409 



THE IRON NAIL. 



DHELI is no longer the queen of the East. Like Bagdad, her 

 splendour has passed away, and little remains to attest her magnifi- 

 cence but the ruins of the past. The descendant of the house of 

 Timur is now a dependant on the bounty of his conquerors. The 

 boundless wealth of his fathers is exchanged for a slender pension ; 

 and of their absolute power he only retains the shadow. The travel- 

 ler that visits modern Dheii can form little idea of its former wealth. 

 In the seventeenth century, during the reign of the magnificent em- 

 peror Shah Jehan, the revenue of the kingdom amounted to forty 

 millions an enormous sum, if we remember that it was solely at the 

 disposal of the emperor himself with such wealth the stories of the 

 Arabian Nights might seem no longer fabulous. Indeed, the palace 

 of the emperor, now in ruins, cost one million sterling, and we still 

 see the remains of a throne, called the peacock throne, ascended 

 by Shah Jehan on the birth of a grandson which sumptuous erec- 

 tion cost seven years' labour to the first artisans of the East, and the 

 jewels with which it was decorated cost nearly a million and a half 

 of money. But the conqueror Khuli Khan despoiled the fair queen 

 of her costly diadem. He occupied the country with his Persian 

 and Georgian hordes only five months, and when he quitted Hindos- 

 tan he carried with him treasure to the amount of a hundred millions 

 sterling, besides twenty-five millions paid to his army during their 

 occupation of Dheli. In the principal street of Dheli, called Chun- 

 dree Chank, the street of silver, a little beyond a large tree, are 

 pointed out two small gilt domes belonging to a mosque. It was 

 upon the roof of this building the ruthless Khuli Khan seated himself 

 during the plunder of Dheli in 1738, and, drawing his sword, com- 

 manded the massacre of the inhabitants. The Emperor of Dhe]i 

 threw himself at his feet and implored the mercy of the conquerdr. 

 The tyrant then sheathed his sword, and the carnage ceased; but not 

 till 100,000 innocent people had been slain ! 



It was many years previous to this disastrous time, in the reign of 

 the Emperor Shah Jehan, that our tale begins ; when the magnifi- 

 cence of Dheli was at its height when her palaces were of marble, 

 and her bazaars resplendent with the wealth of every nation when 

 her merchants, trading from Bagdad, Massoul, Damascus, and Cairo, 

 heaped their coffers with riches, and her nobles vied with the splen- 

 dour of the court. During the Musselman month which corres- 

 ponds with our August, a solitary horseman rode along the left bank 

 of the Jumna. The moon was shining high in the heavens, and its 

 clear bright rays shone full upon the large white cotton mantle, in 

 the capacious folds of which he was enveloped. He rode a noble 

 Syrian charger, which apparently had galloped a weary way, but 

 the brave horse shewed no symptoms of fatigue. The features of the 

 rider were handsome their expression noble but stern. He appeared 

 to be borne along insensible to the scene around him, until ai riving 



M.M. No. 100. 3 G 



