread, an immense crowd of people had assembled under the fortress
on the bank of the Sonar river to see the widow of a soldier burn
herself. Her husband had been shot by one of Zalim Singh's soldiers
in the morning; and before midday she was by the side of his body on
the funeral pile. People, as usual, begged her to tell them what
would happen, and she replied, "The city will know in less than four
hours"; in less than four hours the whole city had been reduced to
ashes; and we all concluded that, since the event was so clearly
foretold, it must have been decreed by God.
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