Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/348

 rjl-l-l-Tfi-1 r" -1-1 .-.-T^.T^:^:-I-T-I-I.I-.. : -.-I- CHAPTER XIII FEOM THE MEMOIKS OF THE EMPEROR JAHANGIR 1605 - 1628 A. D. THE Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir are written in the form of annals, which give the main events of each year in chronological order. They are preserved in two forms: one set of copies, a first edition, com- prises twelve years of the emperor's reign; the other, which is extremely rare, carries the records through the eighteenth year. Having the nature both of a journal and an autobiography, these Memoirs are very valuable and are certainly interesting when taken as a whole, even if some of the detailed items and more special matters are, to some extent, lacking in attractiveness. The character of the Memoirs in general proves Jahangir to have been a man of more than ordinary ability, and in spite of weaknesses and faults, which he acknowledges and puts on record with unusual can- dour, they leave on the mind a favourable impression of the emperor's nature and his talents. The first ex- tracts, as given below, relate to the beginning of Ja- 294