GH0LAUM KAUDIR. 
77 
their sockets, and in this mutilated state he was 
ordered to be mounted upon a lean camel and con- 
ducted to the unhappy Shah Alluni, whom he had 
so unmercifully blinded. He bore the dreadful punish- 
ment without shrinking — -with a heroism, indeed, 
worthy of a better cause — but expired on his way 
to Delhi from extreme thirst, brought on by the 
severity of his sufferings. His inexorable judge had 
previously ordered that nothing should be given to 
him either to eat or drink : his death must therefore 
have been one of intense agony. 
Such acts of retribution are in truth fearfully 
inhuman, but are nevertheless so common under the 
government of despots that they cease to look upon 
them with anything but indifference. In their code 
of equity the great axiom is cc an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth,” and unless this be en- 
forced to the very letter, they consider that justice is 
not satisfied, and mercy always yields to the sterner 
attribute. 
From this period to 1802, when Lord Lake de- 
feated the successor of the great Scindia six miles 
from Delhi, and restored the old emperor from the con- 
dition of a state-prisoner to that of a free sovereign, the 
situation of the latter was sad in the extreme. The 
yearly stipend allowed to each surviving prince of the 
imperial family did not exceed two hundred rupees, 
or twenty-two pounds sterling per annum ; while the 
entire amount disbursed on account of the emperor, 
including his own personal expenses, those of his 
family and dependants, and of the numerous stipen- 
diaries whom he had to support, did not more than 
h 3 
