But in
India the sense of chronology vanishes.
After Shah Jahan came his crafty son, Aurungzebe, who succeeded in
keeping his empire together until 1707, and with him the grandeur of the
Grand Moguls waned and after him ceased to be, although not until the
Mutiny was their rule extinguished. As I have just said, in India the
sense of chronology vanishes, or goes astray, and it is with a start
that one is confronted, in the Museum in Delhi Fort, by a photograph of
the last Mogul!
In Bombay, during my wakeful moments in the hottest part of the day, I
had passed the time and imbibed instruction by reading the three
delightful books of the late E. H. Aitken, who called himself "Eha"--
"Behind the Bungalow," "The Tribes on My Frontier" and "A Naturalist on
the Prowl." No more amusing and kindly studies of the fauna, flora and
human inhabitants of a country can have ever been written than these;
and I can suggest, to the domestically curious mind, no better
preparation for a visit to India. But at Raisina, when the cool evenings
set in and it was pleasant to get near the wood fire, I took to history
and revelled in the story of the Moguls as told by many authorities, but
most entertainingly perhaps by Tavernier, the French adventurer who took
service under Aurungzebe. If any one wants to know what Delhi was like
in the seventeenth century during Aurungzebe's long reign, and how the
daily life in the Palace went, and would learn more of the power and
autocracy and splendour and cruelty of the Grand Moguls, let him get
Tavernier's record.
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