THE BEAR VANQUISHED. 
119 
efforts to despatch him ; these they continued until 
they were so completely exhausted as to be scarcely 
able to stand. Both lay panting beside their unre- 
sisting foe, and were finally taken off by a keeper. 
The bear finding himself released from further moles- 
tation, threw the dead dog which he held in his em- 
brace on one side, and mounted the pole in the centre 
of his prison little the worse for the encounter. 
Such are the exhibitions in which Akbar used 
to take great delight, though probably these amuse- 
ments were encouraged by him in order to fami- 
liarize his nobles with such scenes as had a ten- 
dency to inure their hearts to those sterner feelings 
with which, unless a warrior in earlier times was fa- 
miliar, he was supposed to be destitute of the higher 
attributes that constitute a hero. The Emperor, how- 
ever, — notwithstanding what may be deemed his san- 
guinary predilections, so far as related to the destruc- 
tion of wild beasts,-— was by no means deficient in the 
social qualities of urbanity and tenderness. He was 
no less distinguished for his virtues as a father and 
husband than for his qualities as a sovereign ; and 
although in every character he showed an inflexible 
determination in the pursuit of truth and in the ad- 
ministration of justice, he was still ever ready to 
reward merit and to return with manly love the 
affections of his kindred. 
Among the numerous public works which distin- 
guished his long and prosperous reign is a celebrated 
boulee, or well, near the capital of Allahabad : it is 
at this moment the admiration of all travellers. The 
circumference is about eighty feet, and its ordinary 
