Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/66

 "He despised all the refinements of luxury, particularly in dress, and refrained from everything that is prohibited in the law. No high-seasoned dishes were served up to his table, neither frozen sherberts nor creams, only plain ice. During the winter Khyzir Khan, his house steward, used to collect, in the mountains of Rajmehal, a sufficient stock of ice for the rest of the year: and the whole was done at the expense of the zemindars of that district. In the mango season there was stationed at Rajmehal an overseer who used to keep a regular account of the choicest mango trees in Maldah, Kutwalee, and Husseinpoor; and his guards were placed over them to see that no one purloined the fruit, and that it was regularly sent to Murshedabad. The zemindars furnished everything that was required for these purposes, and they durst not cut down a mango tree nor touch any of the fruit that the overseer had appropriated to the use of the nawabs table."

Reared in this luxurious court, indulged to excess by his doting grandfather, flattered and fawned upon by idle and dissolute courtiers, Suraj-ud-Dowlah grew up narrow-minded, obstinate, and impatient of check or control. He appears to have had a violent dislike to the English as foreigners and interlopers, and his cupidity was roused by tales of the great wealth