Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/24

Rh polished French physician and traveller, 'it were unbecoming to describe.' The self-indulgence of the old sensualist had brought its retribution. It was generally feared that the disease would prove fatal: reports of his death wore freely circulated, and each of the Princes at once prepared to fight for the crown: –

'As at a signal, straight the sons prepare For open force, and rush to sudden war: Meeting like winds broke loose upon the Main, To prove, by Arms, whose Fate it was to Reign.'

Whosesoever fate it should be, the new Emperor would have to confront different circumstances from his predecessors. Akbar's organization had welded an empire out of heterogeneous materials with marvellous success, but there were flaws in the work, which threatened to develop into serious cleavage. Toleration had bred indifference, and success had engendered luxury: the hardy troopers of Balkh had grown soft in the Capua of the Jamna, and their religious convictions had gone the way of the Deputy of Achaia. They had thrown away their old standard of manliness, and had become fops and epicures. Two of Akbar's sons died of drink, and the habit of intoxication had become so universal among the nobles and officials that oven the chief Kází used to smuggle his daily dram into his house of a morning. In short, 'the heroic soldiers of the early empire, and their not less heroic wives, had given place to a vicious and delicate breed of grandees. The ancestors of