[Occurrences and Observations on the Journey from Dehly to Kashmeir]

In quitting the metropolis on the present occasion, on board of my flotilla on the Jumnah, I was accompanied by four hundred of the inmates of my harram. Occasionally we came to a spot which furnished game and sport of different kinds, and here I usually disembarked to amuse myself in hunting or shooting; the army which was to accompany us into Kashmeir proceeding all the while on a parallel line, at the distance of three farsangs from the banks of the river.

In our voyage up the Jumnah, when we reached Muttra, which is a celebrated sanctuary of the Hindûs, it was reported to me that there lived in the neighbourhood, where he had resided for twenty years, a noted derweish, or recluse, on whose head, it was stated, there fell every Friday evening throughout the year, from the skies, a shower of gold of coined ashrefies of two methkals each, to the number of five hundred ashrefies. As this was a miracle to which I could not immediately give credit, I determined to ascertain the truth, and for that purpose proceeded to visit the derweish. When I approached the hermitage or cell where he had taken up his abode, I found about four hundred of his disciples clothed in skins, and seated in ranks round the entrance. One of them had previously announced my approach. When I entered the abode of the recluse, which appears to have been a sort of cavern, he did not attempt to move, neither did he offer me the usual salutation, nor the slightest mark of respect in any way whatever. Having, however, made my salaam to him, and otherwise testified my humble respect, I endeavoured by all the mildness I could assume to bring him into conversation. At last he conde­scended to open his mouth, and his first words were these: “I serve that king who sustains, rambling about the earth, many such kings as thou art.” To this observation I replied by a request that he would favour me with something that might remind me of the admonitions of the wise and good. “Strive for the repose of God’s creatures committed to thy care,” said he, “and do thy plea­sure, for the virtue of this will be a cover to thy sins. Be not offensive. In the agents whom thou mayest employ in the different provinces of the empire, be it thy study to reject such as are tyrannical and rapacious. Whilst thou hast power, cherish and respect the grey beard and the derweish.” He then recited six lines of poetry of which the following may be the substance: “Scoff not at the aged man weighed down by the hand of affliction; kindle not the flame which consumes the broken-hearted. Be not at one time a trifler, at another grave. Art thou full? give not words of wind. Be not evil-minded lest thy words be evil; be not slanderous if thou wouldst avoid a name of reproach.” When he had concluded his recital he said, “let thy treatment of thine eldest son be something better than he has recently experienced, for he is destined to be thy successor.”*

In about an hour afterwards the evening closed in upon us, and one of the derweishes in attendance gave the call to prayer. Some tapers were lighted up, and the venerable recluse proceeded to the performance of his devotions, bending his body at intervals eight times to the earth. Immediately afterwards five of the ministering derweishes entered, and stood in an erect posture before their principal. The latter raised his hands towards heaven, and he had scarcely commenced this act of adoration, when all at once a shower of gold from the sky, in laminæ* of about one methkal in weight, fell upon his head, which when collected together amounted in the whole to the value of seven hundred ashrefies. This he divided into two equal parts; one of which he presented to me, with the desire that for a blessing upon my treasury it might be distributed among my officers of revenue; the other he shared among the der­weishes present at our conference. Having attentively witnessed all that passed, I did not omit to apprize the recluse, that I should endow his cloister with the assignment of a village producing an annual revenue of fifty thousand rupees, for the subsistence of the devout men who attended upon him. “Apply this money,” said he, “to the support of those whose reliance is upon human charity; I need it not, for the things of this life are no longer objects either of care or anxiety to me.”*

Without enlarging further on the subject, I took leave of the recluse; but when I had proceeded a short distance from the cave (or perhaps grotto) in which he resided, the thought occurred to me that I ought to have kissed his hand on departure: and at the very instant the idea was crossing my mind, one of the attendant derweishes came from his principal, with his salutation of peace, to say that he was aware of my thoughts; that he had accepted of the will for the deed, and that it would be inauspicious to return upon my steps after pro­ceeding so far. He had only one further request to make, that for his sake I would extend my particular protection to a certain derweish of his acquaintance, whose abode was at Dehly. Upon this proof of the faculty which he possessed of diving into the minds of man, my faith in his piety was increased an hundred-fold. I turned round on the spot towards the cell of the recluse, and prostrate on the earth, besought the influence of his sacred character, to strengthen my energies for future exertion.

One circumstance more and I shall dismiss this subject altogether. When I returned to the imperial encampment, after quitting the abode of the recluse, it was communicated to me that the son of Khaun-e-Douraun had dared to turn into ridicule my conduct on this occasion. “How childish,” said he, “in the emperor, to be magic-blinded by his visit to this canting derweish!” I must here observe, that if I had not received the proof to which I have referred of his power of penetrating into the secrets of the mind, the miracle of the golden shower would have found but little credit with me; but the disrespectful lan­guage in which this person presumed to express himself could not be entirely overlooked: I therefore commanded that one side of his head and face should be flayed of the skin, and in that state he was led round the encampment, proclamation being made at the same time that such was the punishment which awaited those who dared to apply disrespectful language to him, who was at once their sovereign and benefactor. My severity on this occasion seemed to be further warranted by the fact, that this same son of Khaun-e-Douraun, on a previous visit to the derweish, had demeaned himself very contemptuously; and the derweish resenting such conduct, ventured to tell him that he should not go so far as to take his head, his youth and rashness being beneath his notice, “but,” said he, “I will have thee scalped.” And thus was the saying of the derweish pointedly fulfilled. In truth, persons of this description have at all times a claim to our respect; for although devout and pious men possess no claim to be considered as divinities, yet are they not very far apart from the Deity.

At Muttra my son Parveiz separated from the imperial army, and proceeded by my orders to his government of Allahabad. At first, as in the case of others, he had been invested with the order of two thousand, but I had finally advanced him to the commandery of twenty thousand horse: and here I think it no more than strict justice to record, that whether present or absent, never on any occasion have I experienced from him the slightest cause of offence; and I cannot therefore but express my earnest hope, that in all his pursuits he may experience the full attainment of all his wishes. One very trifling exception I may be allowed to introduce. Soon after his departure on this occasion, he conveyed a complaint to me, that having arrived at the distance of two marches from the camp of Abdullah Khaun above-mentioned, that commander had neglected to pay him that visit of respect, to which as my son he considered himself entitled. I informed him, however, in reply, that in omitting to throw himself in the way for the mere purpose of flattering his vanity, Abdullah Khaun had acted in strict conformity with his allegiance as a dutiful subject: for had he done otherwise, most assuredly he would have been sent to atone for his offi­ciousness and folly by an imprisonment of thirty good years in the castle of Gualiar. Neither can I omit to observe that, however Shahzadah Parveiz may have been offended, there was nothing in the mere gratification of a childish vanity to justify the smallest delay in the march of Abdullah Khaun, whose conduct was governed by the strictest propriety.

While I remained in the precincts of Dehly, at the period to which I shall now return, they described to me a species of feathered game, with tails of a particular description, and the flesh of which was of a flavour in the highest degree delicious. But what more particularly attracted my curiosity was, that they spoke a language known to none but to the natives of Kashmeir, who, by using a sort of note or call, took from them the power of flight; and who were thus able to catch them by thousands at a time. On a plain in the neighbour­hood, frequented by thousands of these birds in a flock, by way of experiment, I employed about a thousand of the Kashmeirians accustomed to the business, to give me a proof of their skill, and I attended in person to view the sport. As had been represented to me, about twenty of the Kashmeirians collected together, and produced a sort of murmuring sound, which attracting the attention of these birds, they were drawn by degrees within such a distance of the men, that they were taken in entire flocks. My pity was greatly moved by the reflection that these harmless birds should have fallen victims to this sort of treachery; that they should have been betrayed into the hands of the destroyer by their irresistible love of harmonious sounds, and that I should be found capable of consigning them to slaughter from a mere idle and vicious curiosity; the next day, there­fore, I caused the whole, to the number of twenty thousand birds which had been taken on the occasion, to be set at liberty. My object was obtained in witnessing the fact, but to have seen them slaughtered would have bespoken a want of compassion foreign to my nature.

On my arrival at Sehrind, I visited the gardens of Khojah Weissy, constructed some time before by my directions. This person, distinguished not less for his skill in architecture than for his taste in laying out gardens and ornamental grounds, had indeed, in the present instance, exercised his judgment with such complete success, as to afford me the utmost delight. In particular I must describe, that on entering the garden I found myself immediately in a covered avenue, planted on each side with scarlet roses, and beyond them arose groves of cypress, fir, plane, and evergreens, variously disposed; but, what is scarcely credible, all this had been completed in the short space of forty days. Passing through these, we entered what was in reality the garden, which now exhibited a variegated parterre, ornamented with flowers of the utmost brilliancy of colours, and of the choicest kind. In the midst of this open parterre was a noble basin or reser­voir of water, and in the centre of this piece of water was an elegant and lofty pavilion, of eight sides, capable of accommodating two hundred persons with convenient sitting-room, and surrounded by a beautiful colonnade. It was, moreover, two stories high, and painted all over within with every description of figure delightful to the eye. The reservoir was faced all round with hewn stone, and nearly two thousand water-fowl sported on its bosom. The infinite variety of flowers and flowering shrubs which bloomed on the parterre was not less delightful to the sight than bewitching to the smell: and as some acknowledgment of the gratification which I had experienced, I raised the same Khojah Weissy, on the spot, from the order of seven hundred to that of one thousand horse.

The day after my visit to these gardens, a circumstance occurred which I cannot pass without notice. It was stated to me that the collector of Sehrind had in his hands a petition which he was anxious to present to me, and I directed that he might be immediately sent for. The petition expressed that this collector did not entertain the design of interfering in any way with the property of the Moslems; on the contrary, his object was confined to the fixing of a fair and equitable assessment upon the wealth of the opulent Hindûs. For this purpose, if I could be prevailed upon to issue an ordinance in conformity with his views, he would engage to make good to the imperial treasury the zekkaut of the empire, such as it was in the time of my father Akbar, to the amount of three maunns of gold a day; and, moreover, that he would pay in advance the assessment of three whole years, amounting to not less than thirteeen hundred maunns of gold.* When I had heard with attention what he had further to say on the subject, I desired him to go and bring me the money, in order that I might bestow upon him the employment for which he seemed disposed to make such enormous sacri­fice. The collector, who was known to be among the most opulent of the inhabitants of Sehrind, quitted my presence accordingly; and shortly afterwards re-appeared, bringing with him the whole of the gold, loaded on five hundred camels, each load in wrappers of the finest scarlet of Irâk. I ordered ten of the loads to be indiscriminately distributed among those who were present, and the remainder to be lodged in the treasury; after which I desired him to withdraw for the present, and to appear before me again on the ensuing morning, when the patent of his appointment would be delivered to him.

The next morning, before the sun was well up, the collector, arrayed in his gayest apparel, with a chaplet of pearl about his neck of the value of a lak of rupees, and his bosom full of hope and expectation, came to do homage for his appointment. I requested to know whether the whole of the gold which he had placed at my disposal, as the purchase of his office, was exclusively his own property, or whether it belonged in part to other Hindûs, who would have a share in the profits of his employment. He explained to me in answer, that while in the agonies of death, his father had disclosed to him that in a certain secret place under ground he had concealed in large jars a mass of treasure, which in the hour of distress he might employ to relieve himself. “Sire,” said he, “than what I have paid into your highness’s treasury for my appointment, there is still left in the subterranean more than double the quantity, and there was therefore not the smallest necessity for bringing discredit on my name by borrowing.” I could scarcely believe what I heard, and I bluntly told him that I thought he had advanced a falsehood; but if what he said was really true, he could have no objection to point out the spot where this treasure was concealed to Saadek Mahommed Khaun, one of my bukhshies. Without a moment’s hesita­tion he conducted Saadek Mahommed to the place where this enormous treasure lay in deposit; and having so done, both returned to my presence. I considered that I was warranted in retaining for my own use what he had voluntarily placed at my disposal; but it would have been an act of unjust violence if I had taken possession of that which remained in the excavation beneath his house, to the manifest injury of his children.

In these circumstances, I ordered a camel to be brought to my presence, and sending for Nour-ud-dein Kûly, I told him that the dress of the Hindû, with the valuable chaplet of pearl which encircled his neck, was all his own. But he was to conduct the unhappy man to the outside of the town, where he was to cause his bowels to be cut open, after which he was to be fastened to the side of the camel, and so carried round the camp, while a proclamation was made to the following purpose: “Such is the punishment to which that man is doomed, who when his sovereign, from a paternal regard to the welfare of his people for a period of fourteen years past, has remitted the impost of the zekkaut, dared to insinuate the advantage of renewing such a tax, and thus bringing upon the benefactor of his people afresh the odium of being their oppressor. Let this be an example to deter the evil counsellor from communicating the slightest hint to give the thoughts of the sovereign a direction so replete with evil to the subject and dishonour to himself.*

It must indeed be considered fortunate, that in this age few men can be found so sordid in principle and expectation, as from the prospect of advantage to themselves, to implicate the sovereign under such a load of guilt and responsi­bility, from whom alone, on the awful day of reckoning, the account will be required. And what, in gold or jewels, or property of any description, have I lost, that I should venture to reimburse myself in the earnings of the abstinent and industrious merchant—earnings accumulated through a thousand risks, and by so many distant and toilsome journies? An act of such crying injustice could the everlasting God suffer to pass unpunished? “Leaving the issue to God,” says the maxim, “be thou the shepherd of his people.” There are two faculties of which the Macedonian himself was scarcely master:—“Discard the absurdi­ties of human vanity; this is the ark of knowledge.—Study the knowledge of thy kind; not the patchwork mantle of the devotee.—In a life so transient, suffer not thine exertions to sleep.—Let thy time be so devoted, as to insure the approbation of thy Maker.—Humanity is the essential science, united with valour and beneficence.—If thou hast not these, thou art no more than a statue in the shape of a man.—Thou hast not put in practice the hundredth part of the dictates of science.—If in the study of philosophy thou hast neglected the duties of thy kind, thou art nothing better than a barren branch.—With much labour and exertion only can a man arrive at distinction.—How canst thou obtain the palm of virtue, if thou art the slave of sensuality.—If thou art desirous of the elixir of eternal happiness, know thine own merit; this is the true red sulphur—the powder of transmutation.”

When I had passed a week in every species of enjoyment in these gardens, I sent for Khojah Weissy, and with one of my own dresses presented him with thirty thousand rupees in money. I then quitted Sehrind, and proceeded on my way towards Kashmeir, the saffron meads of which I so ardently longed to visit. Having arrived within three days’ journey of the city of Lahour, my son Khoorum communicated a request, that he might be allowed an absence of ten days, for the purpose of visiting that noble city, a period of two years having elapsed since he last saw the place, and he was desirous of embracing the opportunity to view the progress of the new gardens, buildings, and other improvements which I had ordered for its embellishment. He engaged at the same time to rejoin me on the march before I should have entered the mountain passes.

As I could have no objection to grant such a request, and I was desirous that his visit should be conducted with sufficient splendor, the prince was directed to take with him two hundred camels loaded with enriched caparisons, girdles, kreisses, swords, and head-pieces, minns,* and amberstands, and a variety of other articles, all enriched with pearl and precious stones; all of which, on his arrival within a certain distance of the city, he was to deliver to the kotewaul, or civil governor of the place, together with as much as loaded a thousand camels more in cloth of gold of Khorassaun, velvets from Gûjerat and Kashaun, and piece-goods of the most delicate fabric, all taken immediately from my own equipment stores. The inhabitants of Lahour were directed to afford every assistance towards rendering the reception of the prince on this occasion as mag­nificent as possible, by decorating the streets and bazars with gold woven carpets, figured draperies or tapestry, both European and Chinese, and canopies also of cloth of gold, both within and without the city, to the distance of nearly four kôsse. All this the kotewaul was to keep in readiness for the space of four or five days.

From Allumgunje, which is at the entrance of Lahour, and where Sûltan Khoorum was to mount his elephant, he was to be preceded by three thousand elephants of his own train, all arrayed in trappings of gold and velvet empow­dered with pearl, the gold alone on each elephant being of the weight of five maunns of Hindûstaun; next were fifteen hundred horses of the breed of Arabia, Irâk, and Badakhshaun, all in similar rich and sumptuous caparisons, and each led by a separate groom. Behind the prince were to follow forty elephants bear­ing the nuggaurah khaunah, or band of kettle-drums, and immediately before him were to be eighty horns and fifty trumpets, rending the air with the din of martial music; the whole being closed by a column of twenty thousand horse, clad in quilted mail, with silken tassels at the end of their lances, and all their horses with ornamental breast-pieces, housings of panther and tyger skins, and tails of the sea-cow suspended to their necks; and in this splendid array was to be the procession through the streets and market-places of the city. The whole of the way by which the dûltaor passed accordingly, for the distance of four kôsse, from bags of money deposited in the howdah of the elephant on which he rode, he continued to scatter, every now and then, on each side of him, handsful of gold and silver ashrefies and rupees among the people, to the amount of ten laks of rupees in silver, equivalent to thirty thousand tomauns of Irâk, and of two laks of ashrefies of five methkels, equal to one hundred thousand tomauns in gold.*

In this splendid array it was that Shahzadah Khoorum proceeded to the banks of the Rauvy, where a superb display of tents had been set up for his reception; and there he remained for the space of three days, distributing to the minstrels, the sons of song and music, and others who repaired to visit him, and to all according to merit, the most liberal marks of his bounty. On the fourth day he quitted Lahour, in order to return to my presence.

From Lahour to Hussun Abdal, where I lay encamped to await his return, is a distance of five ordinary days’ journey.* This, by stationing relays of fresh horses, he performed in one day and a night, thus presenting himself to me within the ten days’ absence which he had obtained for his excursion. On this occasion, when he had performed his kornesh (or salutation of homage) before me, his present consisted of jewels to the value of twenty laks of rupees, with three hundred horses of Arabia and Irâk, one thousand despatch camels, and five of the noblest class of elephants, each of the value of three laks of rupees. In return, I raised him from the order of forty thousand, of which he was already in possession, to that of forty-five thousand. I remained at Hussun Abdal for a week, during which, at an entertainment, I presented Shahzadah Khoorum with a chaplet of pearl, which had cost in the purchase the sum of eight and forty laks of rupees.*

When I gave orders for the march from Hussun Abdal a heavy fall of rain occurred, which continued without intermission for three days and three nights; at the termination of which the rain ceasing, we proceeded to Kalanour, where, however, the river was so greatly swelled by the rain, that the passage of the imperial troops was found impracticable. The next day I gave orders that all classes on their arrival should remain stationary until the flood in the river should abate, when they might proceed to cross without hazard. Nevertheless, all who were in possession of the largest sized elephants ventured to pass their people and baggage to the opposite; side; and others, who possessed horses of sufficient strength and activity, cast themselves into the stream without reflection.

Thus it was that the son of Mirza Rûstum, a little boy scarcely out of his childhood, mistaking the ford, cast himself, with ten of his attendants on horse­back, into the river, where the water was two spears length deep, and the cur­rent so impetuous as to overthrow the strongest elephants. In the middle of the stream the boy was thrown from his horse, and carried away by the tor­rent; and although every exertion was made by his attendants to rescue him from his watery grave, all was in vain, the poor child perished irrecoverably. The young Mirza had not the slightest knowledge of swimming; but even though he had possessed the greatest skill in the exercise, the force of the stream was such that it would have been unavailing. The ten men who en­deavoured to save him also perished.

When the melancholy circumstance was made known to me, I can scarcely describe how deeply I became affected by it. The whole of that night I nei­ther ate, nor drank, nor slept; for my regard for the poor child surpassed all ordinary measure of kindness. Most commonly, when I mounted my elephant, he was my companion, and, seated before me with the keeper’s hook in his hand, usually guided the animal in his course. He was, indeed, endowed in every respect with a capacity far beyond his years. A period of six months only had elapsed, since I had married him to a daughter of Ettemaud-ud-Doulah,* with a marriage portion, amounting, in different articles, to the value of twenty laks of five methkaly ashrefies.* He seemed, in every respect, the reverse of his father, brother, and other relatives; and I had recently adopted him as a child of my own. In the severest terms I could express, I reproached his improvident father, for having suffered the child to enter the river on horseback; for which there did not appear the slightest apology, since he had an equipment of fifty or a hundred elephants in his own train. But there seemed to exist some fatal necessity that demanded a victim to be sacrificed of such surpassing purity and excellence. Doubtless this poor child might be justly said to be a second Joseph. Never have I mourned so deeply for the death of any one, as for that of the son of Mirza Rûstum. The following lines may furnish some faint idea of what I endured on the occasion:

“Deprived of the roses of thy countenance, how deep, alas, the anguish of my soul!—Thy cruel loss has planted a thousand thorns in my bosom! Whilst thou wert present, the cheerful earth was like a garden of tulips; but the wounds of separation have transferred to my heart the blood-drop tints of that flower. For ever hidden from mine eyes is the dimple of that cheek: those eyes, the lustre of which has been so sadly dimmed with tears. How has the happiness which I enjoyed in thy society been changed to sorrow and sleepless anguish! Torn as thou hast been from my presence, whom have I left to share in my thoughts! Alas! none but the silent tear which lodges in my bosom. Directed by the hand of Destiny, the death-shaft has transfixed thee; but the wound inflicted by the same hath not left me unharmed. What rose in the garden was so blooming as thyself? Alas, that the death-blow should have so early scattered its leaves!—Far more dearly cherished than Joseph by his father; alas, that thou shouldest have thus early become the prey of the all-devouring monster! For the beauty that beamed on thy brows, an hundred and an hundred times, alas!—for thy kind and gentle manners, a thousand times, alas! The spring is come—in the garden buds the rose: to me, alas! the spring has only brought the plant of sorrow—the tree of mourning. The image of thy perfections is for ever stamped within my breast; the lustre of thy beauty will never be lost to mine eyes. Thy life was only budding from the germ; alas! that it should have been so prematurely blighted by the hand of death!—Alas, for thy love, thou star of the meridian of affection!—Alas, for thy blooming youth, thou cypress with the cheek of the rose!—Alas, that the narcissus in thine eye should have been so early quenched in death; that thy glowing cheek should have been so unseasonably lost in the clouds of ever­lasting night!”*

Without enlarging further on a subject to me so painful, I sent nearly a thou­sand of the best swimmers into the river, in the hope of recovering the lifeless body of the young Mirza, in order to give it the last mournful proofs of my affection; but all search proved in vain. What became of his poor remains was never discovered. But this is not all that I have to record of this fatal river. Impatient of restraint, the unreflecting multitude plunged in heedless throngs into the stream, and perished to the number of fifty thousand persons, not having the common sense to wait until the waters should have subsided. The cold on the banks of the river was, moreover, so severe, that it was reported to me the next morning that nearly ten thousand elephants, camels, and horses, had perished during the night, belonging to the imperial stables alone, inde­pendently of what belonged to the army in general. Blessed be God, for the greatest heats of the dry season! for never, in the very hottest temperature, was there an instance of such extensive destruction at one time. The oldest and most experienced men present united in declaring, that in all they had seen at different times, and in every variety of season, it did not occur to them ever to have witnessed such severity of cold as that which this year had proved so de­structive, on hill and plain, to so many animals of every description.

At the foot of the mountains of Kashmeir the snow fell without intermission for seven days and seven nights, and fuel of any description was not to be pro­cured. The army was accompanied by fakeirs, or religious mendicants, in extraordinary numbers, and as they must have perished if not preserved by some immediate intervention, I ordered a lak of camels belonging to the imperial equipment to be employed forthwith in conveying such fuel as could be procured at a distance, to camp, and these fakeirs to be supplied from the very first convoy, otherwise their destruction would have been inevitable. I further directed that each mendicant should be furnished on the occasion with a vest stuffed with cotton, and a sheep-skin cloak.

As soon as the snowy weather had abated, I gave permission to such of the dignitaries and private stipendiaries as were so inclined, to return to Lahour; for it suited but little with my views to expose my people on any occasion to unre­quired hardship. Then with such of my store department and artificers, and three hundred of those who usually attended my person, and who indeed were never separated from me, I continued my journey toward Kashmeir, the cold abating in a considerable degree as soon as we had passed the mountain frontier. There, among its saffron plains, I proceeded to amuse myself in hunting and shooting, and in excursions to different parts of this delightful valley, for the period of a month, at the expiration of which I adopted the resolution of return­ing to Lahour, which I was desirous of revisiting on my way to the metropolis. Seven years had now elapsed since I last left that city; and I had then given orders to throw down the principal towers, and to rebuild them of red hewn stone, in great part sculptured with the figures of different animals. I had moreover directed a four-walled garden to be completed on the banks of the Rauvy, in the neighbourhood of the town.

When I had, however, proceeded a day’s journey from Kashmeir, intelligence arrived from Kabûl, stating that the turbulent and factious natives of that province had again thrown off restraint, and were beginning to infest the road, and to commit every species of enormity against their fellow subjects. Upon this I directed Mohaubet Khaun, a mûnsebdaur (or dignitary) of my court of the order of five thousand, to proceed immediately to that quarter, with twenty thousand horse of various descriptions, ten thousand camel-mounted match­lockmen, and two hundred elephants of the fiercest class. The origin of this mischief was Allahdaud Khaun, formerly mentioned, a personage of the first distinction among the Afghan tribes, who had withdrawn from my court without the slightest cause, and had now made his appearance in the neighbour­hood of Kabûl. My instructions to Mohaubet Khaun, therefore, were, in the event of his being able to lay hold of this person, to send him at all hazard alive to court, in order that he might receive in my very presence the chastisement due to his ingratitude, and thus furnish to the world an example that none would be permitted with impunity to abscond from my presence on every vague and frivolous pretence.

Thus abruptly terminates the Imperial auto-biographer’s Memoirs.