Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/109

Rh by their master, and at the prick and voice of their riders saluted the Emperor with their trunks and trumpeted their taslím or homage. Hounds and hawks, hunting leopards, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and fighting antelopes were brought forward in their turn; swords were tested on dead sheep; and the nobles' troops were paraded.

'But all these things are so many interludes to more serious matters. The King not only reviews his cavalry with particular attention, but there is not, since the war has been ended, a single trooper or other soldier whom he has not inspected and made himself personally acquainted with, increasing or reducing the pay of some, and dismissing others from the service. All the petitions held up in the crowd assembled in the Am-Khás are brought to the King and read in his hearing; and the persons concerned being ordered to approach are examined by the Monarch himself, who often redresses on the spot the wrongs of the aggrieved party. On another day of the week he devotes two hours to hear in private the petitions of ten persons selected from the lower orders, and presented to the King by a good and rich old man. Nor does he fail to attend the justice chamber on another day of the week, attended by the two principal Kázís or chief justices. It is evident, therefore, that barbarous as we are apt to consider the sovereigns of Asia, they are not always unmindful of the justice that is due to their subjects .'

The levee in the beautiful Audience Hall was not the Emperor's only reception in the day. In the evening he required the presence of every noble in the Ghuzl-Khána, a smaller and more private hall behind