"The Hindu Bethlehem now lay utterly prostrate before the invaders. Early at dawn on 1st March the AfghAn cavalry burst into the unwalled and unsuspecting city of MathurA, and neither by their master's orders nor from the severe handling they received in yesterday's fight, were they in a mood to show mercy. For four hours there was an indiscriminate massacre and rape of the unresisting Hindu population - all of them non-combatants and many of them priests' 'Idols were broken and kicked about like polo-balls by the Islamic heroes.... Issuing from the ruins of MathurA, JahAn Khan roamed the country round, and plundering everywhere as directed. VrindAvan, seven miles north of MathurA could not escape, as its wealth was indicated by its many temples. Here another general massacre was practised upon the inoffensive monks of the most pacific order of Vishnu's worshippers (c. 6th March). As the same Muhammadan diarist records after a visit to VrindAvan: 'Wherever you gazed you beheld heaps of the slain; you could only pick your way with difficulty, owing to the quantity of bodies lying about and the amount of blood spilt. At one place that we reached we saw about two hundred dead children lying in a heap. Not one of the dead bodies had a head' The stench and effluvium in the air were such that it was painful to open your mouth or even to draw breath.'..."