Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/31

Rh and open as the day; a fool in politics, a despiser of statecraft, and a firm believer in ruddy steel. He was the terror of the battle-field, and the best of good fellows over a bottle. No one could be better trusted in a melley; none was more fatuous in council or more reckless in a debauch. The hereditary passion for wine, which had descended from Bábar to his posterity, found a willing victim in this valiant boor. His name justified itself in accordance with his mental limitations: his 'desires' were indeed 'attained', but they were the sort of desires which lead to perdition.

Two princesses played an important part in the intrigues which circled round the sick-bed of their father. The elder, Jahán-Árá, or 'World-adorner,' known as Begam Sáhib, or Princess Royal, was her father's darling. Beautiful and 'of lively parts', she devoted herself to the solace of his old age, won his unbounded confidence, and, in the absence of any preëminent Queen, exerted unlimited influence in the Mughal Court. No intrigue or piece of jobbery could prosper without her aid, and the handsome presents she was always receiving from those who had anything to gain from the Emperor, added to her magnificent pin-money, made her extremely wealthy. She was condemned to the usual fate of Mughal princesses, the state of single blessedness, because no alliance in India was considered worthy of the Princess Royal, or because no great Lord cared to burden himself with the oppressive glory of becoming the husband of an imperious wife. Princesses did not conduce to