THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 145 
then, the political and military history of the period does 
not suggest any serious check on the natural growth of 
population. 
The records of famine are undoubtedly incomplete,! but, 
so far as they go, they disclose no very serious calamity in 
Northern India during the first half of the century. There 
had, indeed, been heavy mortality in the year 1596, but the 
effects of this would have disappeared by 1660. There are 
indications of scarcity in the Punjab in 1614-15, and again 
in 1645, and in Oudh in 1650, but I have found no record of 
serious loss of life; while the calamity of 1630, which fell 
50 heavily on Gujarat and the Deccan, did not extend to 
the North. Rajputana suffered severly in 1648, and Sind in 
1658-9, but in both cases the loss was local. The famine 
of 1660 was severe and widespread in the South, but the 
only indication of its influence in the North is a statement 
in a chronicle of the next century that “crowds of people 
from all parts made their way to the capital.” If “the 
capital” in this passage denotes Delhi, as is probable but 
not certain, then we may infer either that the North was 
affected, or that people came from the affected region to the 
North in search of food. Between 1660 and 1670 we read 
of famine again in the South and in Gujarat, but not in the 
North. It is, I think, quite certain that the population in 
the former regions must have declined heavily after 1630; 
but, from the recorded evidence, there is no reason for 
thinking that there was any serious general decline in the 
country from the Punjab to Bengal. 
The evidence regarding epidemic disease is even more 
scanty than that which refers to famine, and the only point 
which emerges is that bubonic plague? was present in 
Northern India during the first half of the century. The 
Emperor Jahangir tells us that a dreadful epidemic had 
spread from the Puniab as far as Delhi, and caused great 
* 1 discussed this subject at some length in Ch. VII of From Akbar to 
Aurangzeb, where detailed references will be found to the summary given 
in the text. The Punjab scarcity of 1645, which is not mentioned there, 
is recorded in Badshahnama, II, 489. 
? For plague, see Tuzuk, 162, 225; Badshahnama, I, i. 489, II, 353; 
Khwafi, i. 755, and ii. 382. - The identity of the disease is usually indicated 
Dy references to either the presence of huboes, or the effect on rats and 
mice.