1878.] 
W. Irvine —The Bangash Nawdhs of Farruhhdbdd. 
330 
and a bell-metal spittoon. Amir Khan arrived and was placed at the Na- 
wab’s side. After a little, the Nawab taking out a prepared betel-leaf from 
his wooden box and a bottle of scent from a wooden casket, presented pan 
and scent to the visitor and dismissed him. Nawab Amir Khan was much 
amused at this poor display. On the road back he said to Kaim Khan, 
“ Though your father is a Bawan Hazari, he looks like a villager, why do 
“ you not teach him better ?” Kaim Khan gave some playful answer. 
Meanwhile Muhammad Khan had given orders to his chela, Ja’far 
Khan, the chief Bakhshi, (who gives his name to the Mohulla Bazarya Ja’far 
Khan), to provide such an entertainment that his master’s name should not 
be a byeword in Delhi. Ja’far Khan got out some thousands of silver vessels, 
he cut up many thousand rupees’ worth of gold brocade, and spread scarlet 
broad-cloth all over his bagh. He sent for all the favourite singers, and 
made ready the most exquisite meats. Nawab Muhammad Khan sent to 
tell Nawab Amir Khan that a feast was ready at Ja’far Khan’s house. After 
dinner, Amir Khan’s men proposed making over the silver dishes for safety 
to the servants of the house, but Ja’far Khan refused them, saying they 
were the perquisite of the khidmatgars. The gold brocade was taken away 
by the singing-women and their men. Amir Khan was now loud in his 
praise of Muhammad Khan. At his next visit, the Nawab made him a 
handsome present, and excused himself for having entertained him so badly, 
on the ground that he was only a soldier. 
Nawab Muhammad Khan was a great lover of the fair sex. We know 
that he had twenty-two sons and twenty-two daughters who grew up and 
were married. For the number of his concubines he was like a second 
Solomon. He had, they say, seventeen hundred women in the private 
apartments of his palaces. There were besides nine establishments (akhd- 
ra) of one hundred women each, taken from all classes, Kachi, Chaman 
Koli, Bajput, Banya, Bahman, Sayyad, Mughal, Pathan and Shekh. Many 
had seen their lord’s face but once, yet all their life long they received the 
monthly allowance first fixed. Of the seventeen hundred, some nine hun¬ 
dred had died in the Nawab’s lifetime ; their tombs were in the Buland 
Bagh*, where no men were ever buried. Some days after the death of 
Kaim Khan became known, the Bibi Sahiba, Muhammad Khan’s widow, 
like a sensible woman, threw open the doors of the Bara Mahal, sending 
word to the inmates that they had three days given them, in which they 
might leave if they liked. Those that stayed would get bread of barley 
and clothes of gazi (the commonest quality of cotton cloth), for neither 
Muhammad Khan nor Kaim Khan was there to provide for them. About 
four hundred women elected to leave with all their projDerty, and four hun¬ 
dred only remained to eat the Bibi Sahiba’s barley bread. 
* Just outside the Mau gate. 
X X 
