Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XX

Del­hi.--De­scrip­tion of the city.--Mar­ble hall--The Queen's Mahul (palace).--Au­di­ence with the King and Queen.--Con­ver­sa­tion with them.--Char­ac­ter of their Majesties.--Vis­it to a Muck­bur­rah.--Soobad­haars.--The na­ture of the of­fice.--Dur­gah of Shah Niza­am ood deen.--Tomb of Shah Al­lum.--Ru­ins in the vicin­ity of Del­hi. --An­tique pil­lars (Kootub) .--Prospect from its gal­leries.--Anec­dotes of Juangheer and Kha­reem Zund...Page 289

My vis­it to Del­hi, once the great cap­ital of Hin­doost­aun, and the res­idence of the great Sul­tauns, has made im­pres­sions of a last­ing kind, and pre­sent­ed a moral les­son to my mind, I should be sor­ry to for­get in af­ter years; for there I wit­nessed the tombs of righ­teous men in per­fect re­pair af­ter the lapse of many cen­turies, stand­ing in the midst of the moul­der­ing relics of kings, princes, and no­bles, many of whose ca­reers, we learn from his­to­ry, was com­par­ative­ly of re­cent date; yet, ex­cept­ing in one soli­tary in­stance of Shah Al­lum's grave, with­out so much of or­der re­main­ing as would tell to the pass­ing trav­eller the rank of each in­di­vid­ual's mau­soleum, now ei­ther en­tire­ly a ru­in or fast moul­der­ing to de­cay.

The orig­inal city of Del­hi presents to view one vast ex­tent of ru­ins; abound­ing in me­men­tos of de­part­ed worth, as well as in wrecks of great­ness, in­ge­nu­ity, and mag­nif­icence. Why the present city was erect­ed or the for­mer one de­sert­ed, I can­not ven­ture an opin­ion, nei­ther can I re­mem­ber cor­rect­ly in what reign the roy­al res­idence was changed; but judg­ing from the rem­nants of the old, I should imag­ine it to have been equal­ly ex­ten­sive with the mod­ern Del­hi. A part of the old palace is still stand­ing, whith­er the present King, Ak­baar Shah,[1] oc­ca­sion­al­ly re­sorts for days to­geth­er, at­tract­ed per­haps by sym­pa­thy for his an­ces­tors, or by that de­sire for change in­her­ent in hu­man na­ture, and of­ten deemed es­sen­tial to health in the cli­mate of Hin­doost­aun.

The city of Del­hi is en­closed by a wall; the hous­es, which are gen­er­al­ly of brick or red stone, ap­pear to good ad­van­tage, be­ing gen­er­al­ly el­evat­ed a sto­ry or two from the ground-​floor, and more reg­ular­ly con­struct­ed than is usu­al in Na­tive cities. Mosques, mukhbur­rahs, and emaum-​baarahs, in all di­rec­tions, di­ver­si­fy the scene with good ef­fect; whilst the var­ious shops and bazaars, to­geth­er with the out­pour­ings of the pop­ula­tion to and from the mar­kets, give an an­ima­tion to the whole view which would not be com­plete with­out them.

The palace oc­cu­pies an im­mense space of ground, en­closed by high walls, and en­tered by a gate­way of grand ar­chi­tec­ture. On ei­ther side the en­trance I no­ticed lines of com­pact build­ings, oc­cu­pied by the mil­itary, reach­ing to the sec­ond gate­way, which is but lit­tle in­fe­ri­or in style and strength to the grand en­trance; and here again ap­pear long lines of build­ings sim­ilar­ly oc­cu­pied. I passed through sev­er­al of these formidable bar­ri­ers be­fore I reached the mar­ble hall, where the King holds his dur­bar (court) at stat­ed times; but as mine was a mere un­cer­emo­ni­ous vis­it to the King and Queen, it was not at the usu­al hour of dur­bar, and I passed through the hall with­out mak­ing any par­tic­ular ob­ser­va­tions, al­though I could per­ceive it was not de­fi­cient in the cost­li­ness and splen­dour suit­ed to the for­mer great­ness of the In­di­an em­pire.

Af­ter be­ing con­veyed through sev­er­al splen­did apart­ments, I was con­duct­ed to the Queen's mahul[2] (palace for fe­males), where his Majesty and the Queen were await­ing my ar­rival. I found on my en­trance the King seat­ed in the open air in an arm chair en­joy­ing his hookha; the Queen's mus­nud was on the ground, close by the side of her ven­er­able hus­band. Be­ing ac­cus­tomed to Na­tive so­ci­ety, I knew how to ren­der the re­spect due from an hum­ble in­di­vid­ual to per­son­ages of their ex­alt­ed rank. Af­ter hav­ing left my shoes at the en­trance and ad­vanced to­wards them, my salaams were ten­dered, and then the usu­al of­fer­ing of nuz­zas, first to the King and then to the Queen, who in­vit­ed me to a seat on her own car­pet,--an hon­our I knew how to ap­pre­ci­ate from my ac­quain­tance with the eti­quette ob­served on such oc­ca­sions.

The whole pe­ri­od of my vis­it was oc­cu­pied in very in­ter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion; ea­ger in­quiries were made re­spect­ing Eng­land, the Gov­ern­ment, the man­ners of the Court, the habits of the peo­ple, my own fam­ily af­fairs, my hus­band's views in trav­el­ling, and his ad­ven­tures in Eng­land, my own sat­is­fac­tion as re­gard­ed cli­mate, and the peo­ple with whom I was so im­me­di­ate­ly con­nect­ed by mar­riage;--the con­ver­sa­tion, in­deed, nev­er flagged an in­stant, for the con­de­scend­ing cour­tesy of their Majesties en­cour­aged me to add to their en­ter­tain­ment, by de­tails which seemed to in­ter­est and de­light them great­ly.

On tak­ing leave his Majesty very cor­dial­ly shook me by the hand, and the Queen em­braced me with warmth. Both ap­peared, and ex­pressed them­selves, high­ly grat­ified with the vis­it of an En­glish la­dy who could ex­plain her­self in their lan­guage with­out em­bar­rass­ment, or the as­sis­tance of an in­ter­preter, and who was the more in­ter­est­ing to them from the cir­cum­stance of be­ing the wife of a Syaad; the Queen in­deed was par­tic­ular in re­mind­ing me that 'the Syaads were in a re­li­gious point of view, the no­bles of the Mus­sul­mauns, and rev­er­enced as such far more than those ti­tled char­ac­ters who re­ceive their dis­tinc­tion from their fel­low-​mor­tals'.

I was grieved to be obliged to ac­cept the Queen's part­ing present of an em­broi­dered scarf, be­cause I knew her means were ex­ceed­ing­ly lim­it­ed com­pared with the de­mands up­on her boun­ty; but I could not refuse that which was in­tend­ed to do me hon­our at the risk of wound­ing those feel­ings I so great­ly re­spect­ed. A small ring, of tri­fling val­ue, was then placed by the Queen on my fin­ger, as she re­marked, 'to re­mind me of the giv­er.'

The King's coun­te­nance, dig­ni­fied by age, pos­sess­es traces of ex­treme beau­ty; he is much fair­er than Asi­at­ics usu­al­ly are; his fea­tures are still fine, his hair sil­very white; in­tel­li­gence beams up­on his brow, his con­ver­sa­tion gen­tle and re­fined, and his con­de­scend­ing man­ners hard­ly to be sur­passed by the most re­fined gen­tle­man of Eu­rope. I am told by those who have been long in­ti­mate with his habits in pri­vate, that he leads a life of strict piety and tem­per­ance, equal to that of a dur­weish[3] of his faith, whom he im­itates in ex­pend­ing his in­come on oth­ers with­out in­dulging in a sin­gle lux­ury him­self.

The Queen's man­ners are very ami­able and con­de­scend­ing; she is re­port­ed to be as high­ly gift­ed with in­tel­lec­tu­al en­dow­ments as I can af­firm she is with gen­uine po­lite­ness.

I was in­duced to vis­it the mukhbur­rah of the great-​great-​grand­fa­ther of the present King of Oude,[4] who, at his death,--which oc­curred at Del­hi, I be­lieve,--was one of the Soobad­haars[5] of the sovereign ruler of In­dia. This no­ble­man, in his time, had been a staunch ad­her­ent to the de­scen­dants of Tim­oor, and had been re­ward­ed for his fi­deli­ty by pub­lic hon­ours and the pri­vate friend­ship of the King. The mon­ument erect­ed over his re­mains, is in a cost­ly style of mag­nif­icence, and in the best pos­si­ble con­di­tion, stand­ing in the cen­tre of a flow­er-​gar­den which is en­closed by a stone wall, with a grand gate­way of good ar­chi­tec­ture. The mukhbur­rah is spa­cious, and in the usu­al Mus­sul­maun style of build­ing mau­soleums; viz., a square, with a dome, and is as­cend­ed by a flight of broad steps. This build­ing stands about three miles from the city, in a good sit­ua­tion to be seen from the road. I was told that the fam­ily of Oude kept read­ers of the Kho­raun in con­stant at­ten­dance at the mukhbur­rah; and I ob­served sev­er­al sol­diers, whose du­ty it was to guard the sa­cred spot, at the ex­pense of the Oude gov­ern­ment.

In ex­pla­na­tion of the word Soobad­haar, it may not be un­in­ter­est­ing to re­mark in this place, that when the gov­ern­ment of Hin­doost­aun flour­ished un­der the de­scen­dants of Tim­oor, Soobad­haars were ap­point­ed over dis­tricts, whose du­ty, in some re­spects, bore re­sem­blance to that of a Gov­er­nor; with this dif­fer­ence, that the soobad­haaries were gifts, not on­ly for the life of the in­di­vid­uals, but to their pos­ter­ity for ev­er, un­der cer­tain re­stric­tions and stip­ula­tions which made them trib­utary to, and re­tained them as de­pen­dants of, the reign­ing sovereign:--as for in­stance, a cer­tain an­nu­al amount was to be punc­tu­al­ly trans­ferred to the trea­sury at Del­hi; the province to be gov­erned by the same laws, and the sub­jects to be un­der the same con­trol in each Soobad­haarie as those of the par­ent sovereign­ty; the rev­enue ex­act­ed in the very same way,; each Soobad­haar was bound to re­tain in his em­ploy a giv­en num­ber of sol­diers, horse and foot, ful­ly equipped for the field, with per­fect lib­er­ty to em­ploy them as oc­ca­sion served in the ter­ri­to­ry which he gov­erned, whether against re­frac­to­ry sub­jects, or en­croach­ments from neigh­bour­ing provinces; but in any emer­gen­cy from the Court at Del­hi, the forces to be, at all times, in readi­ness for the Sul­taun's ser­vice at a mo­ment's no­tice.

The gift of a Soobad­haarie was orig­inal­ly con­ferred on men who had dis­tin­guished them­selves, ei­ther in the army, or in civ­il ca­pac­ities, as faith­ful friends and ser­vants of the Sul­taun. In the course of time, some of these Soobad­haars, prob­ably from just caus­es, threw off their strict al­le­giance to their Sovereign, aban­doned the ti­tle of Soobad­haar, and adopt­ed that of Nuwaub in its stead, ei­ther with or with­out the con­sent of the Court of Del­hi.

As it is not my in­ten­tion to give a pre­cise his­to­ry of the In­di­an em­pire, but mere­ly to touch on gen­er­al­ities, I have con­fined my re­marks to a brief ex­pla­na­tion of the na­ture of this of­fice; and will on­ly add, that whilst the Soobad­haars (af­ter­wards the Nuwaubs) of Oude swayed over that beau­ti­ful province un­der these ti­tles, they con­tin­ued to send their usu­al nuz­zas to the King of Del­hi, al­though no longer con­sid­ered un­der his do­min­ion; thus ac­knowl­edg­ing his su­pe­ri­or­ity, be­cause in­fe­ri­ors on­ly present nuz­zas. But when Ghauzee ood deen Hy­der was cre­at­ed King of Oude, he could no longer be con­sid­ered trib­utary to the House of Tim­oor, and the an­nu­al cer­emo­ny of send­ing a nuz­za, I un­der­stood, was dis­con­tin­ued. The first King of Oude is­sued coins from his new mint al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his coro­na­tion, pri­or to which pe­ri­od the cur­rent mon­ey of that province bore the stamp of Del­hi.[6]

Shah Niza­am ood deen[7] was one of the many Mus­sul­maun saints, whose his­to­ry has in­ter­est­ed me much. He is said to have been dead about five hun­dred years, yet his mem­ory is cher­ished by the Mus­sul­mauns of the present day with ven­er­ation un­abat­ed by the lapse of years, thus giv­ing to the world a moral and a re­li­gious les­son, 'The great and the am­bi­tious per­ish, and their glo­ry di­eth with them; but the righ­teous have a name amongst their pos­ter­ity for ev­er.'

I was fa­mil­iar with the char­ac­ter of Niza­am ood deen long pri­or to my vis­it at the Court of Del­hi, and, as maybe sup­posed, it was with no com­mon feel­ing of plea­sure I em­braced the op­por­tu­ni­ty of vis­it­ing the mau­soleum erect­ed over the re­mains of that righ­teous man.

The build­ing orig­inal­ly was com­posed of the hard red stone, com­mon to the neigh­bour­hood of Del­hi, with an oc­ca­sion­al mix­ture of red bricks of a very su­pe­ri­or qual­ity; but con­sid­er­able ad­di­tions and or­na­men­tal im­prove­ments of pure white mar­ble have been added to the ed­ifice, from time to time, by dif­fer­ent monar­chs and no­bles of Hin­doost­aun, whose pi­ous re­spect for the mem­ory of the righ­teous Shah Niza­am ood deen is tes­ti­fied by these ad­di­tions, which ren­der the mau­soleum at the present time as fresh and or­der­ly as if but new­ly erect­ed.

The style of the build­ing is on the orig­inal, I might say, on­ly plan of Mus­sul­maun mukhbur­rahs--square, with a cupo­la. It is a beau­ti­ful struc­ture on a scale of mod­er­ate size. The pave­ments are of mar­ble, as are al­so the pil­lars, which are flut­ed and in­laid with pure gold; the ceil­ing is of chaste enam­el paint­ing (pe­cu­liar­ly an In­di­an art, I fan­cy,) of the bright­est colours. The cupo­la is of pure white mar­ble, of exquisite work­man­ship and in good taste; its erec­tion is of re­cent date, I un­der­stand, and the pi­ous of­fer­ing of the good Ak­baar Shah, who, be­ing him­self a very re­li­gions per­son­age, was de­ter­mined out of his lim­it­ed in­come to add this proof of his ven­er­ation for the saint­ed Niza­am to the many which his an­ces­tors had shown.[8]

The mar­ble tomb en­clos­ing the ash­es of Shah Niza­am ood deen is in the cen­tre of the build­ing im­me­di­ate­ly un­der the cupo­la; this tomb is about sev­en feet long by two, raised about a foot from the pave­ment; on the mar­ble sides are en­graved chap­ters from the Kho­raun in the Ara­bic char­ac­ter, filled up with black; the tomb it­self has a cov­er­ing of very rich gold cloth, re­sem­bling a pall.

This tran­quil spot is held sa­cred by all Mus­sul­mauns. Here the sound of hu­man feet are nev­er heard; 'Put off thy shoes', be­ing quite as strict­ly ob­served near this ven­er­at­ed place, as when the mosque and emaum-​baarah are vis­it­ed by 'the faith­ful'; who, as I have be­fore re­marked, when­ev­er a prayer is about to be of­fered to God, cast off their shoes with scrupu­lous care, whether the place cho­sen for wor­ship be in the mosque, the abode of men, or the wilder­ness.

I was per­mit­ted to ex­am­ine the in­te­ri­or of the mau­soleum. The calm still­ness, which seemed hard­ly earth­ly; the neat­ness which per­vad­ed ev­ery cor­ner of the in­te­ri­or; the rec­ol­lec­tion of those virtues, which I so of­ten heard had dis­tin­guished Shah Niza­am's ca­reer on earth, im­pressed me with feel­ings at that mo­ment I can­not for­get; and it was with re­luc­tance I turned from this ob­ject to wan­der among the sur­round­ing splen­did ru­ins, the on­ly em­blems left of de­part­ed great­ness; where not even a tablet ex­ists to mark the af­fec­tion of sur­vivors, or to point to the pass­ing trav­eller the tomb of the monarch, the prince, or the no­ble,--ex­cept in the in­stance of Shah Al­lum,--whilst the hum­ble-​mind­ed man's place of sepul­ture is kept re­paired from age to age, and still re­tains the fresh­ness of a mod­ern struc­ture in its five hun­dredth year.

There are men in charge of Shah Niza­am ood deen's mau­soleum who lead de­vout lives, and sub­sist on the ca­su­al boun­ties gleaned from the char­ita­ble vis­itors to his shrine. Their time is passed in re­li­gious du­ties, read­ing the Kho­raun over the ash­es of the saint, and keep­ing the place clean and free from un­holy in­tru­sions. They do not deem this mode of ex­is­tence deroga­to­ry; for to hold the sit­ua­tion of daro­gahs, or keep­ers of the tombs of the saints, who are held in uni­ver­sal ven­er­ation amongst Mus­sul­mauns, is es­teemed an hon­ourable priv­ilege.

In this sketch of my vis­it to the tombs at Del­hi, I must not omit one very re­mark­able ceme­tery, which, as the rest­ing place of the last reign­ing sovereign of Hin­doost­aun, ex­cit­ed in me no small de­gree of in­ter­est, whilst con­trast­ing the view it ex­hib­it­ed of fall­en great­ness, with the many ev­idences of roy­al mag­nif­icence.

The tomb I am about to de­scribe is that erect­ed over the re­mains of Shah Al­lum;[9] and sit­uat­ed with­in view of the mau­soleum of the righ­teous ple­beian, Shah Niza­am. It is a sim­ple, un­adorned grave; no canopy of mar­ble, or dec­orat­ed hall, marks here the peace­ful rest of a monarch, who in his life-​time was cel­ebrat­ed for the splen­dour of his Court; a small square spot of earth, en­closed with iron rail­ings, is all that re­mains to point to pos­ter­ity the fi­nal rest­ing place of the last monarch of Hin­doost­aun. His grave is made by his favourite daugh­ter's side, whose af­fec­tion had been his on­ly so­lace in the last years of his earth­ly suf­fer­ings; a lit­tle ma­son­ry of brick and plas­ter sup­ports the mound of earth over his re­mains, on which I ob­served the grass was grow­ing, ap­par­ent­ly cul­tured by some friend­ly hand. At the pe­ri­od of my vis­it, the soli­tary or­na­ment to this last ter­res­tri­al abode of a King was a lux­uri­ant white jes­samine tree, beau­ti­ful­ly stud­ded with blos­soms, which scent­ed the air around with a de­light­ful fra­grance, and scat­tered many a flow­er over the grave which it graced by its re­mark­able beau­ty, height, and lux­uri­ance. The sole canopy that adorns Shah Al­lum's grave is the rich sky, with all its re­splen­dent orbs of day and night, or clouds teem­ing with benef­icent show­ers. Who then could be am­bi­tious, vain, or proud, af­ter view­ing this strik­ing con­trast to the grave of Shah Niza­am? The vain-​glo­ri­ous hum­bled even in the tomb;--the hum­ble mind­ed ex­alt­ed by the ven­er­ation ev­er paid to the righ­teous.

I was per­suad­ed to vis­it the ru­ins of an­tiq­ui­ty which are with­in a morn­ing' s drive of Del­hi. Noth­ing that I there wit­nessed gave me so much plea­sure as the far-​famed Kootub, a mon­ument or pil­lar, of great an­tiq­ui­ty, claimed equal­ly by the Hin­doo and Mus­sul­maun as due to their re­spec­tive pe­ri­ods of sovereign rule. The site is an el­evat­ed spot, and from the traces of for­mer build­ings, I am dis­posed to be­lieve this pil­lar, stand­ing now erect and im­pos­ing, was one of the minarets of a mosque, and the on­ly re­mains of such a build­ing, which must have been very ex­ten­sive, if the height and di­men­sions of the minaret be tak­en as a cri­te­ri­on of the whole.[10]

This pil­lar has cir­cu­lar stairs with­in, lead­ing to gal­leries ex­tend­ing all round, at stat­ed dis­tances, and form­ing five tiers from the first gallery to the top, which fin­ish­es with a cir­cu­lar room, and a canopy of stone, open on ev­ery side for the ad­van­tage of an ex­ten­sive prospect. Vers­es from the Kho­raun are cut out in large Ara­bic char­ac­ters on the stones, which form por­tions of the pil­lar from the base to the sum­mit in reg­ular di­vi­sions; this could on­ly be done with great labour, and, I should imag­ine, whilst the blocks of stone were on the lev­el sur­face of the earth, which ren­ders it still more prob­able that it was a Mus­sul­maun erec­tion.

The view from the first gallery was re­al­ly so mag­nif­icent, that I was in­duced to as­cend to the sec­ond for a still bold­er ex­tent of prospect, which more than re­paid me the task. I nev­er re­mem­ber to have seen so pic­turesque a panora­ma in any oth­er place. Some of my par­ty, bet­ter able to bear the fa­tigue, as­cend­ed to the third and fourth gallery. From them I learned that the beau­ty and ex­tent of the view pro­gres­sive­ly in­creased un­til they reached the sum­mit, from whence the land­scape which fell be­neath the eye sur­passed de­scrip­tion.

On the road back to Del­hi, we passed some ex­ten­sive re­mains of build­ings, which I found on in­quiry had been de­signed for an ob­ser­va­to­ry by Jhy Sing,[11]--whose ex­traor­di­nary mind has ren­dered his name con­spic­uous in the an­nals of Hin­doost­aun,--but which was not com­plet­ed while he lived. It may be pre­sumed, since the work was nev­er fin­ished, that his coun­try­men ei­ther have not the tal­ent, or the means to ac­com­plish the sci­en­tif­ic plan his su­pe­ri­or mind had con­tem­plat­ed.

At the time I vis­it­ed Del­hi, I had but re­cent­ly re­cov­ered from a se­ri­ous and te­dious ill­ness; I was there­fore ill-​fit­ted to pur­sue those re­search­es which might have af­ford­ed en­ter­tain­ing ma­te­ri­al for my pen, and must, on that ac­count, take my leave of this sub­ject with re­gret, for the present, and mere­ly add my ac­knowl­edg­ments to those kind friends who aid­ed my en­deav­ours in the lit­tle I was en­abled to wit­ness of that re­mark­able place, which to have viewed en­tire­ly would have tak­en more time and bet­ter health than I could com­mand at that pe­ri­od. I could have de­sired to search out amongst the ru­ined mau­soleums for those which con­tain the ash­es of il­lus­tri­ous char­ac­ters, ren­dered fa­mil­iar and in­ter­est­ing by the sev­er­al anec­dotes cur­rent in Na­tive so­ci­ety, to many of which I have lis­tened with plea­sure, as each pos­sessed some good moral for the mind.

It is my in­ten­tion to se­lect two anec­dotes for my present Let­ter, which will, I trust, prove amus­ing to my read­ers; one re­lates to Jhaungeer,[12] King of In­dia; the oth­er to Kaa­reem Zund, King of Per­sia. I am not aware that ei­ther has ap­peared be­fore the pub­lic in our lan­guage, al­though they are so fre­quent­ly re­lat­ed by the Na­tives in their do­mes­tic cir­cles. If they have not, I need hard­ly apol­ogise for in­tro­duc­ing them, and on the oth­er hand, if they have be­fore been seen, I may plead my ig­no­rance of the cir­cum­stance in ex­cuse for their in­ser­tion here.

I have al­ready no­ticed that, among the true Mus­sul­mauns, there are no re­li­gious ob­ser­vances more strict­ly en­forced than the keep­ing the fast of Rumza­un, and the ab­stain­ing from fer­ment­ed liquors. It is re­lat­ed, how­ev­er, that 'A cer­tain king of In­dia, named Jhaungeer, was in­struct­ed by his tu­tors in the be­lief, that on the day of judg­ment, kings and rulers will not have to an­swer ei­ther for the sin of omis­sion or com­mis­sion, as re­gards these two com­mands; but that the due ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice to the sub­jects over whom they are placed, will be re­quired at the hands of ev­ery king, ruler, or gov­er­nor, on the face of the earth.

'Jhaungeer was de­ter­mined to walk strict­ly in the path which he was as­sured would lead him to a hap­py eter­ni­ty; and, there­fore, in his reign ev­ery claim of jus­tice was most punc­til­ious­ly dis­charged. Each case re­quir­ing de­ci­sion was im­me­di­ate­ly brought to the foot of the throne; for the King would not al­low busi­ness of such im­por­tance to his soul's best in­ter­est to be del­egat­ed to the guardian­ship of his Vizier, or oth­er of his ser­vants; and in or­der to give greater fa­cil­ity to com­plainants of ev­ery de­gree, the King in­vent­ed the nov­el con­trivance of a large bell, which was fixed im­me­di­ate­ly over his usu­al seat on the mus­nud, which bell could be sound­ed by any one out­side the palace gate, by means of a stout rope staked to the ground. When­ev­er this alarum of jus­tice was sound­ed in the King's ear, he sent a trusty mes­sen­ger to con­duct the com­plainant in­to his pres­ence.[13]

'One day, up­on the bell be­ing vi­olent­ly rung, the mes­sen­ger was com­mand­ed to bring in the per­son re­quir­ing jus­tice. When the mes­sen­ger reached the gate, he found no oth­er crea­ture near the place but a poor sick­ly-​look­ing ass, in search of a scanty meal from the stunt­ed grass, which was dried up by the scorch­ing sun, and blasts of hot wind which at that sea­son pre­vailed. The man re­turned and re­port­ed to the King that there was no per­son at the gate.

'The King was much sur­prised at the sin­gu­lar­ity of the cir­cum­stance, and whilst he was talk­ing of the sub­ject with his no­bles and courtiers, the bell was again rung with in­creased vi­olence. The mes­sen­ger be­ing a sec­ond time despatched, re­turned with the same an­swer, as­sur­ing the King that there was not any per­son at or with­in sight of the gate. The King, sus­pect­ing him to be a per­vert­er of jus­tice, was dis­pleased with the man, and even ac­cused him of keep­ing back a com­plainant from in­ter­est­ed mo­tives. It was in vain the mes­sen­ger de­clared him­self in­no­cent of so foul a crime; a third time the bell rang, “Go,” said the King to his at­ten­dants, “and bring the sup­pli­cant in­to my pres­ence im­me­di­ate­ly!” The men went, and on their re­turn in­formed the King that the on­ly liv­ing crea­ture near the gate was an ass, poor and manged, seek­ing a scanty meal from the parched blades of grass. “Then let the ass be brought hith­er!” said the King; “per­haps _he_ may have some com­plaint to pre­fer against his own­er.”

'The courtiers smiled when the ass was brought in­to the pres­ence of the monarch, who up­on see­ing the poor half-​starved beast cov­ered with sores, was at no loss for a so­lu­tion of the mys­te­ri­ous ring­ing at the bell, for the an­imal not find­ing a tree or post against which he could rub him­self, had made use of the bell-​rope for that pur­pose.

“En­quire for the own­er of the ass!” com­mand­ed the King, “and let him be brought be­fore me with­out de­lay!” The or­der prompt­ly giv­en, was as read­ily obeyed; and the hurkaarahs (mes­sen­gers, or run­ning foot­men) in a short time in­tro­duced a poor Dhob­hie[14] (wash­er­man) who had owned the ass from a foal. The plain­tiff and de­fen­dant were then placed side by side be­fore the throne, when the King de­mand­ed, “Why the sick ass was cast out to pro­vide for it­self a pre­car­ious sub­sis­tence?” The Dhob­hie replied, “In truth, O Ja­haum-​punah![15] (Pro­tec­tor or Ruler of the World), be­cause he is grown old and un­ser­vice­able, af­flict­ed with mange, and be­ing no longer able to con­vey my loads of linen to the riv­er, I gave him his lib­er­ty.”

'“Friend,” said the King, “when this thine ass was young and healthy, strong and lusty, didst thou not de­rive ben­efits from his ser­vices? Now that he is old, and un­able from sick­ness to ren­der thee fur­ther ben­efits, thou hast cast him from thy pro­tec­tion, and sent him adrift on the wide world; grat­itude should have moved thee to suc­cour and feed so old and faith­ful a ser­vant, rather than for­sake him in his in­fir­mi­ties. Thou hast dealt un­just­ly with this thy crea­ture; but, mark me, I hold thee re­spon­si­ble to re­pair the in­jury thou hast done the ass. Take him to thy home, and at the end of forty days at­tend again at this place, ac­com­pa­nied by the ass, and com­pen­sate to the best of thy pow­er, by kind treat­ment, for the in­jury thou hast done him by thy late hard-​heart­ed con­duct.”

'The Dhob­hie, glad to es­cape so well, went away lead­ing the ass to his home, fed him with well-​soaked gram (grain in gen­er­al use for cat­tle), and nice­ly-​picked grass, shel­tered him from the burn­ing sun, poured heal­ing oil in­to his wounds, and cov­ered his back to keep off the flies; once a day he bathed him in the riv­er. In short, such ex­pe­di­ents were re­sort­ed to for the com­fort and re­lief of the ass, as were ul­ti­mate­ly at­tend­ed with the hap­pi­est ef­fects.

'At the ex­pi­ra­tion of the forty days, the Dhob­hie set off from his home to the palace, lead­ing his now live­ly ass by a cord. On the road the passers-​by were filled with amaze­ment and mirth, at the man­ners and ex­pres­sions of the Dhob­hie to­wards his led ass. “Come along, broth­er!--Make haste, son!--Let us be quick, fa­ther!--Take care, un­cle!”

'“What means the old fool?” was asked by some; “does he make his ass a re­la­tion?”--“In truth,” replied the Dhob­hie, “my ass is a very dear old friend, and what is more, he has been a greater ex­pense to me than all my re­la­tions lat­ter­ly: be­lieve me, it has cost me much care and pains to bring this ass in­to his present ex­cel­lent con­di­tion.” Then re­lat­ing the or­ders of the King, and his own sub­se­quent treat­ment of the beast, the peo­ple no longer won­dered at the sim­ple Dhob­hie's ex­pres­sions which had prompt­ed them at first to be­lieve he was mad.

'The King, it is re­lat­ed, re­ceived the Dhob­hie gra­cious­ly, and com­mend­ed and re­ward­ed him for his care­ful at­ten­tion to the an­imal; which in his im­proved con­di­tion be­came more use­ful to his mas­ter than he had ev­er been, through the King's de­ter­mi­na­tion to en­force jus­tice even to the brute cre­ation.'

The sec­ond anec­dote, trans­lat­ed for me by the same kind hand, is of­ten re­lat­ed, with nu­mer­ous em­bel­lish­ments, un­der the ti­tle of 'Kha­reem Zund'.[16]

'Kha­reem Zund ruled in Per­sia. One day he was seat­ed in the ve­ran­dah of his palace smok­ing his hookha, and, at the same time, as was his fre­quent prac­tice, over­look­ing the im­prove­ments car­ried on by ma­sons and labour­ers, un­der the su­per­in­ten­dence of a trusty ser­vant. One of the labour­ers, who was al­so named Kha­reem, had toiled long, and sought to re­fresh him­self with a pipe. The over­seer of the work, see­ing the poor man thus en­gaged, ap­proached him in great wrath, rat­ed him severe­ly for his pre­sump­tion in smok­ing whilst he stood in the pres­ence of his sovereign, and strik­ing him severe­ly with a stick, snatched the pipe from the labour­er and threw it away. The poor wretch cared not for the weight of the blow so much as for the loss of his pipe: his heart was op­pressed with the weight of his sor­rows, and rais­ing his eyes to Heav­en he cried aloud, “Al­lah Kha­reem!”[17] (God is mer­ci­ful!), then low­er­ing his eyes, his glance rest­ed on the King, “App Kha­reem!” (thou art named mer­ci­ful!), from whom with­draw­ing his eyes slow­ly he looked at his own mean body, and added, “Myn Kha­reem!” (I am called mer­ci­ful!).

'The King, who had heard the labour­er's words, and wit­nessed with emo­tion the im­pres­sive man­ner of lift­ing his eyes to Heav­en, had al­so seen the sever­ity of the over­seer to the un­of­fend­ing labour­er; he there­fore com­mand­ed that the man should be brought in­to his pres­ence with­out de­lay, who went trem­bling, and full of fear that his speech had drawn some heavy pun­ish­ment on his head.

'“Sit down,” said the King.--“My sovereign par­don his slave!” replied the labour­er.--“I do not jest; it is my plea­sure that you sit down,” re­peat­ed the King; and when he saw his hum­ble guest seat­ed, he or­dered his own sil­ver hookha to be brought and placed be­fore the poor man, who hes­itat­ed to ac­cept the gra­cious of­fer; but the King as­sured him in the kind­est man­ner pos­si­ble it was his wish and his com­mand. The labour­er en­joyed the lux­ury of a good hookha, and by the con­de­scend­ing be­haviour of the King his com­po­sure grad­ual­ly re­turned.

'This King, who it would seem de­light­ed in ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty that of­fered of im­part­ing plea­sure and com­fort to his sub­jects of all ranks and de­grees, see­ing the labour­er had fin­ished his sec­ond chillum[18] (con­tents of a pipe) told him he had per­mis­sion to de­part, and de­sired him to take the hookha and keep it for his sake. “Alas, my King!” said the labour­er, “this cost­ly sil­ver pipe will soon be stolen from me; my mud hut can­not safe­ly re­tain so valu­able a gift; the poor ma­zoor[19] in­hab­its but a chupha (or coarse grass-​roofed) hut.”--“Then take ma­te­ri­als from my store-​hous­es to build a house suit­ed to your hookha,” was the or­der he re­ceived from the King; “and let it be prompt­ly done! I de­sign to make you one of my over­seers; for _you_, Kha­reem, have been the in­stru­ment to rouse _me_ to be Kha­reem (mer­ci­ful); and I can now ap­proach Al­lah with in­creased con­fi­dence. Who is the on­ly true Kha­reem!”'

[1] Ak­bar Shah II, King of Del­hi, A.D. 1806-37.

[2] _Ma­hall_.

[3] _Darvesh_, 'a re­li­gious men­di­cant'.

[4] Mansur 'Ali Khan, Saf­dar Jang, Nawab of Oudh (A.D. 1739-56), his suc­ces­sors be­ing--his son, Shu­ja-​ud-​daula (1756-75); his son, Asaf-​ud-​daula (1775-97); his re­put­ed son Wazir 'Ali (1797-8); Sa'a dat 'Ali Khan, half-​broth­er of Asaf-​ud-​daula (1798-1814); his son, Ghazi-​ud-​din Haidar (1814-37). The tomb of Saf­dar Jang is near that of the Em­per­or Hu­mayun. 'This tomb in one of the last great Muham­madan ar­chi­tec­tural ef­forts in In­dia, and for its age it de­serves per­haps more com­men­da­tion than is usu­al­ly ac­cord­ed to it. Though the gen­er­al ar­range­ment of the tomb in the same as that of the Taj, it was not in­tend­ed to be a copy of the lat­ter' (H.C. Fan­shawe, _Del­hi Past and Present_, 1902, 246 f., with a pho­to­graph). For a dif­fer­ent ap­pre­ci­ation, see Slee­man, _Ram­bles_, p. 507.

[5] _Sub­ah­dar_, the Viceroy or Gov­er­nor of a Sub­ah or Province of the Moghul Em­pire.

[6] Ghazi-​ud-​din an­nounced his in­de­pen­dence of Del­hi un­der the ad­vice of his Min­is­ter, Agha Mir.

[7] Shaikh Nizam-​ud-​din. Auliya, one of the no­blest dis­ci­ples of Shaikh Farid-​ud-​din Shakkar­ganj; born at Bu­daun, A.D. 1236, died at Del­hi, 1325.

[8] The en­trance to the Dar­gah was built by Firoz Shah, and bears the date A.D. 1378. The struc­ture over the tomb has been re­built by many pi­ous donors, and lit­tle of the orig­inal work is left (Fan­shawe, op. cit., 235 ff.; Slee­man, _Ram­bles_, 490 ff., 507).

[9] Shah 'Alam II, King of Del­hi, A.D. 1759-1806. 'Three roy­al graves in the lit­tle court to the south side of the mosque lie with­in a sin­gle mar­ble en­clo­sure--that on the last is the rest­ing-​place of Ak­bar Shah II (died 1837 A.D.); the next to it is that of Shah Alam II (died 1806), and then be­yond an emp­ty space, in­tend­ed for the grave of Ba­hadur Shah, [the last King of Del­hi], buried at Ran­goon, comes the tomb of Shah Alam Ba­hadur Shah, a plain stone with grass on it' (Fan­shawe, 281 f.; Slee­man, _Ram­bles_, 500).

[10] Qutb, 'the po­lar star'. The pil­lar, 238 feet in height, was be­gun by Qutb-​ud-​di Aibak (A.D. 1206-10), and there are in­scrip­tions of Al­tamsh or Il­tut­mish, his son-​in-​law. It is en­tire­ly of Muham­madan ori­gin, and was pri­mar­ily in­tend­ed to serve as a minaret to Qutb-​ud-​din's mosque ad­join­ing it; but its name refers to the saint Qutb-​ud-​din, buried close by. (Fan­shawe, 265 ff.; Slee­man, _Ram­bles_, 492 ff.)

[11] This ob­ser­va­to­ry was built by Ra­ja Jai Singh of Jaipur (A.D. 1693-1743) in 1724. He al­so erect­ed sim­ilar ob­ser­va­to­ries at Benares, Mul­tan, Uj­jain, and Jaipur (Fan­shawe, 247).

[12] Ja­hangir, el­dest son of the Em­per­or Ak­bar, reigned A.D. 1605-27.

[13] 'The first or­der that I is­sued was for the set­ting up of a Chain of Jus­tice, so that if the Of­fi­cers of the Courts of Jus­tice should fail in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the com­plaints of the op­pressed, the in­jured per­son might come to this chain and shake it, and so give no­tice of their wrongs. I or­dered that the chain should be made of pure gold, and be thir­ty _gaz_ [yards] long, with six­ty bells up­on it. The weight of it was four Hin­dus­tani _mans_ [8 lb.] of 'Irak. One end was firm­ly at­tached to a bat­tle­ment of the fort of Agra, the oth­er to a stone col­umn on the bank of the riv­er' (_Mem­oirs of Ja­hangir_ in Sir H.M. El­liot, _His­to­ry of In­dia_, vi. 284). It does not ap­pear that this sil­ly con­trivance was ev­er used, and it was meant on­ly for pa­rade. Ra­ja Anang­pal had al­ready set up a sim­ilar bell at Del­hi (ibid. vi. 262, iii. 565).

[14] _Dho­bi_.

[15] _Ja­han-​panah_.

[16] Karim Khan, of the Zand tribe, de­feat­ed the Afghans and se­cured the King­dom of Fars or South­ern Per­sia, with his cap­ital at Shi­raz. He died at an ad­vanced age, A.D. 1779 (Sir J. Mal­colm, _His­to­ry of Per­sia_, 1829, ii. 58 ff.).

[17] _Al­lah Karim, Ap Karim, Main Karim_.

[18] _Chil­am_, the clay bowl of a wa­ter-​pipe: its con­tents.

[19] _Maz­dur_, a day labour­er.