Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/180

 146 MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK AND FIKOZ SHAH whose mother was a Hindu princess of Dipalpur, who nobly gave herself to his father in order to save her people from the exactions with which they were vin- dictively oppressed when the Raja Mai Bhatti at first proudly refused to give a Rajput princess to a mere half-breed Turk. Their son had been carefully brought up by his brave uncle, the warden of the marches, and had been trained in the art of government by that tal- ented but wrong-headed projector Mohammad Taghlak, with whom he lived as a son for many years. The les- sons of his preceptor seem to have been read backwards; at all events Firoz reversed his predecessor's policy in every detail. It was characteristic of the merciful and pious dis- position of the new king that, after burying his cousin with all honour, he sought out the victims of his feroc- ity or their representatives, and endeavoured as far as possible to indemnify them for their sufferings and losses. When this was done, he collected the attested documents in which they admitted the reparation they had received and expressed themselves satisfied. All these papers he placed in the tomb of the tyrant, in the pious hope " that God would show mercy to my patron and friend." It was a gracious and beautiful act. Firoz possessed in an exceptional degree the milk of human kindness, that supreme gift of sympathy and tenderness which made the whole Indian world his kin. He has been charged with weakness and fatuity, but it was a weakness that came very near the Christian ideal of love and charity, and it brought peace and hap-