76 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
in his establishment the sad decline into which the 
Mahomedan sovereignty had fallen. In 1788, Gho- 
laum Kaudir, a Rohilla chief, in whom the too confiding 
emperor had reposed implicit confidence, made a sud- 
den irruption upon Delhi, of which he became master, 
seized the weak but virtuous Shah Allum and after 
subjecting him for several weeks to the most humi- 
liating mortifications, loading him with insults and ex- 
posing him to every atrocious abuse in order to extort 
from him the supposed secret of his concealed treasures, 
pierced the unhappy emperor’s eyes with his crease 
thus rendering him totally blind. He likewise mas- 
sacred and put to the torture several members of the 
royal family ; nor did he quit the city, where he had 
indeed rendered the imperial palace a house of mourn- 
ing, until the approach of Mahadajee Scindia’s army 
drove him from the scene of his atrocities. A retri- 
bution, however, as sudden as it was terrible shortly 
overtook him : he was pursued and captured by a de- 
tachment of the Mahratta army and brought before 
their commander. Scindia did not deign to utter a 
word, but, looking sternly on the hardened criminal, 
who seemed to despise the fate which he too well 
knew awaited him, ordered one of his attendants to 
ask him where he had deposited the plunder of the 
palace, and, on his refusing to answer, the Rohilla 
was given up to a truly terrible punishment : he was 
put into an iron cage and suspended from a beam in 
front of the army. After being exposed to the scoffs 
of men scarcely less ferocious than himself, his nose, 
ears, hands, and feet, were cut off, his eyes forced from 
* A short two-edged dagger. 
